like lovers do

(in his peripheral vision, through the windows behind him, lucius watches:

tolys, smiling as always, bends down to lean his elbows on the table. he's across from where nikolai's writing some memo -- record -- unimportant note that he feels like he needs. nikolai looks up, only briefly; he ducks his head again, embarrassed at something tolys says. as if he's ever not saying things to embarrass the others. not in public, no, but --)

"Give me fifteen minutes, Kolya, love you," Tolys half-sings, stepping neatly outside. The glass door to the balcony swings open with a screech that shatters the silence of the rising dawn. Lucius nearly winces; he catches himself before he does, schools his face into a duller expression, knows that this is the Lucius that Tolys always expects to see during their morning smoke breaks. He doesn't feel the need to turn around. Tolys's voice would be recognizable to him -- unwillingly and unfortunately -- wherever the two of them went.

"You certainly act like you do," Lucius comments.

"As if you're doing him any favors," Tolys replies. He casts a cheerful grin at Lucius, but Lucius knows that he's not joking. His cigarette case opens with a harsh, metallic click -- he holds one out to Lucius, expectantly.

"What," Lucius asks.

"Oh, come on."

"Use your words." He takes a drag of smoke, pointedly holding the lit end of the stick away from Tolys.

"We're not in the bedroom, so you don't have to play your little power games with me." Tolys sighs, exasperatedly. "Light, please, Luchya. You heard me -- I have fifteen minutes."

Lucius obligingly offers his cigarette. Tolys presses his own against the lit end, taking a relaxed breath of smoke.

(aaron walks into the room, finally; he'd needed to talk to the researchers. lucius had offered to do it for him, but he'd gotten a strange look on his face, said no, it's okay, i can handle it. he puts his files down on nikolai's desk, along with a mug of coffee. nikolai nods at him. they brush shoulders as aaron moves towards the other end of the room. lucius wishes he could read lips.)

Tolys shifts, turns his gaze to face Lucius. A smile dances on his face. "Well, today, I was thinking --"

"You don't tell me that you love me," Lucius wonders, out loud.

He startles, at that; Lucius takes a certain degree of satisfaction in the way his eyes widen in shock for a split-second before he manages to pull himself back together again. "What?"

"Why do you bother saying it to them?" He's only half-curious, really. He's sure that Tolys has a million different meaningless reasons for doing the million different meaningless things that he does.

Tolys leans in, even as Lucius leans back to avoid his touch. There's a bright, wicked smile on his face; Lucius suddenly wishes that he'd never said a word. "Are you jealous? I never thought I'd see the day!"

"I'm asking," Lucius says, dispassionately.

"Why, if you wanted me to say it to you --"

"I don't."

"-- you'd just have to ask, of course!"

"I really don't," Lucius stresses.

"Then why ask me a question like that at all?"

Lucius doesn't have a moment to breathe before Tolys is on him, pressing kisses to his mouth, wrapping his arms around his neck. Lucius --

(nikolai isn't looking this way, his head is turned down, still focusing on his work. aaron's at the filing cabinets on the other end of the room. he's distracted. both of them are, but it can't be for too long. it's getting warm, and moisture is gathering on the windows, and the fog is starting to blur his vision.)

-- pushes Tolys away. He tastes like cigarettes, nicotine, smoke. Both of them do. Tolys wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, beaming up at Lucius.

"I asked a question." Lucius fights the scowl rising irrepressibly to his mouth. God, Tolys insisted on being difficult every goddamn time.

"It's just a phrase." Tolys tilts his head to the side, teasingly; he takes a drag of his cigarette, smoke drifts into the pale air above him. "I don't mean anything by it -- or maybe I do. Who's to say?"

"You do," he deadpans. Lucius's cigarette has almost burnt to a stub. Thank God he has an excuse to leave. "If you don't want to answer, don't play your little power games with me, either."

Tolys chuckles, at that. He turns away, leaning over the balcony railing. "Touché, Luchya. As sharp as ever, partner."

