Chapter Text

Vegas has taken men apart before. Countless men - enemies of his father, of his uncle, of the Theerapanyakul empire itself. Men who have double-crossed him personally. Sometimes men who have done nothing more noteworthy than piss him off. 

He has destroyed and deconstructed men in as many ways as there are possibilities - with tools and hands and poisonous, honeyed words. He’s made them scream, cry, and beg for mercy, even though the underground knows that the devil of Bangkok doesn’t grant mercy. It’s their nickname for him, after all. 

He is an expert at psychological warfare, a connoisseur of sadism; he could tell you exactly where to slice or stab for maximum pain and minimal damage, how much force it takes to rip out a tooth so a prisoner is left in exquisite agony, how to find those little bones in the middle ear that make men surrender secrets they didn’t even know they had. He knows how to work his fingers, his tongue, and his cock so that men fall to their knees, wanting nothing more than to grovel before him, to worship him. 

Not once has Vegas given a thought towards what it might take to re construct a man. 

Until now. 

He watches Pete sleep with greedy eyes. Pete’s skin is littered with bruises and bitemarks, cooled sweat and dried come. The blood on his hip glints tacky in the low light, another layer of crimson in a room awash with red hues. The wounds where Vegas carved his name last night will need to be carefully cleaned, though he has no intention of letting Pete stitch them closed. That skin will scar; Vegas will make sure of it. 

Pete stirs slightly as though feeling the strength of Vegas’ conviction, causing the silk sheet bunched around his waist to slide down a bit. Specks of dried blood adorn the skin where Vegas had bitten him. Vegas runs a finger across one such spot right at the base of Pete’s spine, remembering how he’d wanted nothing more than to rip a chunk of flesh right out, to ruin Pete that thoroughly. 

Vegas has taken care of his own wounds plenty of times in the past. He knows how to be kind - and cruel - to his own body; it can’t be much different to care for another’s. That isn’t what’s got him spooked. 

His hand moves without his permission, his body needing to be in contact with Pete’s more than Vegas has ever needed any drug. All it takes is a little tug before the sheet dips below the sweet curve of Pete’s ass, which is already a mottled purple color. Exquisite, Vegas thinks, fingering every raised welt, cupping the still-hot skin where he’d taken a riding crop to Pete’s balls. 

Using two fingers, he spreads Pete’s cheeks to peek at his hole, now raw and sensitive from what should’ve been an impossible amount of sex. Vegas hadn’t hit him there, though he wants to in the very near future. He already knows that Pete will love it. He can picture it, the way Pete’s back will arch and he’ll cry out as his body shudders with that heady mix of pain and pleasure. The vision makes Vegas want to bury himself to the hilt inside Pete again, even if that means his dick falls off from overuse. 

That weird other awareness filters in as Pete blinks awake. Vegas’ brain does a somersault, too aware of itself in the light cast by Pete’s consciousness. Without the pressing need to consummate their bond, there’s nowhere for him to hide. His one silver lining is how Pete can’t hide, either; right now Vegas is getting a combination of jumbled images and words and concepts through the soul bond: red-green-blue upside-down danger-danger-no-wait-no, none of which seems streamlined enough to constitute an understanding of how the soul bond actually works , meaning Pete feels as wrong-footed as he does.

Pete slowly turns onto his back and considers Vegas with wary eyes, and Vegas, seated cross-legged next to him on the bed, does the same. This is the part that has him rattled: Pete was a virgin until last night, and now he’s at the tail end of the most euphoric sexual experience a person can have. And even though Vegas obviously doesn’t have experience with the soulmate part of this whole equation, he knows full well what sub-drop is. He’s been the cause of it often enough.

“Um,” Pete starts. Vegas watches him lick dry lips and carefully consider his environment. It fascinates him that he can follow Pete’s thought process: exit points-weapons-cover-enemies-friends , all quick as a blink .  

Vegas can’t tell which category Pete places him into. He’s not sure he wants to know.

“How much do you remember?”

Pete stretches with a groan that’s more satisfied than Vegas thinks he meant it to be. Satiety looks good on him. 

“Mm,” Pete responds. His hands wander down his own body; Vegas can feel the echoes of those gun-callused fingertips on his own skin, the dull ache when Pete presses on a bruise, the sharp sting where Vegas’ knife had marked him. A wave of soft heat rushes to Vegas’ skin second-hand; he watches, rapt, as Pete’s whole body blushes. “Oh.”

Vegas huffs; that just about sums it up. “Yeah. Oh.” 

“We’re really -”

“Looks like it.” 

This shouldn’t feel as awkward as it does. Soulmates are supposed to slot neatly into each other’s lives. This is more like fucking in a field full of landmines, never mind that he's the thing most likely to explode. 

Pete’s staring at the ceiling. Vegas is still watching him. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to look away any time soon. It doesn’t make sense; he doesn’t even know Pete, except as Tankhun’s shadow and Kinn’s occasional muscle, but here Vegas is anyway, his unholy gaze drawn by fate to a bodyguard of the main family. Maybe he really is cursed.

