electric tango--the b side / sal & niho

The new orders came Wednesday.

He was on a train to the Ninth by Friday morning, all the artefacts from his life in Seven boxed up and labelled with the new address printed at the bottom of the letter. It isn't much, a Peacekeeper rarely keeps anything he can't carry, ironically enough. Niho was in Seven for three years this time though, one accumulates.

With the new job comes new files. They're waiting for him on the counter of the apartment assigned to him. Thick with paper stacks and worn around the edges, there's a slew of new names for him to learn, most of them with the last name 'Adroxis'. He leaves them where he finds them. He has all weekend to learn about whose lives he has to worm his way into this time.

He's never liked Nine.

Dark, dirty, everything gruesome given the opportunity. It's a far cry from the quiet of Seven's forests. And Nine's brutality reminds him too much of home, if only in spirit.

There's a voicemail and eight missed calls on his Seventh district phone but there's already a new burner waiting for him on the table with a hammer laid out pretty beside it. Instructions are clear enough. It was never serious between them anyway. Sloane always told him he didn't want anything serious. Niho didn't either.

An hour or so later he's still sitting at the back of some hole in the wall, whisky leaving a trail of smoke down his throat. He's always liked that particular burn, helps the tears prickling the backs of his eyes make sense.

A body slides in beside his and Niho glances briefly at the guy before letting his gaze slide away again. He's not really in the mood and he knows this game too well anyway, men want hard edges, they want ice. They want to be the one that can warm you but they never stick around long after you finally melt for them.

"Oh, should I be grateful?" Niho asks, tone languid, "The way you've been hopping around I'd guess I'm at least your sixth choice."

He turns then and lets his gaze travel down and then back up again slowly. Honestly, not bad.

"Y'like whisky?" he asks sweetly, and offers him his glass.

”You’ve been watching me.”

Yeah. It's second nature now to keep an eye on a room he's in. Niho's spent too many years undercover to ever live comfortably again. He's always got one eye over his shoulder, one foot out the door. It's the nature of things for him but that's the way he likes it. Having an excuse to disappear relieves the guilt when he inevitably leaves.

"Yeah," he says, and rests his chin in his palm, all of his attention on this distraction, "I sort of have to."

The thing about this guy, is he's gorgeous and he knows it. Pretty boys are dangerous. They always want more of him than he can give. They want life stories, they want ways to anchor him and to know him. They want to make him real and deflecting questions only works for so long.

And his foot's somehow made it onto the rung of Niho's stool. Possesive, the closeness is intimate. Most of the time that's all he's ever hungry for.

So he just watches silently as the finger goes into his drink, gaze trailing a little behind as it travels up to his mouth. The lighting's just bad in here or everything else dims for a moment as Niho locks eyes with him, strange heat hitting the pit of his stomach as he watches his features scrunch up and smooth out again at the taste.

He's never going to get over the way people in the districts express themselves, like every movement has joy in it. Niho grew up in a house that valued closed doors above everything else.

"No," Niho says, sliding his glass slowly back in front of him, "It's just the fastest way to get there." He considers the whisky for a moment, the small trail of oil on the surface, glinting in the light. He's drunk far worse things than whisky that's had someone else's finger in it. Niho doesn't break eye contact as he drinks, the rock, cold against his upper lip as the liquor hits the back of his throat hard.

The empty glass lands between them on the table and Niho runs his tongue along his teeth, grinning slightly at the tingle, at the fog settling beneath his skin.

"Niho," he chimes in where he's supposed to, god yes, he knows this game. How many bars? How many corners of how many cities has he found himself in where it's always the same. Niho Moon, in concert, one night only. Line the fuck up.

And part of him is so grateful for this moment because in the back of his mind lives the version of himself who played with the idea of asking Sloane for something more than just friends, who wonders what that voicemail might have been. There's a version of himself who knows, who listened and booked a train back to Seven and to a kitchen with warm yellow light beneath trees that have grown for a hundred years.

"You have my name," he says and leans in a little closer, until his lips are almost touching his ear. His voice drops to a whisper, like everything from here on out is a secret.

"Now give me yours."

"Niho."

Yeah.

Probably should have used an alias, not that it really matters. The last time he was in Nine was near a decade ago, he was much more green then. And he likes the idea of his name on someone else's tongue, makes things feel a little less foreign.

The whisky blooms slowly under his skin, numbing his senses and turning down the lights for him until everything seems a little out of focus. He's still close, probably too close, but the excuse is that it's loud in here and also his newly acquired stranger smells nice. Like campfire and vanilla all in one.

“Not a very nice way to ask.”

"I wasn't asking," Niho says, mildly enough, but there's a sharp edge to his tone. He leans back a little, studying his features again, as if committing him to memory- If he can't have a name he'll just make do with something else. There's a few sweaty strands of hair that have fallen out of place, they're obstructing his view. He reaches out casually and tucks them back behind the other man's ear out of habit.

Oh. Not mine.

Niho's brow furrows briefly, hand pulling back fast, as if he's touched something hot. He curls his fingers up on the tabletop, the intimacy of that small, forgetful moment still burning his skin.

”You should try it.”

