Who: Evan and Louis What: Talking bruises, men and supervillains Where: Evan's apartment When: After this, recently Warnings/Rating: UST & a little touching
Louis was on the verge of real panic before he arrived at Evan’s apartment, but, to his credit, he had held himself together as best he could. He’d contacted Sparke, read every scrap of news he could find, and looked over all nine CVs Sparke had forwarded to him. He’d spoken with Sam. Now, all he could do was wait for Iris to be charged or released.
He’d been exhausted when he woke in Passages, and he was even more tired now. His chest was still a mass of bruises, and he was still pushing back the memory of what had happened through the door every time it rose up with fear, revulsion, and ever-present anxiety that Iris’ arrest had only compounded. He was afraid for his sister, angry at himself, and he’d run out of actual, proactive things that he could do to rectify the situation, despite the fact that he felt like there should be something more he could do to help. He knew he had to make amends, too, for what Loki had done, but he had no idea how, short of offering to be locked away. So what happened next? He didn’t know.
Louis knocked sharply on Evan’s door before opening it, since he’d come to expect it would be unlocked. He’d at least taken the time to shave, and had taken a long, blisteringly hot shower, his curls still a little damp at the edges and darkened from the water. He just needed a few hours of respite, to process everything. Then he could go back to trying to put together what to do.
Cory was absent, on a hunt for food that Evan would actually be willing to eat and, yes, the door was unlocked. Evan was sober, clean and amazingly focused (for once), and he was waiting for Louis to get there. He knew the other man was messed up, and it didn’t escape his notice that he actually cared about that kind of thing for once. But Evan wasn’t in the mood for introspection. He was willing to accept that maybe he’d changed over the years, or maybe not, and this was just a thing, and nothing serious.
Dressed in khakis and a black wifebeater, Evan was a day’s stubble and the smell of green cologne. He had a cup of coffee (black) and a cigarette (filtered), and he was sitting on the open windowsill to the balcony. He was tall, bent comfortably, and thin enough not to feel crowded in the tight space. The Eagles were singing about hotels that you could check out of, but never leave, and Evan looked over when the door opened.
Evan didn’t say anything at first, he just looked Louis over, looking for changes, his bright blue eyes inquisitive. And then, apparently done, he motioned the other man over with the cigarette. “How bad is it?” he asked, because something in Louis’ demeanor must have made him jump to that conclusion - confirmation, really, since he’d already thought it. But sure, yeah, bad.
Louis shut the door quietly behind him, not quite meeting Evan’s eye as he turned back. “How bad is what?” he asked, unthinking. He could be asking after so many things, after all - he couldn’t know about Loki, but maybe he was referring to his sister, or to life in general.
He walked over, up to the windowsill, and stood beside him. What Louis wanted was to brush Evan’s long hair out of his eyes and sit with him without talking, perhaps for a very long time. He wanted to not think, and pretend his life was all in order, pretend there was any shot of Evan paying attention to him long term.He wasn’t a fool, after all. He eternally expected the worst. Every time he walked through the door of the apartment, he felt tentative and freshly lucky, one more meeting that might be the last.
He sat down across from him, a little slowly, carefully not to jerk at the soreness in his chest. “You look better,” Louis observed. Evan’s eyes were sharp, perhaps even clear. He’d never seen him quite like this, and it was strange. He was beginning to understand what had made him good at guiding people into death. He obviously had a sharp eye when he wasn’t glazed over with drugs or drink, and he was excellent at purveying the illusion of complete and undivided attention. The dying must love that. Louis wasn’t dying, though he felt like he might be, some days. It was a melodramatic preoccupation that his stiff, carefully schooled defenses were there in part to defend against. On days like today, he felt like he was slowly disintegrating.
Evan pulled his long legs back so that Louis could join him on the sill, and he didn’t answer the other man’s question right away. He looked at him instead, taking in the haunted look in the other man’s eyes, the drawn expression, the foreboding on Louis’ sharp features. “I feel better, but you looked wrecked, man,” he finally said. One of his feet was firmly planted outside the window, and the other was on the inside of the ledge, and Evan leaned forward and plucked at the fabric of Louis’ shirt wordlessly, with only a lazily raised brow to accompany the silent request. Evan had medical training, just like anyone else in his field, and he caught the not-jerk in the intentional guarding tension of muscles. He didn’t ask. He just waited.
Louis hesitated, glancing up from Evan's fingers to his face. Being shirtless in broad daylight generally would have been completely off the table, but he knew that he must have seen him flinch, seen him sit carefully down. He also had a difficult time imagining denying Evan anything he asked of him.
He unbuttoned his shirt with the quick efficiency of the nervous. Louis could have made a career from trying to make things look nonchalant and succeeding only in being too stiff to ever be casual about them. As the shirt came loose and dropped away from his body, a wide mass of bruises was revealed, darkly livid, purple, black, and numerous, almost completely covering his ribs, speckling down to his navel. "It isn't as bad as it seems," he insisted, though grim. "Nothing broken." Loki had taken care of that, and the thought made him wince as much as shifting posture in the sill.
