It’s a regular thing of theirs, Hal, Viz, and Gideon’s, to go out to Jordan’s.

Gideon remembers when he inherited Elsie’s place, Crows, got word sent from some fucking solicitor – he hadn’t even known the old woman had moved to Middlesbrough, let alone that she was running some dive on the edge of the city. They’d had the wake there, the funeral.

Hal and Viz had come down from Glasgow – she’d sent word up, apparently, had her solicitor draw up a bunch of fucking letters to send out – and suddenly it had been like Gideon was fourteen again, the big boy between the two smaller, squirrelly ones. They hadn’t talked in twenty fucking years, not since he’d taken his scholarship he’d never intended to get and run with it, Prophet running after him.

They’d stood there in the middle of the room and just stared at him like they were looking at a ghost, and in some ways, Gideon supposed they were. They’d last seen him when he’d been seventeen years old and they’d been just a little older, running about on the streets, doing work for Elsie, ferrying fucking shit about, high off their fucking tits when they could be—

And suddenly, they were altogether again, nearly forty, basically old men. It had been like coming home, in a way – coming home to Elsie’s, coming home to the old boys, and he’d thought Prophet’d be happy with it, that he’d be pleased.

Gideon had been sort of fallen back in one of the big chairs by the fire in Elsie’s – it had been a pretty popular fucking place amongst all kinds of scumbags, and Prophet had just let him alone, run back and forth behind the bar setting everything up as he’d sat there and stared into space, tried to come to terms with the fact that an old woman he hadn’t talked to in decades, who’d raised him up from dirt until he’d run out and fucking abandoned her, had left him all her fucking money, left him a bar, left him a house—

And then they’d walked in and it had been just the distraction he needed. Fucking… friends. Catching up on everything he’d missed, what people were doing, what it was like, and he’d expected them to be pissed at him, but they hadn’t been, just fucking surprised he was alive.

“Of course she knew,” Hal had said, slowly shaking his head. “Fucking— Elsie. ‘Course she knew you were still alive, and in some cushty managing job, knew you were alive. She never said a fucking word to us.”

“We thought you were fucking dead,” Viz had added, soft and disbelieving. “You and Prophet both.”

That had been—

Gideon doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if it’s ever been right, exactly, if it’s ever been as good as he wants to believe it was, but he’d tried to get Prophet to come over, to just fucking sit with them, to catch up, to play, but he’d been distracted by the bar, by running the wake, all the funeral shit, couldn’t sit down for a fucking second and let things just bear out.

He'd been better for a while, when Gideon had taken early retirement and taken over running Crows full time, they’d both been a bit better, and then it had all gone to shit, like everything else.

That was when Hal and Viz had suggested they go out to Jordan’s the first time as a matter of course. They’d gone a few times before, but not like they had then, as respite from Prophet’s shit or having to run Crows, and then—

Oh, fuck it. He doesn’t like thinking about it, doesn’t fucking like any of it, and that’s why he fucking comes to Jordan’s with Hal and Viz, nudges between them, laughs and teases and wrestles, drowns out the rest with drink or with whatever pretty boy is gonna throw himself at his feet this week.

The one tonight’s not a pretty boy. Maybe he used to be, once upon a time, but Gideon isn’t so sure about that – if he’d been a pretty boy, he wouldn’t be the sort of guy he is now, trying to be confident but not knowing how to wear his own skin. He looks good, tall and blond, toned.

He’s not used to being flirted with and that’s plain to see just to look at him, but at the same time he comes alive at the attention like he’s been waiting for it all his life, like he’s just been craving to flirt in places like this with men like Gideon – his eyes sparkle and his lips shift into the sexiest of smirks, more fake confidence than not, Gideon’s sure, and he’s got a row of perfect white teeth that Gideon is sure he spends a few hundred quid on a year just to keep them looking that clean and white.

“So,” he says, sinking down across from him and looking at him thoughtfully, taking him in. “Linen suit.”

“Linen suit,” agrees Vance Vixen – and seriously, what kind of fucking name is that? – tapping his fingers against the table. He’d taken the cider that Gideon had recommended, and now he takes a sip of it, his eyes fluttering closed, his lips smacking in a way that’s ridiculous and obnoxious and genuinely a little sexy, just his enthusiasm for it. “It’s summer, as I said.”

“Yeah, but— You wear that to work?”

