Chapter Text
It’s hot.
Hotter than it should be nearing dawn on a spring night, in a penthouse in Tribeca with two dozen air conditioners running at full power. Nate’s sweating under his tux, can feel the dampness on his chest and under his arms when he slides the Cherub into his breast pocket.
It’s smaller than he’d expected, but it still digs into his ribs as he and Sully shuffle through the dimly lit hallways of the ten thousand square-foot residence, hoping to make a quiet exit.
“I can’t believe you brought me to a sex party,” he mutters, past the polite smile he offers a half-naked, golden-masked waitress that stops in her tracks to make room for them.
He feels entirely overdressed next to her, not that he expected a sex party to be a beacon of feminism and equality, but it is a little ridiculous to be wearing a suit and tie when the most clothing he’s seen the women wear inside is lacy lingerie.
It had taken him one look around the living room to realize that the kind of masquerade Sully had brought him to was not of the regular variety. He should’ve caught on when the two hostesses in matching harlequin masks and fully sheer gowns had greeted them at the door. Turns out they weren’t just flaunting a bold fashion choice and the result of steady gym routines.
“Keep your voice down, kid,” Sully whispers, looking around. His guiding hand leaves the small of Nate’s back to grab two champagne flutes off the server’s tray and place one firmly in Nate’s hand. “They don’t call it that.”
Nate finishes his in one go, needing the alcohol to soothe some of the jitteriness over their escape-in-progress. Sully follows suit, takes Nate’s empty drink and leaves both on a console table.
It’s hours into the night, and the guests have gotten past friendly introductions and jumped right into business, but, oddly enough, Nate hadn’t been propositioned nearly as much as he’d expected once he realized just what kind of party it was.
Not that he’s the hottest guy in any of these rooms, but all it took was one look at his and Sully’s matching lapel pins and any attempt at flirtation was gone. Sully had promptly ignored him when he’d asked why.
There’s unmistakable sounds coming from behind closed doors—and some open ones. From those, definitely more than sounds. Nate tries to keep his gaze straight ahead as they make their way down the corridor and toward the stairs. Beautiful people are beautiful people, but they have a job to do, and it doesn’t include getting in on the fun.
It doesn’t mean his eyes don’t wander, especially when a woman in nothing but a religious habit covering her face and silk panties very intentionally brushes past him.
“I’ve never felt so conflicted in my entire life,” Nate says, shaking it off.
“Focus, kid. We’ve got a job to do.”
“Don’t you think we should mingle?” Nate muses, and it’s not really a suggestion, more of a thought, really. “Y’know, be inconspicuous and all that?”
“Some people just like to watch.”
“Do you?” Nate asks, and turns on his heel at the sight of two guards on their way up the opulent staircase. “Oh, crap.”
“Knew it was too good to be true,” Sully says, and they double back the way they came. “Too easy.”
Nate shoots Sully an apologetic look from behind his mask, sweat breaking across his forehead as they scramble up the hallway, turning a sharp left the first chance they get. Another hallway, more doors.
The place is a maze. Nate swallows, tugging at his collar.
Sully’s right; it was too good to be true. The Cherub had been sitting in a study on the second floor, away from prying eyes and the wild performances of the night. Unguarded except for a door with a lock simple enough to pick and a glass case, ripe for the taking.
He’d swiped it without a second thought—and probably tripped a silent alarm—earned a hard look from Sully, and shrugged as they walked away with their prize, Sully quietly protesting behind him.
Hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that.
Behind them, the distinct sound of footsteps is getting closer.
Yeah, they’ve definitely been made.
They try a few locked doors before they find an open one and duck inside, closing it gently behind them. The room is darker than the hallway, a soft light that tints everything an offensive shade of red, but Nate spots a commotion going on in the large canopy bed. Averts his gaze when he makes eye contact with one of the participants, who invites him in with a nod.
Sully’s on him before he can process it, picking him up one-armed around the waist and dropping him on top of a conveniently placed dresser. His back slams hard against a mirror.
“Sully, what the fuck—”
“Listen, kid, we don’t have time for this,” Sully says, one hand coming up to the curve of Nate’s neck, thumb over his increasingly fast pulse. “I’m gonna need you to look like you’re enjoying this.” Their eyes meet in the dim light. “Alright?”
Sully’s staring down at him, and Nate wants to say that yeah, alright, he can do that, but his body refuses to make the smallest sound. Sully leans in close enough that Nate can smell the champagne on his breath. Nate parts, wets his lips. Nods instead, because it’s all he can bring himself to do. Sully nods back, moves his other hand to the underside of Nate’s thigh and gives one steady pull.
They’re hip to hip, now, and Nate can’t breathe, isn’t sure he remembers how. Sully nudges at his jaw with a nose, traces a line up to his ear; the delicate material of his mask cold against Nate’s flushed skin.