In Evan's life, shirts being unbuttoned generally meant one of two things: Someone was dead, or someone was about to end up in his bed. This incident stood out because it wasn't either of those things. Still, his medical training meant he didn't draw back or gasp at the mural of bruises on the canvas of Louis' chest. He did look them over, though, with the clinical attention of someone who had spent his early adulthood issuing medicines to relieve pain and suffering. He hadn't done anything like that in years, and he was sorry (for the first time since the accident) that he didn't have a prescription pad on hand, hadn't kept up his license. Taking away pain, while maintaining mental acuity, it was an art, and it was one Evan had been particularly gifted at.
In the end, Evan unfolded himself from the windowsill, a stilling hand on Louis' shoulder the only indication of anything at all. He wandered out of sight, into the kitchen, and he came back a few moments later with one pill and a glass of water. "Nothing strong, man. It's for migraines, but it'll help." He held out the pill and the water, and he looked down at the man on the sill. He was sober enough to realize this was dangerous fucking territory, in more ways than one, but it didn't translate as anything more than lazy concern on his chill features. He waited for Louis to take the offerings, and then Evan ran the back of his knuckles over the freshly washed curls at Louis' temple.
Louis was used to taking care of things on his own, mending his own wounds, managing his own cares. When Evan got up, he nearly followed him, but the hand on his shoulder settled him back. That he hadn’t flinched away was appreciated but not unexpected. It was hard to imagine what could penetrate Evan’s calm enough to make him flinch. The pill and the glass of water, though, surprised him a little. He knew Evan was meant to have been someone who used to sit at bedsides, see people through death, and help them in whatever way they needed. He only knew the man who was here now, and he knew him only a little. That little he knew didn’t account for the gesture of concern, and he blinked for a moment before taking the glass and the pill. “Thank you,” he said quietly, and down the pill with a swallow of water.
He pressed the lip of the glass to his mouth, and his eyes shut for a moment as Evan’s knuckles ran over his curls. He took a long breath, inclining his head toward the fingers that drew over his brow. After he’d let the breath escape, and tried to send his worries with it, he said, “I’m afraid to tell you.” His voice was low, and his slate blue eyes cracked open, sliding over to watch Evan.
The blink of surprise didn’t go unnoticed, and Evan smiled that lazy, reassuring smile, knuckles sliding down to Louis’ jaw. “I always got As in bedside manner,” he assured the other man, calm confidence in the words. He took his seat again a moment later, on the other side of the sill, one hand on Louis’ ankle idly petting beneath the cuff of his pants, back and forth, back and forth against Louis’ shin. “You’re welcome. Now why are you afraid to tell me anything?” he asked, casual as the day was long. “I’m no cop, and I’m no jury, Louis, and I’m not the man to pass judgement on you or anyone else.” Because he wasn’t. Even before his life went to shit, he hadn’t been that man, and his blue eyes said as much.
A pack of smokes was tugged out of a pocket, and Evan set around to lighting one. He took a strong drag on the unfiltered white paper, and then he held it across to Louis. It was nicotine, nothing stronger (unfortunately), and Evan had to lean his entire body forward to offer it out. He stayed there, and he didn’t sit back, and he glanced down at the bruises once more before deciding they were bad enough to need ice. But that could wait until Louis was done talking, which Evan was sure he was going to start doing at any moment; he encouraged it with a quirked brow.
"Well-deserved, it seems," said Louis, setting the glass of water aside, not yet lifting his head. The gentle stroke of fingers was lulling, and did help to calm him down, despite his better judgement insisting he should be keyed up with anxiety perhaps forever, until this thing was resolved. "I know you aren't," he said. Intellectually, he knew that Evan was likely the last person in the world to judge him for what had happened. Yet, he still couldn't help but fear that he was wrong. He had to tell someone, though, didn't he?
Louis lifted his head, finally, when the cigarette was offered, and he took it from him. He didn't smoke, or he hadn't in a very long time, and the first drag caught him by surprise, too deep and with a little cough, too eager for the cool buzz of nicotine. He took another drag, which was considerably more successful, and blew smoke toward the window. When he looked up, and Evan was still inclined toward him, he didn't pull back. It was more comfortable to curve forward over his bent legs than to try and straighten again, and he liked Evan's closeness. He caught the quirked brow, and tipped his head to the side in reluctant admission.