He drops his cigarette; clenches his fists; crushes it under the heel of his boot. A stupid question, he didn't even want to know that badly. "Don't call me that."

"What would you prefer -- partner, or an 'I love you,' the way I tell the others --"

(talking, muffled, behind the glass, it looks like they're busy, goddammit, he's not sure if he wants them to see this or not.)

Lucius seizes Tolys's wrist, turns him around, pulls him forcefully to his chest, Tolys smiles, Lucius grabs his chin and kisses him as hard as he can, Tolys smiles, he forces his mouth open, doesn't even have to force, Tolys is as receptive as he always is, Tolys smiles, Lucius is playing right into him and what he wants, goddammit.

His mouth is filled with ash by the time Tolys pushes him away so he can breathe, his hair messy, clothes wrinkled from where Lucius had bunched his fingers into them. They're too-close together, it's too hot, the sun's risen too quickly. His glasses are fogging up the same way the windows are.

"My cigarette," Tolys complains, plaintively.

It'd fallen on the floor. Lucius crushes that, too, underneath his heel. He doesn't deign Tolys with a verbal response, offering him a flinty stare instead. Tolys meets it easily, as relaxed as ever, his back pressed up against the railing. Both of them know that if Lucius wanted to, he could reach out, pull Tolys by his wrist again, haul him over --

"It makes dear Kolya smile, and it makes Aaron squirm," Tolys says, simply.

Lucius frowns. "That's it."

"It's entertaining. Isn't that enough?" Tolys sighs; he uses his free hand to push his glasses up. "Anything else you'd like to know, or are you done doing your job off-duty?"

An unsatisfying answer -- he hadn't expected anything more, but -- "And me?"

"I don't say it to you, Luchya, because you wouldn't feel anything at all!" Tolys laughs, at that. "Really, now. You're entertaining enough on your own, and I'd like to skip the awkward conversation that we'd have about it -- like the one we're having right now."

"You're sure."

"I know you better than anybody else does, don't I?" Tolys's smirk glints like a knife; Lucius wants to wipe it off of his goddamn face. "I know you."

Lucius lets go of Tolys's wrist, half-disgusted. What a waste of time. He hadn't even cared about the answer. Irritation burns hot underneath his skin.

(it's too warm, he's not even sure if nikolai and aaron were paying attention, surely it's been more than fifteen minutes, surely nikolai doesn't want to be kept waiting. it doesn't matter. he'll go back inside, lodge what he'd learned in the back of his skull, it doesn't matter how useless it seems to be, let the rest of the morning pass --)

Tolys catches him by the shoulder, this time, before he can move back towards the door. "I can prove that I do, if you want me to!"

No, Lucius thinks. He stops, nonetheless. He can't explain why.

"Don't worry," Tolys says, a wide grin on his face. "They won't know what we're doing -- or what I know. The windows are fogged up."

Tolys wraps his arms dramatically around his shoulders; leans his weight forward, forces Lucius to lean back to compensate; presses a soft kiss to his mouth, Lucius can taste the faux-affection in it. Tolys is performing, he can't help himself. Something sour rises up in the back of Lucius's throat.

"I love you, Luchya," Tolys sighs, closing his eyes. As perfect as an actor on a picturesque stage.

Lucius pushes Tolys back, roughly, with one arm. The two of them stand there in silence. Tolys opens his eyes; that amused mask he's so used to wearing falls perfectly back into place. His golden eyes glint coldly in the sunlight.

"You were right," Lucius says. "That didn't make me feel anything."

"I know." Tolys smiles. "I told you it wouldn't. Did you expect it to?"

No, Lucius thinks, again. He's -- not sure why he stopped to consider it at all.

(in his peripheral vision:

tolys doesn't wait for him to follow. he opens the door, steps back inside, neatly, his coat disappearing behind the fog, calls out, "i'm sorry i took so long, kolya, i lo --")