“Look busy,” he whispers.
The breath comes as a gasp, and Nate nods again, spreads his legs wider, makes more room for Sully between his knees. Their foreheads come together, masks meeting at the upper ridge, at the nose, silver and gold blurring under the soft light of the bedroom. His eyes have adjusted to the lighting, now, and fumbling hands find Sully’s bow tie, his own, pull until the silk is slack around their collars.
He pops the first three buttons of Sully’s shirt open for good measure, thinks he hears one fly and land somewhere on the floor. The familiar bruise on Sully’s collarbone has faded to a purplish yellow since Nate had drunkenly left it there a week ago, and he presses his mouth to it, soothes the skin with his tongue. Tastes salt and Sully and cologne and makes sure he claims it once again.
“Tell me to stop,” he says, turning his head to speak against Sully’s neck, mouth at Sully’s jaw.
Sully doesn’t, gives Nate better access instead, and is halfway through unzipping Nate’s fly when the door swings open. He makes a point out of finishing what he started, says, close enough to Nate’s mouth that Nate can feel the words against his cheek more than he can hear them, “Give it a second.”
Nate freezes, bites down onto his lip to keep from making an embarrassing noise as the zipper slides fully open. Grabs the edge of the dresser hard enough that it hurts and tries not to think about how close Sully’s hand is to finding out just how much he doesn’t need to pretend.
There’s an all clear, a door closing, and Nate swallows the spit that had gathered under his tongue, exhales one long, shivering breath. Sully takes one second too long to pull away, and Nate thought that he wouldn’t, groans when he does with barely a look in Nate’s direction. Nate closes his eyes, trying to catch his breath. Slumps against the mirror.
“Come on, we gotta keep moving,” Sully says, tugging at Nate’s hand, and Nate hops to his feet, tucks his shirt back in, zips up with some effort.
They discard their bow ties over their shoulders before they make their way back out into the hallway, looking decently disheveled. The two guards have wandered further down the corridor, and don’t notice as Nate and Sully slip out toward the stairs for another attempt at a discreet exit.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Sully says, peeking from behind the wall at the one-man barricade at the bottom of the staircase.
Nate takes a peek. They could make a run for it, try to slip past that mountain of a guy, but that would throw any possibility of discretion out the window, and he doubts they could even make it to the elevator after that. Nate glances over his shoulder. They could go back, hide out in one of the bedrooms until morning—and maybe he could finally put Sully’s preferences to a real test, but being naked leaves very little room to hide their contraband.
He meets Sully’s gaze, follows it to the giant chandelier hanging in front of them and above the atrium. Last time he was swinging from one of those, Sully was ready to leave him behind and run off with the prize.
“Oh, I’m so not doing that again,” he tells Sully when Sully gives him an expectant look.
“I had to ask,” Sully says, before touching Nate’s elbow and nodding to the side, starting down the balcony that overlooks the living room instead.
Nate follows, and they make their way past a set of sliding doors and out onto the terrace. It’s windy at fifty-eight stories high, and Nate takes in a lungful of fresh air, cranes his neck to get a good look at the infinity pool one tall floor below them.
“No fucking way,” he says, because diving thirty feet into a pool is only marginally better than hanging from a chandelier, but Sully’s already stripping down. Jacket, shirt. Mask. Nate swallows. “You’re seriously going to stand there half-naked and ask me to jump out from a balcony with you?”
Sully raises his eyebrows. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, kid, but people here are wearing a whole lot less than I am.”
Which, granted, is a fair point, but that’s not the important part of the sentence.
Sully is staring at him, forehead still creased, hands on either side of his hips as if to say, well? and if Nate takes an extra second to think, it’s only because he doesn’t want to waste the view.
Nate throws a look over his shoulder, at the guards shuffling aimlessly after them. If they don’t get out of here in the next five minutes, they’re going to be completely and amazingly fucked. And not in the fun, rich-people-sex-party kind of way.
He sighs, but follows Sully’s lead, slips out of his jacket and shirt, leaves them in a pile on the floor, mask on top. Grabs the Cherub. He wipes at the sweat on his forehead with his free hand.
Sully gives the one holding their prize a look before asking, “Do you trust me?”
Nate nods, and watches in disbelief as Sully snatches the thing and chucks it out the balcony. It lands into the pool with a silent splash, sending tiny ripples into the water.
They look at each other.
“I take that back,” Nate says, but Sully just smiles, proceeds to climb over the railing and jump in after it. Nate watches him go, counts to three, breathes, “Here goes nothing,” and follows.
He’s falling until he isn’t, and he wakes up spluttering water right into the mouth that’s pressed up against his. Gasping for air, chlorine burning inside his nostrils, his airways.
A blurry Sully sits back, breathing heavy, running fingers through his wet hair. He shakes his head, looks at Nate. “You alright?”