"Loki killed some people," he said, almost choking on the words like he had on the smoke. He took another drag, and handed the cigarette back to Evan. His fingers were lightly shaking. "Well, he didn't...kill them, necessarily. But he created circumstances which drove them to attack each other, and he orchestrated their deaths." He swallowed. "I don't know how many, and I don't know...it was through his door. He wanted to make a point to everyone, to cement himself in their minds as someone to be reckoned with but I think he just liked it, as well. He hates them, you see. His brother and all the rest of them, and I..." He looked down, and his jaw worked. "I don't know what to do," he said. He'd held himself together competently until now, but his voice had gone slightly thick. "People are dead, and it's my fault. I should have known." He looked up, still not meeting Evan's eye, trying to reign emotion in again. "And now all this with Iris. He was off killing people, and I wasn't here to help her." He shifted the glass of water further back, jumping fingers seeking something to do. "It makes me sick."
Evan was expecting something bad. He’d heard all types of deathbed confessions in his life, the whispers of people without confessors who thought the man holding vigil beside them was as good as any priest. He’d heard terrible things, things he would have called the cops about if the circumstances were different, but when someone’s last breath was rattling in their lungs and their organs had started shutting down, what the hell was the point? Sometimes, he called after, if he thought it was something that needed closure, just to let someone know. Sometimes, when there was a little old woman sitting outside the room, alone and waterlogged with tears, he didn’t call anyone at all. He’d sit beside her, and tell her that her husband was the best man the world had ever seen, and he’d buried the truth with the dead. He was expecting a confession like that, one he wouldn’t share, and he wasn’t disappointed.
“Anyone from here die?” Here being Las Vegas because, and this was likely a scientific opinion on Evan’s part that wasn’t shared by others, he wasn’t sure people without Las Vegas counterparts actually existed. Eames passed people every day in Paris or Mombasa, but Evan didn’t think they were anything more than the dream projections Arthur was always talking about. He’d seen nothing to indicate they existed beyond that space, and he preferred to think they didn’t matter, at least until he was shown otherwise. He left the question at that, not going on until Louis answered, and he tightened his fingers on the other man’s ankle a moment, grabbing his attention with the gesture. “You couldn’t have stopped your sister from getting locked up, man. Don’t hold onto that guilt; it’s not yours.”
"No," Louis said. "I don't think so, at least. None of the people who fought him off died." He was under the impression that the people through the door were the important ones, and in Loki's world, that meant the heroes and the villains. He'd been the villain, and the heroes had survived.
Louis looked up when Evan grabbed his ankle. The gesture was intimate, surprising enough that he met his eyes. "I know," he said. "I do. It's just...a bit difficult.” Evan seemed to have a lot of experience with guilt, and the absolution should have felt like a weight was off his shoulders. Still, though it stung him. “When something like this happens, I feel as if something more should have been done. As if I didn't do enough to stop it." He couldn’t help being frustrated with himself. If the circumstances of his absence had been different, he knew he wouldn’t have felt it so keenly. If what Loki had done didn’t already bring him guilt, it would be different. "I know that what happened to Iris wasn't under my control, and there are people who care about her here who jumped to her aid. It's just difficult not to feel guilty for being gone." He hesitated a moment before long fingers found their way to Evan's hand, sliding over it. "Thank you, though." For being kind. For not flinching at his confession. For concerning himself with his problems when Evan had more than enough of his own. He wondered for the hundredth time how long Evan’s interest could possibly last.
Evan grinned when Louis looked up, and the surprise in the other man’s eyes made him feel a little less concerned about the rest of the shit. Oh, it was shit, sure, but anyone who could still look like kid on Christmas morning over a touch to his ankle surely had a chance at triumphing against evil. “When something like this happens,” he said, echoing Louis, “everyone feels guilt. Well, everyone who gives a crap. You care, man, it’s normal for you to feel guilty. My point is that isn’t you, and so you shouldn’t let it eat you up from the inside. Things that consume you, they’ll only make you weaker, Louis. No time to be weak right now,” he said, taking a drag off the cigarette that had been returned to him.
Outside, Las Vegas was quiet and harmless, and Evan blew smoke out the window and wondered how long it would be before the hotel poured out on sin city. Not long enough, maybe, and he looked back at Louis, who was much nicer to look at than a magnificent skyline. “Iris will understand,” he said, simple, slow, sure. If she didn’t, well, there wasn’t anything Louis could do about that either. Evan knew all about carrying guilt along with him; there wasn’t any point in it.
“Men died,” Evan continued, going back to Louis’ original confession with a casualness that made the words seem less important than they were. Spectres died, maybe. “Can he control you here, more than what he did in this room? If not, we just need to make sure you don’t go through that door, don’t you?” He grinned again a moment later, immediately canceling out any implication that keeping Louis from the door involved chains or cages. “I think we can manage that between the two of us.”
The grin put Louis a little more at ease, but it was the mention of weakness that could not be afforded that brought him up short. "You're right," he said. He hadn't considered it from that perspective, but of course it made sense. Guilt would paralyze him, and while he couldn't entirely keep it at bay, lingering over it when Iris would have gone to jail whether he had been there for her arrest or not was not going to help matters.
