Fangirling Spot

"You can't just break into-mmph!"

The protagonist glared, indignant, as the other detective promptly shoved him into the wall, pressing a strong hand against his mouth.

"Someone's coming," the detective hissed. "Shut up."

Convenient. So convenient, wasn't it, that someone was coming just as the protagonist was winning their argument about how it was wrong to breaking into someone's house without a proper warrant. It was trespassing. Being a detective did not put either of them above the law!

The other detective's body was warm and firm where it pressed against him, lean from hours prowling the streets in search of secrets. The protagonist didn't know how the other detective did it, actually. Most of the job was stake-outs and patience.

Except, the infuriating detective currently pinning him to the wall had no patient. Only abs. Abs and those piercing blue eyes that seemed too sunny and pretty a colour for so maddening a man, currently locked on his face as if he was the thing to be unravelled and discovered.

The protagonist's mouth felt dry.

Yet, sure enough, he heard the sound of stranger footsteps, the low murmur of voices.

The detective shuffled a little closer, so his dark coat would blend them both a little more firmly into the shadows. There was no time to hide, not properly, and if they were caught..

Well, the protagonist could admit that would be bad. One, because trespassing. And two, because if the reason they were both trespassing was right, was because whoever those footsteps belonged to was very, very dangerous.

The protagonist's heart raced.

The two of their faces were barely inches apart. He could feel the detective's breath caressing ticklish and minty against his cheek. He'd always imagined - not that he'd imagined (and okay, he'd imagined!) - that the other detective's breath would be sour with whiskey, or smoke, or some other stereotypical thing. But, no. Mint. Fresh.

The protagonist willed himself himself not to make a slightly hysterical sound, and get them both caught and possibly killed over something as absurd as minty fresh toothpaste. Or gum. Whatever.

The detective grinned at them, wild, in the gloom. Drunk on adrenaline and what the two of them might learn, the thrill of the chase, and it shouldn't have looked good on him but it did...

The footsteps passed them by, with no conveniently spilled clue for cracking the entire case open.

Even when they were gone, the detective didn't move. He continued to watch the detective, something different on his face. His head tilted a fraction to the side.

"What?" the protagonist bit out, still keeping his voice low. "Get off me."

"I love when you debate the law with me," the detective said. "You always blush so lovely when you're mad."

"You-" The protagonist seethed, even as he damningly felt his face burn even hotter.

"-But now I think I like you crowded against the wall even more like," the detective said. "Like prime evidence." His gaze trailed a blazing trail along the protagonist's body. "If only you could get that stick out your arse, I'd love to put something-"

"-Don't you dare finish that sentence."

"Oh, detective," the detective purred. "You should know better than to dare me to do anything."

The protagonist swallowed. He realised his hands were still clutching the front of the detective's jacket, and not shoving him away. He scowled. He did so.

The detective stepped back easily, gracefully, with another of those grins as if the protective was a little thrill as well.

"Come on," he said. "Let's check out the basement. You were following a trespasser, weren't you? A PI without a cause! You simply have to see what I get up to, for the good of society, right?"

"That's not how it works," the protagonist said, only to immediately grow aware again of his face, of the passion on his face, of the way the detective drank it all upon.

"I won't jeopardise the case," the PI said, more softly. "You know I'll do anything to get the truth. To stop the bad guys."

Yes. The protagonist did know that, for better or worse.

“Humans are weak.” 

It was what his boyfriend said, as he pressed him up against the wall and pinned him so he couldn’t move, kissing him slowly. Teasing kisses that left him gasping for more, craning for touch, aching to reach out. With his hands so firmly pinned above his head he couldn’t. 

“Go on.” His boyfriend’s eyes gleamed, in challenge. “If you can just reach to kiss me, I’ll let you get off.”

Of course, against an impossibly fast supernatural creature, there was no chance of that. He was lost. 

“Humans are so fragile.” 

