Fic: Bad things come in twos (Wanted / Shame, R)
title: Bad things come in twos
author: ilovetakahana
word count: approx. 1850
fandoms: Wanted, Shame
pairing: Wesley Gibson/Brandon
rating: R
notes: This is a response to graphics created by miraclefucknut [click here - maybe nsfw]. I was trying for PWP but then Brandon wouldn't shut up about his angsty feelings - good thing Wesley got fed up, yeah? XD Also dedicated to the following enablers: gokuma, zimothy, hellowaveforms, and papercutperfect.
Title and cut text from "The Little Things", by Danny Elfman.
Also archived at http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/.
Even in the darkness of the autumn night, he can see the clouds gathering over New York City. Heavy shadows. The copper smell of rain. Bitter hatred in his throat. Bile and pain.
He steps out of the cab. The backstage door is set down a dimly lit alley. It's his kind of place, really, sort of a tunnel, and the light at the end of it buzzes in fits and starts. Flickers, and leaves him in unsettled shadows, garbage skittering past on the breeze at his feet. A message shivering into the night, where no one's going to hear it, and even if the message is intended for him he won't know. Inscrutable. Indecipherable.
Which is at least at the opposite end of one spectrum from what he finally recognizes: two shadows just past the door. The wavering light picks out an angry gesture, a flash of hate, self-defense.
That, he's intimately familiar with. He's seen that. Over and over again.
Blonde hair, short, curly. A familiar coat.
Brandon strides to the door and stops a few feet away and clears his throat loudly.
Sissy growls and says, "Get out," and he doesn't know who she's talking to but it's the third who throws up hands and brushes past. The frown on the other man's face matches the lowering sky and the fierceness of the night.
She flips off the other man as he turns onto the street - and transfers her cold glare over to him.
"Giving you trouble," Brandon says, not quite asking.
"Don't you even start," she says. Her hands are shaking, and she curls them into white-knuckled fists. She is looking up at the night sky. "What are you even doing here."
"Tell me to go away and I will."
"What is the use," she says, bitter and pale and resigned. Her voice, rich and used and resigned. "I told you to leave me alone. You gave me your word. And what is it worth, now, when I'm still looking at you?"
Brandon looks down at his feet. "I couldn't help myself."
"Which is your problem precisely."
"Tell me something I don't already know," he says - spits - and he shakes his head, doesn't look her in the eyes. He turns away. Her hand on his shoulder and he shakes her off - gently, because she is still his sister and the only other family he has - but he shakes her off. He puts his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and walks away and doesn't look back.
The lonely wind crying.
The ache in his head and in his heart.
Brandon begins to run.
///
He's a wreck when he finally stops running. The trails of tears gone stiff on his cheeks. It hurts to move his face, to blink, to speak, as he walks into a diner and asks for coffee and keeps his eyes down.
"Bad night out," someone says.
"Pretty much that," Brandon says. He curls his hands around the steaming mug and the stale, brackish waft makes him retch - but he forces himself to drink his coffee. Black, tasteless, hot enough to scald his tongue and nowhere near what he needs.
The other person speaks again. "How can you stand this stuff?"
"I can't."
"So why do you - ?"
Brandon chuckles mirthlessly. "What else is there?"
"The home-brewed stuff, for starters."
"Goodbye, then," Brandon says. "Lucky you if you can get it."
"I am so fucked tonight, it feels like some kind of fucking flashback, and is it ever so fucking ugly," the voice announces, and there is an actual laugh in it, a self-deprecating one.
Brandon looks up at last, and - "I just saw you," is the first thing out of his mouth.
"You with Sissy or something?"
Brandon honestly has no idea what to say next.
Because the guy who's hunched over the remains of a sandwich of some kind is smiling, now, and he smiles like the edge of a knife. Scorn and pain and fear. Like he's being hunted and haunted.
If not for the blue eyes, shocking-electric-old, Brandon thinks he'd be looking at himself in the mirror, because he's intimately familiar with the expression.
"Something tells me you're looking at me because of reasons, and not because you want to laugh. Is there something on my face?" The other man laughs and swipes his sleeve roughly across his mouth.
In the end, Brandon looks down, forces himself to look down again, and he says, "She told me to get out of her life."
"Join the club." And the sound that rips out of the other man is not laughter and not tears. "Failing so hard, aren't we?"
"Maybe I am. You're not. She spoke to you. She wouldn't even look at me." The words are out of his mouth before he can censor them. So much for self-control. Even here, even now, every restraint is gone, and it should make him happy but all Brandon feels is - nothing.
Not even the interest he should be feeling, he thinks, because even with the pain etched into his face, the other man is - terrible and dangerous and warning signs and barbed wire - and he is beautiful. Brandon's thoughts flash back to a knife, a razor-sharp edge.