“Come on,” he says. Pete accepts his offered hand. “Shower and first aid.” 

Pete’s free hand caresses the carving at his hip as he dutifully lets himself be led. “Right.” 

The shower in Vegas’ suite at the minor family home is large and luxurious enough to fit a small party. Vegas steps in close to the spout, leaving Pete plenty of room. He aims the spray and turns the dial up little by little, until the bond signals that his soulmate is comfortable… and then he ratchets the heat up another notch. Breath catches in his throat when Pete shudders and turns hazy eyes in his direction. Fuck, he goes down so fucking easy.  

Vegas reaches for his bar soap through muscle memory, still incapable of looking away. It's so strange to love someone you barely know. He wants to put his hands all over Pete, to make sure his mate is alive and okay; he wants to punch him for having the audacity to be in his proximity like this, in his home and his personal rooms and his fucking brain; he wants to press Pete up against the shower wall and have his way with him again and again and again, until Pete’s brain is leaking out his ears and he can barely stand.

His head is such a tangled mess about this that he doesn't realize he's been furiously lathering the soap for who-knows-how-long until Pete grabs his wrist and pulls it away.

"Hey. It's okay."

Pete doesn't even know what it is, let alone that it's okay. He doesn't understand how Vegas’ thoughts are in a constant battle with a riptide that threatens to drown him at all hours of the day. But when Vegas glares and grips Pete’s wrist in turn, Pete just blinks at him, utterly unphased. It’s not an act, either; Vegas is a demon in human form, hungry for blood and death, but Pete isn’t scared of him at all. 

red-gold-red beach-home-woods home-mine want-mine mine-mine-mine- need-need-need

It’s Vegas’ turn to blink as he tries to parse all of that. Pete’s holding the soap in numb hands, eyes locked with Vegas’, and physically he might not seem all there but his brain is screaming his power over Vegas, and suddenly Vegas thinks he might die if he doesn’t get his hands on Pete. 

He holds back. Somehow he holds back. Maybe it’s because Pete is a permanent neon sign flashing, offering: Ruin me. And this is the one time in his life where it makes sense for him to do it - he’s left men on the floor in both literal and figurative pieces when they even hinted at such things, unable to resist such a siren’s call - but this is different.  

The problem is that he doesn’t know how to hold something fragile in the palm of his hand without crushing it. He doesn’t know how to be sweet to someone without an ulterior motive. He doesn’t trust himself not to take what’s freely given and tear it to pieces with his teeth.

But some part of Vegas recognizes the darkness in Pete; he’d seen it yesterday when Pete couldn’t take his eyes off of him, when he was the only main family guard who could stand to make eye contact during the torture. Maybe he should’ve guessed how this would turn out when their eyes locked, when he noticed the way Pete’s breath hitched just that little bit. 

Vegas tears his eyes away and reaches for the soap again, which Pete readily hands back. Their fingers touch. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to stop himself from chasing the memory of that spark that rushed through him the first time he touched Pete skin-to-skin, changing him, breaking him into miniscule pieces and building him into something different, something foreign, something he doesn't recognize but desperately wants to. 

He forces himself to focus on each individual task. Lather the soap until his hands are smooth and covered in foam. Beckon Pete forward - carefully; don’t make him feel like it’s an order he has to follow. Pay attention to one centimeter of flushed, golden skin at a time, massaging the teeth marks, gentle with the bruises that litter Pete’s body. 

Break him. Destroy him. Can’t you feel his eyes on you? He wants it, you know he does.  

He tightens his jaw until he can almost chew his teeth with the effort of holding back, but can’t help taking a quick glance at his soulmate’s face. Pete’s just staring, face impassive; he seems calm, composed the way he always is when he’s standing next to Khun or Kinn wearing that clever mask. Vegas wouldn’t know he was affected if it wasn’t for the way his eyes are dilated and dark, so fucking dark Vegas could dive in and never find his way out again. More than that, though, is how his desire pulses between them, a thing alive and breathing on its own. 

Take your knife. It’s right there on the counter. Take your knife and carve him into morsels before he turns the blade on you.

A different part of him - not his broken brain, but the starlight that makes up his essence - an instinct - tells him: care, feed, love, and maybe Pete’s phenomenal self-control is catching because Vegas actually listens to it. The dried blood slowly flakes off and flushes down the drain. The scent of sweat disappears. Vegas uses his fingernails to scrape the dried come, a mixture of his and Pete’s - 

Fucking ruin him, what are you waiting for?  

- from his chest and abdomen. Pete’s muscles tighten minutely though he doesn’t give any other indication he’s ticklish, and Vegas finds it absurd that he wants to giggle . That would just be stupid. 

