* * *
You might think that having lived for countless millennia would make the matter of time seemingly insignificant. But Brath does not have a lot of patience. In fact, he has very little. He likes playing games, and the game he is playing right now is one of his favorites.
There is a lot to learn about people by seducing them, and it requires all the patience Brath can muster per usual. For him, the pleasures of the flesh are a minor side effect, agreeable but superfluous. But it is just so fascinating to see people’s souls come undone behind their eyes in the moment of their climax and how all their defenses are blown to smithereens by a few well-placed and yet utterly simple touches.
And Brath is good at it. He’s had enough time to study people, to figure out what makes them tick and this boyish and pale body he’s created for himself comes in handy. Women will think him to be sensitive; men will assume that he’s submissive. But they’re all at his mercy, and he is always in control.
Brath has control of this situation too. He is still running out of patience. It’s been a few weeks, and he’s danced around Mathieu, lured him in; stuttering breath, dilated pupils, it’s all coming together.
Mathieu is keeping his distance though, a narrow one, but a distance nonetheless and Brath’s analyzed it, of course, he has; the strange attachment to his friend Jakob, damage done by previous relationships, a resulting hesitancy concerning the more intimate matters of attraction.
Brath guesses he could just move on, find someone else to tinker with, but he doesn’t give up. The sweet scent of cinnamon draws him in, he hates to admit it, but Mathieu's soul is pure, and he wants him all the more for it.
Brath plans to have him. He has never failed, and this won’t turn out to be the first time.
He refuses to be a failure.
He reaches that conclusion when it’s already been dark for hours, and he’s in the coffee shop on his own. Hell knows what Gareth and Keith are up to when they’re not here—which is rare.
They locked down a while ago, and Brath isn’t doing anything in particular. The place is weirdly soothing when it’s without light, entirely empty. Brath might not like the taste of coffee, but the smell of ground beans is something he’s grown used to over the past couple of weeks.
There’s a knock on the door, and Brath looks up. Mathieu is standing on the other side, drenched by the rain that is still falling outside (it has been raining for almost two days now, and Brath doesn’t like to get wet). Brath walks over and unlocks the door, opens it just a few inches.
“Please tell me you’re still open,” Mathieu says with a raspy voice. He looks unusually pale and insanely tired.
“The lights are off,” Brath replies as an explanation and Mathieu’s shoulders sag a little. He seems beat.
“Yeah, I just—” Mathieu sighs and pauses, shrugging. “Look, I’m probably imposing, but I’ve had an awful day at Jakob’s, trying to get him to do anything besides lying around, I haven’t slept in two days, I’m all out of coffee, and every shop is closed. Well, yours is too. I just...I don’t know.”
And just like that, Brath sniffs his chance. “Well, I don’t know about the coffee. But Gareth made some cheesecake earlier. There’s still some left.” He opens the door wider, just enough for Mathieu to squeeze through with a smile, brushing Brath as he enters and Brath gets a whiff of that intriguing soul simmering beneath a solid but slowly crumbling surface.
He locks up again and watches as Mathieu runs a hand through his damp hair, turns around and he seems unsure of himself, an odd thing considering Mathieu’s usual confidence.
Brath nods towards the kitchen. “This way,” he says and makes a point of running his hand down Mathieu’s arm as he passes him.
Hesitant at first, but then his steps follow Brath behind the counter and into the kitchen where there’s still an array of baked goods on the table, neatly wrapped in cling film. Gareth used to throw them away before he’d discovered—to Brath’s shame—that Brath had taken a liking to the particularly creamy ones; like cheesecake, or puffs, or éclairs (fucking éclairs, Brath would happily kill for those). He gets two spoons, hands one to Mathieu, and unwraps the cheesecake.
Brath eats a spoonful—and damn him if Gareth isn’t getting really fucking good at this—and licks the remnants of the edges, aware of Mathieu’s eyes following his every movement.
“You said Jakob isn’t well. That’s a shame. When I last saw him, he seemed in high spirits. Is he ill?”
Mathieu drops his coat on one of the stools surrounding the table and stabs at the cake with his spoon, frowning. “Not really. I mean, I don’t know. If he is ill, then no doctor has any clue as to what’s going on.”
