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They don’t discuss it. They don’t touch each other again. Months pass, and months eventually become years. For Big, those minutes in the shower take on the quality of a dream—did that actually happen? did he actually unbuckle Chan’s belt and—
Twice, he finds himself rock-hard while drilling push-ups, and he has to plank there, inhaling the rubber-and-sweat smell of the gym, until he can stand up without embarrassing himself. Nightly, he stands on duty outside Kinn’s rooms and listens to the ah-ah-ahs of whatever slender thing his employer has summoned. Later, he drives the boy home—the air in the car heavy with sex and Kinn’s peppery aftershave—and then, after the boy is gone, and Big has returned home, his shift now completed, he’s free to go to his room and jerk off in the shower, where there won’t be any evidence of it.
Sometimes he pauses by Chan’s door. Rarely is the room occupied. But some nights light filters through the crack under the door, and Big can hear the occasional rustle and footstep that signals a life he has no access to.
It seems to Big at times that he’s spent his whole life waiting outside somebody else’s door.
The bullet almost shatters the upper part of Big’s humerus. Realigning the fragments takes two hours. Convalescence takes longer, and it’s after yet another round of physical therapy, when Big is sweaty, in pain, and irritable, that Chan comes to give him the news. He’s not recovering as well as they’d like. His shoulder mobility is heavily reduced. He’s lucky he’s able to lift his arm at all.
They’re demoting and reassigning him.
He wants privacy to process—and who’s he kidding, process means curling up on his good side and crying until his eyes hurt—but Chan for some reason isn’t moving. He stands there motionless by Big’s chair, as if waiting for something, but Big can’t speak through the sob building in his throat. The corners of his mouth twist (a little voice in his head warns that he looks unattractive and grotesque like this), and his throat and his arm throb in pain.
He thinks of a hundred and eighty push-ups perfectly executed. He thinks of twenty minutes ago, when the physical therapist told him to lift his bad arm, and he nearly blacked out from the pain of obeying.
He thinks of Kinn.
Chan stands there, watching him blubber. Two minutes ago, Big still had the authority to at least ask for privacy. Now he doesn’t even have that.
He cries, and cries, and waiting through it all, Chan.
The day before Big became a bodyguard in full, Korn and Chan had reviewed his merits over a garden game of chess.
“It’s not his skill level that I’m concerned about,” Chan said. Korn inched a rook over and arched an eyebrow, an invitation to keep going.
Chan said, “He’ll do well, provided he doesn’t let loyalty get in the way of his duty.”
The primary Theerapanyakul dynasty has owned Big’s family for two generations. Big was raised alongside Kinn almost like another cousin. Loyalty has been bred into Big’s genes, has fed and clothed him. One day, it will kill him.
It wasn’t that kind of loyalty that worried Chan.
“That,” Korn said, “is exactly why he’ll do well.”
Chan feels like the worst kind of man, shifting schedules weeks in advance so Ken will be gone for the night.
Summoning Big to his quarters is a no-go, would feel too much like a display of power, but inviting himself to Big’s room doesn’t feel any less like throwing his weight around. Any less droit de seigneur. The right of the master—only there’s really no masters here, just a few rungs on the ladder between them.
Maybe he’s getting old.
He is old, by the standards of the business. In five years, he’ll be ancient. He’s seen men walk through the manor’s massive double doors for the first time and then leave in a body bag within weeks. A handful of them, like Big, Chan has watched grow up, pruned and coaxed into the proper shape like bonsai.
“Big, this is Chan,” That was Korn, his hand on the shoulder of a small boy. At twenty, Chan had attended the wedding of the boy’s parents. Nearly six years after, the boy’s dad was dead, and Chan had his job. “He’s going to teach you to fire a gun.”
