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Another day fizzles to a close under the oppressive, cold-as-fuck thumb of February. Ace gets out of the car. The sun is long gone. Clouds bank low overhead, reflecting the gritty orange glow of distant city lights. He’s so exhausted that he doesn’t even remember the drive home, only that it must’ve happened.
He drags his feet to their front door. It’s still weird and new, coming home to an actual house. It’s a rental that’s way too expensive, nothing long-term, but still. A house.
Their house.
Ace turns the key and steps inside, tapping some excess snow off his boots in the entryway. He spots a familiar coat on the rack and stylish boots stowed neatly under the bench and feels a small smile surface. “Hey, Levi! I’m home!” he calls out, just to test how it feels.
He hears a muffled, far-off reply: “Hello.”
Ace shrugs out of his jacket, kicks off his shoes and wanders deeper into the house. The living room is empty, so he pokes his head into the kitchen — only to pause at the threshold.
Levi is in the middle of the room, staring blankly at the closed cupboards, holding a… plastic cylinder? It’s rolled down at the top like a banana. He takes a bite. Then Ace realizes what it is: Store-bought cookie dough. He’s just standing there, eating a raw log of it.
“You good?” Ace walks in, only to spot something else weird. There’s a bouquet of roses sitting on the counter. “Uh. What the hell is that about?”
Levi glances at the bouquet and supplies a non-answer, “I bought them.” His eyes glaze over as he takes another bite of cookie dough. After chewing he elaborates, “Today is Valentine’s day, so I thought, perhaps…”
“You were gonna try to do the type of fake shit you know I hate?” Ace crosses his arms and squints. “Seriously, when have we ever done anything for Valentine’s day? It’s stupid and it sucks. I thought we agreed on that. You can’t feel love, so who gives a shit about the love holiday?”
“Yes. Of course. My apologies.” His voice is dangerously thin, almost a whisper. He puts the cookie dough back in the fridge. When he turns to leave the kitchen, his eyes shimmer, the blue of them blurring.
Ace panics. He blocks the way out. “Hold on. Don’t go, okay? Something obviously happened today, so let’s talk.”
Levi stares at him emptily. “I do not think anything good will come of that. We’re both tired. Today was challenging, and ending it with an argument—”
“Let’s do Valentine’s day,” he blurts out.
“Ace…?”
“Tell me what you were gonna do before, and let’s make it happen.” He steps closer, trailing a hand up Levi’s waist. “Please?”
Levi searches him for a few seconds. Then he slumps into a hug, putting so much weight behind it that Ace falls back against the wall. But it’s fine. It’s fine to just hold him, and let the seconds go by with nothing more than that. He’s big, and warm, and they’ve gotten past Hope’s Peak and are still together somehow.
“I failed in many areas today, so I wanted to succeed somewhere to try to turn things around,” Levi tells him. “I was going to scatter some rose petals and surprise you. But then I remembered that a surprise of that nature would only make you angry. I wasn’t sure what to do after that.”
“And that’s when you got into the cookie dough?”
“They say that desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Ace rubs his back through a chuckle. “Go and scatter those rose petals, all right? I assume they were gonna lead somewhere, so show me.”
Levi pulls back, and thankfully his eyes are back to normal, calm and steady. “Wait just a moment.” He goes to the counter, takes some of the roses out of the arrangement and passes Ace into the living area. He hesitates. Then, awkwardly, he starts shuffling backwards, scattering petals behind him. Ace snorts, trying not to laugh. “What’s the matter?” Levi teases, his mouth lifting just slightly, “Is this not sensual enough for you?”
“It’d be more sensual if you weren’t all stooped over like a grandpa.”
“I want to do a good job.” Levi provides another one of his non-explanations and rounds the corner into the hall. Ace wanders after him slowly, taking in the blood-red petals at his feet, a well-worn ache filling his chest for the millionth time. His thoughts drift back to the way Levi had looked with tears in his eyes. After spending so much time with him, Ace didn’t know he could get to that point.
Guilt dampens his mood. He shouldn’t be surprised that his partner is capable of crying, right?
He rounds the corner, expecting the rose petals to lead off into the bedroom, and is surprised to see them veer into the bathroom instead. Water starts running in a roar as Ace catches up. He finds Levi hovering over their massive, circular bathtub, pouring in a bubble bath mixture. After he’s done with that he bustles around, dimming the lights and setting up a speaker, poking at his phone until a whisper-quiet drone hums tranquil off the tiles. “One more thing…” he mutters to himself, and lights a stick of incense.
“Now isn’t this romantic,” Ace remarks. “Where are the billions of candles though?”
“I believe the last time I did that, you made fun of me.”
“Sure did.” Ace snickers at the memory. In the early days, the very first time they fucked, Levi had covered every surface of his dorm with candles, a ridiculous amount of them. “So… you’re gonna join me in there, right?”
