springkink fic. [Drowning Liquefaction, Final Fantasy XII, Vayne/Larsa]
Title: Drowning Liquefaction
Rating: R.
Warnings: Incest.
Word count: 4185 words.
Summary: CEO AU. Their father calls their business an empire, and Larsa wonders if he'll drown in it. Prompt: November 4th: - Final Fantasy XII, Vayne x Larsa: corporate AU) - Let me remind you, brother, that this is not legitimate persuasion
Their father calls the business an empire, and the way he looks at Larsa, hands folding on the heavy desk, mouth pinched in a frown, makes Larsa think he’s not joking. But then, Larsa can’t remember many times his father has joked.
“He was different,” Vayne says, “before they died.”
Their business is an empire, filled with ghosts of dead sons and forgotten mothers. They are the base of the foundation, buried somewhere beneath their father’s desk, and Larsa doesn’t know his brothers, never knew them, but he does know that their father doesn’t smile anymore.
“If your sons died,” Vayne says, “and your wife,” as though it’s an excuse, and maybe he’s trying to excuse something, the way there’s a desk, heavy and dark, between Larsa and his father. Their father. Vayne’s father.
Their business is an empire, built by a family of blood, and Larsa’s blood is a little thinner than the rest, some pretty secretary’s son, slapped with a family name that doesn’t match his face or complexion or even his shoulders, never able to fill out suits dead sons left in towering closets. Empires built on dead families are shaky things, filled with ghosts and half-built men set behind mahogany, and Larsa feels the shakiest.
“He cares for you,” Vayne says, and Larsa smiles at a secretary, watches her pen move in fluid cursive. “Larsa,” Vayne says, sharper, and Larsa follows him, lets Vayne press a hand on his shoulder to guide him to the elevator. “He’s proud of you, all he talks about is you.”
“He talks about me, he doesn’t talk to me.”
“He’s giving you the Nabradian contract.”
There’s a silence in the elevator, one of three-piece suits and contracts signed in fountain-pen ink, and when Larsa finally speaks, it’s while the elevator’s needle is between twenty-seven and twenty-eight. “That’s your contract.”
“Father thought you would do well with it.”
“Bunansa and I,” Larsa begins, and the needle arches past thirty-three. Vayne touches Larsa’s shoulder, moves his hand along the collarbone, and Larsa’s words stick in his throat, beneath the pressure of Vayne’s fingers.
“Your tie is crooked,” Vayne says, and he fixes Larsa’s tie with sharp tugs, smoothes it flat, and when he’s sharpening the folds of Larsa’s collar, Larsa feels his face go hot, can feel the flush slide down his neck. “Take better care.”
“I will,” Larsa tries to say, but his voice sounds thin, reedy and childish, and the elevator’s doors are springing open, distorted reflections of mirrored hallways twisting right and left. Vayne smiles at him, and their empire feels shaky on dead family and empty smiles.
“We’re proud of you, Larsa.”
x
His secretary is a pretty thing, a few years older than him, and quick. She came on an internship two years before, and for all her work, her skirts aren’t short enough, and her blouses aren’t tight enough; she’ll never be more than a secretary. She’s steady, though, a perpetual smile behind the static of the telephone, and when she taps her polished nails on the desk, it’s the heartbeat of the company.
“The meeting with Bunansa has been pushed back to three,” she says, straightening the folders in her arms. There’s a pen twisted in her hair, a walking cliché of a secretary, and when she smiles at him, he smiles back. He wonders, when she turns toward her desk, touching her mouth with her thumb, if she looks like his mother. His father has always liked the prettiest girls.
“I’ve lost my glasses,” he says hastily, when the door between them is closing, and she catches the door with her hip, steadies herself with the heel of her hand pressed against the edge of the door. “Help me find them, Penelo?”
She laughs as she sets the folders on his desk, and when she begins to sort through the papers on his desk, odds and ends of receipts and bills and contracts altered by pen, he stands back, awkward and ungainly. She lifts a long envelope, upsetting a handful of pens beneath it, and he grabs at them, tries to catch them before they fall to the floor. Two clatter down, muffled on the carpet, and when he rises, pens in hand, Penelo is holding out his reading glasses, her forefinger and thumb clasped around the bridge.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, and he sinks down into his chair, holding the arm of his glasses. “Penelo--”
His office is on the thirty-seventh floor, and she sits with him, watches the skyline rise past them. She tells him about her fiancé, her parents, her brothers who are deployed overseas. She doesn’t laugh often, but she smiles whenever the doors of the elevator slide open, and her handwriting is full of fat loops, sharp ink softened on white paper. She sits with him on the thirty-seventh floor, pretty children set in a pretty room, where the windows look out on concrete and steel and windows stained to gray mirrors. He wonders how far she can climb, with her engagement ring on one hand, her pen in another.
“Penelo,” he asks, “do you want a transfer?” She’s lifting the folders, pressing the edge of the vanilla-colored papers against her ribs, and her mouth is a line. “Another department might be better for you. You could do much better than be a secretary.”
The line of her mouth grows tighter, and her skirts will never be short enough, her blouses never tight enough. Her engagement ring is too bright on her hand. “I’m the secretary of the president’s son,” she says carefully. “It’s a good position.”
“The president’s youngest son,” he corrects, and he wonders if he sounds desperate, if the world feels shaky to her, too. “You could do better, you could do more.”
“I need to get back to work,” she says gently. “I’ll let you know when Bunansa arrives.”
x
Bunansa arrives a quarter past three, with an impeccably straight tie and a glance at his watch. He murmurs something off-hand, apology or not, and Larsa leans back in his chair, sets his computer to screensaver.
