Chapter Text
Everywhere you looked, bodies were falling.
The sound of it filled the room before anything else did—the sharp crack of gunshots, the wet impact of blade meeting flesh, the heavy thud of bodies hitting marble one after another in a rhythm that never stopped. Blood spread across the floor in slow, dark waves, catching the low light from overhead and turning everything it touched into something that gleamed.
There were over fifty of them. There had been, at least. The number was dropping fast.
At the center of it all, moving through the chaos like it was choreography, were two figures—and if you watched them long enough, you started to understand that it was not planned, not rehearsed, but instinctive. The kind of coordination that only comes from years of working alongside someone until you stop thinking about where they are and simply know.
Elliot moved elegantly through the guards. He spun the gun once in his hand as he fired at the guard rushing at him from the left. The shot landed clean, but he didn't watch the body fall. He was already turning, catching the next guard by the arm as they charged, using their own momentum to bring them down hard, and then crouching over them with the gun pressed to their temple. The trigger let out a sharp sound, and the dark spread out beneath them across the marble.
He rose without pausing.
Another guard fired at him from three meters back. Elliot moved his head slightly and the bullet passed through the space where it had been, continuing on to find a target in the crowd behind him. He registered the sound of someone going down and moved on without comment. He grabbed the shooter before they could recalibrate, got a hand around their wrist, twisted, and then the gun was pointed at their own comrades. Their fingers were still wrapped around it, with Elliot's hand covered theirs.
Then he made them fire ten times.
Each shot was precise. Each one found a head. The horror in the guard's eyes built with every pull of the trigger, watching their own hand work, and Elliot watched that horror with satisfaction. When there was no one left in that direction to aim at, he tilted their hand back toward their own throat and pressed down one final time. The body crumpled as he let go, stepping over it.
It was fascinating. It was thrilling. It was manic in the way that combat at this scale always became—the point where planning dissolved into pure reaction, where the body moved faster than thought and everything narrowed to the next threat and the next and the next, with every sense running sharp. The marble kept catching red and throwing it back at the ceiling, and somewhere in the middle of all of it, Elliot almost smiled.
Two Time, on the other hand, had been smiling for a while now.
They operated differently. They didn't just end threats, but made an impression. A guard lunged and Two Time stepped aside, letting the momentum carry them past before catching them by the collar and redirecting them face-first into the floor. The dagger came out before the guard could even feel the pain. One hand tangled in their hair, lifting their head back, making them sit on their knees, with the blade positioned exactly where it needed to be. At their neck.
The guard froze.
Around them, the others froze too. There was something about watching someone held perfectly still at knifepoint that stopped people, even those who had just watched all of their companions die. It was the proximity of it, making it impossible to look away.
"P-p-please..." the guard whispered, but the word barely made it out. His eyes moved around the room, searching for someone who might intervene, finding only faces that looked exactly as afraid as his.
Two Time didn't move. At the edge of their vision, across the room, Elliot was watching. He had paused and was looking at the scene with a dark smile as he killed another guard.
Ah.
He was watching them.
They must put on a show for their partner, mustn't they?
Two Time smiled from beneath the brim of their fedora, and the guard must have seen something in it, because the begging stopped. There was no point anymore.
Without another second, Two Time drew the blade cleanly across the guard's throat and released their hold. The body pitched forward, hands going to the wound automatically, and the wet sound that followed made the remaining guards take a collective step backward. Several of them had already started calculating exits.
Two Time straightened, dagger still in hand, and scanned the ones who remained. Then they moved, fast. A guard on the left barely registered the blur of motion before the blade caught them between the ribs, driven in and finding the heart directly. Two Time twisted once, felt the resistance, then pulled free and turned to the next one before the first had finished falling.
The room kept thinning.
One after another, the count dropped toward nothing. The last few barely had time to register what was happening to them. There was no dramatic final stand, no last attempt at resistance. There was simply movement, and then stillness, and then the sound of Two Time's footsteps on the blood-wet marble as another body hit the floor.
Then one remained.
Elliot raised his gun.
He had the angle. His finger was already resting against the trigger. It would have taken nothing—a fraction of a second, a single clean move, and the last guard would have joined the rest of them on the floor.
Then a blade cut through the air from behind him.
Elliot moved on instinct, shifting his head to the left so that the dagger missed his face—well, mostly. The edge caught his cheek on the way past, a sharp sting that registered before the cut did, and the weapon continued on to bury itself directly in the center of the last guard's face. The body collapsed, and the gun it had been holding clattered across the marble and came to rest against a pool of dark red.
(Author's note: Tch. Look at me, wasting my special moves on a separate oneshot. It's okay since I've still got plenty left. 😎)
Silence settled over the room. Or something close to it—the kind of quiet that follows violence, where the ringing hasn't faded yet and everything sounds slightly distant.
Elliot straightened. He reached up and touched the cut on his cheek, looked at his fingers for a moment, then turned.
Two Time stood behind him, the smile already in place, as if the dagger throw had been a casual thing.
