#eff1

It's still a little battle the next morning, Carlos acting like he thinks Oscar's going to give him the keys. And then when they do get on the road, Carlos spends the whole time being as annoying as possible, like a little kid who doesn't want to be on a road trip. Rolling his window down just enough to make the air chop in and out all rough and ear-popping, locking and unlocking the doors, turning the air conditioning all the way up for three minutes, then all the way down. Watching Oscar sideways like he doesn't trust him to know how to steer or something.

"Fucking," Oscar says, after twenty minutes that feel like an hour, the heavy itchy feel of Carlos' eyes on him. He reaches into the back seat, swerves around the empty two lane a little as he one handed fumbles a folder out of his bag, smacks it down on Carlos' lap. "Be useful, read this."

The thing about Carlos -- the reason, Oscar thinks, why everyone else in the department said he was impossible to work with, but Oscar's done mostly fine -- is he's good at taking instructions. He'll be snotty a little -- Read this said back in a horrible impression of Oscar's accent -- but then he opens up the folder and just does it, his low steady voice, his finger trailing down the rap sheet in his lap, the transcript of a testimony from a trial a few years ago that ended up getting dismissed.

It's kind of fine, when it's like this. Everything they drive past kudzu green and bright, the car a tight container around them.

Carlos is, like, not the worst partner Oscar's had. He's a good detective, focused. Oscar trusts that Carlos has him when it matters; with James or with suspects or in a fight.

He talks things through endlessly, every little detail and data point, in a way that makes it easy for Oscar to be quiet and think past the crime scenes and photos from old case files, to the answer.

Or, an answer: they're on week five of the same case, have had what feels like breakthrough after breakthrough, and still they're basically nowhere.

Carlos' voice stops, the low, rubbing feeling of his accent gone. He turns the air conditioning back on.

"Which animated character would you want to be?" he asks, so sudden and strange Oscar turns away from the empty road to stare sideways at him.

Carlos isn't even looking at him. Has his head turned toward the passenger window. He's holding the file loosely in his lap. His sleeves are rolled up. Oscar notices, not for the first time, that it's a shaved arms week.

The car veers onto the rumble strips, loud, and Oscar turns away.

"What is this, our first date?" Oscar asks, casual.

It's a mean thing to say. Carlos gets so fucking twitchy about this stuff -- the other guys at the station making gay jokes or the one time they were talking to a couple prostitutes, trying to track down someone who knew their victim, and the guy touched Carlos' arm and said he had beautiful hair.

But he can't help it. If Carlos is going to look like that and shave his arms but only half the time and ask Oscar questions that are, like, designed to make him feel stupid and young, then Oscar can try to embarrass him a little, too.

"No," Carlos says, slow and drawn out like what a stupid thing to say. "I think our first date would be a long time ago, anyway. I just thought it was a good question."

He's good at acting bitchy and untouched, but under his thumb, the corner of a page of old yellowy paper is rolled into a tight, creased little coil.

"I don't know, Carlos," Oscar says, faux polite in a way Carlos hates. "Who would you be?"

They're a mile further down the road before he answers, head back toward the window again, the literal last thing Oscar would've ever guessed he'd say. "Timon from The Lion King."

*

The week feels fucking long. Part all the driving he's not used to doing, part Carlos' weird mood, the way he's constantly looking over at Oscar now that he doesn't have to focus on the road all the time.

Partially, Oscar can be honest with himself, especially under the hot pounding water of his shower Friday night, the smooth, tan skin or Carlos' forearms.

Wednesday night, in the office together late, takeout from hours ago still sitting on their desks between files, fresh coffee brewing, Carlos undid the top two buttons on his shirt.

It wasn't like it was the first time Oscar'd seen that little bit of his chest, the base of his thick neck. But, well. It was the first time he'd seen it during a shaved arms week, and the first time he realized, with gun shot, lightning bolt intensity, that meant shaved chest, too.

Oscar, theoretically, doesn't have, like, a thing for hairy guys, or for hairless guys. His one boyfriend had a body pretty much exactly like Oscar's, sparse, light blonde hair on his arms and a little on his chest; nothing Oscar really ever thought about either way.

The Carlos thing is like, the contrast. Or, well. The Carlos thing is that it's Carlos, probably.

Before they were partners, before Oscar'd really ever talked to him even, when he'd come into the station as a rookie and Carlos was just wrapping up a big case, leading a bunch of debriefs Oscar sat in on, Oscar had been a couple months post breakup, in a new town where he knew no one, and had chosen Carlos as a safe, normal work crush.

Back then, when he jerked off about him, it'd been, like, more creative. Drawn out Sunday mornings thinking about Carlos undercover as a stripper, Oscar meeting him at a gay bar instead of at work, Carlos getting promoted and bending Oscar over his desk during a performance review.

The first time Max came in–hands stained with red dirt instead of coal dust, his boots worn at the edges, from stirrups, instead of the soles–he looked at Daniel like he'd been shot. 