“Hello, Bunansa,” Larsa says, and he watches Bunansa spin the chair on the other side of the desk, then move past to press a hip against Larsa’s desk. “How was the traffic?”
“First names are friendly, Larsa,” Bunansa says. “The traffic was bad. As always. Fran nearly had a fit.” He moves, smooth as the ladies downstairs, and sets himself on the desk, long legs reaching to the floor. Larsa watches his papers get shoved across the desk, some crumpling, and wonders how Bunansa can look more put together sitting on a desk than Larsa ever will sitting behind it.
“I’m sure,” he says, feels his voice fall faint. “Brother--”
“Your brother’s a bastard.” Bunansa’s voice is bright, overly-cheerful, and Larsa swallows. “He’s sent me on a goose-chase for the Nabradian contract. Least you can do is call me by name.”
“And pamper your ego?” It’s easier to smile, though, when Bunansa’s laughing and twirling a pen between his fingers, quick and liquid silver. Larsa lets his weight fall forward, chair straightening, and Bunansa leans closer, over the computer.
“Mahjong?” Bunansa asks, reaching out to nudge the mouse, twisting to watch the screen. He hums when the screen flickers to the tiles, and Larsa breathes out.
“The Nabradian contract,” Larsa begins, and Bunansa says, “the west tiles, there.” Larsa follows Bunansa’s pointing, clicks the tiles, and says, “the Nabradians--”
“Rozarria Company is fronting them.” Bunansa points at another tile, waits for Larsa to click it, then says, “I heard Al-Cid Margrace is heading it. I sent him a message, asked him to call you.”
“Margrace is--”
Bunansa interrupts, leaning back and saying, blandly, “you’re friends, aren’t you?”
“No,” Larsa says, and at Bunansa’s twist of a smile, “business associates. We’re acquaintances, that’s all.”
“You’re not a friendly man,” Bunansa says. “You’re a lot like your brother.”
Larsa frowns, feels his chair shake as he leans back, away from Bunansa. There’s a stiffness to the air, the same kind Larsa feels when he walks through the floors, between the offices of men older and more tired, who have been following his father for years. The same stiffness Larsa feels when he sits at board meetings, the youngest by twenty years or more. The air conditioning is blowing from above, a cold breath down the collar of his shirt, and he closes the game of Mahjong, picks up a pen.
“Tell your brother I said hello,” Bunansa says, and the stiffness feels choking, like starched collars pinned around Larsa’s neck, ties tied too tight, tightened by Vayne’s fingers as the elevators slowly rise.
When the door swings behind Bunansa, Larsa rests his arms on the armrests of his chair, elbows fitted to the sharp angles. He wonders if he can lie his head on his desk, if Vayne will catch him. If his father will notice. He feels cold.
x
“Bunansa said that Al-Cid Margrace is fronting the Nabradians.” Vayne’s tie is green, the color of absinthe, and he’s knotting it around his neck, fast fingers. Larsa watches from the bed, wonders if the tie is silk, if it feels like liquid. If, when Vayne pulls it, it will fall like a flood. “You’ll have to fly out to Bhujerba to meet with him.”
“I can leave tonight,” Larsa says. He bends forward, stretches his arms out. Imagines that he can reach far enough to touch the tie, feel it like water in his hands. Liquefaction. When Vayne’s hands catch Larsa’s wrists, Larsa spreads his fingers wide.
“Don’t slouch, your suit will wrinkle.”
“It won’t.” Larsa pulls his hands away, and Vayne’s eyes look steady, like the pressure that’s always hanging over Larsa’s shoulders, like the suits with two buttons undone in the morning, one button undone in the evening. There is a heaviness in his eyes.
“It will. Get up, you’ll be late.” Vayne grabs a suit jacket, then takes Larsa’s elbow before Larsa can rise and pulls him up, draws him close to lead him from the room. “My secretary will book a flight. Noah Ronsenburg will accompany you, I should think. It shouldn’t take long; a return flight tomorrow.”
“I can,” Larsa says as Vayne lets go of his elbow, shrugging on the jacket. Two buttons are done, and then Vayne’s opening the door, waiting for Larsa to go through. Larsa steps through, and waits as Vayne locks the door, slides his keys into his trouser pocket. “I can take care of it, you don’t--”
“You’re my brother,” Vayne interrupts, as though it’s a reason enough. “There is a hotel attached to the airport that should be enough; one night shouldn’t be unbearable.”
Larsa feels a smile, but he can’t bite his tongue well enough. “I’m sure I can find something, Brother. I don’t need much.”
Vayne looks at him, eyes sharp and thoughtful. “You’re the President’s son,” he says, and Larsa wonders if Vayne would frown if he shrugged. “Some appearances must be kept. You can’t remain so careless.”
“I do,” Larsa begins to say, but Vayne is interrupting him, taking Larsa’s elbow again, leading him closer to the elevator.
“Talk to Father before you leave. He wants to talk to you more.” He crowds Larsa into the elevator, presses him against the wall, and when the elevator moves, a jolt to the stomach, he turns Larsa's face up toward his. “We feel like we’re losing you, Larsa.”
x
Bhujerba is a whirlwind-- Margrace is a tornado. His laughter is slick, slips between the cracks until Larsa finds himself laughing, too. His smiles are sharp, too thoughtful and too charismatic, and when he spins his sunglasses idly, leaning against the door of his car, Larsa has to look up, dazzle himself in the sunlight.
“The Nabradian contract,” Margrace says, when Larsa’s feeling dizzy and lightheaded, watching the city flash by through the car window, “is very fragile, yes? If we worked together, this could turn out well.”
“For both of us?” Larsa asks, and his mouth feels as dry as his words. Margrace’s laugh creeps in, slinks through the car, and Larsa feels himself smile.