Nate coughs, rolling onto his side. Another mouthful of water spills onto the floor. “Define alright.”
“I thought you were dead, kid,” Sully says, and Nate makes eye contact before Sully’s groaning, picking himself up. “This isn’t how I imagined us swapping spit.”
Nate opens his mouth, blinks. “You—what?”
His brain’s been deprived of oxygen too long to make sense of it, but then Sully’s muttering, “Get up,” as if he didn’t just say that, and the moment is gone as fast as it came.
Nate gets up, Sully’s arm supporting his weight around his middle, his arm splayed out over Sully’s shoulders. They throw a look overhead. A few curious heads are peering down at them.
“We’d better get a move on,” Sully says.
They make a quick getaway to a service elevator, dripping wet, breaths heavy with adrenaline. Nate laughs, still lightheaded, flips the hundred million dollar artifact in his hand. Across from him, Sully smiles.
He lifts an arm to brush his hair away from his face, to keep the water from dripping into his eyes, his undershirt clinging wetly to him, and Sully’s smile falters, tongue swiping across his lips. He’s looking at Nate like he did, once, in an elevator not much different from this one, but with a lot more clothes involved.
Nate mirrors him, unconsciously, lets his own eyes wander over Sully’s frame, watches as Sully’s fingers close tight around the polished handrail on either side of him.
The elevator dings, but neither of them move.
Nate has a hard time unpeeling his eyes from Sully’s body to catch the door before it closes, but he does, stepping forward, right into Sully’s personal space. Sully groans, the back of his head knocking into the wall, and the door almost closes on Nate’s hand again.
It ruins the moment. Nate moves; back, away.
“We should go,” he says.
Sully nods.
They could walk the ten minutes to Sully’s place, but they don’t. Shouldn’t risk it. Sully flags down a cab, and the driver gives them a look in the rearview mirror when they slide into the backseat in matching, dripping wet outfits. He looks like he might complain when they step out, but Sully leaves him a large enough tip for his trouble that he doesn’t.
Nate chooses a spot on the floor to stare at when they take the elevator up to Sully’s, knows Sully’s eyes are on him the entire time but refuses to meet them.
Sully waves Nate into the apartment, but stops him with a hand on his arm before Nate can make his way across the living room.
“Whoa, kid,” he says. “Not so fast. Do you know how expensive those Persian rugs are?”
Nate rolls his eyes. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Then you know I’m not letting you drip chlorine water all over them,” Sully says, punctuating his words by tugging Nate closer and reaching for the hem of his shirt. “C’mere.”
And Nate goes, still shaky from a near-death experience and the weight of Sully’s eyes on him. He’s not entirely oblivious—he knows appreciation when he sees it, and boy, does the appreciation go both ways, but what is it, for Sully? Admiration for what he knows Nate can do on a job? For Nate’s mind, Nate’s skills?
He’s aware of Sully’s admiration for women. It was obvious with Braddock, even with Chloe, although he suspects Chloe is more Nate’s than Sully’s type, and there was never anything there when it came to Sully.
So, what is it, with Nate? The little looks, the quips, the touches? Something Sully doesn’t recognize? Something he recognizes but doesn’t want to act on?
The thought alone knocks the breath out of Nate’s lungs.
Sully’s undressing him, again, not unlike the other night, all business-like and focused, while Nate’s knees are weak and his body trying to fight the urge to just grab Sully and kiss him and know, for sure.
“You wanna shower?”
Together?
Nate’s brain does a double take. “Uh, what?”
“Do you want to shower?” Sully asks. “Or you can just borrow some clothes. Some of my gym stuff will fit you.”
Nate laughs. To himself, mostly, when his brain catches up with a one-liner. “Should’ve asked if you were trying to save water.”
He’s not serious. Not really, not entirely, but he glances up at Sully in the silence that follows and Sully’s looking at him. No smartass reponse, no eye roll, no scoff. Nothing. There’s only the weight of Sully’s eyes on him, and his mouth goes dry.
“What if I said I was?”
Nate can’t move, his feet seemingly having grown roots six inches into the ground. The question is looming in the air above them like a rolling cloud carrying the promise of a storm, and it isn’t some alcohol-fueled, momentary lapse in judgment. It isn’t jokingly matching with him on Tinder, or pretending to be a couple to throw off some bad guys, or an offhand comment after saving him from drowning.
And okay, okay—this would be an amazing time for his brain to come up with anything other than staring at Sully with his mouth open. This would also be an amazing time to have Sully’s tongue in his open mouth, but everything seems to be pointing to the contrary.
“Sorry, kid,” Sully says, waves him off. Taking off his own clothes lightning-fast, fast enough that Nate barely catches a glimpse as he disappears down toward the master bedroom. “Mind the rugs.”