The fresh air from the window was a relief, the wind lightly ruffling his curls. The view was beautiful, truthfully, and being so high above it calmed him. It was hard not to feel as if his problems were altogether distant. He looked back to Evan. Of course, without Evan's presence, it wouldn't have made any difference. If he hadn't been here, Louis could have been standing on the roof of the tallest building in the world and still felt his demons nipping at his heels. Evan made them seem far away, not the view.
Louis put real thought into that question before he answered it, his brow crinkling and drawing together. "I don't think so," he said, slowly. Admittedly, Loki's control in that instance had been total, but so far he'd never pushed it any further than a few minutes at a time. That didn’t mean he couldn’t, of course, and it was Louis’ fear that he would one day try to take over his entire life. At the same time, however, if that was possible, he felt sure Loki would have already done it.
It was difficult for him to wrap his mind around how nonchalant Evan was with all of this. His grin, and the promise of managing it between them, finally managed to pull a small smile from Louis. He attempted to hide how heartened that made him feel, but it was hard to even bother. He was too relieved, too happy to know it. "Are you sure you want to shackle yourself to me with that kind of promise?" he asked. "I'm quite a bit of trouble, these days."
“Who said anything about shackles?” Evan asked, grin still firmly in place. He sat back slowly, not with any rush or need to get away from the man in front of him, the windowpane between his shoulder blades once more. It was an idle pose, comfort without caring how he looked, and the hand that had been touching Louis’ ankle raised, forearm resting against Evan’s up-bent knee. He handed out the cigarette again, and he smiled a little more warmly, a smile that was entirely in the blue of his eyes and the hint of a dimple at his cheek. “I do what I want, Louis. You can’t shackle me down,” he said, certainty in the soft-gravel assertion.
It was strange for Evan, feeling so much closer to who he had been. He wasn’t there yet, wasn’t as dangerous as he had it in him to be. A blanket of pharmaceuticals still shrouded his mind, but there were glimpses of stuff now, of life, and he remembered what it felt like before everything fell to shit. It was just out of reach, and he couldn’t close his fingers around it yet, but he’d be able to, he knew, eventually. It didn’t mean he didn’t want a drink, because, man, did he want a drink. And he knew Eames was helping with that, which he was grateful for. But he wanted clarity more than booze, even if clarity was going to come with a whole lot of crap he hadn’t dealt with in years. But living, man, it was a possibility again, and it made him smile a warm-crooked smile at the man across from him.
“And I kind of like trouble,” Evan added, exhaling smoke above his head, as if they weren’t talking about a potentially murdering villain bent on world takeover. “He has a boyfriend, your god. Jealous thing, lonely. He make it worse or better?” Because Evan knew a boytoy - the right boytoy - could be one hell of a distraction, even when it came to world domination.
"That's reassuring," Louis said, a little wry. He took the cigarette from him, and he almost forgot to smoke when Evan smiled at him with those dimples. Yes, he was in a bad way indeed. "Duly noted," he said, taking a drag to cover for his momentary impulse to stare, handing the cigarette back to him. He exhaled slowly toward the open window, trying to remember the last time he'd shared a cigarette with someone.
Louis liked the hints of what Evan might be, the light behind his eyes that kept getting brighter every time he saw him. He tried not to analyze what it might mean for him, the bittersweetness of it. He liked seeing him better, and knew he'd keep liking him all the more as he came back to himself more. But what would happen when he was fit enough to get anyone he wanted? He wouldn't need some unbalanced, awkward man he'd met at a bar, not then.
The best he could come up with to banish the worry was that Evan didn't need him now, and yet he was still here, for some reason. That smile again cemented that thought, at least for the moment. If Evan was destined to move on to better prospects, Louis ought to at least enjoy him while he could, instead of worrying every second.
"If anyone would, I think it's you," Louis observed. But Dorian - how could he know about Dorian? "Well...in a way," Louis said. "I wouldn't call him a boyfriend, but he's fond of him, I think. I honestly don't think I'm always as privy to his feelings as he is to mine, but he is...he likes his company." Louis tried not to think about the party in Paris. Not that he'd been paying attention. In any way. What had he been talking about again? "Better, I think. He at least distracts him and puts him in a better mood. There's someone else, though, who I think captures his attention a little more...wholly. But they're enemies, so I doubt anything will happen there."
Evan took the cigarette back when it was handed, a slight lean and all long arm that was starting to regain definition. Working out, he’d figured out in the past week, was a good way to keep the jonesing at a minimum, and there was something about the exhaustion and burn that came with a good workout that made him immune to the lure of alcohol, at least for a little while. He watched the turn of the other man’s cheek as smoke was exhaled out the window, and he couldn’t help a grin that turned slightly lecherous around the edges. The things he would have done to this man, given the chance, years ago. That brought back a memory, and he grinned. “I’ve seen you before, you know. Before all this,” Evan said, motioning around them with the cigarette. He left it at that, curious if Louis would remember.