The texture of the inflammation where he'd carved his name into Pete's skin ignites a fire within him, though, obliterating his strange, fragile caution. He presses the flesh softly at first, until Pete’s breath hitches, then with more strength. A strangled whimper escapes the soft pout of Pete’s mouth. Vegas’ cock twitches - he hadn’t even realized he was half-hard, lost as he’s been in cleaning-hurting-loving-possessing his soulmate. Pete is arching into his touch, his desire still rising naked and unashamed into the space between them. 

Vegas covers the carving in foam and rubs it in, watches Pete watch him, the occasional sharp jolt of pain only driving the tension higher. Pete’s clean now, mostly. There’s one thing left - and if Vegas were a decent human being, he’d hand the soap to Pete and turn away. But he’s not decent, and if this man is his soulmate, he doesn’t want him to be anyway, so instead Vegas leans in, bites Pete’s earlobe, and murmurs, “Turn around. Hands against the wall.” And Pete doesn’t argue. 

The rush of power almost knocks his feet from underneath him.

He takes a calming breath before he kneels behind Pete and spreads those cute little cheeks again. He watches the little furl of muscle wink. A dribble of semen leaks from inside Pete to join the remnants of come on his inner thighs. Vegas presses his mouth against Pete’s hole and sucks, humming in satisfaction when his soulmate remains still even as his whole body tightens in shock. The aftershocks of his own tongue hit him through the bond, too, as he works the muscle back open to lick Pete clean inside and out. 

When it’s done, he uses the rest of the lather to gently massage around Pete’s hole. He gives it one last kiss before standing and pressing himself against Pete’s back so that Pete can feel firsthand just how much Vegas wants him. 

Do it. Filet him. He’d let you. 

He grabs Pete by the wrist and twirls him, pushes his back against the wall hard enough to knock the air from his lungs, and licks into his mouth, sharing the earthy taste on his tongue. Pete moans from deep in his chest and, shaking, manages to wrap one hand around Vegas’ neck and the other around both their cocks. Three, four, five strokes and they crest together, coming all over the pristine skin Vegas just polished to flawlessness. 

Momentarily sated, they lean their foreheads together, catching their breath. This is how it’s supposed to work, Vegas knows this, but it still surprises him how difficult it is to pull away, to stop touching Pete even for a moment. 

“They’ll be looking for us soon,” Pete says in a low voice, his soul singing his longing into the humid air around them, already a song of sorrow. “You should patch me up.” 

Vegas nods and releases him. Somehow. “Towel’s in the cabinet to your left.” He’d prefer to be the one doing the drying - his instincts are screaming at him to tend to Pete, to protect him - but they’ve taken too much time already. Disappearing to Vegas' rooms last night was enough of a risk on its own. “Sit on the toilet and I’ll go grab the first aid kit.” 

Pete nods and does as he’s told while Vegas physically forces himself to march away and into his bedroom to find the kit. He’s going to have to get used to this - walking away from this person who holds Vegas’ life in his hands. Vegas would give anything to climb inside his body until Pete’s ribcage enclosed him completely and they could never be parted again. 

And Pete is still stoic, still so professional in appearance in every way except the tightening around his eyes the only sign of tension. Vegas would be hurt by that without the empathic bond that Pete can’t hide his own impending despair behind. 

He’d thought Pete shallow, bordering on stupid. How could he have been so wrong?

“How are we going to explain this?”

Vegas doesn’t know how he can live without Pete in his bed now that he’s had him. He’s afraid to ask what Pete thinks Korn would do, not out of the fear of being perceived - that ship sailed the instant he first laid a hand on Pete. It’s the fear of Pete’s response that stops him. If Korn looked upon their bond as a liability - 

He didn’t fucking look at Kinn and Porsche as a liability. 

No matter. Gun would never stand for it. 

With an effort, Vegas swallows his rising panic. He looks Pete in the eye, affecting a neutrality they both know he doesn’t feel, and says, “Macau will cover for us if he needs to. He understood as soon as he saw us.” Vegas hopes that Pete will hear what he’s not saying: that nothing about this situation has been like his past conquests. Even Macau knew that immediately. 

Pete accepts this in stride with a thoughtful nod. “Okay,” he sighs, “but we have to figure out how this works moving forward.” 

A pointed retort is at the tip of his tongue. He manages to hold back; Pete hears it anyway. 

“I just mean -”

“Yeah,” Vegas says sharply, then winces and lowers his voice. “Yeah.” He uses rubbing alcohol to wipe the knife marks and checks the skin for signs of infection, unable to maintain eye contact. “Gotta keep up appearances.” 

“We’ll do what we have to do,” Pete says, laying a comforting hand on Vegas’ still-naked shoulder. When Pete moves away for the last time to get dressed, it physically hurts. It hurts like having his chest torn open and his heart ripped out. 

