Sympathy for Iscariot - Quinton and Matteo
Matteo wasn’t an expert in social interaction, many of the subtler nuances of society in general were opaque to him, unneeded in his line of work. He needed just enough social acumen to work effectively within the rather niche crowd of criminals he was associated and rivaling with, and everybody else could hang, as far as he was concerned. Being…well, being likable wasn’t ever high on his priority list. What was far more important was to become indispensable – so that it would cause far more of a problem replacing you than it would simply allowing you to continue to do your job. Quinton, however, had committed the grievous sin of being relatively unskilled and also rubbing people the wrong way, both literally and figuratively.
It made his existence precarious in a world where even Matteo’s loyalty could be called into question, and perhaps it was stupid to protect him. Certainly, it made very little logical sense, in the kindest of terms, the older man was an anchor wrapped up in an alarm system, giving off every single warning sign known to humankind that associating with him was a bad idea. If he had been anyone else, Matteo would have distanced himself years ago, would have ruthlessly cut ties. It irked him, that Quinton stood as living proof of his own potential for illogical behavior. If he was as truly clever as he seemed to be, he should have shot him and been done with it.
This was an enormous risk, and he was trusting someone who could very easily blow his plan to pieces, costing them both their lives. Still, although he didn’t know much about reading people, he was vaguely…surprised that what came from the other man wasn’t an outpouring of anger. Perhaps the sedative was a little more potent than he had anticipated.
He tilted his head at the feeble reach out, not moving away, his dark gaze intent. Some often found it unsettling, as they held absolute focus, but it wasn’t intended to be. He took the words as they were, with a curious tilt of his head. This was an odd reaction. “I drugged you,” he reminded him quietly, as if concerned for his mental abilities after the implementation of the sedative. Did he get the dosage wrong? His math was rarely wrong.
“With drugs,” he clarified for Quinton’s benefit.
A brow raised as the grasp to his shirt, at the smile, onyx eyes narrowing just that slightly, confused. “What?” For another long moment, he was suspicious. Was it to get closer in range for a well-deserved strike? No, he decided, Quinton wasn’t the type for misdirects even without being half out of his mind on a sedative. His brows unknitted, but despite his confusion, he slowly moved forward, shifting onto the couch. Every movement was tentative, as it always was, easily overwhelmed by sensory stimuli. He still wasn’t tremendously used to being — held.
He lay facing Quinton as they had when they were boys, breathing even and soft, dark eyes still on his face, quietly puzzled.
There was a moment of long hesitation, and then, a helpful whisper.
“…. you were drugged.”
He was a curious mix of apathy and drowsiness, the latter likely inflicting the former because with a clearer state of mind he might’ve tried to carry on screaming at him. It was a futile effort and Quinton was better conserving his voice for when it could escalate to the desired volume. He gave Matteo a small knowing smile that suggestion his next words might be best high of my life. Except he just thumbed at his shirt, tugging himself inevitably closer when Matteo did eventually and tentatively lay down beside him. “Shut up.” He informed him, his dark head bowed so that his face pressed into the cold hollow of his shoulder. He had been shot, drugged, whatever it had been for a reason, he knew it.
His brother would not wantonly hurt him. Or so he believed. Right now all he wanted was closeness, even if there a desire in him to scream and shout, it lingered beneath the surface of his brain-fog. “Feel like shit.” The words were hazy, a drifting of thought spilled out between them in a soft murmur. He did truthfully feel awful, his head was swimming and nothing really made total sense, drabs of memories that didn’t feel truly his, it was coming back to him slowly. The balcony, the cigarette, the gun.
“Why?”
Why why why. There were a thousand questions ready in wake for when he was of right state of mind, but for now only one sprung to mind. He tried with a desperate clinging effort to stay awake long enough to hear the answer. Quinton needed to know, why Matteo had shot him, why he had drugged him, why he was laying here unable to make sense of the world. A simply curiosity rather than an accusation, that would come later, again. When his voice wasn’t hoarse and a strangled whisper, when his head didn’t feel as though someone had thwacked it with a hammer. His temples were starting to pound, scarcely noticeable in his current state but a newly blossoming constant.
He shifts enough to cover them both wordlessly in the blanket, it’s precision thin knit warm enough to take the chill away from them both. It reminded him of years gone by, years of sitting huddled beneath awnings, laying on floor at the foot of someone else’s sofa with a threadbare jacket to cover them both. He could still remember the long months without a roof over his head, jumping from couch to couch as Lynna exhausted her list of friends.