“It could. Our companies have always been friends.”
It’s a lie, Larsa knows. Margrace knows, too, and he smiles behind his sunglasses, lifts his chin. There is, Larsa thinks as they spin through the city, whirlwind sunlight, too much lying. There’s lying in the way Margrace speaks easy, a liquid tilt to his words, a heat in his hand when he opens the door, gestures Larsa through. There’s a politeness, spread over like a skin, and Larsa follows it, lets himself be pressed from one end of the city to another.
“Your friend,” Margrace laughs when he’s pressing a hand to Larsa’s back, turning Larsa to the door, “will be left behind.”
“The contract won’t interest him,” Larsa says, and between one laugh and the next, when the sunlight is dazzling Larsa’s eyes, Margrace leans too close, speaks too soft.
Bhujerba grabs Larsa, spins him around, and Margrace watches, laughter behind sunglasses. Larsa thinks of his father, sitting behind a desk that spans the width of a room, thinks of Vayne with a tie of liquid green. Thinks of dead sons, dead wives, buried beneath damp earth, and wonders if he’ll crash, spin himself through metal and glass and concrete. When Margrace catches Larsa, steadies him with an arm, Larsa lets him press close, and eats his words with a mouth dry and bitter.
Bhujerba’s a whirlwind, and when Larsa flies home, half-asleep on the morning flight, he’s still sun-dazzled, burned by the wind. The contract is thick in his briefcase, signed with laughing loops and letters, and Nabradia’s name is still in Larsa’s mouth, where Margrace put it, where Larsa let him. And Solidor Company is half-again richer, an empire built on dead sons and bought contracts and secretaries with pretty mouths and pretty legs. And some sons look more like the secretaries than ever their fathers.
x
Vayne’s office is on the twenty-second floor. Larsa has heard, from young women with red lips and old men with white hair, that it used to be a brother’s. One of the men Larsa never knew, who died in a crash of steel and blood and brains wrapped around a tree. Larsa doesn’t know which brother; doesn’t know if he had drummed his fingers on the desk, or slept in his office when he was too tired to go home. He doesn’t know if the office is still the same, the desk and the chair and the half-drawn shades on the window. If Vayne’s eyes are the same as some man buried on a hill outside the city. All the sons of the father, with dead eyes above empty smiles.
“Brother,” he says at the door. The handle feels faintly warm beneath his hand, clammy, and he holds his breath, holds a shudder. There’s a rolling in his stomach, and he wants to look at the ground. Wants to look at Vayne. Wants to look away.
“Come in. Close the door.” Vayne’s pushing his chair back from the desk, standing up with a sigh. His shoulders, when Larsa looks, seem curved, and Vayne buttons his jacket slowly, two buttons, then three. The bottom button he touches briefly, and when Larsa looks up at Vayne’s face, Vayne is frowning.
“Ronsenburg,” Vayne says, “said you didn’t sleep at the hotel last night.” It’s not a question, not a statement. It’s more a punch in the gut, the backhanded slap Larsa never received, and Larsa can’t breathe, because his body is burning. His face, and his neck, and the breath in his throat. He feels stupid, like the little brother who never grew up. “He said you didn’t leave Margrace’s residence.”
The word residence sounds like curse, feels like another slap, and Larsa hears his voice say, “Brother.” He doesn’t feel his mouth move.
“I’m not angry,” Vayne says, and Larsa knows it’s a lie. Knows because Vayne’s unbuttoning his jacket, then buttoning it again; the same nervous tic Larsa has, and their father has. All the dead eyes and empty smiles and restless hands, too well-bred to slap. “I’m worried.”
“We spoke late--”
“There are things you don’t--”
“--easier to just stay--”
“--bad business. If people think--”
“--nothing.”
“--in this family.”
Vayne’s hand hits the table, punctuation on wood, and Larsa jumps, startled. Vayne’s face is strained, looks as tired and old as their father’s, and his mouth is moving slowly, small. “Sit down, Larsa,” he says, and Larsa sits quickly in the chair, sliding back on the seat.
“I didn’t mean to,” Larsa says, and he rests his hands on the arms of the chair, feels the leather cling to the his palms. He’s not sure what it is he didn’t mean to do, though, and the leather’s making sticky sounds. “To make you angry,” he finally finishes, because it’s probably the truth, or the closest he can find. It doesn’t feel like a lie.
“I’m not angry,” Vayne repeats. He moves halfway around the desk as Larsa watches him, and stops, an arm’s stretch and a half-more away. He unbuttons his jacket, pulls back one side as he slides a hand into a pocket. A lie. “Larsa, your reputation is more important than any-- friendships.”
“We’re not friends, we were discussing the contract--”
“Contracts,” Vayne says, and he’s shouting. Larsa’s sure the secretary can hear outside, that the old white-haired men with the tired eyes and smug mouths, can hear every word, “aren’t worth as much as your reputation. If you want to keep this company afloat, then you have to respected.”
It takes a moment for the words to hit him, and when they sink in, beneath his skin, his stomach feels cold, twisted. He thinks it over again, mouths the words to himself, then says, dully, “it’s not going to be my company.”
“Father and I have been discussing this for years. You--”
“No.” Larsa sits up straighter, pulling away from the sticky leather. “Father’s giving the company to you. You should take it, you’d do better.”
“We want you to have it. It would be best, for you to--”
“I don’t want it.”
Vayne looks as though he’s been hit, and Larsa looks away, stares at the windows on the other side of Vayne’s desk. The concrete and steel and windows-turned-mirrors look darker from here, than from the thirty-seventh floor. He wonders if Vayne looks out the window, if some other brother looked out the window before his neck had snapped back, airbag breaking his cheek. Larsa licks his lips, then looks back toward Vayne. Vayne’s face is thoughtful now, and he’s moving closer, until he’s leaning against the desk in front of Larsa.