“How do you know I was working?” asks Vance immediately, arching his eyebrows. “Perhaps I got all dolled up just to come here.”

Gideon smirks, leaning back in his seat, and he doesn’t let himself sigh his satisfaction at the way Vance looks at him, the eagerness with which his eyes rove Gideon’s body, taking in his hands, his broad chest, his heavy arms. Gideon’s hot, and he knows it, always had known it, always will. “Is this dolled up?” he asks, cocking his head to one side. “This is pretty nice, but—”

Vance’s laugh is a soft thing, and Gideon wonders if he’s the sort of man who laughs in bed. “Mmm, yes, well, you were right the first time, I was at work.”

“What do you do?”

“Guess!”

“You a phone sex operator?”

Vance’s laugh is louder this time, but he seems to actually consider the answer, leaning back in his seat – he doesn’t just take it as flirting or say something about the implied compliment, instead goes off-script, says, “You know, I don’t know if I’d be good at that sort of thing, the— I can talk on the phone, obviously, but I’d get so distracted. I’d be like, ooh, darling, is your penis very— you know, hard, and having a nice time? Speaking of, I had a very nice time yesterday out to lunch… And then I’d go off talking about that.”

Gideon is laughing and he can’t stop himself, his hands over his face, and the fucking funny thing about it is that Vance knows he’s got him, he’s looking at Gideon with his chin rested on his hands and his eyes shining, almost fucking hungry for it.

“You out of the closet recently?” asks Gideon, and Vance’s face drops.

“Oh,” he says. “Erm— Well. Not recen— Two years, thereabouts. Is it that obvious?”

“Nah,” says Gideon, shrugging, wiping a tear out of the corner of his eye, feeling his chest still shaking. “You just, uh… You look like someone who’s not used to getting to make other people laugh. Like you only recently got the opportunity.”

“Oh,” says Vance again, and he smiles a smaller smile now, softer. Something about it catches in Gideon’s chest, makes it flutter. “Yes, I… Mmm. I suppose that’s quite accurate. Gosh, you’re a startlingly good judge of character. What are you, a therapist?”

“May as well be,” says Gideon.

“Oh,” says Vance. “Oh, oh. Oh…” He looks very thoughtful, pinched lips, brow furrowed. “Are you a phone sex operator?”

“Nah,” says Gideon, grinning. “Barman.”

“A barman! Of course – that’s how you knew to recommend a cider!” Vance nods, and he’s so enthusiastic that something in Gideon just feels like he’s in the sunshine, the light all but shining out of him. He loves people like this, fucking craves them sometimes, and even though there’s a pair of twinks coming in the room right now, one of them looking consideringly Gideon’s way, Gideon knows that he's not gonna go near them. Vance is just what he’s been looking for tonight. “I, uh, I don’t do anything so interesting. Just an office job, you know. Typical middle manager.”

“Oof,” says Gideon, and his sympathy isn’t fake – he’d spent something like fifteen or sixteen years at Friar Holdings managing the fucking Supply Division, and he’d been grateful to leave, grateful to get out and so something different. He’d enjoyed the work, enjoyed the people, definitely enjoyed the fucking pay packet, but it had been a big goddamn relief to get out, to get away, and there’d be no mistake about that. He thinks about telling him, about telling Vance that he used to do that shit himself, but God knows that all the guy is gonna do is talk about his feelings or talk about office drama and like— The fuck is Gideon meant to do with that? “You like it?” he asks instead.

“You know, I do,” says Vance, beaming. He gesticulates as he talks, effusive and full of life, and Gideon looks at his big, soft hands, the way his wrists move, his elbows. “I like people – I love people. I’ve always been someone who likes to get the best out of my team, you know? And I know people don’t necessarily like team building and that sort of thing, the family environment, but I don’t think it has to be something corporate and soulless. I think it’s about everyone on the team getting what they need, and feeling like they’re recognised as individuals, you know? And the more you do that, the more enthusiastic will be about getting their work done, the more fulfilled they’ll feel.”

“Huh,” says Gideon, taking this in. He doesn’t think he was big on team building – he’d always fostered a pretty competitive atmosphere, used to set targets and leaderboards and shit for efficiency. Not everyone would do it – Prophet had always rolled his eyes and told him to fuck off, even while grinning – but a lot of people would, and they’d get into it, especially when there were prizes and shit at Christmas parties. “Sounds good,” he says. “Interesting. You sound like you’re good at your job and you know it.”