It’s been a long time since Chan has permitted himself to think about that day—that day, the one when Big was years older, shaky from when Chan ran him so ragged he passed out, and Big had thanked him for it by sucking his cock in the gym showers, probably less than fifty feet from where Vegas Theerapanyakul once knocked his head into the wall. If he’s being honest with himself, he hasn’t allowed himself to think of that moment since it happened. Most of the time, he tries to pretend it never did. Or that the memory is a stalking hound. Can’t let it catch his scent.
Even now, as he lets himself tiptoe in the memory’s direction, he focuses on how Big had been afterward—more alert, more driven, less hollow-eyed and outwardly miserable.
As he is now.
Now the boy looks at him from where he’s stood at attention beside his own bed, eyes wary and expectant and focused somewhere past Chan’s head. He’s wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, and his wet hair is loose. His shoulders have broadened, muscle filled out in all the places he used be gangly and undergrown. He’s got his dad’s nose, and there’s something of his mom in the line of his jaw, and maybe a little in his attitude too— when he’s inconvenienced, he curls his upper lip in a particular way that’s pure Som.
She’s gone now too, just like her husband—has been for nearly twenty years now. Their income and all their assets returned to the family who’d bestowed it all on them in the first place, plus custody of their only son. A sizable return on investment.
“At ease,” Chan says. The line of Big’s shoulders softens. Chan sinks onto the end of the bed.
If they can see it, will they call this business too?
If he tells them—if he tells himself—that this is for Big’s benefit, will any of them believe it?
“Sit down, Big.”
Big sits. There’s about a foot and a half of distance between them.
“How’s your arm.”
Big jerks his head in a nod, even though it wasn’t a yes or no question.
“It’s fine, sir.”
“Let me see.”
His throat moves as he swallows, and then he angles around to hold out his arm for inspection.
Big sets his jaw as Chan runs his fingers along the line of his arm. His throat moves as he gulps—swallowing back pain, Chan knows the tells.
“What are you taking?” he asks.
Big shakes his head.
“It’s fine, sir.”
Chan fixes him with a look. After a moment or two, Big starts to fidget.
“I know they prescribed you something,” Chan says. “Do you want to show me, or are you going to make me go to my office and pull up the paperwork?”
Big goes into the en suite and comes back with an orange medicine bottle. At Chan’s prompting, he finds a water bottle in the mini fridge. He takes two pills, puts the water on the nightstand, and stands there in front of Chan.
“I’m sorry sir,” he whispers.
Chan closes his eyes.
“I don’t want sorry,” he says. “You think if I care if you’re sorry? I give you an order, you say yes sir it won’t happen again sir.”
Big presses his lips together. He won’t meet Chan’s eyes.
“Yes sir,” he says. “It won’t happen again sir.”
He looks even smaller now, more withdrawn, and Chan remembers too late that he came here with a purpose that wasn’t supposed to involve dressing the kid down.
“Sit down, Big.”
Big sits. Maybe a little closer to Chan than before. He wets his lips.
Chan takes the coward’s way out.
“Is there something you want to say to me?” he asks.
Always a good line to fall back on. There’s always something.
The bulge in Big’s throat moves.
At last he says, “Khun Kim doesn’t like having a detail.”
Not what Chan was expecting, if he’s honest. He snorts.
“Next time he tries to shake you off, tell him neither of us are too old for me to still tan his hide.”
Big shifts a little on the edge of the bed.
“I don’t think he’d appreciate that coming from me, sir,” he says.
“No,” Chan agrees. “But you’re going to have to push with him. He’s not like—” for the briefest second he stops, then remembers himself— “Kinn.”
A heavy silence. Big stops breathing for a few seconds, and then slow and steady, he inhales.
“Is there a reason you wanted to see me, sir?” he asks.
Chan swallows, trying to ignore the sudden hammering of his pulse.
“I wanted,” he says carefully, “see how you were.”
He lays his hand on Big’s thigh.
Big looks at Chan’s hand. Slow, tentative, his eyes move upward until they reach his face. Chan works hard to keep his expression open, neutral.