***

Vegas feels Pete’s absence like a bruise the moment the main family’s car disappears around the corner. With his soulmate by his side, the world seemed to contain more color, more light than it ever had. The very air had crackled like it might ignite if they touched. Now all he has is the din of the local markets, the stench of sweaty men drinking and gambling in this den that suddenly feels both too big and overwhelmingly claustrophobic. 

He makes himself smile at the men. They all look at him with adoration and respect. These people are willing to die for his family; the least he can do is show his appreciation. Contrary to popular belief, Vegas isn’t indiscriminately cruel. He cares for his people, gives them a good life and protects them until it’s time for them to repay the favor.

Once in his room, though, he flops onto his bed in exhaustion. What happened between him and Pete was not unusual - not every pair immediately gives in to passion the way they had, but plenty do. The problem is that now they should be strengthening their bond in each other’s presence, learning how to coax more than just orgasm after orgasm from each other. They should be moving through the world together from this moment on. Instead, Vegas is left sighing forlornly at the ceiling while his skin and bones itch with the need to be near Pete. And it's somehow worse knowing that Pete's going through it, too. It makes Vegas feel helpless, trapped - and Vegas is dangerous when he feels trapped.

Truthfully, Vegas had never expected to find his soulmate. Vegas had never expected to have a soulmate in this world to begin with. He’s nothing more than a wretched creature made of tangled wires and bruised flesh, held together by scar tissue so thick his soul shouldn’t even be recognizable as human anymore. Whether by circumstance or nature, Vegas is nothing anyone should want to attach themselves to. 

Pete, though. 

Rip his flesh with your teeth. Drink his blood, drain him dry. 

Vegas doesn’t know how much of that Pete understands on a conceptual level, but it’s enough for him to shudder - though not with fear or revulsion. Vegas’ own cock twitches painfully in response, still sore from earlier. 

Yeah. Pete. That’s something he’s going to have to get used to. 

There’s not much left to indicate Pete was ever here, just a hint of sex and sandalwood and cigarettes. Vegas shoves his nose into the pillow, breathes deep, holds that hint in his lungs like the sweetest smoke. 

Three taps on the door followed by four clicks of his room’s keypad indicate the impending presence of his brother, which he should’ve anticipated. He rolls back over with a groan and throws an arm over his forehead. 

“So,” Macau starts the instant he’s past the door frame, absolutely thrilled to have an opportunity to needle Vegas about his private life, the little shit, “who was that?” 

Vegas shoots him a glare but lets him sit on the bed next to him, though not before he pulls the pillow Pete used out of the way. Macau raises his eyebrows when Vegas clutches it to his chest. 

“You’re so nosy.” 

“C’mon, hia, that’s my job. I’d lose my little brother card otherwise.”

Vegas swats at him half-heartedly; the rest of his heart is elsewhere. “I think you already know.” 

Macau chews on his lower lip for a moment while he collects his thoughts. “Maybe? I figured it was something special, but… Is he?”

“Macau, come on.”

Macau whistles. “Hia really has a soulmate. Who could be so unlucky?” 

Those words would pack a punch from anyone but Macau, who has known the real Vegas his entire life and loves him anyway. Vegas has stopped wondering why, mostly out of exhaustion.

“I asked myself the same question,” he admits with a sour twist to his mouth. 

“Hey,” Macau says softly; he hates it when Vegas gets all self-deprecating. “I knew what you guys were up to, but you should’ve seen yourself. You couldn’t take your eyes off of him. I’ve never seen you in love before. It’s a good look on you, bro.”

Vegas scoffs and rolls his eyes, but he’s blushing, and he hates it. “I’m not in love with him. I don’t even know him.”

“You don’t have to,” Macau says with a shrug. “The gods decided he’s the one you’ll love anyway.”

Like it’s that easy. “Yeah, well, did you not recognize him from when he was tailing us? Didn’t you notice he’s one of the main family’s bodyguards? Tankhun’s head bodyguard, in fact.” 

Macau winces. Maybe Vegas should teach him some better observational skills. “Ouch.”

“Yeah,” Vegas says bitterly. “Ouch.”

Macau tries to steal the pillow, but Vegas pulls it tighter to himself and hands over his own. Macau just accepts the odd behavior and sprawls next to Vegas with one ankle up against his knee, his shorts riding up to expose pale skin. “So what are you going to do?” 

Vegas is silent for a few moments. Pete had said whatever we have to, but neither of them knows what that means. Soulmates don’t separate like this, especially not so soon after the bond develops. His brain should be swimming in oxytocin and dopamine, his senses should be filled with the sights and sounds and smells of his soulmate, yet all he has are a bunch of useless sex toys and meaningless religious iconography and his little brother sprawled in what should be Pete’s place. And poor Pete doesn’t have any mementos to touch or smell like he does - his end of the bond seems dull and grey and overcast, which only serves to plummet Vegas’ mood further.

“We don’t know.” 

“Can’t you transfer him here?” 

“Tankhun’s head bodyguard? Are you kidding?”

