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Despite his illusions otherwise, Vegas is actually a surprisingly easy individual to read.
For the sake of both their sanity, Pete lets Vegas believe that he's a complex, dark, mystery of a man. In reality, Pete finds children's pop-up books harder to puzzle out than Vegas and his wildly oscillating moods.
It hasn't always been like that, though. It's taken years and several repeat performances of the same arguments, the same miscommunications, and the same hurts, before both Pete and Vegas learnt how to exist as a unit rather than two entities trying their best to consume and be consumed respectively.
These days Pete only pretends to be clueless as a matter of principle. Using words to communicate is still not something that comes easily to Vegas, so Pete takes one for the team and ensures to remind him at every opportunity.
Like today. Vegas has been sulking for the past thirty minutes while Pete gradually gathers his clothing and readies himself to leave the house. Pete's managed to scrub the scent of sex from his skin, button his shirt in a way that leaves his bruised collarbones on show, and retrieved his own belt from their soiled bedsheets where Vegas had dropped it, and the moody bastard still hasn't budged. He's lounging, naked as the day he was born and unashamed, watching Pete move about the room with his dark gaze.
Ignoring him is likely pissing him off, so Pete continues to do it.
Lunch with the Kittisawasd brothers has been a bi-weekly event since Porsche took over the Minor family all that time ago. It had begun as a way for Porsche to make sure Pete was looking after himself in between his vigil-holding and sudden parenting responsibilities where Macau was concerned. It then became a way to encourage Chay to rejoin regular society after he had gone through a phase of introversion that almost rivalled Tankhun's.
These days it's a support group for people dating members of the Theerapanyakhul family.
Vegas has never verbally expressed his upset at these lunch meetings, but then, there's that whole using his words thing that makes that a moot point. Pete feels Vegas' attention rake down his back like fingernails, burning across his skin in the most delicious way, and he knows exactly how Vegas feels about him going.
"I don't have to go," Pete says, and he's only a little annoyed he has to be the one to break the silence. Again.
"I know." Pete turns to raise his eyebrows at Vegas, conveying his interest over where Vegas acquired that much audacity to be snapping at him while he is trying to handle this nicely. Wisely, Vegas makes effort to control his tone and try again. "I know you don't have to go, but I said that you could."
That he had. Because Pete still asks. Every time. They both know Vegas couldn't, and wouldn't, truly stop him from doing something he wanted to do, but it was about the principle of the thing. Pete and all he is belongs to Vegas. Good pets wait for the leash to be removed, they don't slip it.
When he had asked this morning, Pete fully expected Vegas to ask him to stay. It had been a bad night last night after all. Vegas' gaze is still distant and hazy, his body vibrating with tension Pete had spent all night trying to help him work out. He's better by miles, less likely to fly apart before Pete's eyes, but he's still not back to usual.
He'd asked, and was ready to stay. If Vegas needed him. But Vegas had waved him off, told him to go, and punished Pete for questioning his decision by belting him. So Pete is going.
"Perhaps remind your face of that decision." Pete makes a point to poke his finger at the deep furrow between Vegas' brows. "It's looking at me like I may never return."
In response, Vegas scowls deeper. "Careful with that mouth of yours, Pet. I can always change my mind."
"Do it then." He challenges, meeting Vegas' gaze head-on. "Tell me not to go. I can see you want to."
"I don't--" The protests die in a frustrated grunt, Vegas turns his face away, glaring at the sheets caught in his fisted hands. Pete waits patiently for an explanation to follow. "I'm telling you to go. You need this."
And if that isn't the most confusing cluster of words Vegas has ever muttered. "What do you mean?" Stubborn, and likely uncomfortable to boot, Vegas remains silent. "Vegas, what do you mean?"
As if the information is being pulled from him like teeth, Vegas grits out, “You need time away from this... From me.”
Pete spends a considerable amount of his time being slapped by Vegas, and usually, it's enjoyable. The way that sentiment hits him is not. It hurts. It lands in his abdomen, hard, like a fist, and Pete loses the last of his patience for this brooding. He traces delicate fingers over Vegas' cheekbones, once on each side, settling his palms along his jawline, fingers splayed across his cheeks and the hinges of his jaw below his ear. Vegas sags into the touch gratefully, allowing Pete to tilt his face upwards, forcing eye contact.