With a rustle of clothing, Big slides off the bed and sinks to his knees in front of Chan. He wets his lips with a flash of pink tongue, and Chan’s dick aches in his pants.
A decade ago, Chan stood at the locked door of Korn’s office for twelve minutes, a hand on his weapon, studied the painting hanging on the opposite wall, seeing none of it, all his attention on the blurry shape of Big’s head bobbing in Korn’s lap.
This was a mistake. He’s going about it all wrong. He should have brought Big to neutral ground, made a point of them being off-duty. Hell, taken the kid outside for a friendly drink. He feels like the worst kind of old man, pawing watery-mouthed at a boy under his care—and they are under his care, Big and all of the others, or whatever passes for care in this place. Chan trains them (Big, this is Chan), he disciplines them, and when necessary, he turns a blind eye to how they choose to get by, because at seventeen, he got on his knees for a man much worse than Korn, and he’d watched Big’s mother walk through the same office door the day after, and Big’s father the day after that, and there hadn’t been a word said between them about it, ever.
Big blinks up at him.
He should have bought him a drink.
“Big,” Chan begins. He gets a look for his trouble; one of those patented lip curls that Chan received from Big’s mom more times than he could count, a look that says Don’t tell me how to do my job.
He wraps his fingers under Big’s chin. He feels outside of himself.
Big just looks up at him. His pulse thrums in the underside of his jaw, life-intimate against Chan’s fingers. One-two. One-two.
Chan gives him a little get-up-here nod and feels Big swallow. Big anchors himself on the edge of the bed and pulls himself to his feet again, and before he can think about it, Chan settles his hands on his hips. He hooks his fingers under the waistband of Big’s sweatpants. Shower-warm skin. No underwear.
“What do you want, sir,” Big whispers.
Chan bites his tongue.
Big slides into his lap.
He hovers a little, like he’s afraid of being too heavy, holding himself up with his core—Chan can feel the ever-so-slight tremble of his abdominals. He wraps a careful arm around Chan’s neck and exhales, soft and slow.
Something gives in Chan’s chest, then, a bullet slamming into Kevlar. Later, he’ll attribute it to his libido. Or something. Anything but what it is.
They’re kissing before Chan knows it. Hard, hungry, as instantly familiar as if there hasn’t been a multi-year gap between now and the last time. Big is murmuring between kisses—please, please, please—and suddenly nothing matters to Chan as much as getting him naked. But Big isn’t letting him move. Somehow he’s everywhere, hands clutching at Chan’s head, his neck, clutching at his hands when Chan tries to move them, even if it’s to reach under his shirt to get at skin. He tastes like the mouthwash they buy for all the guards. He’s starting to grind against Chan, rocking back and forth, back and forth, and somehow Chan’s hard enough to cut glass, like he’s a teenager again, new enough at this to come just from a little dry humping.
“Come here, let me—”
He tugs the hem of Big’s shirt, and Big lifts his arms so Chan pull it over his head—
or he tries to. His bad arm reaches shoulder-level and then Big winces. He tries to force it up further but his face blanches and he grits his teeth, eyes suddenly teary.
“Hey.”
Chan honestly didn’t mean to bark it, but it gets Big’s attention; he goes boneless and drops his arm.
“I catch you trying that again, you can go sit on your ass and watch TV while Pete does your job. Clear?”
Big ducks his head with a chastened sir. He should be at attention, but instead he’s on his knees, straddling Chan’s lap with his dick twitching between them.
The aircon switches off.
Chan thumbs his cheek. Big nods, like he’s answering a question nobody asked. Chan turns his attention to Big’s shirt. He grips the fabric under his bad arm in both hands, grits his teeth, and rips the seam open.
Big stares at him, mouth agape. Chan busies himself with helping Big feed his arm through the torn hole.
