@thefvrious
The clothes weren't his.
That was the first thing. The fabric moved like nothing he owned moved; fluid, expensive, cut for someone with the patience to stand still for fittings. Black trousers that fell the way trousers had no business falling. A button-down so soft it felt almost apologetic, like it was embarrassed to be touching him. A jacket with the kind of weight that meant good; the kind that told you it had been hand-stitched somewhere quiet and well-lit. He'd nicked the whole rig off a hook in a back room where a wedding party had been getting ready, half the suits already shed for the reception, jackets slung over chairs and forgotten about, and he'd be putting it back before the bloke noticed it had ever gone. Probably. Mostly. The owner had been roughly his build and roughly his height and had the bored, polished face of someone who kept several identical outfits in rotation, which made Nolan feel marginally less guilty about borrowing one for an evening. Marginally. He'd return it. He had a route in mind and everything.
He caught his reflection in the glass of the lift on the way up to Dom's floor and nearly didn't recognize himself.
The thin black gloves were the only thing that was actually his, a constant, but tucked in among all this they read as intentional, a stylistic choice rather than a tell. Sleeves long. Collar open one button more than he'd have managed if he'd thought about it twice. Blonde hair gone soft and ruffled from the climb up out of the Substrates. He pushed it back with one gloved hand and the man in the glass pushed it back with him, looking, irritatingly, good. Like he belonged in this lift. Like the lift had been waiting for him.
It was a feeling he didn't trust an inch.
Tonight was Dom's turn. Two previous outings, his side, his rules: a flooded reservoir that lit up turquoise when you electrocuted the railing, the roof of a wheezing power plant with a panoramic view of the worst-lit miles of the city. The least Nolan could do was meet him halfway up the climb tonight and try not to look like he'd been pulled out from under a transformer to get there.
The rose was in his hand. Plucked, with absolutely no shame, from a planter in the lobby of a building two blocks over that had the kind of doorman who didn't bother with anyone who walked like they belonged. Deep red, almost black at the heart. He'd had it tucked inside his jacket for the lift up and the petals were only a little bruised, a faint smudge of pink left on the leather of his fingertip from how often he'd checked it was still there.
He stopped outside Dom's door.
Took a breath that did exactly nothing for the buzz under his ribs. Adjusted the jacket. Adjusted it again. Considered, very briefly, whether the whole bit was a mistake, whether he was about to feel daft the moment the door opened, the way borrowed plumage always made him feel daft underneath it; a magpie in a suit, all flash, no claim to it.
Then he decided he didn't care, because that wasn't tonight's project. Tonight's project was Dom.
He knocked.
When the door opened he was already grinning, the wide one, the disarming one, the one that took up most of his face and admitted to nothing, and he held the rose out between two gloved fingers like it had cost him nothing. Which, technically, it hadn't.
"Evening, darling." His weight shifted, restless even standing still, and the grin tipped easy at one corner. "Reporting for duty. Showered and everything. I've pitched the dress code somewhere between funeral and job interview I'm not qualified for — tell me now if I've under- or over-shot, I can still go change into something with fewer aspirations."
A beat. His eyes did a slow, appreciative pass over Dom, couldn't help it, never could, and the grin softened into something quieter; less performance, more genuine, the kind that didn't quite know what to do with its own face.
"Brought you this." He turned the rose between his fingers, careful with it now, like he'd just noticed it was a thing worth not bruising. He extended it another inch toward Dom, a small flourish, gallant in a way he'd deny if anyone called it that. "A token. For your trouble. Don't say I never give you anything."
A beat. His eyes did another pass — slower, less reflex, more deliberate — and the grin tipped warmer at the edges, the kind that knew exactly what it was doing and didn't care who clocked it. "Also, for the record, you look criminal. I want that noted somewhere official. Had the whole lift up to get my face in order and apparently I've squandered it, because here I am, in your doorway, actively remembering how to do small talk. Bit unsporting of you, really. I came up here intending to be the better-looking one in the room and now I've got nothing to work with but charm."
A breath, lower; the brat softening into something he might've called sweet if pressed, which he wouldn't be. "Lead on, gorgeous. Take me wherever you like. I'm yours all evening."

