It's not every whorehouse that has men in with the women, Daniel knows. Most nights, there's no one even interested in Daniel, or else no one brave enough to say it. 

When he writes to his family back home, Daniel says he's a bartender, and lots of times, it's true. But on the first night he sees Max, he's sitting across the lap of some out of towner, the guy’s hand shoved in under an open button on Daniel's shirt, groping clumsy at his chest. 

Daniel turns when he hears the door, instinct from when he's behind the bar, and sees Max step inside, look around the room, and freeze as soon as his eyes catch on Daniel. 

His face is square and young and pale, his eyes blue and blinking under the brim of his hat. 

And that's all Daniel has a chance to remember about him before he turns right around and leaves. 

He comes back, and back again. Lets Daniel lean across the bar and touch the cuff of his shirt, the brim of his hat. The sharp jut of his adam's apple. Looks at Daniel with big eyes like he's a virgin and laughs so hard at every joke Daniel makes that his face crinkles up and the girls out on the floor roll their eyes behind him. 

Finally, the third time he comes in, Daniel talks him upstairs, kneels on the rug next to the bed while Max lets himself be pushed back to sit, and makes Max spill salty on his tongue in a handful of minutes. 

He forgets to tell him about price before they fall asleep, and in the morning, there's cash and coin on the dresser, three times what Daniel usually charges. All for five minutes, with his clothes on, sucking the cleanest nicest dick he's had in a long, long time, and Max's hands not even on his head. 

The next time, Daniel has him halfway upstairs, his lips on the stubbly column of Max's throat, when Max says, “Daniel, I'm sorry, I don't – have enough.” He clears his throat, rough and rumbly against Daniel. “I'll of course pay you for this already. I shouldn't have–” 

His neck is hot under Daniel's mouth. “How much do you have?” Daniel asks him, and makes himself promise he won't take less than he would with anyone else. 

“I,” Max says, warm and breathless against the side of Daniel's face, “only twenty.”

It's more than Daniel would get from the locals, less than Max paid last time. 

Daniel snakes his hand between them to cup at Max's cock, hard under the line of buttons at his fly, so he can feel the way it kicks against his palm when he tells Max, “Enough for you to fuck me.” 

It's been six months, now, of Max coming in whenever he's even close to passing through. Daniel's met his horse, memorized the names of his sister and her kids, learned that Max races horses. That when he's passing through, he's usually on his way to meet up with traveling rodeos or makes bets with stupid cowboys. That he wins almost every time. 

He talks about it, sometimes, at the bar before or in bed after. How it feels knowing he's going faster than anyone else, how much he loves his horse. 

Daniel thinks about him even when he's not there. 

About how he is in bed, easy and intent and pretty. Reading Daniel's mood with fingertips pressed to his laugh lines or the corners of his mouth, letting Daniel lead him like a horse. 

Max would, he thinks, let Daniel fuck him, if Daniel asked. Sometimes he thinks Max is close to asking – when Daniel's lying between his legs tracing his fingers over his balls while he sucks him, getting carried away with the want of it and reaching back to the crease of Max's body, only realizing what he's doing when Max moans and shifts his legs open. 

Or when Max is fucking him, his eyes huge and overwhelmed on where Daniel's stroking his own dick.

Maybe Max would let Daniel fuck him. Maybe he would let Daniel come with him when he goes, Daniel thinks sometimes, quiet and small in his own head.

It's been years since Daniel had his own horse; he'd be a terrible rider now. But he thinks about being on the back of Max's, galloping fast through the desert, Max's sturdy waist under his forearms, his thick thighs bracketed between Daniel’s. His loud, whooping laugh echoing off cliffs and into empty space. 

He tells it to Max, once, while they're in bed. Lamplight and dust in the air, Max moving gently into him, touching Daniel at his ribs, his nipples, his eyebrows. Gentle as anything, even though Daniel dragged him up here almost as soon as he came in the door, the smell of night and desert and horse still on him, none of his edges sanded down. He's never had edges, with Daniel, anyway. 

He says, with the familiar heft and hollows of Max over him, “Maybe you could show me how fast your horse is someday.”

It's breathless and pathetic, and Max pulls back and blinks down at him, his cock dragging out of Daniel until it's just the head keeping Daniel open, making him feel where he's wet and worked over. 

“He of course wouldn't be as fast with both of us on him.”

Daniel flushes, hot and humiliated, all the way down to his chest. 

He fumbles a hand to the back of Max's neck, one to his hip, and pulls him in at both points, so neither of them have to think about how stupid Daniel is.

It was easy, mostly. Max would look at him for one second with his eyes all bottomless and determined, and then he'd laugh and stick his tongue out and make a joke about it.

Like, for Max, it was all one thing: laughing at Daniel's jokes the way he did, and looking and listening all the time, and kissing him, and telling him but I love you the night Daniel told him he was leaving Red Bull.

Daniel's the one who could never figure out how to put the mess of all the different things he thought about Max together. His pulse would be up for an hour after Max kissed him, big knocking beats against the backs of his ribs.