“I want you to have it. I want to give it to you.”
Larsa swallows, tries to say again, “I don’t want it.”
“It’s all I can give you,” Vayne says, and he’s leaning forward, bending so his face is close. His eyes look bright. “I don’t have anything else for you. I want you to have this. So you have to be careful, to take better care.”
Larsa can’t look away from Vayne’s face, too close, and he blinks quickly, opens his mouth. Closes it again, and clenches his jaw tight. Vayne’s moved closer, is nearly crouched over Larsa, and Larsa could touch him, if he lifted his hands from the chair. He wonders if the leather will creak.
“If I could give you more,” Vayne says, and he reaches out, rests a hand on the armrest. Larsa looks down, where Vayne’s hand is close to his, and when he looks up, Vayne kisses him. It’s chaste, brotherly press to the corner of the mouth, but the leather of the chair is hot and sticky, and Larsa’s hands are sweating. Larsa pulls back, sinking deeper into the chair, and Vayne sinks to rest on his knees, leaning both hands on the chair, on either side of Larsa. “Why do you pull away?”
“I don’t want,” Larsa says, and he can feel his mouth move, say, this, but he can’t hear it, can only hear the strange rush when he breathes in. Vayne’s mouth is twisting, a smile or frown or queer mix of both, and Larsa covers his own mouth with his hand.
“I would give you more.” Vayne’s pressing his cheek to Larsa’s knee, and Larsa closes his eyes, wonders why he can’t hear the traffic from below. “If you’ll let me, Larsa.”
Larsa can feel the pressure of Vayne’s fingers, pressed against is knees, and then his thighs. And then a thumb above his belt, fingers sliding between vest and shirt. Larsa takes a breath, feels his stomach shudder. “Brother,” he says, to the click of his belt buckle.
“Let me,” Vayne murmurs, and his mouth is against the inside of Larsa’s thigh, breath through the trouser leg. Larsa can’t move his hands, palms stuck to the leather, and Vayne’s mouth is higher, damp breath sinking hot to Larsa’s skin. Larsa’s hands feel sweatier, his stomach twisting, and when Vayne’s mouth presses at the base of the zipper, against trouser and underwear and Larsa’s cock, Larsa feels a groan come out of his mouth, like a sob or a wail, muffled in his throat.
“Let me,” Vayne murmurs again, and then his mouth is moving against the fabric, against the bulge of Larsa’s cock. Larsa ducks his head, looking down, and Vayne’s hair is dark, fading into the black of Larsa’s vest. Larsa groans again, feels his fingers spasm on the armrests, and presses his head back against the chair. His breath sounds loud in the room, louder than Vayne’s, louder than the rustle of cloth.
“Vayne--” He feels his breath catch, and Vayne’s hands are beneath his clothes, one sliding up under his shirt and vest, the other curving around his hip. It’s a fumble of fabric, Vayne’s hands on his skin, and Vayne’s mouth on the bones of his hip, the tip of his cock. He grips the armrests, sweat slicking his fingers, and when Vayne’s mouth moves on him, he closes his eyes. He wants to hold Vayne’s head; the world is spinning.
The leather beneath him is slicker, wet with his sweat, and Larsa feels himself fall further back into the chair, feels like he’s falling beneath Vayne’s mouth and hands. Vayne is reaching up, pressing a hand over Larsa’s mouth, and when Larsa’s tongue touches Vayne’s fingers, they taste of salt and ink. He tries to suck, but his breath is ragged, and his mouth is slack. He feels like his limbs are shaking, like his chest is constricting to nothing; his suit is hot, clinging to his skin, and he tries to pull at his vest, fingers heavy and unwieldy and too clumsy to undo the buttons.
“Larsa,” Vayne’s mouth is off his cock, is on the dip between his hip and his stomach, “Larsa--” Larsa pulls at his vest, and Vayne’s hair is caught in his fingers, the buttons of his vest. Vayne’s mouth, when he reaches high enough, and Larsa bends low enough, is bitter, and Larsa kisses him, lets him kiss back, saliva and a clack of teeth. Larsa fists a hand in Vayne’s hair, pulls it sharper, and Vayne’s teeth cut his lip. The blood tastes like metal in his mouth, a sharp tang under his tongue. When he comes, Vayne’s tongue in his mouth, Vayne’s hand on his cock, it’s with a tumble; he feels like he’s falling, and the leather is sticky on his skin.
It feels like a daze, when Vayne props him in the chair, disentangling his hair from Larsa’s fingers, Larsa’s buttons. Larsa blinks slowly, the roar in his ears fading like the traffic in the streets below, and hangs limp as Vayne straightens his limbs, straightens his clothes. Vayne’s knuckles brush his stomach as he fixes Larsa’s vest, buckles Larsa’s belt, and then he’s kissing Larsa, almost chaste, bitter tongue against the corner of Larsa’s mouth.
There are words there, in the side of his mouth, where Vayne put them, where Margrace put them. There are words, set into place by tongues other than his, and Larsa tries the words in his mouth, rolls them on his tongue. Says, with a secretary’s mouth, “if you want.”
Vayne rises to stand over him, bent at the waist, and presses his face against Larsa’s, his hair tickling Larsa’s neck. He smells of sharp cologne, and the cut of his suit is cool against Larsa’s skin. His tie looks like liquid, the dark blue of the sky before a storm, and Larsa wants to touch it, press it to his lips. Wants to drink it down, feel it spin his head. He turns his face away.
“I want,” Vayne says, “to make you happy.”