Nate does mind the rugs, when his body and brain can finally come to an agreement. Deposits his damp clothes alongside Sully’s inside a fancy hamper in Sully’s walk-in closet.
“I’m gonna grab some stuff,” he shouts, over the sound of the pelting shower in the background, and hears a faint reply in response.
Sully’s closet alone is probably bigger than Nate’s entire apartment. He spends at least five minutes rummaging through drawers to find one with underwear instead of neatly arranged socks, watches, cuffs, sunglasses, tie clips, and lapel pins. He spends another ten just digging through the closet, running his fingers through expensive fabrics that he’ll probably be able to afford after this score, but won’t buy.
He grabs a white t-shirt from the biggest assortment of white t-shirts he’s ever seen outside of a Macy’s, and doesn’t bother with anything else, happy enough to settle with the Cherub onto Sully’s uncomfortably soft mattress and fiddle with it.
The piece is sturdy, beautiful, golden; the egg itself decorated with diamonds and a sapphire on top. Worth millions, easy, for the gems and mystique alone. And maybe greed is a sin, but god, if he could just see what’s inside that egg…
He gives up, eventually, after prodding and poking and being unable to reach it. It is still perfectly inside its trusty chariot, and he sets it aside to fish his phone out instead, mindlessly swiping on Tinder while Sully takes the longest shower known to man.
Sully’s profile is sitting on a pile of profiles he didn’t bother to start a conversation with—a Super Like that he countered with another Super Like. And, okay, maybe he freaked out a little when he saw the notification when he got home that day, but Sully doesn’t need to know that.
Sully’s photos are—nice. Really nice. Conservative, considering what Sully’s hiding under his very expensive suits, but nice. He knows how to wear a suit, and he knows how to flaunt it.
Nate draws in a breath, exhales long and slow and feels a little lightheaded from almost drowning or something else, he doesn’t know. He glances at the frosted door at the end of the giant, open closet, at Sully’s ensuite bathroom, and his mind wanders, just slightly, just what little he allows it to. He bites down onto his lip and sends Sully the dirtiest pick-up line he can think of, prays that he’s there to witness the reaction.
It feels ridiculous to be there when Sully does get out of the shower. Nate grabs the Cherub again just to have something to look at that isn’t Sully wrapped around nothing but a towel, inspects it so hard he thinks he might have broken something when a piece of the chariot comes loose.
“Thought you had died in there,” Nate says, but there’s no real sting to it. “Almost missed you.”
“Bet you did,” Sully says, and Nate steals another quick look to catch Sully browsing one of the drawers. “I happen to like long showers.”
Nate snorts. “Yeah, right. Bet you used to tell your mom that, too.”
“Real funny.” Sully grabs, glances at, and throws his phone back onto the bed without doing anything with it. Nate deflates, inside, at his unknowingly sidelined Tinder one-liner. “Next time, why don’t you join me in there and help me, then, smartass?”
The joke doesn’t completely disarm Nate, this time. Nate’s aware of the implication, he is—but between that and the hundred million dollar-plus artifact that he may or may not have broken sitting in his hands right now, there’s no contest he’s got more important things to worry about. “Hey, Sully.”
“Yeah?”
“Check this out,” he says, and looks up to see Sully approaching in his underwear, which, decidedly, he’s not sure is any better than a towel. Nate clears his throat. “I think it’s a clue.”
He hands Sully the egg previously inside the chariot, watches as Sully fiddles with it before something clicks and their eyes meet for a second.
It’s magical, that second.
That one second you find out there’s more to a job, that it doesn’t just pan out, but takes you on an entire journey.
Nate could say that he likes money, as could anyone, and he knows Sully, more than anyone else, will be the first to say so. But that second wind, that thrill—money won’t buy it. And the look in Sully’s eyes, the breath that escapes Sully’s parted lips say exactly that.
The two halves of the egg separate effortlessly from each other. A clean, metallic sound, revealing a disk with numbers, letters, and a gnomon of a peculiar shape in the middle.
For a over century, it’s been said that there’s something more to these eggs. A rumor, until now.
“Would you look at that.” Sully smiles.
“It’s a dial.” Nate smiles back, licks his lips. “How much were you getting paid for this, again?”
“Hundred million. Give or take.”
“Give or take what?”
“Well, apparently give or take whatever this is,” Sully says, and plops down on the bed next to Nate, enamored by the object in his hand, as if Nate weren’t even an actual person next to him right now.
Nate feels a little stupid at the pang of hurt in his gut, at the conflicting warmth that spreads wherever Sully’s body is touching his, and maybe it’s futile to hope for anything, to hope for more, because if not money, then the chase, the treasure will always come first, for Sully. Nothing else.
Chloe was right; he should have listened.
With a glint of sun rising in the pale sky just outside of Sully’s bedroom window, Sully proves her right, the biggest of smiles spreading itself on his face:
“God, I love the smell of money in the morning.”