None of this would be without reason, he just needed to find out why. “What did I do?” What sin had he committed now, to Matteo, to the world they walked in, the list of those he’d irked was long enough to wrap around the cityscape thrice. If Quinton hoped to evade trouble he should’ve moved out a long time ago, but he had never been able to bring himself to leave. It was as close to home as he’d ever gotten. Matteo—Dante—they were home. Then his final hoarse cry, muffled with lips pressed to a pale neck, stunted by the coarseness of his throat, “sorry.”
Lying next to him was strange. It brought him back to when he was younger, when Quinton’s body heat and a ratty jacket for two bodies had been the only thing between them and a gray California winter. He had been afraid to be that close to him then, at first, was not afraid to be that close to him now. It had taken so long for him to learn the truth about human hands, and that some did not desire to hurt, but it was a lesson he remembered well, throughout the good and the bad times. As flawed as he was, as he still was, Quinton had been and was perfect. This incredibly pure being wrapped in hedonism and cigarette smoke. As always, he triggered a strange protectiveness in the younger fixer, that protectiveness that had shaped his own life for better or for worse. He had given up everything he had to make Quinton smile, he would give up a great deal more to save him.
Matteo’s eyes blinked, still puzzled, but he fell quiet, let him press against him and tried to adjust a little to minimize the sharp angles of his body. There was a glance down, to that dark head bowed, face buried in his shoulder, and then, he seemed to finally give up to the idea. For a few moments, he simply allowed it, listening to the way Quinton breathed, soft and steady against him. It had been his lullaby once. In a world so uncertain, it had been the only thing that had felt certain in the world. It was only when he grew older that he truly understood the fragility of this person beside him. Slowly, tentatively, his arms went around him in return, one palm resting lightly, hardly a touch at all, upon the back of his head.
“Feel like shit.”
“Non sono sorpreso,” he responded softly, barely a sound at all, and without thought. As always, his second tongue came to him harder, but at Quinton’s second question, he almost welcomed the challenge. It would force him to think more carefully about what to say. He shifted beneath the blanket, sharing it equally, and almost without thought, he slowly ran his fingers through Quinton’s hair. It was a comforting gesture, one that Vincent had reminded him of, one that he vaguely remembered from a time before he was truly himself, when he was small, and the world was even stranger. “You do not need to be sorry,” Matteo replied quietly, wanting to word this correctly, not wanting to fill this in with his characteristic logic when Quinton needed some more than that, needed something that Matteo scarcely knew, but he was willing to try, always willing to try for him.
“There are many who want you dead,” he murmured softly, still keeping up the gentle movement of his fingers through short hair, the even thrum of his voice strangely soothing in its consistency. “Including my associates. My loyalty was in question. This was the best way.” He wasn’t sure how much Quinton was taking in in his current state, but he was patient, he was willing to repeat it.
“I knew they would send another if I refused and that they would, perhaps, also kill me, outsource my work. By giving them ‘proof’ of your ‘death’ – photographs, videos - I have given you a – chance.” He smiled, unseen, just a quirk of his lips, but above that smile, his dark eyes held silent emotion. Perhaps a kind of grief. “You are dead in their eyes. If it turns out that you are ‘alive’, then I have simply been in error, they will not kill me for a mistake as they would for a betrayal. Now...you truly may join the police. You may change your name. I know men who can give you brand new identification documents. You may start a whole new life, as safe as I am able to make it.”
This was far more than he was used to speaking, and he paused, his words drying up, each one rung out of him, precious and unwilling. He briefly let his head fall forward, resting against Quinton’s in silence. What the truth of it was, was that Matteo had again given him all that he was able to give him – a chance to make something of himself, freedom in a way that Matteo might never taste, for the security he held also chained him. He had risked his life and himself in every way for the faintest breath of a hope that he might be able to protect him for just that longer, even if it turned out that his brother hated him in the end for deciding without his consent.
Matteo had never wanted to be a monster, but a monstrous world shapes men into things that they might rather not be, and perhaps he was all the more monstrous for the way that he loved – without reason, without condition, and without end.
“Vai a dormire adesso, fratellino. The true dawn will come soon enough, and I will be here.”
He let his eyes close.
“As long as you need me.”