It’s an empire, shaky on their shoulders, and Larsa wonders if he’ll drown in it, and be buried in Vayne’s earth.
Rating: R.
Warnings: Incest.
Word count: 4185 words.
Summary: CEO AU. Their father calls their business an empire, and Larsa wonders if he'll drown in it. Prompt: November 4th: - Final Fantasy XII, Vayne x Larsa: corporate AU) - Let me remind you, brother, that this is not legitimate persuasion
Their father calls the business an empire, and the way he looks at Larsa, hands folding on the heavy desk, mouth pinched in a frown, makes Larsa think he’s not joking. But then, Larsa can’t remember many times his father has joked.
“He was different,” Vayne says, “before they died.”
Their business is an empire, filled with ghosts of dead sons and forgotten mothers. They are the base of the foundation, buried somewhere beneath their father’s desk, and Larsa doesn’t know his brothers, never knew them, but he does know that their father doesn’t smile anymore.
“If your sons died,” Vayne says, “and your wife,” as though it’s an excuse, and maybe he’s trying to excuse something, the way there’s a desk, heavy and dark, between Larsa and his father. Their father. Vayne’s father.
Their business is an empire, built by a family of blood, and Larsa’s blood is a little thinner than the rest, some pretty secretary’s son, slapped with a family name that doesn’t match his face or complexion or even his shoulders, never able to fill out suits dead sons left in towering closets. Empires built on dead families are shaky things, filled with ghosts and half-built men set behind mahogany, and Larsa feels the shakiest.
“He cares for you,” Vayne says, and Larsa smiles at a secretary, watches her pen move in fluid cursive. “Larsa,” Vayne says, sharper, and Larsa follows him, lets Vayne press a hand on his shoulder to guide him to the elevator. “He’s proud of you, all he talks about is you.”
“He talks about me, he doesn’t talk to me.”
“He’s giving you the Nabradian contract.”
There’s a silence in the elevator, one of three-piece suits and contracts signed in fountain-pen ink, and when Larsa finally speaks, it’s while the elevator’s needle is between twenty-seven and twenty-eight. “That’s your contract.”
“Father thought you would do well with it.”
“Bunansa and I,” Larsa begins, and the needle arches past thirty-three. Vayne touches Larsa’s shoulder, moves his hand along the collarbone, and Larsa’s words stick in his throat, beneath the pressure of Vayne’s fingers.
“Your tie is crooked,” Vayne says, and he fixes Larsa’s tie with sharp tugs, smoothes it flat, and when he’s sharpening the folds of Larsa’s collar, Larsa feels his face go hot, can feel the flush slide down his neck. “Take better care.”
“I will,” Larsa tries to say, but his voice sounds thin, reedy and childish, and the elevator’s doors are springing open, distorted reflections of mirrored hallways twisting right and left. Vayne smiles at him, and their empire feels shaky on dead family and empty smiles.
“We’re proud of you, Larsa.”
x
His secretary is a pretty thing, a few years older than him, and quick. She came on an internship two years before, and for all her work, her skirts aren’t short enough, and her blouses aren’t tight enough; she’ll never be more than a secretary. She’s steady, though, a perpetual smile behind the static of the telephone, and when she taps her polished nails on the desk, it’s the heartbeat of the company.
“The meeting with Bunansa has been pushed back to three,” she says, straightening the folders in her arms. There’s a pen twisted in her hair, a walking cliché of a secretary, and when she smiles at him, he smiles back. He wonders, when she turns toward her desk, touching her mouth with her thumb, if she looks like his mother. His father has always liked the prettiest girls.
“I’ve lost my glasses,” he says hastily, when the door between them is closing, and she catches the door with her hip, steadies herself with the heel of her hand pressed against the edge of the door. “Help me find them, Penelo?”
She laughs as she sets the folders on his desk, and when she begins to sort through the papers on his desk, odds and ends of receipts and bills and contracts altered by pen, he stands back, awkward and ungainly. She lifts a long envelope, upsetting a handful of pens beneath it, and he grabs at them, tries to catch them before they fall to the floor. Two clatter down, muffled on the carpet, and when he rises, pens in hand, Penelo is holding out his reading glasses, her forefinger and thumb clasped around the bridge.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, and he sinks down into his chair, holding the arm of his glasses. “Penelo--”
His office is on the thirty-seventh floor, and she sits with him, watches the skyline rise past them. She tells him about her fiancé, her parents, her brothers who are deployed overseas. She doesn’t laugh often, but she smiles whenever the doors of the elevator slide open, and her handwriting is full of fat loops, sharp ink softened on white paper. She sits with him on the thirty-seventh floor, pretty children set in a pretty room, where the windows look out on concrete and steel and windows stained to gray mirrors. He wonders how far she can climb, with her engagement ring on one hand, her pen in another.
“Penelo,” he asks, “do you want a transfer?” She’s lifting the folders, pressing the edge of the vanilla-colored papers against her ribs, and her mouth is a line. “Another department might be better for you. You could do much better than be a secretary.”
The line of her mouth grows tighter, and her skirts will never be short enough, her blouses never tight enough. Her engagement ring is too bright on her hand. “I’m the secretary of the president’s son,” she says carefully. “It’s a good position.”
“The president’s youngest son,” he corrects, and he wonders if he sounds desperate, if the world feels shaky to her, too. “You could do better, you could do more.”
“I need to get back to work,” she says gently. “I’ll let you know when Bunansa arrives.”
x
Bunansa arrives a quarter past three, with an impeccably straight tie and a glance at his watch. He murmurs something off-hand, apology or not, and Larsa leans back in his chair, sets his computer to screensaver.
“Hello, Bunansa,” Larsa says, and he watches Bunansa spin the chair on the other side of the desk, then move past to press a hip against Larsa’s desk. “How was the traffic?”