Evan was oblivious to Louis’ fears, though they wouldn’t have surprised him. It was one of the intriguing things about the man across from him, the fact that he was all insecurities and fears, which he tried to hide in a million ways. The slivers of truth made him beautiful, Evan thought, but Evan saw beauty in places most people didn’t - in a last breath, in tears, in ugliness, and in an awkwardly vulnerable man on his windowsill. “If Dorian keeps him out of trouble, then we should talk to Dorian. Enlist him, if you think he would help. Doesn’t help to have more people on our side, man,” he said. Our side, as if he and Louis were in this battle against Loki together. Another drag of the cigarette. The other man he mentioned, the enemy, that was less clear. If Loki wanted someone who didn’t want him back, well, that could be trouble. “How much does he want the other guy?”
Louis was a little cold with his shirt unbuttoned, sitting in the breeze, but he'd managed to get comfortable enough sitting across from Evan that he'd forgotten it was still hanging open. He was almost able to get relaxed, looking out the window, until Evan said he'd seen him before. He looked back to him, brow raised. "Really?" he said. Where could Evan have seen him? He couldn't believe that he would have simply forgotten someone who looked like him. How could he have missed him? And where? Louis shuffled through his memories, going over family friends and acquaintances, people he'd known at university. Who might have known a man like Evan?
At last it clicked, and he straightened, and winced. The pill was finally starting to kick in, but shifting quickly was still something of a bad idea. "Kate's wedding," he said, incredulous. "How could I have forgotten that? I stared at you for most of the service." He realized he'd said that aloud a moment after he said it, and abruptly reached for the cigarette again, as if that would somehow cover it. It was true, unfortunately. Evan had been best man, and Louis had been sitting in one of the front rows. He didn't think they'd ever spoken, but he remembered seeing him again at the reception. Of course, Louis hadn't approached him. Until recently, Louis didn't approach anyone. He'd watched Evan mingle with some of the other guests, and almost gotten up the courage to speak with him. Very nearly.
Louis pulled a long leg up beneath himself, shifting a little to get more comfortable. 'Our'. So they were in this thing together, it seemed. Louis couldn't even try to pretend he wasn't relieved not to be alone against the man in his mind any longer. "I don't know," he said. "I'm not sure how I'd go about doing a thing like that. It would only anger him, I think." He shrugged. "I can try, but I can't guarantee that Loki won't simply go undermine anything I do as soon as I've done it."
The other guy. Louis wasn't even entirely sure who the other guy was, since Loki's thoughts tended to be at least partially obscured from him. "Quite a bit," he said. "I don't know why, and I'm not sure who it is, but it's easy enough to tell. Every time this person comes to mind, he pushes them back." Louis smiled faintly. "I know the feeling."
The wince was noted, and Evan pushed himself to his feet before Louis was even done handing the cigarette back. “Name didn’t click until last week,” he admitted of Donovan, and while he vaguely remembered Louis from the wedding, the memory was very vague. Evan had been whole and hale then, which meant his entire evening had been spent seducing the bolder members of the wedding party. He didn’t go after anyone who hadn’t come to him because, hey, he was on his best behavior for Jackie and Katie. “I already grilled your sister about you,” he said, pointing the cigarette at Louis for emphasis as he walked toward the kitchen. “Katie didn’t warn me off, which makes me think she’s lost her mind.” Grin.
“I can talk to him, if you want. Eames - the guy in my head - he already chatted with him,” Evan explained, over the sound of the freezer being opened. He came back into view a second later, a bag of frozen peas in his hand, and he settled on the sill once more scooting forward this time. “We’ll get you a hot shower after,” he promised, and it came with an arched brow and a smirk that couldn’t be suppressed and, likely, wasn’t even intentional.
Evan scooted further forward, until he was between Louis thighs, and he pressed the bag of frozen peas to the worst of the bruises along Louis’ chest. He kept them there a second, and then he moved them slightly, to keep the cold from burning, and he kept on moving the bag around as he spoke. “Yeah? Want to tell me about it?” he asked, of knowing the feeling of wanting to push someone to the back of his mind. Evan wouldn’t know how to do that, even if he wanted to.
Louis watched Evan get to his feet with a touch of frustration for himself. Evan shouldn't need to do things for him. "I'm fine," he protested, leaning out from the windowsill. The grin still got a small smile from him, though. "No, it means I need to ask her what she knows about you," he said. "Anything I ought to be prepared for that I haven't already guessed? I'm sure I don't want to know what she said about me."
"I spoke with Eames," Louis said. "However briefly." He'd liked him. The thought of the kiss he'd planted on him when they first encountered each other was still a warm one.