"Really?" Elliot said. There was a faint edge to it—not quite irritation, not quite amusement, but somewhere in between. "I didn't know I was one of them as well."
Two Time tilted their head, their smile widening just slightly at the corners.
"You should've been quicker, partner."
Suddenly, Two Time's hand grabbed Elliot's shoulder and pushed him, making him hit the wall before he'd fully processed what was happening. His shoulders slammed into the wall hard enough for the impact to jolt through his entire body, and for a fraction of a second something crossed his face that could only be described as surprise.
Two Time was already moving toward him. They crossed the space between them quickly, stepping over the body of the last guard without looking down, and before Elliot could fully straighten they had both his hands caught at the wrist and pinned above his head against the wall, making the gun he'd been holding hit the marble with a sharp clatter.
"Two Time."
It came out flatter than intended. Elliot looked at his partner carefully, trying to figure out what had just happened. One doesn't throw a dagger at a person's head, push them into a wall, and pin their wrists without a reason.
Their breathing wasn't right. It was heavier than it should have been. Not from the fight that had just ended, but from something else. Something that wasn't settling down the way it normally would.
Their grip on his wrists was tighter than the situation required.
He raised an eyebrow.
"Elliot..." Two Time said, barely above a whisper. Their head was slightly lowered, the brim of their fedora doing what it always did—casting that shadow, hiding their eyes, giving nothing away. But their grip tightened again, and Elliot could feel the pressure in his wrists building slowly.
"What is it?" he asked, tone unchanged. "Did something happen? Were you hurt?" He kept his voice even, though his eyes moved over them quickly, checking, because Two Time wasn't reckless, and he'd learned long ago that the moments they deviated from their usual composure were worth paying attention to.
But the breathing didn't slow.
"The scent..." Two Time said finally. Their head lifted just slightly, not enough to fully reveal their eyes, but enough that Elliot understood they were being looked at directly. "So sweet... like red velvet." A pause. The grip tightened further. "Have you known this whole time?"
Elliot watched them.
"I don't smell anything," he said. "Two Time, you're genuinely concerning me right now. Speak plainly."
Two Time exhaled, something between a sigh and a sound of resignation, like someone who had hoped to avoid an explanation and accepted that they weren't going to get out of it. They lifted their head fully.
"You're a cake, Elliot."
The words settled into the room.
Elliot's eyes widened—just a fraction, for the span of a single breath—before his expression returned to its default state of coldness. Cake. He was a cake. He looked at Two Time's posture, the unsteady breathing, the grip that was becoming genuinely uncomfortable, and something clicked into place.
"Two Time," he said slowly. "You're a fork, aren't you?"
Their ears practically lifted. The smile that crossed their face was the darkest one he had seen yet.
"Precisely." Their voice had gone soft in a way that somehow carried more weight than their usual volume. "Oh, partner. The scent fills the entire room. You've covered everything in red velvet and I—" They paused, composing themselves with visible effort. "I couldn't hold myself any longer. Forgive me."
"The attack was intentional, then." Elliot pieced it together as he said it, less a question than a confirmation. "All of it. You've surprised me twice in one evening. That's a new record."
"Mmm." Their fingers adjusted their grip, the pressure shifting in a way that made Elliot's arms begin to ache from the position. "The most intentional attack of the night, I'm afraid. Have you truly not known this whole time? That you were one?"
"This is entirely new information." His voice remained calm. "I would have remembered."
"So I'm the first to tell you." The smile didn't waver. "How delightful."
Then they leaned forward, slowly and with complete intention, and their tongue traced the line of the cut they'd left on his cheek. It stung, since the wound was still fresh, but Elliot didn't react, just watched them from as close as the wall and their grip allowed. Two Time pulled back slightly, and whatever they'd tasted from that small contact seemed to make things considerably worse for them, or considerably better, depending on perspective.
"You taste wonderful, dear partner." Their voice had dropped further. "Forgive me, please."
"For what—"
But Two Time kissed him before the question finished.
Their free hand moved to the back of his neck, pulling him a little closer, wanting to take in every bit of his scent, every trace of red velvet.
But it wasn't enough. It was never enough.
Not the meetings Shedletsky held that they attended together, not the missions they went on side by side. Always together. Because they were partners. Their names were known across the criminal world as the perfect pair.
And somehow, even after all those years, it still didn't feel like enough.
Elliot felt his breath catch somewhere between surprise and the sudden, inconvenient realization that he didn't actually want this to stop. Even though he'd known Two Time for years, he hadn't expected this. But he realized, with surprising clarity, that he couldn't say it felt wrong.
They pulled him even closer and bit down on his lower lip—not gently—and the small moan that escaped him was not something he would be acknowledging later. His mouth opened, letting them in, and the taste of red velvet that had been driving them through an entire room full of bodies was suddenly, finally, close enough to do something about.
The grip on his wrists didn't loosen. Elliot felt blood slowly begin to seep from the bite wound, and a moment later he caught the metallic taste of it in his mouth.
It all felt... strange. He never would have expected one of their missions to end like this, but he couldn't deny what he was feeling. He wanted more—more of the closeness, more of the rush, more of the taste, all of it. Two Time wasn't a cake, but somehow they still left him wanting another bite.