In Mexico, it's been five years and three championships between then and now, and still when he opens the door to his driver room after the race and Max is there, Daniel's thinking what he always used to back then. It freaked him out for weeks the first time, a club in Ibiza on Daniel's birthday, Max sweaty and laughing in front of him, when Daniel'd thought, I wanna kiss him, and then Max had done it.

It was like, months before he could jerk off on the road without worrying about Max down the hall or the motorhome over, reading his mind. Seeing the things Daniel thought about wanting--the pale curve of Max's ass spotted with the same moles that traced down his back, the short swoop of hair on him, his broad, soft chest--and coming over and giving it to him for real.

Max knocks on his door in Mexico, after Daniel's first point in a year, and he's smiling and carrying his leftover champagne in a wet shiny fist, and all Daniel has time to think is I wish before Max leans in, his tongue hot on the seam of Daniel's lips, his hand sticky against his jaw, thumb stroking at the corner of Daniel's mouth; his top lip.

All it takes is, like, three soft fingers against Max's stomach for him to pull away, quiet little smile, eyes dropping away from Daniel's.

"Sorry," he says. "I won't start doing that again, if you come back. I just was thinking how I never," he gestures at Daniel's mouth, blinking at it a few times like it's distracting, "when you had a mustache only, before."

Daniel's hand comes up to touch the hair he has there, automatic. He knows he looks hot, this weekend. He's known, kind of, vague and warm in his stomach, that maybe Max had been thinking he did. His top lip is damp with sweat, some his and some maybe Max's, from his own patchy little mustache, the shiny dimple above his lip.

Daniel's thought about this on and off, yes and no, for years, and he's still never figured out what he would say.

Daniel knows, or, is pretty sure, Max has sucked dick before. He'd choked himself on Daniel's cock, hungry and boundless but also, like, deliberate, four nights ago. 

Nothing like the first time Daniel'd done it, sliding down and immediately pulling back up as the head of Blake's dick nudged up against the roof of his mouth, thick and bigger feeling than it looked, even. 

Blake had stroked his fingers through Daniel's hair, back to the thin spot at the crown of his head, and cupped his heavy hand there. 

It's okay, your mouth is perfect, take your time.

With Max on his knees for him, Daniel'd just been speechless. The still-clumsy fingers of his left hand scrabbling against the line of Max's jaw, feeling at muscles working under stubble and soft skin. 

Back before, at Red Bull the first time, Daniel had been with Max for his first trip, his first bad high, his first threesome. 

Back then, it'd felt like he could teach Max everything; like anything he said would make Max give him his surprised-thrilled little look, attentive and flushed.  

Now it's like, somehow Max jumped ahead of him, and now Daniel's in his hotel room for the fourth night in a row, his hand curled against the soft pillow of his stomach, and he's so overwhelmed with everything he can barely get a simple question out. 

Let alone all the, like, perfect shit Blake had said to Daniel a couple months ago, just like this but Daniel was the one on his back, on an air mattress in a tent under a sky so big and dark it made Daniel feel blown open. We don't have to, Do you want to, You can. 

"No," Max says, his voice steady and hoarse and Max, the same person he always is. "I have done of course other things, but not. Fingers, only. But with a girl."

Daniel bites at his throat, squeezes his eyes closed. 

The last night of the trip, Blake had led Daniel's hand down between his own legs, pressed Daniel's fingers to the soft, slick dip of his hole, and said, Wanna make sure you can give this to yourself whenever you need it, okay?

He'd crawled down the air mattress, skin making slicky sounds against the fabric of their sleeping bags, and rubbe his chin against Daniel's thigh, raising his eyebrows. 

He'd told Daniel, Slow down, Be nicer to yourself, Another, Another, Another, his warm eyes shifting between Daniel's fingers and his face. 

Daniel had felt stretched loose, hollowed out, worked smooth like a piece of sea glass against sand. 

Around his fingers, his body was hot and tight, the clench of it so good he felt tingly hot under his skin, thinking about how this must've felt for Blake – the tightness and heat of Daniel on his dick, the way his body opened up for it. 

When Blake had put a finger in him the first time, it'd felt huge, unimaginable that he could take more than that. With four of his own fingers inside himself, after a week of getting fucked nightly, coming stuffed full of cock, he felt empty. 

It's overwhelming, thinking about making Max feel any of that. About making Max – who races Singapore without water in his car, who does endurance races in the tight clutch of his sim, who is facing down his third championship like it's nothing – breathless and sloppy with want like Daniel was. 

About being the one to give it to him; about how tight and perfect he'll feel. About pulling back when he can, and looking down, and seeing Max looking up at him, familiar and new and beautiful.  

"Max," he groans, voice thick and needy. "You'll like it so much, ok, fuck, you feel – it's so. Max, it's." He shakes his head, face still hidden in the curve of Max's neck, mouth suckling at the skin over his pulse point when he can't find words. 

Max's hands come up to Daniel's sides and sweep fast, hungry touch all across his back.