“First names are friendly, Larsa,” Bunansa says. “The traffic was bad. As always. Fran nearly had a fit.” He moves, smooth as the ladies downstairs, and sets himself on the desk, long legs reaching to the floor. Larsa watches his papers get shoved across the desk, some crumpling, and wonders how Bunansa can look more put together sitting on a desk than Larsa ever will sitting behind it.
“I’m sure,” he says, feels his voice fall faint. “Brother--”
“Your brother’s a bastard.” Bunansa’s voice is bright, overly-cheerful, and Larsa swallows. “He’s sent me on a goose-chase for the Nabradian contract. Least you can do is call me by name.”
“And pamper your ego?” It’s easier to smile, though, when Bunansa’s laughing and twirling a pen between his fingers, quick and liquid silver. Larsa lets his weight fall forward, chair straightening, and Bunansa leans closer, over the computer.
“Mahjong?” Bunansa asks, reaching out to nudge the mouse, twisting to watch the screen. He hums when the screen flickers to the tiles, and Larsa breathes out.
“The Nabradian contract,” Larsa begins, and Bunansa says, “the west tiles, there.” Larsa follows Bunansa’s pointing, clicks the tiles, and says, “the Nabradians--”
“Rozarria Company is fronting them.” Bunansa points at another tile, waits for Larsa to click it, then says, “I heard Al-Cid Margrace is heading it. I sent him a message, asked him to call you.”
“Margrace is--”
Bunansa interrupts, leaning back and saying, blandly, “you’re friends, aren’t you?”
“No,” Larsa says, and at Bunansa’s twist of a smile, “business associates. We’re acquaintances, that’s all.”
“You’re not a friendly man,” Bunansa says. “You’re a lot like your brother.”
Larsa frowns, feels his chair shake as he leans back, away from Bunansa. There’s a stiffness to the air, the same kind Larsa feels when he walks through the floors, between the offices of men older and more tired, who have been following his father for years. The same stiffness Larsa feels when he sits at board meetings, the youngest by twenty years or more. The air conditioning is blowing from above, a cold breath down the collar of his shirt, and he closes the game of Mahjong, picks up a pen.
“Tell your brother I said hello,” Bunansa says, and the stiffness feels choking, like starched collars pinned around Larsa’s neck, ties tied too tight, tightened by Vayne’s fingers as the elevators slowly rise.
When the door swings behind Bunansa, Larsa rests his arms on the armrests of his chair, elbows fitted to the sharp angles. He wonders if he can lie his head on his desk, if Vayne will catch him. If his father will notice. He feels cold.
x
“Bunansa said that Al-Cid Margrace is fronting the Nabradians.” Vayne’s tie is green, the color of absinthe, and he’s knotting it around his neck, fast fingers. Larsa watches from the bed, wonders if the tie is silk, if it feels like liquid. If, when Vayne pulls it, it will fall like a flood. “You’ll have to fly out to Bhujerba to meet with him.”
“I can leave tonight,” Larsa says. He bends forward, stretches his arms out. Imagines that he can reach far enough to touch the tie, feel it like water in his hands. Liquefaction. When Vayne’s hands catch Larsa’s wrists, Larsa spreads his fingers wide.
“Don’t slouch, your suit will wrinkle.”
“It won’t.” Larsa pulls his hands away, and Vayne’s eyes look steady, like the pressure that’s always hanging over Larsa’s shoulders, like the suits with two buttons undone in the morning, one button undone in the evening. There is a heaviness in his eyes.
“It will. Get up, you’ll be late.” Vayne grabs a suit jacket, then takes Larsa’s elbow before Larsa can rise and pulls him up, draws him close to lead him from the room. “My secretary will book a flight. Noah Ronsenburg will accompany you, I should think. It shouldn’t take long; a return flight tomorrow.”
“I can,” Larsa says as Vayne lets go of his elbow, shrugging on the jacket. Two buttons are done, and then Vayne’s opening the door, waiting for Larsa to go through. Larsa steps through, and waits as Vayne locks the door, slides his keys into his trouser pocket. “I can take care of it, you don’t--”
“You’re my brother,” Vayne interrupts, as though it’s a reason enough. “There is a hotel attached to the airport that should be enough; one night shouldn’t be unbearable.”
Larsa feels a smile, but he can’t bite his tongue well enough. “I’m sure I can find something, Brother. I don’t need much.”
Vayne looks at him, eyes sharp and thoughtful. “You’re the President’s son,” he says, and Larsa wonders if Vayne would frown if he shrugged. “Some appearances must be kept. You can’t remain so careless.”
“I do,” Larsa begins to say, but Vayne is interrupting him, taking Larsa’s elbow again, leading him closer to the elevator.
“Talk to Father before you leave. He wants to talk to you more.” He crowds Larsa into the elevator, presses him against the wall, and when the elevator moves, a jolt to the stomach, he turns Larsa's face up toward his. “We feel like we’re losing you, Larsa.”
x
Bhujerba is a whirlwind-- Margrace is a tornado. His laughter is slick, slips between the cracks until Larsa finds himself laughing, too. His smiles are sharp, too thoughtful and too charismatic, and when he spins his sunglasses idly, leaning against the door of his car, Larsa has to look up, dazzle himself in the sunlight.
“The Nabradian contract,” Margrace says, when Larsa’s feeling dizzy and lightheaded, watching the city flash by through the car window, “is very fragile, yes? If we worked together, this could turn out well.”
“For both of us?” Larsa asks, and his mouth feels as dry as his words. Margrace’s laugh creeps in, slinks through the car, and Larsa feels himself smile.
“It could. Our companies have always been friends.”