"Mmm?" he hums, nearly inaudible under the sounds of the bar around them. There's a drink now in the stranger's hand, he doesn't know how it got there. Time is getting slippery.

He stares at the umbrella for a brief moment, he can't remember the last time he drank anything with an umbrella. Maybe the Fourth district. There'd been a pineapple frond too, and acid on his tongue.

On his tongue, the straw is still in the other man's mouth. So that's what he wants.

Niho leans in again slowly, until he's close enough to take the straw from between the guy's teeth with his tongue. He's good at giving people what they want. For a breath, he stays there, eyes on the straw, on his lips. It'd be easy at this point, with the whisky burning through his brain cells at record speed, but then he's leaning back again quickly.

He gazes at the man and then raises a newly wet finger to his own mouth, cocktail running down his hand and dripping onto the bar top between them.

Niho licks his finger clean slowly, eyes locked on his as he does so. It's sweet, almost sickeningly so, but that's probably to try and hide a brick wall of liquor. It's the kind of thing you drink three of without really thinking and then find yourself unable to walk in a straight line.

"Sweet, a little deadly" he says. He breaks eye contact slowly, then looks at him again, "Just how I like it."

Sal laughs, so close that their knees are touching. The sound cuts through the music and the chatter and for a brief split of time it's all Niho can hear. Then someone puts a cup down on the bar and there's a hollow sound as a chair moves back. Nails tap on counter top and someone else sings part of the song on the radio and Sal's not laughing anymore.

He contemplates, turning the name Sal over and over in his head, folding it and placing it on the window ledge. If the wind takes it in the night, that's okay but if it's still there in the morning then that's good too.

"Liar," Sal says and Niho decides to look at his empty glass instead, knuckles hitting the bar top twice. Two fingers please.

That word stings more than it should, it's not Sal's fault though. He's got no way of knowing about how much that label is true. You get numb to it after awhile anyway when you've been in the game as long as Niho has. You start with lying to survive, to get the job done, and after awhile it just becomes second nature.

Sal keeps talking, and Niho tries to keep up but his thoughts catch on the little things, like the way Sal's finger runs around the rim of his empty glass, or the way he's leaning closer and closer. It's easy to catch that vanilla scent again, woodsmoke stuck on the back of his throat.

"You should tell me what you really want."

Niho stares at him, that's a loaded question. It's something he's never really been sure of himself, he lives on the outskirts mostly, wearing different names and backstories like different outfits. There's never been much time to think about what he wants, when he finishes one job, he's always off to the next.

The only thing to remind anyone he's been there is the ruin he's left in his wake.

Another whiskey lands on the bar top on front of him and he's grateful for the interruption.

"You drink enough of it," Niho says and he raises his drink to the light, tilting it slightly and watching the way the dark amber ignites into molten brass. His eyes track the edge of the drink as he runs it along the edge of the glass. "You stop noticing the way it burns going down, it becomes sweet to you."

His gaze slides back onto Sal. He's no longer just talking about the liquor.

"Sal," he says his name like it's a full thought. Then he hooks his foot into the rung of Sal's stool and yanks him the rest of the way close, the seats hitting each other with a soft clunk. Niho leans in, movement less fluid now, lips knocking briefly against his cheek as he softly says, "I want to know if you burn too."

Sal's hand lands on his knee and it's like Niho's always been here, in this dingy little bar on a backstreet in Nine. It's like the forest he left this morning was just a dream, vapour on the back of his throat. Maybe that's just the sting of the whisky, dulled now, his taste buds are empty. Maybe he's the dream.

But Sal's hand is weight on his leg, moving slowly up his thigh, it makes it just a little hard to focus on what he's saying. Niho'd thought his eyes were dark, now that he's closer he can see the warmth that encircles his pupils. It's good like this, every sense is just Sal, there's no room to think about anything else. Maybe that's why he does this kind of thing.

Just hands his heart out for one night and then takes it back in the morning, slipping out the door before the alarm goes off.

Sal's lips are too close. He feels the words more than hears them but Niho doesn't really have to listen at this point, he already knows the rules, same ones that he hears every time. Men like him don't go to bars like these to find the love of their life. The only people who hang out in places like these are just as fucking sad as him.

"What's wrong, worried I'm going to fall in love with you?" Niho murmurs. The question's almost genuine. He smiles, then rests a hand on Sal's waist to pull him closer onto his stool, "Didn't know I seemed like the type."

Niho learned early that they never like it when you agree too fast. You have to play around, make it seem like they've asked you for something impossible.

He leans back, almost too far and then he grabs Sal's hand to correct himself, charming smile turned into something a little more playful. Carefully, he uses Sal's finger to mark an 'x' over his heart, gaze locked on his. "Swear I won't," he says, "And if I'm lying, you can kill me."

Niho leans back in then, forgetful with Sal's hand, leaving it there against his chest and then flattening his own hand over his as if he's giving Sal his heart to hold. His other hand finds Sal's shoulder. Niho presses his thumb lightly into his collar bone, sliding his fingers into position on the back of Sal's neck to tip him just the littlest bit closer.

"Now take me home," Niho whispers.