Work Text:
“You know... The Voight-Kampff test...”
There is a pregnant pause. A clock ticks somewhere in the apartment. People don’t really use clocks anymore.
“Did you ever take it yourself?”
There were a few minutes of suspense before Tom concludes that no answer will be forthcoming. He steps away from the shadow of the bathroom into the living room, and finds Mitchell pass out on the couch. Figured. Even though he’s only barely longer than the couch, Mitchell is lying in a position that promises pain in his future. He is still clutching the painkiller injector to his chest.
Tom decides to leave the ex-cop there. He wanders through the darkness, past the kitchen, into the first bedroom. It barely has any furniture, and whatever pieces are in there are simplistic, neat and tidy. A bed, one bedside table, and a piano that’s placed right beside the bed on the other side. There are framed photos on top of it. The clock is hung neatly on top of a fitted closet.
Tom turns on the lamp. It emits a weak orange light that is just barely enough to illuminate the room. No matter, Tom can see clearly enough. The first photo is of Mitchell, a younger and happier Mitchell, with his arm around another man. Another one of Mitchell with the same man. One of a young man holding out a fish to compare it to a cherub-cheeked boy with the kind of smile only children have. Mitchell’s essence is faint but unmistakable on that boy. The man from the first photos with a woman. The last frame lies flat on the piano. Tom picks it up.
Mitchell, with a blonde woman and a child. Tom looks at it for a long moment. The Mitchell before he met him seems to be a much happier person, he thinks. He is not jealous.
Then, he notices music sheets underneath the frame. Just from looking at the notes Tom can tell the first page is Nocturne in E minor, Op. 72, No. 1. As if it was an instinct that was beaten into him, he reaches out and touches the keys. The piano is perfectly tuned. He makes a mistake almost immediately.
Tom frowns.
He sits down on the bed and starts again. The music flows like a forest stream in spring. His fingers fly effortlessly on the ivory keys. The melody builds and builds until it fills the emptiness of the apartment.
Footsteps.
There are several minutes of just Chopin before Mitchell makes his presence known. He is as quiet as a tomcat in his approach but Tom can tell. The bed dips. Then Mitchell is right behind Tom, his back to Tom’s back. The blonde falters at the weight, but the music continues seamlessly.
After a while, it seems Mitchell falls asleep again. His head lolls back on Tom’s shoulder. He’s warm and solid yet unreachable. Tom is lost in the music and the feeling of him.
Mitchell drifts in and out of consciousness accompanied by Chopin’s genius. When he wakes again, his face is throbbing where the bruises must have formed. Immediately he knows he hasn’t slept for long. Should have gotten the good painkiller. It is stupid having to deal with the terrible aftertaste and still gets waken up from pain.
Then he notices the air is still in the apartment.
Mitchell turns around. Tom sits as still as statue. He’s staring at the photos in front of him. All that Mitchell can really see are his broad shoulders. In another life, he would have made a reliable husband to a nice girl in a colony faraway. In this life... well... in this life he had just found out that he is not even human. He's coping well, all things considered.
“My dad and me.” Mitchell guesses the one that has gotten Tom’s attention.
“You love him?”
“He’s dead.”
Tom moves. Prelude in E minor Op. 28 No. 4.
“I dreamt music.” Mitchell says in a hushed voice so as not to disturb the melody.
“I didn’t know if I could really play.” Tom replies evenly. “I remember taking lessons. Whether it was mine or the nephew’s...”
Tom doesn’t finish the sentence, but he keeps playing. The piece is slow and short. Mitchell moves to a sitting position next to the blonde and watches as his long fingers bring forth the music.
When it finishes, Tom turns towards the ex-cop.
“I’m going to leave.”
It’s an announcement.
“Would you come after me?” He asks. “Hunt me?”
He’s not emotional, he’s analytical. A fighter in the ring digging for information about a potential opponent. Mitchell’s big mermaid eyes loses the intensity that Tom had previously thought to be perpetual. They soften. He looks genuinely sad for a second, like he can really sympathise with what Tom is going through. Maybe he can.
“No.” Mitchell says. It comes out tender and airy. Brushes against the bow of Tom’s upper lip very gently.
“No, I’m not. I owe you one.”
Tom relaxes some. Mitchell adds, not unkindly: “Somebody will.”
“My files.” Tom continues like it doesn’t matter that he is going to spend the rest of his short life with an axe swinging over his head. “The incept date, the longevity, the programming... you read them?”
They are so close Tom can see the dilation of Mitchell’s pupils even under the dim light, the pulse at the side of his neck, his Adam’s apple, the perspiration on his forehead.
“They’re classified.” Mitchell says honestly.
It’s not an answer by any mean.
“You’re a policeman.” Tom points out. Analytical. His voice is as maddeningly calm as ever.
Mitchell sighs. His face hurts.
“I didn’t look.” He offers. Then, as if rolling over and showing the soft side of his underbelly, he adds: “I didn’t want to.”
The corner of Tom’s mouth curves upwards a little. He turns to the piano, satisfied by yet uncaring of the confession that Mitchell just made. Music flitters again but Mitchell can’t focus enough to figure out what he is playing. For a moment there, the blonde is a God, powerful and untouchable. Mitchell is helplessly, almost violently drawn to him, like a person being dragged to hell, simply from knowing for a fact that Tom is anything but. He’s beautiful, Mitchell cannot stop himself from thinking. “You play beautifully,” is what he says.
