#strictlyhickly

“Yeah,” he answered bluntly, spooning a mouthful of his noodles and pulling a face when he realized that he put in just a tad too much sauce.

“He was mad that I didn’t wanna give it up even though he gave me money. I was armed and I drew down and told him to back off. He had some words for me, so I shot him. Took off with a bunch of money out of his accounts while he bled on faux cashmere sofa.”

“Alright. Lemme get this straight.” Cayne set down his own dinner, leaning forward, propping his elbows on his knees, gesticulating as he continued, disbelieving. “You talked a man into paying you for sex, made him pay you first, then decided ‘nah lets not,’ proceeded to shoot him and take him for everything he was worth.”

A look crossed his face as he finished, thinking over what he’d just said  before sitting back again all at once. Now that it was laid out that way well. 

If he was honest, Cayne hadn’t necessarily been expecting that one. As far as he knew the kid was on the run for fraud and grand larceny, but murder too? That put things in a slightly different perspective. Especially when the kid didn’t look the type in the slightest. 

“I know.” 

Even in the dead silence of his stuffy shoebox of an apartment, the words were barely more than a cracked, broken whisper.

Cayne curled in on himself even tighter, the sheet beneath him pulling free from the mattress and scrunched in after him. Days were hard, but at least he could pretend that he was leading some semblance of a normal life. Force himself to get out of bed, to shower, to eat. Force himself to open the window, to go outside, to just walk down the street and back. Force himself not to think too hard about anything. 

But nights? Nights didn’t work the same. Harder to pretend to be a functioning human being when all you had was an unknown amount of alcohol, the suffocating silence, a deep hollow ache in your chest, and your phone. 

“Mmm, hey there.” Voice sleep rough and slow, Cayne grinned up at his husband who looked like he was just finally stirring too. Days like this were what he’d always longed for in the years the war seemed to stretch on and on until it seemed like it just wouldn’t ever end. Mornings when there were no alarm clocks except the sun clawing its way through the curtains, fighting to make itself known in the otherwise soft dimness of their room.

Cayne stretched, flexing almost every muscle he could, a small sound escaping him before falling limp into the other once again, getting comfortable, not quite ready to greet the day just yet if Gabe wasn’t.

Instead, he turned his attention to what objectively was one of his favourite parts of Gabe’s body, and half buried his face into the upper part of his stomach, humming low. Still-calloused fingers smoothed over the raised scaring along Gabe’s side, smoothing over it, gentle and loving as could be.

My muse is high on painkillers after a big operation in the hospital. Send me "~" for a drug induced nonsensical greeting from my muse.