All I wanna do is kill somebody

[Alejandro Riviera]

"Yes, I am," said Alejo gently because he could tell that it took Seth aback to be flirted with so openly. Innocent. Naive. So, so sweet that he could give someone cavities just by looking at them. Alejo laughed low under his breath—and then patted Seth on the ass a few times to drive the point home. What? He didn't grab or grope him, it was only a few open-handed pats. Not even a slap.

Harmless flirting was an art form as far as Alejo was concerned. In the age of tinder and grindr and clubs thronging with hot men, hooking up with someone was as easy as sending a text or a lewd picture or flashing a come-hither Look across the dance floor. Alejo had had his fill of that. Look how easily he summoned Dakota; and it started out with something as simple as his number scrawled on a wall.

Something like this, it was rare in his world as of late. First he had a boyfriend, so flirting and sexting were both off the table. Then he spiralled downward into depravity and sex became another addiction, another vice to stuff the hole in his chest. He didn't flirt—he went for it. Dick in mouth, dick in ass. His dick in someone else's ass. It didn't matter as long as for a single brief moment in time, he felt wanted and needed and loved, even physically and not emotionally. But after the highs came the lows. Came the regret and disappointment, the silent tears, the shaking and shivering.

There was nothing gentle about the way Alejo fell but tonight, he felt that gentleness in their strange interactions. He felt calmer than he had in days as Seth rubbed his arm in lieu of a response. There was something in the way Seth guided him across the street and into that tiny motel that made him smile. Like he was coming home, for once. Home to a motel room whose door he unlocked with the keycard he kept in his back pocket. He eased the door open and let them both in, flicking on the light to the usual set of furniture—bed, small table, one chair, an old TV.

"Here we are, home sweet home," he said ironically as the door clicked behind them. Alejo turned to Seth and gazed up into those beautiful green eyes. Like little gems, he said earlier—when he was high. They were, though, like gems. Precious. He reached up to touch Seth's jaw. "You're cute," he said again, this time wistfully. And he was a nice guy, but Alejo didn't know if he believed in nice guys anymore.

[Seth Spiros]

"Huh."

He still didn't know what to do with that. Flirt back? It was so easy with girls. They did that thing, with their hair? And their voices kinda went up a pitch. They said sassy things. Alexo was kinda sassy. He was no girl, though. He wasn't mixing the two up. But he still looked... fragile. It wasn't just the way he looked. It was that look in his eyes. Fragile.

The motel room looked about the same as the one Seth holed up in for a while after moving to Hazleton. The same tired old furniture, the same suspicious looking carpet. It wasn't much of a home but Seth got it. Alexo had to maintain some kind of cheerful facade, probably to keep himself from breaking down. He stood there by the closed door and realized that Alexo had turned to face him. Was studying him. Or something. Seth studied him too.

"...thanks, you too."

It was a dumb fuck thing to say but he'd already said it. Seth didn't ever really consider himself cute before. Most of those flirty women would have said he was hot. One of them even called him a greek god. Kinda funny. Bit clever, if a little cliche. Seth cleared his throat.

"Where's this badge, then?"

[Alejandro Riviera]

Alejo laughed a laugh of pure amusement. Thanks, Seth said. You too. Well, yes. He was cute. Some said he was too cute, that maybe he should stop using that sweet face of his to throw people off because when they discovered the devil behind the smiles, they almost always never took it well. He didn't mean to do that, though, to use his face to deceive. In the moment he really believed he could be that person—that playful young man with the shining blue eyes and easy smile. That young man who was so easy to love, who loved right back.

But... it wasn't always him. No, there were two sides of him, like Jekyl and Hyde. That was his curse, he supposed. Maybe there was some kind of medication for it, he didn't know. Maybe there wasn't even anything wrong with him, or there was everything wrong with him.

"Ah, right!" Seth oh-so-uncomfortably cleared his throat and Alejo could tell that he felt awkward. Still grinning, he went over to the bed and reached under the pillow. His fingers slid over the cold barrel of the gun first; he stopped. Alejo swallowed. His fingertips moved on to grasp the badge and to pull it out. He held it up, gleaming in the light. "You have the right to remain silent! Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law!" Classic Miranda Rights.

Then with a breezy laugh, he tossed the badge at Seth so that he could look at it in more detail. "Believe me now?"

[Seth Spiros]

Seth caught the badge easily, and he was somehow a little surprised at the weight of it. He didn't know what he was expecting? Some plastic kid's toy? He inspected it with interest but in all honesty, he had no idea what a police badge actually looked like up close. Seth wasn't typically on the wrong side of the law. The tattoos were just his desired aesthetic. The build was because he was a fighter.