Louis hadn't treated his own bruises because there'd been no time, too much work to do on Iris' case. He glanced up when a hot shower was mentioned to check Evan's expression and be sure it matched the deviousness in his tone. It did. Lovely.
The slide of Evan between his legs prompted an immediate, reflexive half-slide back, sure he'd gotten in Evan's way somehow. But no, Evan had just planted himself there, apparently determined to keep taking care of Louis for reasons unknown. He let go of the bag and slid forward again, back to a position where Evan was sitting between his thighs. He kept his thoughts as far from the gutter as humanly possible. Now would be a very bad time to think about how close he was. Or stare at the broad hand pressed to his chest, or think about showers with Evan.
The ice cold touch of the bag against his chest served as a good distraction. The cold sank into him slowly, and soon it numbed more than it hurt. "A word to the wise," he said, as he looked down at the mottled bruising. "Don't let Eames run into Thor's hammer. It's a formidable opponent."
On the topic of who he pushed to the back of his mind, Louis' smile was faint, but he shook his head. "Essentially anyone I've ever been interested in," he said. His smile turned faintly amused. "You have to want someone badly enough to care whether they reject you, and you also have to be afraid that they will. I doubt you'd know anything about either of those."
"She said you were quiet, intellectual, hard to draw out," Evan said honestly, because he didn’t think any of those were bad things, and he thought them fairly true, given what he’d already seen. He grinned when Louis asked if there was anything he should be prepared for, and the grin turned into a masculine chuckle. “You don’t want advance warnings,” he said, smile still on those lips, dimples nearly hidden between scruff and stubble. “Anyway, that was years ago. There’s nothing that says I’ll fuck you in the bathroom during my best friend’s wedding.” He winked, and he shifted the ice to another set of bruises. “Basics? I don’t stick around after the come dries.” Which was blunt, but that’s just how it was - had been - whatever, man.
The half-slide hadn’t gone unnoticed, even if Evan didn’t comment on it immediately, and he kept his thoughts about it to himself until the comment about Thor’s hammer was done. “Can he shoot him? Eames would shoot him,” he said of Thor and his hammer. “I wouldn’t underestimate Eames, man. They’re all crazy through that door. Criminals, all of them. They might look harmless, and they have this weird moral code, but they’re still criminals. They pack a lot of heat, and they aren’t afraid to use it.” Which was, basically, how it was. Sure, Eames and Arthur looked like pretty decent dudes, but Evan had a feeling they both had a lot of notches on the bedpost that didn’t have anything to do with sex. “What did you two talk about?” he asked of Louis and Eames, trying to drag back through his own mind for the conversation and finding nothing but that kiss.
“Who was the last guy you were interested in?” Evan asked, moving the ice again, holding it just a few seconds longer before tossing it aside and standing. He motioned with his head, even as he turned toward the bathroom. “Shower,” he said as he moved, already halfway across the space and with smug sureness that Louis would follow.
Kate's assessment of Louis had been more than fair, but that only made sense. None of the Donovan siblings made a habit of getting too deep into each other's business, but they all watched out for each other as best they could. Despite Evan's rather blunt self-assessment, which essentially matched what Louis had already put together on his own, he felt that if Kate hadn't said anything to him about Evan, he couldn't be quite as terrible as he wanted to come across. Still, he would try not to get too attached. He would pretend that battle hadn't been lost weeks ago. Evan's cheeky wink got a smile that was proof enough of that. "I'll keep that in mind," he said, that deadpan touch of humor back again. "I can see why Kate might not have wanted to explain that particular truth, though, now that you say it."
"Thor seems like a decent enough bloke," Louis said, with a half shrug. "I think he might even be a very good one. He doesn't deserve to be shot, but I suppose if he's on the attack, a gun might be a good idea. I don't know if it would have any effect, hardened criminal or not. I don't know what can hurt him." He wasn't even fully sure what could hurt Loki, whose physiology was similar, though of course not the same. "What kind of criminals are they, exactly?" Evan's moving hand was soothing, and Louis relaxed a little more, making a faint sound of approval. That did feel much, much better.
"When I first spoke with him? Not much." No, there hadn't been much more than the kiss before Evan had been back, though it had made a serious impression. "When I spoke with him again, it was on the journals, and through text. After the masquerade." Which they'd thus far managed to avoid discussing in any detail, and he was reluctant to even bring up. His smile turned wry, and fond, in a strange way. He liked what little he'd encountered from Eames thus far. "He asked me to come see you," he said. "'Demanded' might be more appropriate."