“Mental illnesses are hard to diagnose,” Brath shrugs. He knows what’s going on with Jakob, but he still needs to keep up appearances in front of Mathieu.
“I guess,” and Brath watches Mathieu’s brows furrow from across the table. “But he’s always been fine. It just makes no sense.”
“Things don’t always have to make sense to be true. They just exist, and it doesn’t matter whether we can comprehend it or not.”
Mathieu stills and looks at him with mild amusement. “And here I was, thinking you were an atheist.”
Brath places his hands flat on the chrome surface, smudges a bit of cream cheese onto it, and leans in with a twitch of his lips. “And why would you think that?” he asks, perfectly aware that for the day, he’d chosen a shirt with I believe in God, only I spell it Nature printed on it. “I simply enjoy a bit of irony.” He tilts his head. “And maybe there is nothing wrong with Jakob at all. Maybe he’s just trying to understand something he isn’t supposed to grasp at all.”
“What are you saying?” Mathieu questions.
“Not much,” Brath replies nonchalantly. “The mind is a fragile thing, you know? Mechanisms can be triggered. Some can destroy us; some are made to protect.”
Mathieu laughs dryly, shakes his head to himself. “Are you a psychologist in your spare time?” he asks, maybe this conversation is rubbing him the wrong way, but Brath finds the atmosphere between them to be quite comfortable still.
“I took classes in Behavioral Psychology at Cambridge,” he answers truthfully, keeping the tiny detail of that happening a few decades ago to himself. “And I visited a few seminars on Theology.”
“Oh. Wouldn’t have thought. Is that why you’re wearing these?” and Mathieu gestures vaguely at Brath’s t-shirt.
“No,” Brath says, shakes his head, and can’t help but smile softly. “As I said, I enjoy a bit of irony.”
“So you do believe in God?”
“No.”
“But you said—” Mathieu starts, confused, but Brath interrupts him.
“I said I’m not an atheist. That doesn’t mean I believe in God. As I said, I don’t need to believe, or understand, or grasp something for it to be true. To be real. Perhaps I know there is a God. It doesn’t make a difference whether I want to believe in him or not. Hell, he might be an idiot for all I know. Why would I believe in a fool?”
It makes Mathieu laugh and shake his head again, and Brath finds himself oddly pleased at the view of it. He wants to trace off his smile and keep it to brighten the days he feels darkness creep up on him because, well, he doesn’t know why. He doesn’t care.
“Fuck, you really—” Mathieu starts and looks up, eyes shining despite the semi-darkness of the room. “You freak me out. Sometimes. Or maybe most of the time. You say stuff like that and I—I don’t know.”
“I haven’t said half the things I want to say to you, Mathieu.” And the mood shifts. Brath is still leaning across the table, and he sees Mathieu’s Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows thickly. He knows that Mathieu never utilizes his first name, not since his relationship with Solomon, with whom he’d shared said name. It had complicated matters, and they’d made a habit of using their surnames when introducing themselves to new people. Even after the break-up, it had stuck. Th
e only ones who ever call him by his first name are his parents. And his ex, Solomon. Brath isn’t supposed to know this, but he knows of the effect it has on Mathieu.
“And what would those be?” Mathieu asks, mirroring Brath’s stance, leaning in, trying to overplay the tremble in his shoulder by a confident posture.
“Hm,” Brath pretends to mull over it. “At first, I’d probably say that I have wanted to undress you since the first moment I saw you.” He has to hand it to Mathieu if he is thrown off balance by that statement, he doesn’t show it. He leans closer, and so does Brath. “Oh, the things I have imagined doing to you…I want to trace every inch of you with my lips, and I want to test every edge of your body with my teeth.”
Brath can feel Mathieu’s breath, hot and heavy, against his face, against his lips, he’s close, and his eyes are deep, and Brath can see himself in them, in a distorted, crooked reflection.
“Do you want me to tell you a secret?”
Mathieu nods almost imperceptibly, gaze dropping to Brath’s lips. He licks them, puts the last nail in the coffin.
