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It's a strange whim, but Jack's had a lot of those. Hey, why not? Exley is beautiful, in his way. The same way a gun is beautiful, maybe, the shine of something aimed and ready, but that's alright. That's honest, at least. Gotta love a little honesty now and then.
He reaches out, still possessed of that strange whimsy, and touches the side of Ed's face. They're alone, the two of them. No-one to see. So he touches, just a little. Just behind Ed's eye, two fingers around the arm of his glasses. Ed flinches away, startled and suspicious. They make 'em like that round here. Always have.
"I like them, you know," Jack says, into that hard look of wariness in the kid's eyes. He smiles, light and easy. It's not quite the lie it looks like. Easy enough, but still not quite. "Your glasses, I mean. I like 'em."
Ed stares. He half reaches up, self-conscious, like he needs to check what Jack's talking about, and stops himself before his hand even reaches half-mast. Those long fingers curl into a fist, poised mid-air, but it's not a threat. Just a gesture. Empty frustration, to match that hard shine of distrust behind those lenses.
"What are you talking about?" Ed growls. There's a flush of self-consciousness about it. It's endearing. It's not innocence. Kid lost that a while ago, and all the better for it. But it's real. It's the kind of thing a man wants to hide, ought to hide, and that's got a nice edge of honesty about it. Jack smiles, a little more real himself, and moves his hand to touch again. Cheekbone, now. Just below the lens. Ed lets him, this time. Doesn't look like he quite knows why, but Ed lets him.
"I like them," Jack says again. He shrugs, uneasy and maybe a little self-conscious himself, but that's fair. Tit for tat. That's only fair. "Everything's all ... faces, around here. You notice that? You gotta look the part, whatever that part might be. You gotta play the role. Gets to the point it starts looking like the roles are all there is. Just play-acting, everywhere you look. Nothing real under the sun. But you ... You've got an edge of real, haven't you? You can play when you have to. We've all seen that. But you've still got something under it. And these ..." He flicks lightly at the lens. Gentle. Just pointing it out. "They just remind me of that, is all. Just that little bit that doesn't fit the role. A little bit that's you. I like that."
There's a whole bundle of things in Ed's expression, at that. A whole panoply of confusion and suspicion and worry and half-anger and almost-gratitude. All raw. Because Ed is, isn't he? Under that slick shine, Ed's as raw as anyone, and he doesn't always have the wit to hide it. He wears his fear honestly, and his ambition bright and obvious. It's his steel he hides best, and it's his steel he doesn't want to. Oh, a fine mix, is Ed. A fine inverted man, yes indeed.
"What are you after, Vincennes?" Ed asks, and it's soft, and there's some steel in it, a hint of gun shine, but Ed's cheek stays very still beneath Jack's hand. Ed stands fast, and doesn't flinch away. "What do you want?"
Jack laughs, and it's not easy at all. It ought to be. All this time, it really ought to be. It just doesn't come out that way this time. He's not afraid. That's not what this is. The laugh just didn't come right, that's all. He drops his hand. Lets it settle back to his side, while he shrugs the question away.
"Me?" he says, fixing his face like he was born to it. Maybe he was. Hell if he remembers anymore. "Oh, lots of things. Man of constant appetites, that's me. I want everything in the world, some days. Don't mind me."
There's something odd in Ed's face, there. Just for a second. He can't tell what it is, it's gone too fast. Ed can hide too, if he wants to. He can play act with the best of them when he's made up his mind. So Jack doesn't see what's under that lie. Not just then. But then ... Oh, but then. Then there's something else altogether. Ed steps in. Right up into his space, chest to chest. Jack's seen this go bad so many times. He's seen all the wrong places this can go from this point. But Ed's not fighting. There's gun shine on him, but strangely it doesn't look like the bullet's heading Jack's way. For once. Just this once.
"... I want things sometimes too," Ed says, and there's still that flush, there's still that touch of self-consciousness, but there's that steel too. There's that shine. Jack can feel something move in his gut, something he's not sure he recognises anymore. Ed breathes out, stiff, angry terror, nerves and steel, and then there's hands on Jack's waist, long fingers curled warily over his hip bones. The thing in his gut moves south. All the damn way.
"... Yeah?" he rasps, and god, he sounds like a kid himself, like a breathless, callow youth. It's wrong. He's not sounded like that in ... He's never sounded like that. He was never that young. Never that innocent. But it comes out that way, and damned if he can help it. "What do you want, Ed? Something I could help you with, maybe?"