“Uncle Korn would give him to you if he knew.” 

Vegas’ jaw tightens. “Uncle Korn would use him as a spy, whether Pete wanted it or not. And dad… Dad would hurt him for daring to take my attention away from my job.”

Macau makes a pained noise. “Hia, he’s your soulmate.”

“And? You think either of them will treat me any differently because of that?”

Macau’s eyes are full of pity when he turns to look at Vegas, because Vegas is right and they both know it. But Vegas has kept Macau at enough of a distance from mafia life for him to still have some semblance of hope. “If they saw you with him the way I did, they’d understand.” 

The thing is, Korn might - he’d had a soulmate once, a woman who had given him three sons before passing away in a freak accident. If that was the only obstacle, Vegas would consider it. Their father, on the other hand, has a void of poisonous black vapor in place of a soul. As much as Vegas loves him and wants to please him, he can’t deny that.

“It’s not worth the risk, Macau.” 

Macau tosses his head back, frustration evident in every line of his body, and Vegas feels a rush of adoration for the kid. “That’s not fair to you.”

Vegas shrugs and ruffles his hair, even as his chest aches with longing. “Them’s the breaks.”  

They breathe together for a while. The loneliness doesn’t dissipate entirely, but its sharp edges are rendered a little less painful by his brother’s presence; he can only hope that Pete has someone to lean on, too. Vegas has no doubt that Macau will be fixated on this problem for a while, on how to make sure he and Pete can be together and safe. The odds of him finding a workable solution are slim, but Vegas is selfish enough not to dissuade him. He needs Pete here in his bed. Vegas wouldn’t let him go, not now; he’d chain him up, keep him like a pet until he was utterly dependent on Vegas - wearing Vegas’ clothes, eating Vegas’ food, warming Vegas’ bed until that scent suffused this room so fully it could never be scrubbed out. 

Suddenly Macau giggles, pulling him from his daydream. “Hia, what are you going to do with Tawan?” 

“Shit,” he groans, sending Macau into a fit of laughter, “I forgot all about him.”

***

Not only had Vegas forgotten about Tawan, he’d forgotten that Tawan is scheduled to visit the same day . Tawan shows up at thirteen hundred sharp dressed in some knock-off brand that outs him as a wannabe mafioso to anyone with eyes. It’s been raining - Vegas has been enjoying the scent of petrichor and the dull pounding of water that fits perfectly with his mood - and Tawan is utterly soaked. He looks so fucking stupid standing there in the lower waiting room, shoulders slumped like a wilted flower, except he’d never bloomed in the first place. Vegas’ fingers itch for a gun to end his miserable existence. 

Worse, Tawan shows up expecting sex. Boring vanilla sex, the kind Kinn used to provide. Tawan won’t even let Vegas pinch his nipples, let alone bite until he’s writhing and breathless the way Pete had begged him to do. After Tawan's pouting, Vegas has to give up and carry the man, the grown, very much not tiny man, piggy-back to his room. That’s when Vegas realizes how vastly different his life’s trajectory will be from here thanks to the soul bond, and that Tawan has outlived his usefulness. Vegas will not let Kinn’s scraps desecrate the memory of him and Pete together. Tawan has no right to even exist in the same space. 

He makes it quicker and kinder than the backstabbing bastard deserves - a bullet to the back of the skull, right where Vegas knows it won’t cause the cleaning ladies too much trouble. His grim satisfaction after the fact crosses over to Pete, whose mental response reads like a curious puppy with its head tilted. 

Vegas isn’t able to hide his amusement. 

Then a week passes, during which Vegas tries to get used to having another person inside his head. Pete is a… very weird guy. He seems content enough to just exist most of the time. Vegas knows there is depth to Pete. He’s seen it, touched it, put his own mark on it; he knows that Pete is his equal in intellect and in his skill with a blade or a gun, that Pete is his perfect match in bed, and yet most of the time his mind is unsettlingly still. It’s baffling how someone can exist that way; it’s even crazier to imagine Pete - his strong, steady Pete - walking through life with Vegas in his head. Vegas knows he’s a walking red flag, is aware of how abnormal his desires and behaviors are. He constantly argues with himself, disassociates, spirals and nosedives; his moods regularly run from red-hot, violent rage to suicidal depression. He’s paranoid, terrified of losing the little that still matters to him, and unsettlingly turned on by violence. He knows his reputation as a psychopath, even as he longs for the simplicity of human touch, of connection without ulterior motives, which he’s certainly never earned. Vegas knows what he is. He wouldn’t wish this bond on his worst enemy.  

Well, okay. Maybe he’d wish it on Kinn. 

The worst part is that the bond doesn’t have the effect he’d most desired growing up -  he’s still here, stuck in his brain, in his body. In his life . Nothing has really changed except for this new guy in his head, someone who knows him well enough to easily tear him to pieces like so much wet paper, someone he inexplicably adores with his whole being. As foolish as that hope had been, it’d been something to hold on to when the world had seemed colorless and his future unimaginably bleak. 