It was what his boyfriend said as he plucked him right into the air, legs dangling, and carried him bodily back into the flat. He appeared out of nowhere. Dumped him down on the bed with the first aid kit appearing in a blur next to them. Weight gone, and then weight pinning down his lower body as his shirt was torn away like nothing and ripped aside.

His boyfriend traced a hand over the wound on his chest, eyes dark with pleasure. “What the hell do you think would have happened if I wasn’t there for you? Idiot.” 

He reached up a hand and drew his boyfriend’s hand to the side and over to his heart - beating steadily still. He was fine.

“Why, what are you going to do, outrun me? Humans are slow.” 

It was what his boyfriend said, in a flicker of shadows around the house. 

He could barely turn away, and his boyfriend would be right in front of him again with a maddeningly smug look on his face. “I’m just saying,” he bit out. “You don’t need to protect me. I’m not going to break the second you take your eyes off me.” He understood the fear, he did, but dear god it could be unbearable. 

“Oh, please,” his boyfriend snorted. “You couldn’t even win in a fight against me, let alone against someone actually trying to hurt you.” 

…

He didn’t win that fight.

“Honestly, sometimes I don’t know why I bother with humans.”

“Honestly,” he snapped, at breaking point, “I don’t know why you bother with fucking humans either.”

His boyfriend’s jaw snapped closed, eyes wide. 

“You think we’re so pathetic - you think I’m so pathetic-” his lungs burned, something hot and choking in his throat. His fists clenched. “Leave. Just leave then! Nobody’s forcing you to stay.”

His boyfriend floundered. “I didn’t mean-”

“You didn’t mean to what?” He took a step forward. Shoved, even when it was like shoving a statue and did sod all nothing. “Didn’t mean to scare the living crap out of me? Didn’t mean to make me feel like shit? Oh, I’m sorry, was the constant stream about the inferiority of my species supposed to make me feel good?” 

“It’s not like that-”

“-What the hell is it like then?” He shoved him again. His boyfriend took a step back. Fuming, he suspected it was only an effort to make him feel better, than any actual working force. 

His voice cracked. “What is it then?”

There was a long, suffocating silence. “It’s just biological fact.” 

He laughed then, had to. Choked and awful. “Yeah? Then this is me just leaving. Prick.”

“I’m sorry.”

It was what his boyfriend said, as he sat outside the door. He’d been there for an hour, two. His boyfriend could have broken the door down. 

He didn’t know what to think about the fact his boyfriend hadn’t. He stared down at his knees so hard that his vision swam and wished the words didn’t affect him, wished he could be cold and wished he could be anything other than human. 

“I shouldn’t have said what I did,” his boyfriend continued. “I was - you’re right. I was a prick. I didn’t think. I just-” he faltered and the silence stretched for a while, broken only by agonized breath and hurts practically synchronized on either side of the door. “I wanted to impress you.”

By insulting me? 

“I’m just so goddamn scared of hurting you.” His boyfriend’s voice quivered, in the distance between them. “You’re so - you’re not weak. You’ve never been weak. I know that. But god. If I lost it for a second the things I could do to you-”

He squeezed his eyes shut, buried his face in his hands. Then he went and opened the door. 

His boyfriend nearly fell in, from where he’d been leaning. Utterly startled as if his oh so super hearing hadn’t even heard the steps. He looked up, but didn’t stand. 

The look on his boyfriend’s face was devastating. It wiped clean any thought that this might be some trick for forgiveness - it was too raw, it revealed too much. His boyfriend meant it. Meant it as some cruel and self-flagellating reminder to himself, all the time. Had to joke, perhaps, or he wouldn’t be able to bear it.  

He released a shaking breath and knelt down, taking his boyfriend’s hands in his own. He kissed them, those dangerous, strong and wickedly quick hands. Hands made for the rendering of pieces and the taking apart of prey.

“My boyfriend is an idiot,” he said, softly. 

His boyfriend leaned in and buried his face against his chest, like he had no strength left in the entire world. 

He wrapped his arms around him in turn and pulled him closer.