“I want to get under your skin,” he breathes, and watches as the last piece of Mathieu’s inhibition falls. Brath can almost hear it shatter on the floor.
There could be a more elegant way of doing this, but Brath isn’t one of the patient kind. It’s not how he’d imagined it to happen either, but Brath has always liked spontaneity. He enjoys seizing unexpected opportunities. And damn him if he doesn’t take this one.
Brath climbs and clambers across the table. It shakes, and trembles and an array of plates slide off it and smash onto the ground. Pastries filled with cream burst and the white content sloshes over dark tiles with a slurp. Cutlery clatters and broken glass clinks and Brath relishes the gasp that escapes Mathieu’s lips as their bodies collide. He swings his legs off the table and stands, trapped between the countertop and Mathieu who is hot, burning hot, and it’s all so different that for a fraction of a second, Brath feels strangely dizzy.
He shakes it off, focuses, on the body pressed against his, on the arms framing him against the table and the bare, pale throat that is right there in front of him, so Brath attacks it with his lips, his teeth nip at the skin in the hollow just below Mathieu’s jaw. He feels the groan against his mouth more than he can hear it. Brath licks a trail along the curve of Mathieu’s throat and up to his ear.
“There are so many things I want to tell you,” he whispers, tugging on his earlobe, dragging his nose through narrowly cut hair. “There so many things I want to show you.”
A bold hand grabs the back of his neck, and Brath is startled. Mathieu tilts his head back, and their eyes lock.
“Why don’t you start now?”
Mathieu’s lips descend on his, slightly chapped yet soft, firm, persistent, open and Brath feels his chest grow tight. There’s an unimaginable weight dragging on his limbs, making it hard to move, to breathe, to bloody think and it’s almost as though two souls were living inside of him, fighting for the upper hand. Brath wants nothing more than to pull Mathieu closer, to taste every fragment of his mouth. But at the same moment he wants to push Mathieu away, regain control and lead the way.
Blindly, Brath grabs Mathieu’s jumper and yanks at it with enough force to make Mathieu stop and take it off, and Brath shudders as he regulates his breath. Before the other man can kiss him again, Brath rips off his own shirt and dives for Mathieu’s belt. He works with quick movements, erratic almost, and he doesn’t want to give Mathieu a chance to smother him with his humanness. He yanks off the belt, tugs at the buttons only to find himself getting pushed back against the edge of the table once more.
Brath doesn’t hesitate to push himself up into a sitting position. He urges Mathieu close, grabs his shoulders and grinds their hips together, buries his teeth in the crook of his neck while trying to shimmy out of his jeans. Mathieu gets the hint, hooks his fingers into both waistbands and pulls, Brath only having to lift his hips slightly before the annoying layers of fabric are gone. Another two, three tugs, and Mathieu is hot against Brath’s thigh.
It’s the temperature of Mathieu’s body, and Brath is sure of that, it must be, the unfamiliar warmth, the vast contrast to Keith and Gareth and everyone. He finds himself suppressing another shudder, another itch crawling its way up his spine in a sneaky attempt to throw him off, to make him lose his focus. He shifts again, moves his legs tighter around Mathieu’s waist, pushes his heels into the small of his back.
Brath wants him to be fast and erratic and brutal, and he wants Mathieu to lose himself and to let go of everything that is holding him back until there is nothing left but raw instinct and the nudity of his soul. He can already feel it crackling beneath his fingertips.
Brath urges Mathieu on, silently, forcefully, he doesn’t allow him to hesitate for a single second because he’s decided that Mathieu doesn’t get to decide. He doesn’t get to set the pace, it’s Brath who holds the strings, and he holds them tightly as he winds his arms firmly around Mathieu’s neck, digs his nails into soft skin and lets his teeth follow. Groans echo hollowly through the empty room, and Brath feels his body react, feels the slide of wet skin and heated breath on his face when Mathieu pushes closer on his own accord.
The surface of the table is sharp and cold against his back. Mathieu brackets his head with his arms touches their foreheads together, and Brath wants to curse human nature, their bloody sentiments, their inability to let go of their emotions and seek intimacy when there is simply no need for it.