He only blames Pete for crushing that dream in his darkest moments, which has to count for some sort of character growth. 

His father only hits him once during the week, a weak backhand that's more humiliating than painful. A warning more than a punishment. But Pete’s smart, Pete’s intuitive , and he understands who Gun Theerapanyakul really is a few short seconds after the slap lands. There’s no pity in his mind, no disgust with Vegas for letting his father abuse him, just calm understanding. That’s somehow worse.    

Whatever. It doesn’t stop him from lashing out at everything in sight, knocking over the little stand next to his bed, screaming impotently at the walls. Pete doesn’t even roll his eyes at Vegas’ antics, and Vegas, contrarian until the day he dies, just gets angrier.  

The way Pete accepts him - not the fake, seductive version of him, nor the cruel monster inside him that earned him his nickname, but the real Vegas - is humbling. Vegas doesn’t deserve radical acceptance. He deserves a bullet to the skull, if he’s being honest. And unlike what most people think of him, he believes in honesty, at least inasmuch as it can be used to manipulate.

No legacy so rich. Right, Pete? 

However Pete conceptualizes those moments, that kind of self-deprecation only makes his heart sore, and Vegas gets no satisfaction from this game if he has nothing to toy with, nobody to rile up, so he stops trying.

Regardless of whether or not it’s inconvenient, Pete is always there, always aware of Vegas’ mood swings and his dark sense of humor, aware of his father in a more intimate way than anyone other than Macau has ever been, aware of everything Vegas tries to hide from the world and much of what he keeps locked away lest he truly let the monster out.

Vegas is no longer alone… and maybe, maybe that’s not a bad thing.

***

The monthly budget meeting occurs one week after the Don’s execution. 

He can’t stand it. All of this shit is so stupid - contract renewals and delayed shipments and who might be skimming a little too much off the top; what does any of it matter without Pete at his side? Pete, who’s standing right behind Kinn, almost within reach. Pete, the most loyal dog of the main family. Pete, who contains multitudes behind that placid, plastic smile.

Pete, who used to be invisible to Vegas; Pete, who is the only thing Vegas cares to look at now.

Uncle Korn requests a recap of the mission last week, the one that changed Vegas’ life forever. Vegas doesn’t doubt that Korn, Kinn, and Chan have all received a full report, and that Pete delivered his version succinctly. Monotonous stuff - even given what Pete had to hide, the meetings hadn’t registered to Vegas as something worthy of his attention. Which means that Korn asking now, in front of the minor family, indicates suspicion on his part. Vegas doesn’t know what or why - perhaps he’s trying to catch the minor family in a lie, or he’s trying to teach one of the bodyguards a lesson of some sort. Who the fuck knows with him. 

He ignores the voice in the back of his mind that whispers: He knows. He’s going to take Pete away from you any minute now, and you’ll never see him again.

So Vegas chews every word, gnashes his teeth, and doesn’t bother hiding his annoyance at this clown show, constantly aware of Pete’s eyes on him. There’s no outward or inner reaction to Vegas’ impatience; it’s like bodyguard-Pete is an entirely different person than soulmate-Pete, a doppelganger sent to hide their relationship from prying eyes.

Vegas wants to crack that facade, to break Pete down into his component pieces right here in front of everyone, to make him whimper and beg for Vegas’ ownership. He doesn’t belong to Korn, or Kinn, or Tankhun.

Vegas and Vegas alone owns Pete. 

One day, he vows to himself and to his soulmate, who twitches and stutters mid-sentence with the strength of his conviction, one day, I will bare my teeth and mark you as mine so no one will ever doubt it. 

***

Both heirs are eventually excused, leaving Vegas’ father and uncle to catch up. He leaves through the opposite door, sparing barely a glance his cousin’s way. Pete files out the same as he’d filed in: head high, back straight, eyes forward.

Vegas is afraid that he won’t even get a chance to steal a moment alone with Pete, but his soulmate is ever-resourceful; he finds a way to break off from the group of bodyguards following their master like loyal little lemmings and stops him with a small wai, which Vegas absurdly itches to return. 

“Khun Vegas?” 

Vegas pastes on his most imperious expression and affects an air of boredom. If he wasn’t so fucking good at faking social pleasantries, he wouldn’t have been able to hold back the sunny smile that so desperately wants to bloom on his face. 

“What is it?” 

“I wanted to clarify some details about last week. Just in case Khun Korn wants more thorough information.”

Oh, I’m sure Korn would love to know how thoroughly I defiled his perfect guard dog.  

His smile is mean and full of teeth. “Sure. Is there somewhere we can debrief?”

“Mm, most of the meeting rooms are in use or being renovated. If you care for some fresh air, the ground floor garden is nice and cool in the shade.” At Vegas’ nod, Pete turns and begins walking towards the big glass elevator. “Follow me.” 

