A room always feels scooped out after the end of a game: marks taken off and money cleared, but all the little accessories left trailing: smoke like a whisper in the thin air, adrenaline a low buzz rising as he shifts his legs apart over the table's edge, feels a steadier hand pull his zipper down. There's a spill of cards, three hands' worth, scattered over the table's green felt, and a name whose absence echoes like a shout between them. One slides beneath his elbow as he pushes himself up to watch Danny brace himself between his knees. "Should I be asking?" he says.
Their eyes flick together, then glance off again amicably: some pretenses are still worth keeping. "What," Danny says, with fingers still crooked against the inseam of Rusty's slacks. "Like you've done this before."
Rusty flicks expressively.
Danny quirks a brow -- but it's a beat too late, and Rusty knows the game, anyway. "All right -- much as teenage boys might think otherwise, it doesn't count when they're your hands."
"Hey. Least I've got a good idea of what to do with--"
But his breath hitches as a thumb drags down through the parting of his trousers, rubbing firm over the tip before pressing lower. He's conscious of Danny's attention as he always is: the way his gaze focuses, spotlight-clear, on the way Rusty's splayed himself back against the table, follows the sharp rise of his chest through a hitched breath as Danny's palm slides beneath the cloth. Unscarred hands, cardsharp's fingers rolling lazily together to trace the shape of his cock through his briefs.
A fist thuds against the table as his head lolls back. "Shit."
"Yeah," Danny says, rougher. "That's pretty much what I thought."
For a subconscious monster half-built out of memory and Dom's impossible goddamn self-loathing, this Mal's remarkably good at constructs of her own. The sleeve crumpling under his fist's still the cheap yellow cloth Arthur'd seen last hanging on the shoulders of an Englishman, and the body pressing him back against the wood panel is right, too: lean without wiriness, hair sleek beneath his fingers with day-old gel, cheek grazing cheek at just the angle between reserve and insidious conman's interest. Stark as winter, he remembers this: fingers tucking beneath his chin, three-day stubble and the faint whiff of pine-and-mint aftershave that Eames had favored longest.
The kiss, though, is all Mal: breathless and softly experimental, sucking on his lip until he opens up again just to breathe -- and that's not right, even with his trousers dragged open, his hips working against each little tremor as her hand presses through the next neat stroke. Yielding ground never worked before, not to Mal and certainly little better against a creature whose only understanding are appetites and fear. But her tongue trails light against his, nearly twining, and he tastes only salt even as he shudders, jerks into her next stroke. The grip's wrong, long-fingered and uncallused, squeezing a heavy trail down before sliding between his legs, palm cupping in a solid curve against the base as she rubs a fingertip back into the crease.
"I did tell you that I'd have to sort this for you out," it murmurs, "if you didn't manage it soon."
Physically impossible, and her voice, not Eames' -- and cloth bunches in the fist he digs against her waist: tweed, he thinks wildly, but feels it give way to his yank like crinolin (like the dress she'd worn once before) --
"It wasn't you," Arthur says, hoarse and raw, and sees the flashing shift of color through the eyes of a thing neither Eames nor Mal.
"Arthur," the ghost murmurs, lilting and beloved. "Close your eyes."
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SOMEWHERE AT THE BACK OF A STRIPCLUB
Their eyes flick together, then glance off again amicably: some pretenses are still worth keeping. "What," Danny says, with fingers still crooked against the inseam of Rusty's slacks. "Like you've done this before."
Rusty flicks expressively.
Danny quirks a brow -- but it's a beat too late, and Rusty knows the game, anyway. "All right -- much as teenage boys might think otherwise, it doesn't count when they're your hands."
"Hey. Least I've got a good idea of what to do with--"
But his breath hitches as a thumb drags down through the parting of his trousers, rubbing firm over the tip before pressing lower. He's conscious of Danny's attention as he always is: the way his gaze focuses, spotlight-clear, on the way Rusty's splayed himself back against the table, follows the sharp rise of his chest through a hitched breath as Danny's palm slides beneath the cloth. Unscarred hands, cardsharp's fingers rolling lazily together to trace the shape of his cock through his briefs.
A fist thuds against the table as his head lolls back. "Shit."
"Yeah," Danny says, rougher. "That's pretty much what I thought."
ONCE UPON A DREAM
The kiss, though, is all Mal: breathless and softly experimental, sucking on his lip until he opens up again just to breathe -- and that's not right, even with his trousers dragged open, his hips working against each little tremor as her hand presses through the next neat stroke. Yielding ground never worked before, not to Mal and certainly little better against a creature whose only understanding are appetites and fear. But her tongue trails light against his, nearly twining, and he tastes only salt even as he shudders, jerks into her next stroke. The grip's wrong, long-fingered and uncallused, squeezing a heavy trail down before sliding between his legs, palm cupping in a solid curve against the base as she rubs a fingertip back into the crease.
"I did tell you that I'd have to sort this for you out," it murmurs, "if you didn't manage it soon."
Physically impossible, and her voice, not Eames' -- and cloth bunches in the fist he digs against her waist: tweed, he thinks wildly, but feels it give way to his yank like crinolin (like the dress she'd worn once before) --
"It wasn't you," Arthur says, hoarse and raw, and sees the flashing shift of color through the eyes of a thing neither Eames nor Mal.
"Arthur," the ghost murmurs, lilting and beloved. "Close your eyes."
Arthur does.