“It’s an attractive quality, isn’t it?” asks Vance, and Gideon sniggers. “Well! You’re the same!”

“I’m a pretty good barman,” Gideon agrees.

“And are you, ah,” starts Vance, then seems to reconsider it as it comes out of his mouth, tilts his head from one side to the other, flushes slightly. “You know.”

“Gay?”

“Oh,” says Vance, and laughs, then suddenly stops laughing, claps his hand over his mouth. “Oh, God. Sorry. Sorry, I hardly meant to, ah—”

Gideon laughs, and Vance huffs out a noise that’s not quite a laugh.

“I rather took it for granted that you might be gay,” he says. “Or perhaps, erm, bi, you know, or otherwise— Attracted to men.”

“Yeah,” says Gideon dryly. “Gay. You too, right?”

“Oh, God, yeah,” says Vance, running his hand through his hair – it’s like he forgot it was in a bun, and now he catches hold of the tie in it and pulls it free, shakes his head and lets his hair fall down around his shoulders. It’s looking fucking good – it’s a light blond, and now it’s loose Gideon can see the white mixed in with it, a handful of them in with the rest that you couldn’t really see when it was tied up. Gideon had thought it was straight, but it wasn’t – it was wavy with a curl to the bottom of each strand, and he wanted to put his hand in it, feel it. “No, I meant— Single.”

Gideon chuckles, scrubbing his fingers through his beard.

He doesn’t wear his wedding ring.

He hasn’t for years – he never used to wear it on his hands because he was always liable to catch it on something and lose it, or fucking hurt himself when he was lifting kegs or moving shit around; what he did used to do was wear it on a chain around his neck, and he remembers the argument that broke it, remembers the way he’d shoved Prophet up against the wall with his arm pinned across his chest, remembers growling, “You say that again, you fucking say it, say I’ve never done fucking anything for you—”

“Fine, I’ll say it a-fucking-gain,” Prophet had said scowlingly, and he’d grabbed the chain, looped it in his fingers and pulled. Gideon almost feels the sensation again, can never get it out of his head whenever it comes to mind, the feel of the little links against the back of his neck, pulling taut, catching at the hair, the sudden release as they broke. “You’ve never done a fucking thing for me, except drag me the fuck down.”

Gideon had kissed him, then, had bitten his way into his mouth, and Prophet had all but yowled at Gideon’s knee between his legs, at Gideon’s hand on his throat. The ring and chain had fallen to the ground and he hadn’t even thought about it as he’d shoved Prophet back onto the bed, the two of them kissing, pawing at each other, driving against each other – Prophet wouldn’t let Gideon fuck him that night, not without a condom, and so they’d just frotted, bitten each other, given each other bruises.

The ring’s in one of the fucking drawers now, Gideon doesn’t even know which – Prophet used to go through every drawer in the house and organise them all, put in these wooden separators, have everything arranged according to his OCD bullshit, but he doesn’t touch Gideon’s drawers.

How long ago was that?

Five years? It was after he’d left Friars, he knows that, so not longer than ten.

“I get it,” he says. “I look like the kind of guy with a string of boyfriends on the hook.”

Vance chuckles, resting his chin on his hand and looking thoughtfully across at him – his smile is lopsided and flirtatious, and Gideon wants to kiss it off his lips. “That’s a rather roundabout way of tooting your own horn, isn’t it?”

“I thought we agreed I don’t look like the kind of guy to toot my own horn,” says Gideon. “Like I have other men to do it for me.”

Vance laughs, his eyes crinkling, and when he leans back in his seat and splays one hand over his chest, he taps his feet on the ground and somehow it’s the most gorgeous thing imaginable, beautiful in a stupid, silly way that Gideon doesn’t know what to do with. Gideon’s always doing this, falling in love with people – men – and their idiosyncrasies.

“What about you?” asks Gideon. “You with someone?”

“Me? No, no, no,” says Vance, shaking his head. His fingers slide over his face, touching over his cheek, and his eyes are faraway for a moment, thoughtful, considering. He’s got nice eyes, Gideon thinks, a pretty brown colour, a dark brown that reminds him of dark ales, stouts. “No,” says Vance again. “I wish that— Or I think about… I don’t get out too much. I rarely meet people.”

“Well, you met me,” says Gideon.

“I did,” murmurs Vance. “I did meet you, didn’t I? Do you come here often, to this— to Jordan’s?”