“We’ll get you a spare tomorrow,” he mutters as he pulls the shirt over his head. He punctuates the words with a kiss, pressed to the underside of Big’s uninjured upper arm. Beneath the peppermint of his soap, he tastes like salt. Chan chases the taste down the sweep of his bicep, and Big shivers when he licks into the hollow of his underarm, the hair and the sweat there. He roves his mouth over to his chest. He feels like a dog let off its leash. His teeth catch on Big’s nipple, and he sucks on it until Big is whimpering and clutching at his head, and that’s when he starts rolling it between his teeth. Big yelps, and Chan pulls back enough that he can see how red and puffy he’s made it. He gives it an apologetic lave of his tongue and leans his forehead against Big’s chest for a second. Just to breathe. But breathing just carries another lungful of Big’s scent.
Chan swallows against a dry throat and tries to gather himself.
“Come here,” he croaks. He grips Big’s thighs and angles them both around so he can tip Big back onto the bed. Big’s already flushed, but the color deepens when Chan starts pulling his sweatpants off.
And then he’s naked.
Everybody’s a patchwork of bruises and scar tissue, and Big is no different. Chan finds himself unwilling to lay a hand on him again. He needs whatever distance he can find.
He swallows again, no easier than before, studying Big’s dick where it’s already weeping against his trembling belly.
“Why don’t you,” he begins, and then falters. How does he do this?
In the end, he clings to the familiarity of command.
“Touch yourself. Show me what you like.”
He doesn’t miss the twitch of Big’s dick, but neither does he miss the flash of trepidation on his face. He wraps a hand around Big’s ankle.
Big wets his lips, then furtively licks his palm and reaches down for his dick. His hand closes around the head, and his eyes close too, mouth dropping open as he strokes down, light and careful, like he’s afraid of feeling too much too quickly.
Chan strokes his thumb in a slow circle over Big’s anklebone.
“Eyes on me, boy,” he whispers.
What does he think of, he wonders, when he does this? Stupid question—he knows exactly what Big thinks about; everyone does, and maybe that’s been the single greatest problem in the kid’s life, the fact that despite all his armor, his secret, tender places have always been exposed and naked.
Chan is ninety percent certain it never happened. That certainty stems in large part from some fatherly advice he heard Korn impart on Kinn in the boy’s early teens. That’s not what security is for.
Translation: dogs don’t sleep on the bed.
The rosy head of Big’s cock appears and disappears in his fist. Breath hisses through his teeth. Chan kisses Big’s left knee and then, after watching a little shiver run through him, he leans down and kisses the pulse point in his throat. A weak little noise comes from Big, and then he’s turned his head to give Chan better access. He’s gentler with Big now, or at least more detached. The boy’s skin is smooth in that freshly-shaved way; he can smell the ghost of shaving cream on him. His fingers find the nipple he mauled earlier and, gentler now, he teases it until Big starts sighing. Then that hand descends, and descends. His fingers pass over his balls, and although Big doesn’t stop touching himself, he cranes his neck a little, trying to see what Chan’s doing.
Chan presses his fingers against the sensitive skin there, just feeling him out, and when Big makes a little noise in his throat, he strokes a slow, implacable circle with his thumb. Big hisses and squeezes his eyes shut. Improbably, his hand slackens a little around his cock.
“Why are you stopping?” Chan asks. Another slow circle of his thumb.
Big shakes his head.
“It’s just—I’m gonna—if I—”
“You can come,” Chan says.
“But—”
Chan arches his eyebrows. Big gulps. His jaw lifts almost imperceptibly.
“Yes sir,” he says.
His lips press together immediately after he says it, and his eyes go darker, the flush on his face and his chest deepening further. It hits Chan then, in a way that he hasn’t let it before—dress it up like an order, and he could make Big do anything.
He spits on his hand and returns it to his taint as Big strokes himself again, slow and careful, like he’s scared of feeling too much. Chan forces the issue; he deepens the pressure of his hand, and Big whimpers—whimpers, high and tight, like he’s scared of what Chan’s doing to him.