“Yes. That was the idea.”
“’Kay.” Ace saunters over to him, reaches up and works at the buttons on his shirt. “You did pretty good with all this. I’m so fucking sore after today.”
“You like it?” Always so eager for praise — or maybe for him, it’s more like clarification.
Ace can’t quite indulge him fully, not yet anyway: “I mean, you could’ve done a lot worse.” Even though Levi doesn’t care, he still knows Ace better than anyone else. What he likes. What sorts of things piss him off. Valentine’s day will always be bullshit for them, but everything else about this… is pretty nice. They take their time stripping down, and slip into hot water and soft suds. Ace sinks in with a long sigh. “Fuck yeah. That feels so good.”
“Mm-hm.” Levi’s focus fixes on him, face flushed from the heat. “On our initial tour of this house, I thought about doing this. It’s quite rare for bathtubs to be big enough for me, never mind big enough to fit both of us.” Fulfilling his own desires, while playing the part of a good partner… of course that’s how it is. But right now Ace can’t exactly complain about that.
He drifts over, closing the distance slowly. “So when you pictured us taking a bath together, what exactly were we doing?”
“Relaxing, just like this,” Levi answers with a sage nod.
Ace caresses his knee underwater, very overt. “Just relaxing?”
“Well, yes. More or less.” Levi scoops a mound of bubbles in his hands and sets it on top of Ace’s head. “There,” he says, looking pleased with himself. “Now you have a stylish hat.”
For a second Ace can only sit there, completely baffled, before he bursts out laughing. “You’re such a huge fucking dork, holy shit.” Water sloshes as he lurches in the rest of the way, landing kiss after messy kiss, smiling through it all. He wants to say it so badly: The word ‘love’ sits in his chest, crushing his heart, a weight he can’t get rid of; all these feelings that won’t ever reach. The only way is to say it through his body, work his lips through one-way vows like the hopeless sucker he is.
They settle together with Ace sprawled across his lap, an arm slung around his bare shoulders. Levi brushes the remains of the ‘stylish hat’ from his head and studies him intently. “Thank you for stopping me.”
“From what?”
“From leaving.”
Ace looks away, stirs at a pile of bubbles until it breaks apart. “I had to. You looked like you were gonna cry.”
“Hm. I see. I suppose something like that would have an effect on you,” Levi observes. “That’s the kind of person you are.”
Ace shakes his head. “Nah. It’s only with you. When anyone else gets all teary-eyed it’s just annoying.” A beat passes between them. “Wanna fill me in, Levi? I might be an asshole, but I get what you’re about. You can… talk to me about whatever. You know that, right?” He spots a flash of indecision in his partner’s eyes and tries to numb the hurt. Levi doesn’t owe him every little thing on his mind, after all.
So Ace doesn’t ask about anything else. Not about today. Or his past. Or his estranged family. Doesn’t request anything inconvenient, because he’s not brave enough. He tells himself that it’s fine just to be held. It doesn’t matter how deep in the dark he is.
Yet Levi surprises him: “It was two things,” he eventually says. “The first was losing an important client, and access to the best showroom I have at my disposal.”
“Shit. Why? What happened?” Ace tries not to sound too eager for more (and fails spectacularly).
A crease furrows Levi’s brow. “I do not know.” He turns his head and hides his face against Ace’s neck. “All I was told is that I behaved ‘out of line’. Was it something I said? No one ever explains. I’m expected to know why. But I don’t.” Levi grips him tighter, and Ace can feel the muscles in his jaw clamp. “I’m trying. I really am.”
His heart breaks for him a little. Ace cups the back of his head, holding him close. “I know you are. Can they even do that — not even tell you why? That’s shady as fuck.”
“If my conduct was improper, then my contract cannot help much. Things will be more difficult going forward. The receptionist who told me all of this… I wanted to beat his face in, very badly.”
Ace shudders at his tone. Levi doesn’t talk about violence like other people do. “So does this mean money’s gonna be pretty tight?”
“Yes, unfortunately.”
“Damn.” The rent is already outrageous, so this is definitely a setback. “You know what though?” Ace kisses his temple. “We’ll be fine. Summer’s around the corner, which means more big races — and I’m a freshly graduated Ultimate from Hope’s Peak, right? I’ll definitely be raking it in. So don’t worry about any of that.” He’ll work his body to the bone and win, no matter what. Maybe it’ll feel different if it’s about more than just his own survival. “You said there were two things…?” Ace prods him.
“Mm.” Levi glides a hand down his ribs, his bare waist, and stops to give his thigh a squeeze. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah it does. Come on, don’t leave me hanging.”