“Pretty often,” says Gideon. “This is your first time, right?”

“Right,” says Vance. “I don’t go many places other than work, actually – I know a lot of the local cafés and smoothie places, that sort of thing; I go to a regular gym, but, uh… Ah. How do I—” Vance touches his fingers against his lips, tapping against them. “I’m trying to think of a way to say it without sounding, ah, unkind or uncharitable.”

Gideon leans in, fascinated as he looks at Vance’s face, taking him in, the uncertainty writ across it as he bites his lip.

“I go to yoga classes once or twice a month – I mostly do my own at home, you know, but I run along to a class early in the mornings some Tuesdays. There aren’t many other men in the class, so I get a lot of attention, and it’s a lovely— You know, it’s lovely. To get attention. But it’s from women.”

Gideon grins, leans back in his seat, slowly shakes his head as he takes a sip from his drink. “Mm, it’s nice to get the attention,” he murmurs. “But, yeah. Not the same.”

“It’s really quite,” Vance starts, and then exhales. “You know, I got divorced a few years ago, sort of realised I was gay after my wife had an affair and I just felt… You know, she came to me about it. She said, Vance, we need to talk, I’ve been seeing another man from my work – she’s an anaesthetist, so this was at the hospital, you know – and I sat there across from her, and the first thing I felt, the prevailing emotion, you know, it wasn’t anger at her, it wasn’t jealousy, it wasn’t hurt, even. All I felt was relief.”

He laughs softly, reaching up and fluffing his hair again, and Gideon watches his face, the movement of his eyes, the shift of his lips, how thoughtful he looks, how introspective. It’s a dark room, and the way the light lands on his face is appealing on a lot of levels, but Gideon thinks of seeing him in more lights, now – seeing him in the sun, in firelight, under lamps, wants to see all the ways that light and shadow can change on this man’s face. He thinks of the polaroid camera that’s buried in the back of one of his drawers, and his fingers itch with the urge to get it out, to buy stuff and make the guest bathroom into a dark room again even though he hasn’t touched it in years. He thinks he still remembers how to do it – he was just a kid still at university when he’d first got into it, and he’d even won a few prizes for it, and then he’d put it aside like he puts aside every fucking other hobby, has only touched it in dribs and drabs since, a three-month stretch in 2006, a frantic six months in ’09, a few weeks of tinkering in 2017 and then nothing. A lot of it’s like that – card tricks, skateboarding, boxing, coins, games, darts, a bunch of other shit.

He wonders if Prophet was relieved, when Gideon cheated the first time. He doesn’t think so.

“She didn’t know what to do with it,” Vance admits, shrugging his shoulders. “She said, you know, I’m going to break it off with him, and I said… Don’t. If he makes you happier than I do, don’t. She burst into tears. I really felt quite awful, it felt like such a solution, you know, to our… our problems. And then it wasn’t.” He winces, says, “God, sorry, that’s— rather a lot, I didn’t mean to… All of that was just a precursor, you know, to that I, being as I didn’t realise for so long, or because I pushed it down so… so much, I almost thought sex, attraction, was something people made a thing of just for the pageantry of it, you know. I read about asexuality, and I just thought, oh, well, maybe that’s me, but really, I think it’s more likely that everyone’s faking it. And then I sort of slowly came to the realisation that I wasn’t asexual, and that other people weren’t faking it either, just that it was… that I was…”

“Gay,” says Gideon.

“Gay,” agrees Vance. “Gay and— And handsome. Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” he says, and puts his head in his hands. “See, you see, this is why I don’t go out! Here I am, an attractive man buys me a drink and sits me down, I’ve not even drunk more than two mouthfuls and I’m sort of blurting out this miserable backstory—”

“Hey, hey, I don’t think it’s fucking miserable,” interrupts Gideon, and he reaches out, slides his foot against the side of Vance’s calf and feels a thrill run up his spine at the way Vance gasps, his eyes fluttering for a second, almost as if he’s fucking ticklish. “You’re still new to this. You’re allowed to be a little fucking clumsy, eh?”

“I’m not clumsy in every area,” says Vance softly, and winks as he picks up his cider. “I promise you.”

Before Gideon can reply, he slips with his glass and dribbles cider down his chin, and Gideon is laughing again as he grabs for a napkin to hold out; Vance groans to himself as he takes it, wiping himself down, and Gideon feels a fluttering in his chest once again.