The call to the shower disrupted his train of thought. "Oh, of course." He slid off the windowsill much less gingerly than he had climbed onto it, following Evan across the room. He began talking, answering his question as quickly as possible, trying to distract himself. This couldn't be what he thought it was, could it? "I was seeing someone a few years ago, but it only lasted a few months. He was in love with someone else." He stated that with the appropriate amount of distance. It had been a long time ago, and it was only a dull sting, now. "This past year, I met someone while I was living in Seattle. I was most certainly interested in him, and I think...that he was interested in me as well, in his way. I don't know that he knew his own feelings. He was meant to be interested in women, but he gave me the sense that something might happen. Then he left - he was very ill, and he was going to stay with a friend in Europe. I offered to go with him, but he made it clear that he didn't want me watching over him and pining for something that wasn't going to happen, kept there out of some misguided hope." Had bitterness crept into his voice? Perhaps. That was unusual for him, something so common to the man in his head, but so distant from his usually resigned, carefully mitigated attitudes about his own failings. The bitterness was there, of course, but only very rarely on the surface. He'd become so good at keeping it in check that it hardly seemed to exist at all.
Evan was already in the bathroom, which was as white as everything else in the house. Getting there involved a walk through his bedroom, which was equally pale. Silver metals, white metals, white sheets and lamps. He was fishing out a towel, and then he leaned back against the counter, hands on the marble and all attention to Louis’ words. “Katie thinks I’m a better man than I am,” he explained with a fond smile, because Katie did think that. He liked Katie nearly as much as he liked Jackie, and their stupidly unnecessary divorce was a point of annoyance for him.
The problem of how to deal with someone like Loki, while keeping Louis alive, was one Evan didn’t like. The bruises on Louis’ chest were bad enough, but what if this Thor guy did worse? “Is Loki immortal?” he asked, because maybe the guy was and they would be alright - but if he wasn’t? Then what? The question of what kind of criminal Eames and Arthur were resulted in a wave of Evan’s hand, because that was unimportant. “Conmen. They go into dreams and extract things from people’s mind - safe combinations, things like that. Eames does some forging on the side - money, chips, documents. They’re all tied up in their own romantic drama right now. Arthur’s in love, and Eames is an idiot,” he explained, and he did it all with the air of it being something completely unimportant; compared to Louis dying, well, it was.
Evan waited until Louis had walked into the bathroom to reach out a hand and tug the other man over, hands on Louis’ wrist. He pushed Louis’ shirt off his shoulders, tugged the fabric free of his arms, and then he started working on Louis’ belt. “Reach back and start the shower,” he said, sliding the belt through the buckle. Button and zipper came next, and by then Evan was talking again. “Straight men are always bad news for relationships,” he said knowingly. “They’re only good to corrupt, man,” he said, all crooked smirk and blue eyes meeting Louis’ with a wink.
Everything was so stark and absent of color in this place. Louis could only assume Evan liked it that way. Perhaps it was the drugs, dulling his senses and making him crave something equally blank. Louis stepped into the bathroom with him, focused on remaining as nonchalant as possible, in exactly the way Evan had tried to get him not to do the first time he'd visited him. "Maybe," he said vaguely. He was starting to think Evan might be a better man than he thought he was, but perhaps that, too, was just Louis’ imagination.
The question of immortality brought Louis to a pause in the middle of the bathroom floor. "I don't know," he said, looking up at him. His eyes had gone pale in the reflected light of the white, white room. "I don't think so." Clearly that wasn't the answer Evan wanted, so all he could do was shrug. "I do know that his brother isn't the sort to let anyone kill him. He still cares for him, fool that he is." As the statement went on, it was injected, unconsciously, with vitriol, an undercurrent that could have very easily been missed if Evan wasn't looking for it. Louis didn't even seem aware of it, and moved past it almost immediately. "Into dreams? Really?" He thought he remembered a movie with that premise from the past few years, but Louis rarely watched movies anymore. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been to a theatre. "How is Eames an idiot?" he asked, glad of the shift in subject. "Is he not interested in Arthur?" He didn't bother asking who Arthur was, someone else through the door, he assumed, that was enough.
The tug of his shirt over his shoulders was unexpected but helpful. He'd gotten dressed this morning, but it had been a slow, laborious affair to get the shirt on in the first place. It was only after it came off that he thought about the fact that he had just officially lost a piece of clothing, and then Evan's hands were at his belt and he had no idea what to do. He was still talking - had Louis misread him? Where was he going with this? He reached back and started that shower as asked, not taking his eyes off him for a second. He might do anything, next. "You may have yet to put this together, but corruption isn't my area of expertise," Louis said, extremely proud that he was holding sentences together while Evan undid his pants, revealing black silk boxers beneath.
“Well, I guess we should be grateful Thor only wants to beat Loki up to the point of death, rather than killing him,” Evan said with a swipe of a hand along Louis’ chest, over the bruises that he was referring to. One good hit with - what was it, again? a hammer? - that hammer could destroy the heart through the chest wall, whatever Louis thought about the family dynamics through his door. The vitriol was noted, and Evan quirked a brow. “Hey, man, stay with me. It’s too early for a visit from a Norse god, and I’m not exactly dressed for the occasion,” he teased. Arthur and Eames was a much easier topic, and Evan grinned, though the grin didn’t reach his eyes. “I think Eames is probably worse about sticking around until the come dries than I am.”