Press him against the wall, the floor, step on him, break him - 

Vegas admires Pete’s self-control, he really does, but the five minute journey to the garden is excruciating; with Pete finally within reach, he has to dig his nails into his palms, lest he slam Pete against the nearest surface and have his way with him. Every time he imagines it, Pete gives him an unreadable look, the bond tied tight enough to block his thoughts from view.

When they arrive in the garden behind the big tree, a nice shady spot he’d always wondered whether the cameras had access to, Pete pulls him in by the wrist and smashes their mouths together. Vegas deepens the kiss immediately, laying claim, tasting and exploring his soulmate the way he’s been dying to do all week. Pete’s hands are everywhere: his neck, his back, his arms, his stomach, flitting from one spot to the next like there’s just too much of Vegas and it’s his duty to memorize every piece.  

“I need to fuck you,” Vegas mutters, “I need - ” but the temptation proves to be too much and he loses the thread chewing and sucking on the shell of Pete’s ear. Pete’s cock is grinding against his own and his back is arched like a wanton whore’s and - fuck, Vegas could come like this -

And then Pete, the absolute asshole, breaks away. He moves a few short steps to the left. 

He might as well be a million kilometers away. 

“We don’t have enough time.”

“I know,” Vegas manages through gritted teeth, “but do you have any idea how much I want to - ”

Bite-hurt-fuck-slice-mine-mine- mine -

The discordance in his head crescendos, the voices telling him to hurt and maim and destroy Pete at war with his instinct to keep Pete safe at all costs . Helpless to Pete’s siren song, Vegas grabs him before he can even think of twisting away and sinks teeth into his still-clothed shoulder, shuddering at the onslaught. 

Once he’s gained some semblance of control, he licks a stripe up Pete’s neck and mutters, “Do you know how much I want to hurt you?” 

And Pete, who really is insane enough to be his soulmate, responds, “I know you wouldn’t.” The not in a way I don’t want you to is implied, because Pete’s mind still hasn’t stopped screaming ruin me since the moment Vegas touched him.

“Stupid boy. I told you not to trust me.” 

Pete doesn’t try to appeal to his sense of self-preservation, doesn’t point out how permanently harming Pete would cripple Vegas, too. He sees right into Vegas’ heart, knows without needing to be told how Vegas has walked the edge of life and death for most of his wretched existence and probably always will. 

“I’ll get on my knees and suck your gun to prove it,” Pete breathes instead, like he doesn’t know how those words will destroy the thin thread of Vegas’ self-control.

“Fuck.” Vegas has to take a deep breath and hold it until he’s dizzy just to avoid shoving his cock into Pete dry right here. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he groans, his breath hot against Pete’s shoulder, and Pete huffs a laugh between his own gasps of arousal.

“Literally, yes.”

“Fucking smartass. I should punish you,” he adds, and then nods at his own genius, reaching between Pete’s legs to grab his cock and give it a nice squeeze, which has the added bonus of Pete making the most delectable sound Vegas has ever heard. 

“Vegas,” Pete groans, “your father could start looking for you any minute.” 

And just like he’d known how to make Vegas tingle with uncontrollable arousal, Pete proves that he can douse it just as quickly. Any mention of his father is enough for Vegas’ dick to shrivel to the size of a peanut.

Vegas leans his forehead against Pete’s, both of them sweating with more than just the heat. “I hate this,” he laments under his breath, just for his soulmate to hear, a truth he should be embarrassed to admit but somehow isn’t. “It’s worse than missing a limb. I reach for something, and - ”

“And there’s no arm to reach with. I know.” 

Someone knows me. What a bewildering thought. 

He pulls back far enough to see all of Pete’s face. Those dark eyes are too perceptive, fathomless and starving. Maybe Pete’s been hungry for this his whole life, too.

“I’ve been trying to figure out what brought us together,” Pete admits softly, like it’s a blow. Like Vegas hasn’t been pondering the same thing. Other than Pete’s fascination with torture and penchant for violence, Vegas can’t pinpoint it, either. And Pete isn’t volatile like Vegas - he’s all control and precision. Vegas can tell through the bond that that isn’t just his impression from before. Pete is coiled, a deadly snake that knows how to wait for the right time to strike. Vegas is a lion in a circus, cornered and forced to perform for its masters, bare-fanged but impotent and just as likely to bite as he is to do a trick.

“Yeah? And what’d you come up with?” 

“You carved your name in my flesh an hour after we touched.”

Vegas, still new to this bond thing, tries to send his own bemused puppy face. Pete’s answering smile makes him think he succeeded. 

“I fell off the edge of the earth at that moment.”

Vegas weighs what Pete could possibly mean. “You were just waiting for someone to lay claim to you,” he realizes, and then chuckles with a rueful edge. “Am I just someone, then?”