Chan catalogues how Big falls apart in little puzzle pieces: his lower lip turning white, then red under the pressure of his teeth; the muscles and tendons straining in his pelvis and the insides of his thighs; the sloppy, loose grip he keeps on his cock; the delicate skin, wet with sweat and spit, that Chan is mauling with the gun-callus on his thumb; when Big’s heel kicks by Chan’s knee and Chan grabs his ankle with his free hand; and then the muscles in Big’s stomach go rock-hard, and he comes all over his own fingers, Chan milking it out of him until Big whimpers and shakes his head, panting.
Chan combs the damp hair out of Big’s face.
“Okay?” Chan asks.
“I need—” Big gulps and tries to catch his breath— “Can I have some water, please sir?”
Chan grabs the water bottle off the nightstand. He supports Big’s head while he takes some generous gulps. It runs down his chin, his neck, leaving glistening trails all down his chest. Chan lets his impulse win and follows the trails with his mouth. Big’s hands settle in Chan’s close-cropped hair.
“Aren’t you going to.”
At the sound of his voice, Chan abandons his task. Big stops short. His jaw twists like he’s chewing his tongue.
Chan waits him out.
“Nothing, sir.” Big’s eyes are focused somewhere in the region of the bedspread. It’s so obvious what he wants. Chan thumbs a damp spot in the hollow of Big’s throat, feels the tension of the thin skin stretched there.
“Get on your stomach.”
Big goes red as he obeys. He himself up on his good arm to look over his shoulder until Chan adds, “All the way. You’ll wear your neck out.”
His forehead makes contact with the mattress and he breathes out slow and steady, the muscles in his shoulders moving with the expanding and contracting of his lungs. It reminds Chan that he needs to breathe too. He feels lightheaded as he settles between Big’s thighs again and lays his hands on the backs of his thighs. Big shivers at the touch.
“How’s your arm.”
“All right, sir.”
He says it like he means it. Chan traces his thumb over the back of Big’s knee. Big shivers.
“Can you take it now or do you need help?”
“Now, sir,” Big says, and Chan almost smiles at the immediacy of his answer. “I can take it now.” And then, because in so many ways he’s Chan’s star pupil, “Nightstand drawer.”
A discreet little bottle of lube, only a quarter empty. Chan’s not sure if that means Big is denying himself or its opposite. He spreads Big open, squeezes a perfunctory amount onto his quivering hole, and then a larger amount into his own palm. His vision fuzzes as he strokes himself.
His hands, still lube-wet, stroke down the plane of Big’s back, and then he moves further down to take hold of his hips.
In the showers that day, that first time, he had counted down in his head from five before accepting (four one-thousand, three one-thousand, two), trying to stretch out another few seconds of being a man who didn’t fuck his subordinates. Stupidly, he finds himself doing the same thing now. He’ll do it, he knows he’ll do it, he’s taken it far enough that now there’s nothing left to do but commit. But he wants to hold back for another breath or two, to extend the moment before it happens as long as he can manage.
Big shivers—Chan watches it travel through his body, and once it shakes itself out, he lines himself up and presses in.
Big makes a noise that might be an ow, and his knees kick against the mattress, but he doesn’t tell Chan to stop, and Chan won’t put words in his mouth. Big digs his fingers into the pillow. Chan breathes through his teeth. Big doesn’t make a sound, just shivers slightly and then draws a slow, shaky breath. Chan grinds a little inside of him, trying to acclimate to the hot clutch of his body. Big’s knuckles are white against the white bedsheets.
For a moment, they lie there, Chan seated almost as far as he can go inside of him, each of them breathing through it. Chest to back, flush. Intermittently Big trembles underneath him. Chan imagines saying, We don’t need to do this. He’s pulled rank so much in the last hour, he could do it again in reverse. Pull out, climb off him, put your clothes on, that’s an order.
His teeth sink into Big’s soft earlobe, and he pushes home.