"I..." He was going to say he never questioned it but he did. That was partly why he was here. Wasn't it? "Yes."

Seth stepped further inside, not sure what he was still doing here. He made sure Alexo got "home" safely. He was here. He was safe. And he saw the badge.

"I stayed in this motel when I first moved here," he said, after a brief silence. A part of him wanted to ask what happened back there at the club but he didn't want to poke the sleeping cub. And whatever had been in Alexo's system seemed to have dissipated. His eyes were clear, no longer clouded with confusion. Maybe he didn't want to remember what happened to him. Why make him go through it all over again?

Looking down at the badge, he turned it over again, then looked back up at Alexo.

"New York?"

[Alejandro Riviera]

"Good!" Alejo turned to rummage through the chest of drawers for something to wear other than soiled jeans and nothing up top. He found pajamas and clean underwear and immediately peeled off his pants. Ahh... clean clothes. He should have showered but the thought of hot water stinging his asshole... nng. No thanks. In the morning he could attempt a lukewarm shower maybe, if his ass healed up enough. The human body was surprisingly resilient in that regard; a broken asshole healed up in a few days with some TLC.

No more bareback no lube going in dry sex for a while, though. Shit, he never learned. Last time with Jack he promised himself no more of that too, and look at him.

"Oh did you really? We have so much in common!" Alejo laughed—yes, they had sooo much in common. They were the same age and they stayed at the same place one time. They were practically soulmates! He turned after he'd put on clean clothes and tossed his jeans into the hamper they provided, intending to go to the laundromat later to wash all of his dirty clothes.

Noting that Seth was awkwardly standing not quite in the room, not quite at the door, Alejo sighed and went over to tug him down onto the bed to sit. If he wasn't leaving, he shouldn't just loiter there! Gingerly Alejo sat down too, wincing as his ass hit the hard mattress. "Yep. New York, the big apple. Home of Lady Liberty herself. Uhh... what else." There had to be more stereotypes of New York, right? "...That's all I got. But yeah, I'm from New York. I'm actually an undercover detective. I know—don't say it. Me? With this face? Detective?"

Well that face came in handy for sure. He lured out a ton of sexual predators. "What about you, Seth? You're definitely not from around here."

[Seth Spiros]

Oh! Whoa! Seth did not expect that! He turned his head away to be polite but... he already sort of saw and the image was burned into his mind--and burning the tips of his ears. Maybe he was cute. A pretty boy. But he was most definitely... a man. Jesus fuck what was he doing here. He swallowed with some difficulty and looked down at the badge from New York.

He didn't have to make it sound so dumb. That they had "so much" in common. Seth already knew how fucking dumb he sounded. Being a fighter, he didn't have to use his words or even his brain, really. His body knew what to do. There was muscle memory there, reflexes. This, though... Had never really been his strong suit. Chatting. Small talk.

He looked up as Alexo approached and he didn't know what to expect--but he was only tugged toward the bed, where he sat and then watched as Alexo sat, too. Shit, it looked like it hurt. Silently, Seth reached over to gently set the badge down on the table beside the bed. It didn't seem like Seth had to say much. Alexo was filling in the silence himself.

"No," he said, "I can see it."

That face was probably why he was an undercover detective. Nobody would ever suspect a thing. He could slip under the radar with nobody the wiser. Even Seth had his doubts but maybe he could take him out. If he had the opportunity, the right grapple... Seth or a guy his size wouldn't see it coming.

"Oh no," he said with a small laugh. Nobody would ever mistake him as a lifelong resident. Not when he opened his mouth, anyway. "Small town in Greece. Chora. I'm an MMA fighter... although in my downtime, I've been working security here in Hazleton."

[Alejandro Riviera]

Alejo wasn't a helpless little innocent child--though his face said otherwise. The beauty of being what he was--a nagual--was that he had access to so many powerful animals. He had access to their strength, cunning, fitness, speed and agility out of animal form too, which he used to his advantage in dangerous situations. And if worse came to worse, well, no one expected a panther to come at them with massive sharp claws out of nowhere.

But he also didn't work too hard to let people know of his strength; there was no reason to. It was fine for people to assume that he was that boy-next-door with the freckles and the ready smile and easy laugh. It worked in his favor more often than not, why mess with a good thing?

He rubbed the tops of his legs slowly as Seth spoke, looking him up and down, all over. "A fighter! Really!" That wasn't surprising, actually. Seth had the build and height for it. The athleticism. "It suits you," he remarked with honest admiration. But hm. Seth was a small-town boy after all, just not from the States. He had to admit, the accent was adorable. Sexy, even.