///
Which does not explain anything about this: sitting on a ratty couch in a rundown apartment somewhere in - god, were they even still in New York? Brandon's never been somewhere this fantastically decrepit before.
The man with the blue eyes merely grins and picks up the rat skirting the dark corners of the room - Brandon looks away - and then a squeak, an animal sound, and the other man is closing the window.
"You threw him out," Brandon says.
"Who throws rats?" the other man says. "It had more sense than either of us; it wanted to stay warm and stopped off here. I sent it off to go where rats go. Out the window and down the fire escape. You have a sick mind."
"So I've been told."
"Funny, me too." Again that menace of a laugh. "What's your name, Sissy's whatever?"
"I am - I was - her brother." Brandon closes his eyes. He hurts. "Call me Brandon."
"Wes. Guess I should come clean, huh. I liked your sister, you know, that was real. I think she believed me. But I - she thought I kept flaking out on her. Got fed up. Gave me my marching papers."
"I know what that's like," Brandon murmurs. "Since I've only been disappointing her all her life."
///
He wakes up with a start.
Wes is lying down on the floor at his feet.
He's warm, for starters.
He's also still smirking up into Brandon's face.
Brandon turns away, and tries to get to his feet. "I - this is - "
"Don't overstrain yourself," Wes mutters.
"Because what are you talking about exactly."
"You're a lot like me. That's all."
He can't even laugh. "And what exactly makes you say that."
Wes closes his eyes. "You're looking for your destination. You lost your map. You're doing everything you can to remember it. And your mind has decided now is the right time to play tricks on you."
Brandon is speechless for several seconds before he finally concedes the point. "You're speaking as someone who would know."
"I guess you can say that," Wes says in exactly the same blank inflection. "Aren't we just the happy pair. Fucking Joy Division. Yes, I know what that means, don't give me that look."
Brandon shrugs and - fuck this, he doesn't remember the last time he had a conversation - and he gives up on the notion of leaving, gives up being insulted, lies down on the floor on Wes's other side. "No wonder Sissy won't have anything to do with us."
"Yeah."
Silence sneaks up on them.
Brandon breathes, quietly.
He's not surprised when he reaches out for Wes's hand.
What does surprise him is that Wes is already reaching for his.
Morning is coming; any moment now the sunrise will surprise them and break the spell.
There is a strange warmth in Brandon's mind - and it takes him several moments to remember that it's not desire, it's not lust, and it's definitely not shame.
What was it called?
"Affection, dumbass."
Brandon turns his head - he looks at Wes and the smile that is self-deprecating and warm at the same time. "Yeah, it's a surprise to me, too," Wes says. "Don't know much about it. Sissy tried to teach me, but maybe I just wasn't listening."
"Then how do you even know the word?"
"Call it instinct. And I trust my instincts. They're all I've got left."
And then Brandon is looking up.
Wes straddling his hips, mocking/sweet smile, blue eyes like a storm.
"What is this," Brandon asks. "Pity?"
Wes punches him lightly in the shoulder. "You said it. I didn't. Not fucking listening. This is what we were just talking about."
"And you're giving me this out of the goodness of your own heart."
"I may not be sure I still have one of those," and Wes is pushing Brandon's vest off, hands worn down to bone and rough calluses, "and you I know haven't got any because you gave it to your sister and you won't take it back from her."
"You have quite some instinct," Brandon says, and now he's moving, bracing himself on his elbows.
That gets him a lopsided smile. There is a hand around his throat and Wes is kissing him, mixed signals, hurt-need-help-kill.
Brandon smiles back, though Wes can't see it, and he lets his mouth fall open and Wes is all over him, rough and bruising and good.
"Yeah, you like that," Wes mutters into the skin of Brandon's throat.
Wes makes short work of him, reduces him into messy incoherence; and Brandon welcomes him, the hard relentlessness of him, sharp edges and hot hands and - god, where did Wes learn how to do that? How does he know how to do these things?
The shitty apartment recedes, the cold of the night and the sounds of the world and of the rats skittering in the corners. Brandon is trapped in his own skin, enjoying it for once, and he's shameless about it. His voice sounds broken and delighted as he whispers Wes's name, over and over. He can't do anything - he can only be lost in it, lost in the other man and lost in himself, and the white rush of orgasm blanks out his mind, wipes him out completely.
///
When he wakes up the sunshine struggles weakly through the grimy windows and the noise of the city blares faintly all around him.
He is alone. His clothes are neatly stacked next to him. There is a note on top.