“Silk?” Evan asked, and that grin did reach his eyes. A hand slid back and forth along Louis’ stomach, low and slow, and he chuckled as he looped his thumbs beneath the waistband of black and coaxed the boxers from Louis’ hips, letting them join the rest of the items on the bathroom floor. Evan leaned back, and he allowed himself a very, very, very leisurely perusal of Louis’ body, the kind that generally came with ownership and possession. His hands skated up Louis’ thigh, over his cock, up to his navel, and he made an entirely masculine sound of appreciation in his chest. Eyes dark blue with want, Evan leaned forward and slanted his mouth over Louis’ for a moment. It was quick, open-mouthed heat that pulled back as soon as it arrived.
Evan’s hand slid back to Louis hip, and he used that purchase to turn the other man around. He pulled Louis back against him, naked skin against Evan’s entirely clothed frame, and he whispered in the other man’s ear. “Shower,” he ordered, voice sandpaper over want. “Keep it hot. It’ll help after the icing.”
"Well, Loki did instigate," Louis said, in Thor's defense. He stood by the fact that the Asgardian was a good man - the trouble was going to be making sure that Loki didn't kill him before Thor had a chance to extend mercy. The chastising brought him fully back into the room, and he paled slightly. "Sorry," he said. He hadn't even noticed, which meant he was going to need to police more carefully. It didn't even seem to have been a conscious intercession on Loki's part, but every once in a while the god's emotions seeped in. "I can easily imagine that," Louis said. Oh, yes, he knew better than to imagine he'd get much more than that kiss from Eames, but it was a good memory regardless.
Louis had been ready to back into the shower as soon as Evan removed his hands, which he expected him to do at any moment. No, instead he kept removing articles of clothing, and then kept removing them, and by the time his fingers slid over the edge of his waistband and hooked it down, Louis realized a little too late that he wasn't stopping at all. He stood in the middle of the bathroom, his clothes on the floor, utterly exposed. He felt he must look silly, standing nude for Evan's perusal, but he didn't contradict it. Evan's long, scrutinizing look earned him a faint flush, and Louis couldn't quite meet his eyes. He was as long and lean as his appearance in clothes would lead one to expect, thin but not soft. There were a few narrow, faded surgery scars on his chest, nearly invisible. The hair dusted across his body was as light as the hair on his head. He was pale, not quite statuesque, and not delicate, but more graceful than anyone could possibly get him to see, or force him to admit.
When Evan's hand trailed over his thigh he leaned forward a little, and when it brushed over his cock it pulsed to attention immediately. His eyes were a glazed, dropped down to watch Evan's hand, before meeting his kiss with something like a full body affirmation. He pressed the length of his body against him, moaning faintly at the absence of skin or friction to go with the heat Evan had just yanked the lid back from.
And so, when Louis was turned around and pulled up against Evan, he was not expecting a command to step into the shower, not with Evan still fully clothed, at any rate. If it hadn't been for the desire in his voice, obvious even to Louis, his disappointment would have been much more intense. As it was, he almost didn't step forward, enjoying the warm press of Evan's body more than the warm water could even attempt to make up for. He allowed himself a small sound of frustration that he immediately regretted, as he did all things that might be construed as demanding, and pulled away from him with lingering reluctance. He resisted the urge to give him a terribly dirty look.
"You forgot to mention that you were a tease," Louis said, in a stroke of rather uncharacteristic boldness, stepping into the shower.
The apology was unnecessary, and Evan didn’t acknowledge it, because he didn’t want Louis apologizing around him, getting used to apologizing. The realization made him hmm in acknowledgement, but he left it at that, something to turn over in his mind once Louis was gone and Cory was asleep, once there was quiet in the bright white of the apartment.
When Louis stayed where he was, pressed back against Evan’s body, Evan chuckled. Low rasp against Louis’ ear, rumble against his back, and a hand that slid down Louis’ slide to grip one, slight, graceful hip. Evan’s hands were capable things, despite having no calluses or signs of real work at their tips. He held the man there a moment longer, the sound of frustration compelling him to keep Louis still, rather than to let him go just yet. He scraped a stubbled jaw against the nape of Louis’ neck, and then he let the other man go.
Evan waited for Louis to step beneath the spray of water, and he moved forward to tug the curtain closed after him, but he stalled halfway, water droplets spattering his dark hair and now healthier skin. “I would fuck you if I could,” he told the other man, arm sliding beneath the spray of water, fingers dragging through the fine curls below Louis’ navel, curls gone darker blond now that they were wet.
And with that declaration, Evan left the bathroom.