Levi’s hand moves in. He makes a fist around Ace’s cock and strokes him slow under the bubbles. “I ran into an old acquaintance. He made a few threats.” A pause. He nips at Ace’s earlobe. “I told him that if I see him again, I’ll kill him. Like I said, it doesn’t matter.”
“That’s…” He sounds dead serious. Ace goes rock-hard in his hand for reasons he doesn’t want to pick apart. “Don’t go killing anybody. That’s fucked up.”
“Even if it’s a matter of survival?”
Ace doesn’t have an answer to that. He bites his lip and rolls his hips into Levi’s hand, hard enough for water to splash over the edge of the tub.
Survival is another story. Anyone would get blood on their hands for a reason like that.
“You’re very eager for me,” Levi notes. “Always desperate to cum.” He looms forward, the sweetness of cookie dough still on his breath. “I like that about you, Ace.”
“Heh. You and your lies.” Ace bites at his mouth and catches his lip ring, teeth on steel. Neither of them close their eyes — because it’s not a kiss. It’s a confrontation. Levi jerks him off faster and Ace lets him go, mouth parting in a blissed-out smile. “You’re indifferent at best.”
Levi smirks openly. “True, mostly.” His eyes fade inward, a private simmer that always drives Ace nuts. He bucks into the underwater pressure of his partner’s increasingly harsh touch, friction building unseen, stoking him, spurring him on, always. Levi watches every hitched breath and twitch. He murmurs, “What you give me, and the way you give it… I cannot be indifferent to such benefits.” His strong arms shift. He grabs Ace by the waist and hoists him up out of the water like he weighs nothing, shoves him against the tiled wall until he’s firmly seated on the edge of the tub.
“What are you up to?” Ace questions, a little breathless.
“You’ll see.” Levi drifts to the other end of the bath and leans over its edge, rummaging with something on the floor. He returns, spreading Ace’s legs and settling between them. He flicks open a bottle of honey. Levi drizzles it over his throbbing dick liberally, the same way he goes crazy with drizzling caramel sauce over ice cream. He keeps going, dripping golden lines up Ace’s abs and over his chest.
“Mm. Fuck.” Stripes of pleasant coolness slash across his overheated skin, slipping down his bones, collecting in every crease and hollow. A faint note of sugar mixes with scents of soap and the cinnamon smoke of incense. “Turning me into dessert?”
“Yes: A treat after a long day.” Levi surges up and drags his tongue up Ace’s collarbone, and adds, “Coming back home to your warm body… it’s always like this.”
Ace doesn’t grill him about being dishonest. If he lets the statement quietly pass, it’s easier for him to believe it’s true. So instead he bends his tired, aching body into what feels good, focuses on Levi’s hot, warm tongue lapping over his sticky chest. Savouring him. Even though there’s nothing worth savouring.
When he angles his head back he accidentally spots himself in the bathroom mirror; his hideous hand swimming through Levi’s hair; his body that makes no aesthetic sense — too much and too little of everything all at once. Yet there’s something shockingly, undeniably sexy about his own hazed-out expression, and seeing Levi lapping at him from another angle. His heart thuds in his ears. Inhale, exhale, faster. Levi drags his tongue over one of his nipples and he can’t help how his back arches into it. “That’s it. Fuck, eat me up ‘til there’s nothing left.”
Levi moves down, bites at his empty stomach like he’ll tear it open, devouring the hollowness and hunger inside until Ace doesn’t feel it anymore. Bites at his hipbone, impatiently angled and thrusting. Bites at the tense, hard-earned muscle of his inner thigh. Eats and eats and eats like he can’t get enough of it.
Then he pauses, hungry blue eyes flicking up, lips and chin smeared with syrup. One of his hands splays over Ace’s leg. He moves the other one out of sight, his arm shifting rhythmically as he starts beating himself off. “More. I want to taste you even more.” He cranes in and licks a white-hot stripe where Ace wants it the most, from the root up the shaft, sucking at the tip before working his way down again.
“Oh god…” Ace shivers and clenches at each rare stroke of heat and wetness, his cock unbearably hard. He’s rarely on the receiving end of blowjobs — Levi has only done this a few times before. “Put your mouth on me. Stop playing around and suck me off. I mean it. Right now.” He traps Levi with his legs, needy for his tongue, his lips, anything as long as it’s inside him.
Levi lets out an amused hum, hovering and drooling right over his dick, being completely evil. “I have this intense lollipop craving… but I also enjoy hearing you beg,” he taunts. “What to do? I’m quite torn.”
“How about this, smartass:” Ace fists his hair. “If you’re so torn, I’ll just skullfuck you. No decision-making necessary. Either that, or you put that sassy mouth of yours to work and eat me up ‘til I’m satisfied.” He grins when Levi hitches through the next breath, jerking himself faster. “So? What’ll it be?”