Wes's chicken-scratch handwriting: If you're not there when I get back I'm going after you - I know where you live
Brandon laughs until the tears fall from his eyes - and he stays.
author: ilovetakahana
word count: approx. 1850
fandoms: Wanted, Shame
pairing: Wesley Gibson/Brandon
rating: R
notes: This is a response to graphics created by miraclefucknut [click here - maybe nsfw]. I was trying for PWP but then Brandon wouldn't shut up about his angsty feelings - good thing Wesley got fed up, yeah? XD Also dedicated to the following enablers: gokuma, zimothy, hellowaveforms, and papercutperfect.
Title and cut text from "The Little Things", by Danny Elfman.
Also archived at http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/.
Even in the darkness of the autumn night, he can see the clouds gathering over New York City. Heavy shadows. The copper smell of rain. Bitter hatred in his throat. Bile and pain.
He steps out of the cab. The backstage door is set down a dimly lit alley. It's his kind of place, really, sort of a tunnel, and the light at the end of it buzzes in fits and starts. Flickers, and leaves him in unsettled shadows, garbage skittering past on the breeze at his feet. A message shivering into the night, where no one's going to hear it, and even if the message is intended for him he won't know. Inscrutable. Indecipherable.
Which is at least at the opposite end of one spectrum from what he finally recognizes: two shadows just past the door. The wavering light picks out an angry gesture, a flash of hate, self-defense.
That, he's intimately familiar with. He's seen that. Over and over again.
Blonde hair, short, curly. A familiar coat.
Brandon strides to the door and stops a few feet away and clears his throat loudly.
Sissy growls and says, "Get out," and he doesn't know who she's talking to but it's the third who throws up hands and brushes past. The frown on the other man's face matches the lowering sky and the fierceness of the night.
She flips off the other man as he turns onto the street - and transfers her cold glare over to him.
"Giving you trouble," Brandon says, not quite asking.
"Don't you even start," she says. Her hands are shaking, and she curls them into white-knuckled fists. She is looking up at the night sky. "What are you even doing here."
"Tell me to go away and I will."
"What is the use," she says, bitter and pale and resigned. Her voice, rich and used and resigned. "I told you to leave me alone. You gave me your word. And what is it worth, now, when I'm still looking at you?"
Brandon looks down at his feet. "I couldn't help myself."
"Which is your problem precisely."
"Tell me something I don't already know," he says - spits - and he shakes his head, doesn't look her in the eyes. He turns away. Her hand on his shoulder and he shakes her off - gently, because she is still his sister and the only other family he has - but he shakes her off. He puts his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and walks away and doesn't look back.
The lonely wind crying.
The ache in his head and in his heart.
Brandon begins to run.
///
He's a wreck when he finally stops running. The trails of tears gone stiff on his cheeks. It hurts to move his face, to blink, to speak, as he walks into a diner and asks for coffee and keeps his eyes down.
"Bad night out," someone says.
"Pretty much that," Brandon says. He curls his hands around the steaming mug and the stale, brackish waft makes him retch - but he forces himself to drink his coffee. Black, tasteless, hot enough to scald his tongue and nowhere near what he needs.
The other person speaks again. "How can you stand this stuff?"
"I can't."
"So why do you - ?"
Brandon chuckles mirthlessly. "What else is there?"
"The home-brewed stuff, for starters."
"Goodbye, then," Brandon says. "Lucky you if you can get it."
"I am so fucked tonight, it feels like some kind of fucking flashback, and is it ever so fucking ugly," the voice announces, and there is an actual laugh in it, a self-deprecating one.
Brandon looks up at last, and - "I just saw you," is the first thing out of his mouth.
"You with Sissy or something?"
Brandon honestly has no idea what to say next.
Because the guy who's hunched over the remains of a sandwich of some kind is smiling, now, and he smiles like the edge of a knife. Scorn and pain and fear. Like he's being hunted and haunted.
If not for the blue eyes, shocking-electric-old, Brandon thinks he'd be looking at himself in the mirror, because he's intimately familiar with the expression.
"Something tells me you're looking at me because of reasons, and not because you want to laugh. Is there something on my face?" The other man laughs and swipes his sleeve roughly across his mouth.
In the end, Brandon looks down, forces himself to look down again, and he says, "She told me to get out of her life."
"Join the club." And the sound that rips out of the other man is not laughter and not tears. "Failing so hard, aren't we?"
"Maybe I am. You're not. She spoke to you. She wouldn't even look at me." The words are out of his mouth before he can censor them. So much for self-control. Even here, even now, every restraint is gone, and it should make him happy but all Brandon feels is - nothing.
Not even the interest he should be feeling, he thinks, because even with the pain etched into his face, the other man is - terrible and dangerous and warning signs and barbed wire - and he is beautiful. Brandon's thoughts flash back to a knife, a razor-sharp edge.