Brath knows Mathieu can see nothing in his eyes, and he can assess that it vexes him for a brief moment, but it comes in handy that in spite of claiming otherwise, humans are ruled by sensations flowing through their bodies and not by logical thought. This physical act clouds Mathieu’s mind almost instantly and Brath is perfectly aware of how he has to move to make him lose his rationality entirely. He rolls his hips and angles his body, runs his hands along hot and firm flesh that he can feel twitching and quiver beneath his fingers.
The pace picks up, the pace Mathieu thinks he is setting but is the one Brath wants; it’s just fast enough, it’s just on that bittersweet side of hard, quenching all unnecessary air out of Brath’s body. It surprises Brath. Takes him a little off guard considering the sudden intensity and he doesn’t know whether that it’s down to the increasing rhythm of their hips moving together or the mix of temperatures or the fact that Mathieu is still framing his face, almost cradling his head in such a gentle fashion. He arches his back, involuntarily creating more friction, Mathieu grumbles deep in his throat, vibrating against Brath’s own. Head still held in place, he’s too out of it to move it to the side, and Mathieu dives for his mouth again, drags his tongue along Brath’s lips and pulls at them softly.
Brath chokes on something stuck in his throat, something that’s still clogging his chest, grappling his ribcage and this doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel wrong per se, but it’s not, and Brath can’t tell, and his head is swimming, and maybe it’s Mathieu’s bloody sentiment flooding and washing over his mind. Maybe he’s adapting too much, maybe he has been stuck on Earth for too long, and he wants it to stop, but he doesn’t. If this is what being a person feels like, then Brath is going to make sure to feel sorry for them for a moment when he’s gotten through this.
Instead of seeing Mathieu crumble, Brath can feel sensations drowning him, breath short and stagnant against Mathieu’s lips. It’s a relief almost painful in its intensity when Brath throws his head back before his body goes numb and limp. He only vaguely notices Mathieu’s teeth on his neck, biting down sharply, and then his body collapses, drapes over Brath’s and it’s suddenly eerily silent, numbingly quiet.
Brath can barely catch his breath, which is ironic since he doesn’t ever need to. He can’t find his voice, can’t organize his mind, and can’t control his arms that are encircling Mathieu’s shoulders without thinking. There are lips still resting in the hollow of his throat.
He fe
els warm.
* * *
“You couldn’t have done it someplace else?” Gareth complains the next day. “You had to do it in my kitchen?”
Brath doesn’t feel like pointing out that technically, it’s not Gareth’s kitchen. Instead, he pokes his tongue at him and saunters out.
His knees still feel strangely weak.
5
Mathieu
“Please tell me this won’t be awkward.” Mathieu is no expert in sleeping around. Despite what other people might assume, he just doesn’t do it. He has the opportunity, here and there, once in a while, but it’s just more convenient for him not to give in.
He’s a workaholic, he’s not easy to get along with, and he’s only ever felt drawn to a handful of people. He tries not to think about the fact that it never ended particularly well. He tries not to think about endings at all.
Now he doesn’t even know how this thing with Brath started. They’d sat in the dark kitchen for a while after. And his departure hadn’t felt forced or awkward at all, but it’s been two days since and Mathieu isn’t sure how to act around Brath, so he decided that the only way to go about it is to directly address it. They’re all adults here. They can talk about it.
“Why would it be awkward?” Brath asks, sitting down in his usual chair opposite Mathieu as if nothing had ever happened between them.
“I don’t know,” Mathieu replies. “You tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Okay, good.”
“Good,” Brath smiles, leans in, and Mathieu has a rather intimate flash of déjà-vu. “Because wouldn’t it be a shame if we couldn’t repeat our little tête-à-tête.”
Mathieu can’t help but reply. “What a shame indeed.”
And maybe that’s how these kinds of things start.
* * *
Mathieu gets his more urgent work done over the next few days. He lives off some instant coffee that’s almost as bad as the stuff Keith makes, meets his editor for lunch to decide on a final title for his next book, does some much-needed grocery shopping, gets his boiler fixed and soaks in a wonderfully hot bathtub for two hours.
The World Before: MM Romance Page 3