If this was playing, if it was acting out the role, this would be the part where Ed smirked. This would be the part where something cold and disgusted and triumphant would slip into those steely eyes, and those hands on his hips would become fists. If it was play acting, this would be the part. But it isn't. It doesn't. Ed looks at him for a second, and there's a terror like drowning in his eyes, and then nothing but pure steel, and a hard determination.
"God I hope so," Ed whispers, almost angry, and then his mouth's on Jack's. Then there's teeth and steel and fear and anger, determination, everything rich and raw and real, and it goes to Jack's cock like nothing in goddamn years. It goes through him like fire. Ed's glasses nudge awkwardly against his cheek. Jack's hands have grafted themselves to Ed's arms, entirely without his leave. It's a spark, it's a fire, he doesn't know what it is, but it's got him. It's got him but good. He couldn't break from this right now to save his life, and he might have to. He knows that. He'll have to run to save himself, and he can't.
And it's strange, but that does it for him. That thought. It locks around his chest like a vice, and his cock along with it. Ed has him. Ed has him by the mouth and by the balls, and by something else as well, something he'd have sworn on all the bibles in L.A. had died a long time ago, and it does it for him so bad his knees almost give way right there and then.
You don't get that from a kiss. That's bad, that makes this something different, something else. He doesn't know what it makes it. Just that it's going to get him killed. Ed Exley. Kissing Ed goddamned Exley. This town right now, it can't do anything but. And yet. Yet. For all he ought to know better, he's not pulling away. He isn't even trying.
He has a suspicion he isn't going to.
It's Ed that does, after a minute. Ed pulls out of the tangle of breath and tongue and teeth, his lips swollen and his cheeks stained red, and his eyes stark behind those damned lenses. He's afraid. Jack can see that. Ed never did hide that one so well. He's angry, and he's afraid, and he's less idea what he's doing than Jack does. But he wants, too. That's as bare as his fear. Ed Exley's looking at him, and Ed Exley wants.
"Tell me I'm wrong, Jack," Ed says, with his lips pulled back from his teeth. He's breathing hard and steady, ready to run. "Tell me I read it wrong. Tell me I made a mistake. Tell me to get the hell away before you break my face."
Jack laughs at him. It's easy. It's not a lie at all, and it's still easy. He shakes his head, his hands wrapped around the strength of Ed's arms, his hips still warm in the other man's grasp.
"... And if I don't?" he asks, because he's not going to. He never was. He's the best sinner in the City of Angels, he's always been damned one way or the other, and this ... this is the best kind of damnation there is. The only kind. This one, for once in his life, feels real. He's not running from that. He's going to die for it, but he's not going to run.
He reaches up, instead. He moves one hand, touches his fingertips to a hot, flushed cheek, just beneath a wire rim. He brushes his thumb along the bone, and cups Ed's face in his hand. Ed doesn't flinch. Even still. Ed doesn't back away.
"What if I don't want you to be wrong?" Jack asks him softly, and Ed exhales in something that's as much despair as relief. He knows too, then. He's figured it out as well.
"Then we both are," Ed says, with that flat, blank practicality of his. That calm, rational descent into the fire. He wears his damnation well, does Ed Exley. Probably always will. "We're both making the same mistake. And we'll both pay for it."
Well yes. Yes, they would. Jack shows him a smile for that, his best Los Angeles grin. Smile for the cameras, show 'em your best side, dazzle 'em so much they don't see the bracelets 'round your wrists. If the sin's all you've got, then you shine it up, you polish it off, you make 'em eat it up and thank you for it when they're done. Play acting, kid. It's the sin that's real, the sin that's worth it, and everything else is just putting on the shine.
"Well then," he says, tracing Ed's cheek with his thumb, watching the way he doesn't flinch. "If we're gonna pay the consequences, we'd best make it worth the cost. Don't you think?"
It's a strange whim, but he's had a lot of those. It's going to get him killed, but then his wants always were. It's worth it, though. He can feel that already. It's real, that's the thing. There's something in Ed that's honest, something that might almost look like integrity in the right light, and it touches something in Jack that he'd almost forgotten he had. It's got him, got him but good. He's following it all the way down, and Ed along with him.
But hell with it. This is Los Angeles. The City of Angels. There's nowhere better to be damned.
And the two of them, Ed Exley and him, he thinks they'll wear damnation well.