It’s a lie, Larsa knows. Margrace knows, too, and he smiles behind his sunglasses, lifts his chin. There is, Larsa thinks as they spin through the city, whirlwind sunlight, too much lying. There’s lying in the way Margrace speaks easy, a liquid tilt to his words, a heat in his hand when he opens the door, gestures Larsa through. There’s a politeness, spread over like a skin, and Larsa follows it, lets himself be pressed from one end of the city to another.
“Your friend,” Margrace laughs when he’s pressing a hand to Larsa’s back, turning Larsa to the door, “will be left behind.”
“The contract won’t interest him,” Larsa says, and between one laugh and the next, when the sunlight is dazzling Larsa’s eyes, Margrace leans too close, speaks too soft.
Bhujerba grabs Larsa, spins him around, and Margrace watches, laughter behind sunglasses. Larsa thinks of his father, sitting behind a desk that spans the width of a room, thinks of Vayne with a tie of liquid green. Thinks of dead sons, dead wives, buried beneath damp earth, and wonders if he’ll crash, spin himself through metal and glass and concrete. When Margrace catches Larsa, steadies him with an arm, Larsa lets him press close, and eats his words with a mouth dry and bitter.
Bhujerba’s a whirlwind, and when Larsa flies home, half-asleep on the morning flight, he’s still sun-dazzled, burned by the wind. The contract is thick in his briefcase, signed with laughing loops and letters, and Nabradia’s name is still in Larsa’s mouth, where Margrace put it, where Larsa let him. And Solidor Company is half-again richer, an empire built on dead sons and bought contracts and secretaries with pretty mouths and pretty legs. And some sons look more like the secretaries than ever their fathers.
x
Vayne’s office is on the twenty-second floor. Larsa has heard, from young women with red lips and old men with white hair, that it used to be a brother’s. One of the men Larsa never knew, who died in a crash of steel and blood and brains wrapped around a tree. Larsa doesn’t know which brother; doesn’t know if he had drummed his fingers on the desk, or slept in his office when he was too tired to go home. He doesn’t know if the office is still the same, the desk and the chair and the half-drawn shades on the window. If Vayne’s eyes are the same as some man buried on a hill outside the city. All the sons of the father, with dead eyes above empty smiles.
“Brother,” he says at the door. The handle feels faintly warm beneath his hand, clammy, and he holds his breath, holds a shudder. There’s a rolling in his stomach, and he wants to look at the ground. Wants to look at Vayne. Wants to look away.
“Come in. Close the door.” Vayne’s pushing his chair back from the desk, standing up with a sigh. His shoulders, when Larsa looks, seem curved, and Vayne buttons his jacket slowly, two buttons, then three. The bottom button he touches briefly, and when Larsa looks up at Vayne’s face, Vayne is frowning.
“Ronsenburg,” Vayne says, “said you didn’t sleep at the hotel last night.” It’s not a question, not a statement. It’s more a punch in the gut, the backhanded slap Larsa never received, and Larsa can’t breathe, because his body is burning. His face, and his neck, and the breath in his throat. He feels stupid, like the little brother who never grew up. “He said you didn’t leave Margrace’s residence.”
The word residence sounds like curse, feels like another slap, and Larsa hears his voice say, “Brother.” He doesn’t feel his mouth move.
“I’m not angry,” Vayne says, and Larsa knows it’s a lie. Knows because Vayne’s unbuttoning his jacket, then buttoning it again; the same nervous tic Larsa has, and their father has. All the dead eyes and empty smiles and restless hands, too well-bred to slap. “I’m worried.”
“We spoke late--”
“There are things you don’t--”
“--easier to just stay--”
“--bad business. If people think--”
“--nothing.”
“--in this family.”
Vayne’s hand hits the table, punctuation on wood, and Larsa jumps, startled. Vayne’s face is strained, looks as tired and old as their father’s, and his mouth is moving slowly, small. “Sit down, Larsa,” he says, and Larsa sits quickly in the chair, sliding back on the seat.
“I didn’t mean to,” Larsa says, and he rests his hands on the arms of the chair, feels the leather cling to the his palms. He’s not sure what it is he didn’t mean to do, though, and the leather’s making sticky sounds. “To make you angry,” he finally finishes, because it’s probably the truth, or the closest he can find. It doesn’t feel like a lie.
“I’m not angry,” Vayne repeats. He moves halfway around the desk as Larsa watches him, and stops, an arm’s stretch and a half-more away. He unbuttons his jacket, pulls back one side as he slides a hand into a pocket. A lie. “Larsa, your reputation is more important than any-- friendships.”
“We’re not friends, we were discussing the contract--”
“Contracts,” Vayne says, and he’s shouting. Larsa’s sure the secretary can hear outside, that the old white-haired men with the tired eyes and smug mouths, can hear every word, “aren’t worth as much as your reputation. If you want to keep this company afloat, then you have to respected.”
It takes a moment for the words to hit him, and when they sink in, beneath his skin, his stomach feels cold, twisted. He thinks it over again, mouths the words to himself, then says, dully, “it’s not going to be my company.”
“Father and I have been discussing this for years. You--”
“No.” Larsa sits up straighter, pulling away from the sticky leather. “Father’s giving the company to you. You should take it, you’d do better.”
“We want you to have it. It would be best, for you to--”
“I don’t want it.”
Vayne looks as though he’s been hit, and Larsa looks away, stares at the windows on the other side of Vayne’s desk. The concrete and steel and windows-turned-mirrors look darker from here, than from the thirty-seventh floor. He wonders if Vayne looks out the window, if some other brother looked out the window before his neck had snapped back, airbag breaking his cheek. Larsa licks his lips, then looks back toward Vayne. Vayne’s face is thoughtful now, and he’s moving closer, until he’s leaning against the desk in front of Larsa.