“You think that’s why I go?”
“Isn’t it?” Vegas' features scrunch up sourly. He looks moments away from yanking himself away. "I've heard you call it your support group. A nice little gathering of all the people who are fucked up enough to love people like me. Right?"
“Yes and no,” Pete says with a knowing smile, and when Vegas’ face blooms with hurt he tries to smother in false anger, and he tries to fight away from him, Pete's gentle fingers turn harsh and pull Vegas back in by his chin and his hair. “Oh, sweet, don’t pout!” Pete's tone is sickly sweet and teasing, he slides easily into Vegas’ lap, who despite being grumpy, slips his arms around Pete’s waist to hold him steady. “We’ve talked about this. Assuming my thoughts and feelings on things only ever gets you into trouble, doesn’t it?”
If looks could kill. “You just confirmed exactly what I was assuming.”
“Nope.” Knowing he hates it, Pete pinches his cheeks. Vegas continues glaring at him. “I said yes and no.”
“Are you going to get to the point, here, pet, or do I have to beat it out of you?”
Pete feels his own smile turn manic and dangerous, reflected in the darkening of Vegas' gaze, the man's hands sliding from Pete's hips to his arse and gripping painfully. Not just a threat but a promise.
"If I needed to get away from you, Vegas, I would simply leave." Despite being hypothetical, Vegas still reacts viscerally, his arms pulling Pete closer and his fingers leaving harsh bruises where they grip. His teeth are working at Pete's collarbones again, self-soothing with his lips and teeth. "I'm here because I choose to be. Everything you think you're subjecting me to, I am choosing to be subjected to it. Don't ever forget that."
Vegas won't detach long enough to verbally confirm, but he hums against Pete's throat. "However, it is nice to spend a few hours where the main topic of conversation isn't whose tongue I had to remove for disrespecting you--ah!" teeth dig into the meat of his shoulder at the reminder of that incident, and Pete pets Vegas' hair in encouragement. "Sometimes I need the reminder that there is more to me than what this family made me."
That forces Vegas to draw away. He peers up at Pete through his lashes, his jaw working as he tries to find the right words. "I'm sorry," He says carefully, hurrying on when Pete tries to interrupt him. "What you became under my family is at part my fault too. I didn't realise you... hated it so much."
"I don't hate it." Pete corrects. "Not entirely. I even love it, sometimes. But no one can thrive being this all of the time." the 'not even you, Vegas' is left unsaid, but it's loud between them anyway. Vegas suddenly finds something over Pete's shoulder fascinating.
A moment's pause later and Pete throws caution to the wind. "Do you want to come too?"
Vegas looks at him like Pete has personally offended him like he’s just suggested he visit Kinn and kiss his feet. It is a feat to stop himself from bursting into laughter. Vegas shakes his head vigorously. “Why would I want to come?” He demands, defensive. “I have plenty of better things to be doing than listening to Porsche and baby Porsche fawn over my cousins.”
Not a good enough answer, in Pete's opinion. He slides from Vegas' lap and turns to their shared wardrobe. That burning gaze of Vegas' is back, licking up his spine and wrapping tight fingers at the base of his neck like he can prevent what's about to happen by glaring alone.
Pete tugs free one of Vegas' favourite shirts and throws it at him in a careless manner, it makes the man bristle as the fabric lands on his naked lap. “Put that on, you’re coming.”
“Pete.”
“Vegas.”
They stare at each other in tense silence for a beat longer than usual, and Pete breaks into a wide grin when Vegas surrenders with a dramatic sigh and begins changing.
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”
He could point out that Vegas not only wants this (even as he loudly protests) but perhaps needs it too, but that will likely devolve into them arguing again, which will inevitably devolve further into them fucking, and Pete is very aware he is already at least half an hour late. So instead he stands with his arms folded and watches as Vegas dresses, letting his smugness permeate the air and spur Vegas' attitude back into its usual state of lovingly insufferable. They share raised eyebrows, glares, and curses muttered under their breaths.
When he's dressed though, Vegas is the one to take Pete's wrist and pull him out of the door muttering about being late, so Pete knows, even if they're not saying it loud, he's won.