But slowly, he was running out of air.
Elliot could feel it happening gradually—the edges of his breath getting shorter, the pressure of Two Time's hold keeping his arms where they were, the kiss that showed no indication of ending on its own. His vision hadn't started to blur yet, but it was getting there.
Suddenly, his air ran out completely. The kiss had gone on long enough that his lungs were making the decision for him, burning with the lack of oxygen, and his vision had started going soft and uncertain at the edges in a way that wasn't entirely unpleasant but was certainly alarming. He tried pulling at his hands, testing Two Time's grip, trying to make them release or at least pull away long enough for him to breathe. But they didn't. He could feel them continuing to taste him, unhurried and thorough, entirely unconcerned with the fact that he was running out of time.
His vision blurred further.
With the last concentrated effort he had left, he hooked a leg around Two Time's and jerked sharply, throwing them off balance. Two Time's grip broke on pure reflex as they went down, caught completely off guard, and Elliot used the momentum to stumble free—though it cost him, the exhaustion hitting all at once the second he was out of their grasp, his legs barely catching him before he dropped.
He landed over Two Time and quickly pinned them to the ground, hands pressing down on either side of their head, his own breathing coming fast and unsteady. Around them, the bodies of over fifty guards were scattered across the marble floor, still and silent, the dark red still shining faintly in the low light. Elliot ignored all of it and looked directly into Two Time's eyes.
"Manners, Two Time." he said, his voice carrying that edge of irritation that he reserved for situations that had genuinely surprised him. "For a moment there it was almost like you wanted my life. That's quite the declaration from you."
Two Time looked up at him from the ground without any particular urgency, as if being pinned to a floor surrounded by bodies was a perfectly reasonable place to have a conversation. Their gaze moved across his face slowly, examining it. Those dark red eyes, that blond hair catching the low light in the room, the faint blood at the corner of his lips from the bite—Two Time's mark, sitting there quietly, undeniable. His breathing was still uneven. He looked wonderful. And the scent coming off him was stronger now, the wounds opening it up further, making the red velvet spread through the whole room until it was the only thing that existed.
Elliot held their gaze and searched it carefully, looking for something to work with. An apology, an explanation, some sign that there was more to it, anything that could help him understand what had just happened from one moment to the next.
"You look beautiful, Elliot." said Two Time.
Elliot felt the faint warmth rise in his face before he could stop it. He ignored it and kept looking at them, his expression unchanged, even if the heat creeping into his face suggested otherwise.
"You don't understand what it's like." Two Time continued, their voice gentle. "It's as if you're laid out in front of me and I simply cannot help myself. You taste so sweet—so wonderfully, completely sweet—and at some point you became the only thing I could smell. In any room. On any mission. You."
Elliot was quiet for a moment, processing the words and what they meant, what they implied about every mission and every meeting and every room they had shared together over however long this had apparently been building without his knowledge. Then a slow, dark smile crossed his face.
"Oh? Is that so." he said.
Two Time moved before he finished the sentence, and then the positions were reversed, Elliot on his back against the marble with Two Time above him, looking down with an expression of complete and serene satisfaction.
"Yes!" they said simply, almost cheerfully. Then they leaned down until their lips were at his ear, their voice dropping into something quieter and warmer. "I promise you'll enjoy it as much as I do, dear. Just be patient with me. We're partners, after all."
Then they kissed him again, but differently this time. Slower, more careful, paying actual attention to him rather than just consuming. It took visible effort, with Two Time clearly working against their own instincts, but they managed it, and the difference was noticeable.
Their free hand moved to his suit and began working through the buttons methodically, pulling the fabric aside until they reached the smooth skin underneath, and simply rested a hand there for a moment, like something that had been waiting a long time to arrive.
They both knew that Elliot had three other guns in his suit, a dagger in his shoe, and a pen in his inside pocket. Any one of them would have served. But Two Time knew he wouldn't reach for a single one, and Elliot knew it too.
Two Time pulled back from the kiss and moved to his neck instead, slowly pressing their lips against the skin there. They took their time, each kiss patient and deliberate.
The warmth built with every second, Elliot's jaw shifting slightly, his chin tilting upward almost without intention, giving them more room. Then the kisses turned into bites, and the first one landed with enough force to make him wince. He moved his head to the side anyway.
Two Time sank their teeth in slowly, taking their time with it, tasting what was underneath, before finally pulling back and pressing one last soft kiss to the wound.
Then they simply looked at him.
At the dishevelled suit half-open on the marble floor, the slight rise and fall of his chest, the rare unfocused look in his eyes that almost nothing else ever managed to put there. At the bite mark sitting there, with soft blood catching the light. At all of it.
Two Time felt something settle in their chest, quiet and certain. The mark they'd left, the outcome of the evening, their partner, spread out underneath them in the low light of a room that smelled entirely of red velvet and the aftermath of something neither of them would be able to take back, or want to.
They weren't sure they'd ever wanted anything more.