Work Text:
After, Than is still both breathing hard and flushed when tells the ceiling, “I don’t usually do this.” Or, that is, he definitely tells Pheem – he sneaks a glance before he speaks – but he’s addressing the ceiling.
Pheem already knows the ceiling of this old house too well. He rolls his head on his pillow to face Than, and Than immediately copies him. “So you’re usually bad in bed?”
Than laughs. It sounds nice. “Sure.”
“Then I’m glad I could help you change your ways.” Pheem rolls over onto his side merely so it’s easier to run his fingers down Than’s naked bicep. It’s an idle touch, driven by nothing but a casual desire for more skin on skin, but it gets the full warmth of Than’s attention. “I never do this either.”
Pheem’s fingers have reached the soft inside of Than’s elbow; Than barely seems to notice, his eyes firmly on Pheem’s face all of a sudden.
Pheem squeezes his arm. “Don’t look so surprised. I’ve been slutshamed enough for one day.”
“That’s not- There’s nothing wrong with that.” After a beat, Than lifts his head and cranes his neck to catch a glance at the space beside the bed. Or more likely, the alarm clock that’s on the nightstand there, because he remarks, “It’s not the same day.”
Pheem appreciates the joke, but he lets it pass. “I meant I wouldn’t let just anyone show up here.”
“Your aunt gave me the address,” Than says, like he’s just a little too smart too apologize, but he still feels a need to explain. It’s nothing Pheem hadn’t figured already.
He sits up, pushing his pillow up against the headboard. Than doesn’t follow, but stays horizontal, peering up at him. Pheem takes advantage of his new upper hand to brush some of Than’s fallen hair back, up into its now hopelessly mussed styled form. “That day you fell asleep on the couch at my place, after you saved my life and drove me home through the rain- In the morning aunt Nit pointed out that I don’t let guys stay over. Or cook them breakfast.”
“It wasn’t what she thought.” Than’s hand lands on Pheem’s thigh over the sheets – either absently, reassuring, or trying to underscore the truth of his words. He’s always attempting to calm, to steady.
Pheem takes Than’s hand and keeps it, folding his fingers open, then closed again. “Perhaps not in that moment.”
Than turns his hand in Pheem’s lap, letting it fall with the palm up, an open gesture. Pheem uses both his hands to turn it over again and keep following his own drift, and Than surrenders easily, and lets himself be manipulated.
Than has nice hands. He’s someone who knows how to use them for both honest hard work and even more honest violence, but he takes care of himself. Pheem may have blood on his hands, but he usually has other people pull the trigger. People like Than.
The elegance of Than’s hands is reassuring. Pheem hasn’t ruined him just yet. There can’t be many more calluses on Than’s skin than when-
He can still picture the ring on little p’Than’s finger, bright red with a cheap scraggly yellow thunderbolt.
It was the most important thing Pheem had ever seen, let alone been given so freely. Back then it only fit if he put it on his thumb, and even then only so loosely that he had to keep his fist balled up the whole way home to make sure he wouldn’t lose it. He sat with it on the plane like that, too, after his father sent him away, pressing a dent into his own skin all the way to Singapore.
Now he doubts it would fit him at all – it’s designed for kids. For people at an age where they believe in things like Thunder Cop, a hero who swoops in to save you and make everything alright.
“Are you going to ask me to marry you?” Than asks, startling Pheem.
It’s only then that he realizes he’s been rubbing Than’s ring finger, back and forth with his thumb. “So you do want my money,” he quips back, while he shifts his hand to Than’s wrist so he can’t drift that far down memory lane again. It’s dangerous in that part of town.
“I still don’t,” Than says, in that way of his that’s nothing but straightforward and true. Stalwart even – like a hero from some old kiddie cartoon.
It implies something about what he might actually want that Pheem can’t allow himself to think about. He lets himself bask in Than’s dopey affection instead, because it doesn’t have to be that deep. “You’re cute.”
“Thank you,” Than says, with more laughter lacing his voice. The sex has made him looser than Pheem has ever seen him, to such a degree he almost sounds drunk again, except he’s not wandering off and bouncing around a playground this time.
He would probably be nowhere near that relaxed if he knew about the little plastic ring tucked away in a locked drawer in this very room – red and yellow, linked to a popular cartoon, and Than has a strong memory, so he would probably still know exactly how many boxes of snacks it took to find it. It’s nearly twenty years old now. In any real sense, it’s a piece of trash.
And Pheem is starting to get the unsettling feeling that all of the money in his bank account wouldn’t be enough to pay Than back for giving it to him.