* * *

Gideon gets in the house at a little past one – he’s drunk and a little unsteady on his feet, and he fumbles getting the door shut and locking it, ‘cause God knows he’s not in the fucking mood to be woken up to Prophet whining that he forgot to lock it again.

He can’t stop smiling, the grin pulling at his face as he kicks off his boots in the dark, shrugs off his coat and drops his wallet and keys into the bowl on the end table before he goes up the stairs. They hadn’t even fucked, hadn’t even fucking gone anywhere – they’d talked for hours on hours, him and Vance, before Vance had come out to the smoking area and been spellbound at the sight of Gideon smoking a cigar, and then they’d kissed in between more talk.

He isn’t sure yet if Prophet’ll be in, ‘cause last call would have been at twelve but he often stays late, but no, he sees the lump on the bed when he gets in, hears Prophet’s quiet breathing.

Prophet likes to pretend he’s asleep when Gideon gets home even though Gideon and he both know that he fucking sleeps light as anything, that the both of them do, that the both of them always fucking will.

“Want me to suck you off?” he asks huskily as he unbuckles his belt. He’s half-hard in them, knows that at least if he sucks Prophet off Prophet will get him off with his hands if not reciprocate the favour.

“I need to fucking sleep,” mutters Prophet, his voice hoarse and throaty – he was probably shouting at somebody, or maybe he got in a fight, or something.

“You’re a fucking insomniac, mate,” says Gideon. “You’ll sleep easier if I get you off.”

Prophet doesn’t say anything, and Gideon pulls back the quilt and slides into bed, shimmies forward and moulds himself against Prophet’s back, feels how fucking warm he is, solid and skinny like a young tom that doesn’t eat enough, just bones, muscle, and spite.

“You remember what we used to be like?” asks Gideon in Prophet’s ear. “We were like street cats.”

“We used to be fucking feral,” replies Prophet. “Would’ve been put down like street cats.”

“We got out, though, didn’t we?” asks Gideon quietly, and he presses a kiss to the side of Prophet’s jaw, slowly grinds his cock against Prophet’s arse. Prophet stays there, still as if he’s already a fucking corpse, and Gideon hates the rawness in his chest, the way it makes him feel, hollow and fucking shitty.

“I’m fucking tired,” says Prophet. He’s so tense that Gideon can’t stand it, feels how fucking stiff he is – blowjob or not, he’s probably not gonna sleep because he doesn’t, doesn’t fucking sleep enough, just works and works and works, screams his voice hoarse. Gideon wonders if he’s been taking his blood pressure medication, has been wondering that a lot recently, keeps forgetting to check the bottle in the mornings. “Can you just fucking—”

“Maybe you should retire,” says Gideon quietly.

“What, just work at Crows full fucking time?” asks Prophet, so bitingly that it makes Gideon’s chest ache, makes him feel just slightly fucking sick.

“Would that be so bad?” he asks.

“Get your fucking hands off me, Gideon. Let me fucking sleep.”

Gideon exhales, slides his thumb against Prophet’s hipbone. “You sure you don’t want me to—?”

“If you wanted to get your cock wet you should have fucked whoever the fuck you were drinking with. I’m not your last resort.”

“You’re my fucking husband,” Gideon reminds him. “Aren’t I supposed to want to fuck you?”

“That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?” mumbles Prophet into the pillows, almost fucking sing-song, and Gideon is fully aware that if he spreads Prophet out right now, if he shoves him down on his belly or pins him on his back, Prophet’ll go along with it. They used to do that shit all the time, and Prophet wanted it, wanted Gideon to be rough with him, to just fucking take from him.

It felt shitty then, and it feels shitty now, just to think about. He wants Prophet to fucking want him, want him like he used to fucking want him, want him like only strangers do these days. He imagines what that might be like, coming home to Prophet waiting in bed, a smirk on his face, actually inviting Gideon into bed with him, actually fucking wanting him.

He takes his hands off Prophet, turns over in bed and faces the other way. “I love you, you know,” he says.

There’s silence, and then Prophet says, “I know.”

Gideon realises he hasn’t put his phone on charge, that it’s still in his fucking jeans, but he can’t be arsed to get up and do it.

When he wakes up around twelve, his phone’s on charge anyway, because Prophet obviously plugged it in before he went to work; there’s a glass of flat Irn-Bru there as well, and a packet of paracetamol.

Putting his head in his hands, he groans, and stumbles into the bathroom to take a piss.