Tom blinks in surprise. He turns to look at Mitchell inquisitively, trying to find the motive behind those simple words. Mitchell leans forward. Their shoulders touch. Their breaths mingle. He can tell Tom is drawn to him the same way. There is a mysterious, urgent pull between them that neither can resist. He is vindicated when Tom’s gaze drops to his lips.
Mitchell straightens up and kisses the corner of Tom’s mouth before he has the chance to think twice about it. He can hear the surprised exhale Tom lets out. The blonde doesn’t move away, so Mitchell doesn’t move either. He lets himself linger there in the warmth on Tom’s skin and the aliveness of his sweet breath.
But when he moves to kiss Tom properly Tom reels back.
Mitchell reaches out on instinct but all he can grab is the fabric of Tom’s shirt brushing against his fingertips as the blonde runs away. He all but springs up to chase after him. Tom’s stride is long and resolute. He heads straight to the exit with no hesitation but Mitchell still catches up. The ex-cop hopes for a pause, a reconsideration, half a second, but Tom pulls the door open like he didn’t feel that attraction at all and Mitchell sees red.
He puts his whole body between Tom and the door, slamming it shut with his back. When he looks up, there is fire dancing in the darken emerald hue of his eyes. Despite being half a head taller, Tom backs away from Mitchell. He is nothing like how he was just mere minutes ago when he was badgering Mitchell with questions like he’s entitled to the answers. It’s frustrating.
Mitchell barges into Tom’s space. And he gets one step closer still until his hand is bunched up in Tom’s shirt and he is pulling Tom down to meet him. Sparks fly. Mitchell wants to kiss Tom like how dangerously untethered he’s feeling, like how he’s starving for it, but he forces himself to be gentle – Tom doesn’t respond. Mitchell wonders if he knows how to.
Emotions are warring in Tom’s beautiful grey eyes when Mitchell looks at them again. He’s unsure. Not even when he asked if Mitchell was going to be the one to kill him did he seem this vulnerable.
“Now you kiss me.” Mitchell whispers, lips brushing Tom’s, eyes half-lidded.
Tom is rooted at the spot as if enchanted.
“I can’t rely on my memory to...”
That’s true. Has Tom been alive for months or years, days or weeks. Has he only been alive since the day he met Mitchell. There is no way to be sure.
“Say, ‘kiss me’.” Mitchell says. He’s sure.
Tom gasps. Mitchell is determined. The air flows like music between them. Melodious, yet charged.
“Kiss me.” Tom echoes, enchanted.
Mitchell kisses him, on tip toe this time. It’s soft, wet, slow. Tom knows how to kiss back. What he doesn’t know, is what is his, if anything is his. He parts his lips to let Mitchell in and the shorter man makes a happy, lustful noise. Something in Tom’s chest throbs. He causes that. He wants to hear that again. Mitchell enthusiastically licks into Tom’s mouth and Tom learns the taste of Mitchell’s affection. Then it hits him. This. All of this, is his.
“I want you.” Mitchell’s voice is a whisper.
“I want you.” Tom says. Mitchell makes that noise again. Tom wonders how long it’s been since he heard someone say that and mean it how he wants them to mean it.
“Again.”
“I want you.” Tom repeats. He grabs Mitchell’s waist and pulls the shorter man to him. He is met with no resistance. Tom kisses those doe eyes just so Mitchell has to close them and ease the inferno into a warm ember. Then again to be sure, on each fluttering lid.
Mitchell’s face is flushed. Tom traces the pink hue on his cheek bones with his fingers, carefully avoids the bruises. Some of them are blackened. There is a faint trace blood on Mitchell’s lips. Tom realises they must have opened the cut left by that nasty hook from the tussle. The blonde kisses the blood away. He wonders about the sweetness from before.
“Bite me.”
“Bite me.” Tom repeats, voice low and intimate. His teeth clamp down on the side of Mitchell’s neck. A full-body shiver. Their breath is coming faster.
Tom wants...
“Put your hands on me.” He tells the man in his embrace.
Mitchell clutches at him immediately. One hand at the back of his shoulder, one hand at the back of his neck. His fingers comb into the short hair there. He lets Tom kiss him however he pleases. Whatever that was holding Tom back before seems to have been banished. His personality is showing again.
“Can I take your clothes off?”
“Yes.”
Tom unbuttons and unzips Mitchell’s pants. His knuckles brush the privacy that a second ago was hidden underneath. He keeps on. Stripping Mitchell bare right behind the door of Mitchell’s own apartment.
Mitchell is unashamed. He steps out of the clothes into Tom’s arms naked, hard and wanting more. He is almost shaking with anticipation after the slow tease Tom just submitted him to. He wants Tom now, here if he has to. He doesn’t care if anyone hears.
“No.” Tom looks almost offended. It’s adorable.
They stumble back into the bedroom, back into bed.
“What else do you want?” Tom asks.
“You.”
Tom’s fingers go to Mitchell’s lips. He imagines he can feel Mitchell’s heart beating strong and true in his chest. His, too. Independent but together. Like music. The emerald has been soothed to a clear jade green.
“How do you want me?”
Mitchell pulls Tom down on top of him.
“In any way you would have me.”
-
When dawn breaks, grey and lifeless, the tickling of the clock wakes Mitchell like it always has. But unlike always, he is engulfed in warmth.
I’m going to disappear – he recalls what Tom has said.
Later, when Mitchell leaves to continue his hunt, Tom is still deep in slumber in his bed. An empty injector lies on the bedside table.