///
Which does not explain anything about this: sitting on a ratty couch in a rundown apartment somewhere in - god, were they even still in New York? Brandon's never been somewhere this fantastically decrepit before.
The man with the blue eyes merely grins and picks up the rat skirting the dark corners of the room - Brandon looks away - and then a squeak, an animal sound, and the other man is closing the window.
"You threw him out," Brandon says.
"Who throws rats?" the other man says. "It had more sense than either of us; it wanted to stay warm and stopped off here. I sent it off to go where rats go. Out the window and down the fire escape. You have a sick mind."
"So I've been told."
"Funny, me too." Again that menace of a laugh. "What's your name, Sissy's whatever?"
"I am - I was - her brother." Brandon closes his eyes. He hurts. "Call me Brandon."
"Wes. Guess I should come clean, huh. I liked your sister, you know, that was real. I think she believed me. But I - she thought I kept flaking out on her. Got fed up. Gave me my marching papers."
"I know what that's like," Brandon murmurs. "Since I've only been disappointing her all her life."
///
He wakes up with a start.
Wes is lying down on the floor at his feet.
He's warm, for starters.
He's also still smirking up into Brandon's face.
Brandon turns away, and tries to get to his feet. "I - this is - "
"Don't overstrain yourself," Wes mutters.
"Because what are you talking about exactly."
"You're a lot like me. That's all."
He can't even laugh. "And what exactly makes you say that."
Wes closes his eyes. "You're looking for your destination. You lost your map. You're doing everything you can to remember it. And your mind has decided now is the right time to play tricks on you."
Brandon is speechless for several seconds before he finally concedes the point. "You're speaking as someone who would know."
"I guess you can say that," Wes says in exactly the same blank inflection. "Aren't we just the happy pair. Fucking Joy Division. Yes, I know what that means, don't give me that look."
Brandon shrugs and - fuck this, he doesn't remember the last time he had a conversation - and he gives up on the notion of leaving, gives up being insulted, lies down on the floor on Wes's other side. "No wonder Sissy won't have anything to do with us."
"Yeah."
Silence sneaks up on them.
Brandon breathes, quietly.
He's not surprised when he reaches out for Wes's hand.
What does surprise him is that Wes is already reaching for his.
Morning is coming; any moment now the sunrise will surprise them and break the spell.
There is a strange warmth in Brandon's mind - and it takes him several moments to remember that it's not desire, it's not lust, and it's definitely not shame.
What was it called?
"Affection, dumbass."
Brandon turns his head - he looks at Wes and the smile that is self-deprecating and warm at the same time. "Yeah, it's a surprise to me, too," Wes says. "Don't know much about it. Sissy tried to teach me, but maybe I just wasn't listening."
"Then how do you even know the word?"
"Call it instinct. And I trust my instincts. They're all I've got left."
And then Brandon is looking up.
Wes straddling his hips, mocking/sweet smile, blue eyes like a storm.
"What is this," Brandon asks. "Pity?"
Wes punches him lightly in the shoulder. "You said it. I didn't. Not fucking listening. This is what we were just talking about."
"And you're giving me this out of the goodness of your own heart."
"I may not be sure I still have one of those," and Wes is pushing Brandon's vest off, hands worn down to bone and rough calluses, "and you I know haven't got any because you gave it to your sister and you won't take it back from her."
"You have quite some instinct," Brandon says, and now he's moving, bracing himself on his elbows.
That gets him a lopsided smile. There is a hand around his throat and Wes is kissing him, mixed signals, hurt-need-help-kill.
Brandon smiles back, though Wes can't see it, and he lets his mouth fall open and Wes is all over him, rough and bruising and good.
"Yeah, you like that," Wes mutters into the skin of Brandon's throat.
Wes makes short work of him, reduces him into messy incoherence; and Brandon welcomes him, the hard relentlessness of him, sharp edges and hot hands and - god, where did Wes learn how to do that? How does he know how to do these things?
The shitty apartment recedes, the cold of the night and the sounds of the world and of the rats skittering in the corners. Brandon is trapped in his own skin, enjoying it for once, and he's shameless about it. His voice sounds broken and delighted as he whispers Wes's name, over and over. He can't do anything - he can only be lost in it, lost in the other man and lost in himself, and the white rush of orgasm blanks out his mind, wipes him out completely.
///
When he wakes up the sunshine struggles weakly through the grimy windows and the noise of the city blares faintly all around him.
He is alone. His clothes are neatly stacked next to him. There is a note on top.
Wes's chicken-scratch handwriting: If you're not there when I get back I'm going after you - I know where you live
Brandon laughs until the tears fall from his eyes - and he stays.