“No.” Pete’s giving him a highly self-satisfied look, which Vegas wants to wipe off his face with kisses and bites until his eyes are hazy and he can’t even talk right. “But you are the one who claimed me.”

“Obviously.” Vegas’ hands shake with longing even as he runs fingers through Pete’s hair. Pete looks close to purring; how is it possible to yearn for someone who’s one step away from falling to his knees right in front of you, for you? “Do you regret it?” He remembers the smooth parting of Pete’s skin, his precious blood welling up to fill the wounds, the way the copper tang hung in the air when they fucked for the first time afterwards. He certainly doesn’t regret it.

“Why would I? I belong to you.” Pete says it like it’s an immutable fact, like the tides, like gravity, and maybe it is.

“You really are insane.”

“Perfect match for you, then.”

“And do you hate it?”

Leaves sway in the breeze. The shadows underneath the tree shift, exposing Pete’s face to the sun for a brief moment. Vegas’ gaze, Vegas’ body, his being is always drawn to him. He thinks he understands how moths feel around fire pits now.

Pete’s eyes are half-moons even when he smiles like this, a slight curve of his lips that barely reveals his dimples. A real smile, one Vegas suspects has only ever been seen by him. Vegas reaches out to thumb one of those dimples, fascinated by the warmth of Pete’s skin.

“I can’t hate it when it’s you.”

Vegas pulls back with a snort. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough,” Pete says, his eyes and his voice and the core of him ever-steady.

“Do you?” Vegas wonders aloud. “Wait until I really lose my temper. Wait until I throw a vase at you.” Wait until you feel how hard I get when I rip out a man’s tooth and make him chew on the extracted root.

“A vase?” Pete asks doubtfully. “Surely you can find something less cliche.”

“That settles it,” Vegas says, unable to hold back his amusement, “you’re officially loony.”

“Mm,” Pete agrees. Wind-blue-content-yes-mine filters in through the bond, and Vegas grasps it all with both hands, desperate to hold on to this moment for as long as it lasts.

But reality intrudes upon their little bubble all too soon in the form of a ping on Vegas’ phone.

M: They’re almost done. Nop is pulling the car around now.

“Shit,” he mutters. 

“Khun will be looking for me soon, too. We have a new drama to binge this evening.” 

The absurdity of that statement, the waste of Pete’s many talents makes Vegas’ blood boil. He sees in Pete’s widened eyes how sharp and pointed his anger is - he’s not trying to shelter Pete from the force of it. 

And Pete, for some unfathomable fucking reason, fills with desire so potent it nearly knocks Vegas on his back. 

Goosebumps rise everywhere along his skin. He stares at Pete, into Pete, while more pieces fall into place. 

“You like it when I’m angry,” he murmurs, and watches with satisfaction as Pete’s fair skin flushes, even as the tail of the dark creature in Pete’s mind whips back and forth in irritation.

It might as well be a signed confession as far as Vegas is concerned. His heart thunders in his chest. Pete, sensing danger, stupidly leans into Vegas, lets him corner him against the rough bark of the tree, tilts his head to expose the soft flesh of his neck for Vegas to wrap his hand around. 

Which he does. Tighter. Tighter. So tight Pete is gasping for breath, desperate for oxygen, and hard as diamond against Vegas’ hip. Vegas plants a kiss, incongruously gentle, against the delicate bow of Pete’s lips, and holds him there, aching and yearning for something only Vegas can provide. 

And then they’re interrupted by fucking Macau again. 

He forces himself to step away, to let go of that graceful neck that makes him want to - 

Choke him out. He’s begging for it! 

Reaching into his pocket for the actual reason he needed to see Pete in private is one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do. Pete takes his gift with a shaking hand, visibly putting himself back together. 

“A burner phone?”

“It’s rigged to not show up on their network,” Vegas explains. “I know head bodyguards are permitted their own phones, but I don’t want to risk communicating that way. This is programmed with everything you might need to get in touch with me, including contact information for Macau and for three of the bodyguards loyal only to me, and your bosses won’t know the difference between your official work phone and this one if you pull it out.”

Pete studies it for a moment before placing it in his back pocket. “Is it traceable?” 

“I have access to its location, yes.” 

He raises his eyebrows. “Keeping tabs on me?”

Bite-claw-mine-mine- mine

Vegas pulls him in for another deep, slow kiss, an addict chasing his high, and Pete goes willingly. This kiss is less charged, though, with the tick of his watch seeming to gain volume with every passing second. He bites Pete’s lower lip until it’s swollen, until maybe Pete will have to come up with some excuse as to how it got that way. 

He murmurs his satisfaction against Pete’s parted lips. “I don’t need to keep tabs. You couldn’t escape me if you wanted to.” 

Do you want to? 

Pete sees right through him. “Never,” he says, then turns and walks off without another word, straight-backed and head held high, the doppelganger-bodyguard taking over once more. 

Vegas watches him go, loving him. Fully, embarrassingly, helplessly loving him.