Levi goes down on him, lips sealed heaven-tight.
Lightning.
Ace is struck into choked silence for a few seconds as Levi’s head bobs up and down voraciously. A fast start out the gate. Forceful momentum. “Oh fuck.” His voice shakes a pathetic amount. “Don’t you dare fucking move. Keep sucking me just like that.” He’s helpless. Gasping. Already losing control. “Do you like that? Do I… taste good?”
Levi groans around him, hard at work. Obedient and perfect and so far away, even though he’s right there, even though Ace is burning inside him, as physically close as he can get.
It has to be enough. But it’s still torture.
He loves Levi. He knows he always will. It’s hard not to hate him for that.
Ace tenses and twists as the finish line crashes brutally through him, as fast and irreversible as a stumble on the track. Love hate love hate, flickering, hard to distinguish. He forces Levi’s head further down his cock, pumping cum down his throat, throb after throb. Garbled, ugly noises leave them both. Levi swallows around him. He takes it all. No complaints.
He lingers there for a while, letting Ace twitch in his mouth a few more times before pulling back. Raw. He’s out of breath, lips roughed up, eyes heavy-lidded and dark.
“You drive me so fucking crazy,” Ace tells him, unable to hide the thread of pain in his voice.
“I know.” Levi licks a stray streak of honey off his palm. “Sorry about that,” he adds, his gaze drifting away.
Ace slides off the edge of the tub and back into the water. “No, you’re not sorry. Even if you were, it’s not something bad. I like it; being a little crazy. It makes me… less scared for some stupid reason.” He’s letting the afterglow get the better of him, but he can’t bring himself to give a fuck. “When it’s like this, when it’s you and me going at it, I’m not scared of anything.”
Levi pins him there with a look, an inkling of something remote clouding his expression. His face holds an unmistakable, unspoken reply:
You should be.
Ace reclines back, sprawling out, too far gone to think about anything except making him bust. “I know what’ll finish you off.” He lifts a hand out of the water and crooks a finger. “We’ve got our signal. It’s fine. So get over here and drown me.”
Levi flinches. “No.”
“No?”
“I don’t want that.” He gives up on touching himself, too conflicted to keep at it.
But he does want it. Why is he lying? They’ve done almost every violent thing under the sun already, and they both enjoyed every second of it. Ace has been hit by him, tied up and whipped, gagged painfully tight, scalded with hot wax…
“I don’t,” Levi repeats, like an affirmation. He draws close, hovering over Ace until the rest of the world is blotted out. “Touch me.”
Not knowing what else to do or say, Ace takes hold of him and works his dick over, the motion as familiar as breathing. Yet a small knot of worry forms in his chest. The pained way Levi is staring down at him is far less familiar.
He mutters out, subdued, “Tell me I’m a good person.”
“What?”
“Tell me I’m capable of this — capable of keeping this life. Tell me I won’t spiral out of control and see everything crash down around me.”
Ace stops. “Whoa. Levi.”
“Tell me I can be good.”
“Quit that!” Ace sits up and touches his cheek. “You don’t have to be good with me. You know that already.” He spots another flash of uncertainty in his partner’s face, and once again has to shrug it off, even though it stings. “Hey… do you wanna just chill in bed, instead of all this? You had a rough fucking day.”
Levi thinks about it, and nods.
They drain the tub, clean off in the shower and head straight for the bedroom, Ace’s mind racing all the while. He thinks he can guess which incident in Levi’s day rattled him this badly: The old acquaintance; someone who had emerged from a past he never talks about.
They slide naked into sheets and softness. It’s Levi who eventually breaks the silence. “May I make a request?”
“Pff. Sure? So formal. You just finished giving me really good head, so I kinda feel like I owe you anyway.”
“For Valentine’s day…” Levi rolls onto his side. “I would like to cuddle, please and thank you. I would also like a forehead kiss.”
“Good grief — are we in bed, or in a restaurant?”
“Ah, that’s right, I would like a glass of water as well.”
Ace gets out of bed, laughing softly. “Heh. All right, guess I’m your waiter now.” He heads off to the kitchen. While retrieving a glass he stalls, spotting the remaining roses on the counter. He picks one up. A thorn bites into him. "Agh — fucker!" He hisses, but doesn’t drop it, lifting the flower to his nose instead. Fresh and sweet. It makes him think of ice-blue pools and the faint, second-hand taste of sugar passed on through a kiss. The pain in his finger layers over the rest, just as important, maybe even more so.
He trims the stems and sets the flowers in a jar of water. Then he fills up a separate glass and brings it back to Levi.
“Thank you, Ace.” One of his small, irreplaceable smiles.
Ace stoops over to kiss his forehead, letting himself be pulled in, cradled snug in the dark, in his arms.