“I want you to have it. I want to give it to you.”
Larsa swallows, tries to say again, “I don’t want it.”
“It’s all I can give you,” Vayne says, and he’s leaning forward, bending so his face is close. His eyes look bright. “I don’t have anything else for you. I want you to have this. So you have to be careful, to take better care.”
Larsa can’t look away from Vayne’s face, too close, and he blinks quickly, opens his mouth. Closes it again, and clenches his jaw tight. Vayne’s moved closer, is nearly crouched over Larsa, and Larsa could touch him, if he lifted his hands from the chair. He wonders if the leather will creak.
“If I could give you more,” Vayne says, and he reaches out, rests a hand on the armrest. Larsa looks down, where Vayne’s hand is close to his, and when he looks up, Vayne kisses him. It’s chaste, brotherly press to the corner of the mouth, but the leather of the chair is hot and sticky, and Larsa’s hands are sweating. Larsa pulls back, sinking deeper into the chair, and Vayne sinks to rest on his knees, leaning both hands on the chair, on either side of Larsa. “Why do you pull away?”
“I don’t want,” Larsa says, and he can feel his mouth move, say, this, but he can’t hear it, can only hear the strange rush when he breathes in. Vayne’s mouth is twisting, a smile or frown or queer mix of both, and Larsa covers his own mouth with his hand.
“I would give you more.” Vayne’s pressing his cheek to Larsa’s knee, and Larsa closes his eyes, wonders why he can’t hear the traffic from below. “If you’ll let me, Larsa.”
Larsa can feel the pressure of Vayne’s fingers, pressed against is knees, and then his thighs. And then a thumb above his belt, fingers sliding between vest and shirt. Larsa takes a breath, feels his stomach shudder. “Brother,” he says, to the click of his belt buckle.
“Let me,” Vayne murmurs, and his mouth is against the inside of Larsa’s thigh, breath through the trouser leg. Larsa can’t move his hands, palms stuck to the leather, and Vayne’s mouth is higher, damp breath sinking hot to Larsa’s skin. Larsa’s hands feel sweatier, his stomach twisting, and when Vayne’s mouth presses at the base of the zipper, against trouser and underwear and Larsa’s cock, Larsa feels a groan come out of his mouth, like a sob or a wail, muffled in his throat.
“Let me,” Vayne murmurs again, and then his mouth is moving against the fabric, against the bulge of Larsa’s cock. Larsa ducks his head, looking down, and Vayne’s hair is dark, fading into the black of Larsa’s vest. Larsa groans again, feels his fingers spasm on the armrests, and presses his head back against the chair. His breath sounds loud in the room, louder than Vayne’s, louder than the rustle of cloth.
“Vayne--” He feels his breath catch, and Vayne’s hands are beneath his clothes, one sliding up under his shirt and vest, the other curving around his hip. It’s a fumble of fabric, Vayne’s hands on his skin, and Vayne’s mouth on the bones of his hip, the tip of his cock. He grips the armrests, sweat slicking his fingers, and when Vayne’s mouth moves on him, he closes his eyes. He wants to hold Vayne’s head; the world is spinning.
The leather beneath him is slicker, wet with his sweat, and Larsa feels himself fall further back into the chair, feels like he’s falling beneath Vayne’s mouth and hands. Vayne is reaching up, pressing a hand over Larsa’s mouth, and when Larsa’s tongue touches Vayne’s fingers, they taste of salt and ink. He tries to suck, but his breath is ragged, and his mouth is slack. He feels like his limbs are shaking, like his chest is constricting to nothing; his suit is hot, clinging to his skin, and he tries to pull at his vest, fingers heavy and unwieldy and too clumsy to undo the buttons.
“Larsa,” Vayne’s mouth is off his cock, is on the dip between his hip and his stomach, “Larsa--” Larsa pulls at his vest, and Vayne’s hair is caught in his fingers, the buttons of his vest. Vayne’s mouth, when he reaches high enough, and Larsa bends low enough, is bitter, and Larsa kisses him, lets him kiss back, saliva and a clack of teeth. Larsa fists a hand in Vayne’s hair, pulls it sharper, and Vayne’s teeth cut his lip. The blood tastes like metal in his mouth, a sharp tang under his tongue. When he comes, Vayne’s tongue in his mouth, Vayne’s hand on his cock, it’s with a tumble; he feels like he’s falling, and the leather is sticky on his skin.
It feels like a daze, when Vayne props him in the chair, disentangling his hair from Larsa’s fingers, Larsa’s buttons. Larsa blinks slowly, the roar in his ears fading like the traffic in the streets below, and hangs limp as Vayne straightens his limbs, straightens his clothes. Vayne’s knuckles brush his stomach as he fixes Larsa’s vest, buckles Larsa’s belt, and then he’s kissing Larsa, almost chaste, bitter tongue against the corner of Larsa’s mouth.
There are words there, in the side of his mouth, where Vayne put them, where Margrace put them. There are words, set into place by tongues other than his, and Larsa tries the words in his mouth, rolls them on his tongue. Says, with a secretary’s mouth, “if you want.”
Vayne rises to stand over him, bent at the waist, and presses his face against Larsa’s, his hair tickling Larsa’s neck. He smells of sharp cologne, and the cut of his suit is cool against Larsa’s skin. His tie looks like liquid, the dark blue of the sky before a storm, and Larsa wants to touch it, press it to his lips. Wants to drink it down, feel it spin his head. He turns his face away.
“I want,” Vayne says, “to make you happy.”
It’s an empire, shaky on their shoulders, and Larsa wonders if he’ll drown in it, and be buried in Vayne’s earth.