Ah--no. He shouldn't start thinking along those lines. No more good guys, right? No more sweethearts. Alejo was always drawn to them for the wrong reasons--thinking that they could make up for what he lacked. Maybe he needed to work on himself a little bit out here. If he lived long enough to come around to that idea. In the back of his mind, he still... thought about flying. About what Dakota promised...

"Where? The security thing I mean. You're not a bouncer, I've been to just about every club."

[Seth Spiros]

"Yeah," he said, finally cracking a smile. A fighter. It wasn't much of a surprise to people once they heard what he did and looked at him again with that new information. It just made a kind of sense.

"Thanks."

Seth felt like he was doing a lot of that but his mother taught him to accept a compliment when it was given to him. It had become so ingrained in him that it just came out the moment somebody paid him any compliment. As for the security thing, he made a slight face. Trying to make himself more comfortable, he leaned back, a hand on the bed.

"That's because I'm working security detail at the old library, I think they call it here." Just talking about it sent a little wave of goosebumps over the back of his neck and over his bare arms. "I thought it was a pretty weird gig but it pays well and the hours are pretty flexible."

Of course, he wasn't the only one working security there. They had rotating guards and as far as Seth had learned from the others, they felt as equally uncomfortable with the job as he did.

[Alejandro Riviera]

Aha! A smile! God it was an attractive smile. Alejo couldn't even be mad at himself for thinking that, it was so true. Even his eyes seemed to have an extra sparkle when he smiled. Such pretty eyes. Such a pretty smile from someone who looked as if he could break a man in half--and had been taught to do so in the octagon, apparently.

"You're... welcome." Boy howdy he was polite. What an odd find, really. Alejo didn't quite know what to make of him. He acted and spoke so differently than his appearance indicated that it was almost a total disconnect--much like Alejo being the one putting people in cuffs and reading them their rights. Hm. Did they really have more in common than met the eye? Then his facetious comment earlier might just be true...

Alejo shifted a little closer to him under the guise of checking out his tattoos. Why the hell not. Seth was in a tank top, obviously he didn't mind being checked out. Again he traced the patterns and images, liking the way they looked on Seth's arm. Bronzed skin, smooth and warm, felt nice under his curious fingertips. "The old library needs guarding? What're people gonna steal? Moldy old books?" Alejo laughed but his eyes didn't leave Seth's arm.

He continued tracing up the side of Seth's arm, just idly letting his fingertips do the walking. "I went there once but maybe I just missed you. The building looks nice, though." One of those historic sites that was more museum than functional library. "The front desk guy thinks... it might also be... haunted." He leaned close with an impish grin. "Boo!"

Yeah he didn't think that would scare the pants off of Seth but it was mostly a harmless joke. Mostly. It also brought him quite close to Seth, though. Alejo's hand curled around his bicep, feeling the hard muscles underneath pretty patterns and smooth skin.

"Stay the night? ...please?"

[Seth Spiros]

"That's what I thought."

He was a little... distracted by those light little fingertips against his arm, though. This time, he wasn't busying himself with first aid treatment and he watched the way those fingertips traced over the ink that marked his arm. With Alexo's gaze turned downward, Seth could see the gentle curve of his lashes, the light casting shadows on his face. Up close, he could really see the odd little dusting of golden freckles across his nose.

"Maybe you just didn't notice me," Seth said with a hint of amusement in his tone. Just because Seth played hero today didn't mean that he was immediately going to be noticeable to Alexo. Security guards, janitors, they were often overlooked because people just sort of forgot they existed. But he thought he might have noticed Alexo so he probably hadn't been there whenever Alexo visited.

Seth didn't want to admit it but he agreed with the "front desk guy" about the building being haunted. He doubted Alexo believed in things like that. Also, the way he said it, as if he were only saying it for dramatic purposes... and the way he leaned in close... Seth unconsciously held his breath because...

Boo!

....he thought Alexo was going to kiss him. Haha... His nerves were more jangled by that idea than they were by the sudden boo! Luckily, Seth didn't do something dumb like jump away or... lean in for a kiss that didn't happen.

Seth mulled it over. He didn't have to work until tomorrow night. It was his day off. He had nowhere else to be; he had just planned to get a couple drinks and beyond that, he wasn't really sure he had a plan for heading to the club. Maybe just watch. If he had enough alcohol in him, he might have danced. And then he might have taken somebody home for the night, if he hit it off with somebody. He didn't plan to go back to the club, anyway. So he'd just be going home alone for the night and he knew... he'd just be thinking about Alexo the whole time.

It wasn't like he was being propositioned, either. Alexo probably had enough of that shit and maybe he just wanted to feel safe. Plus... kinda hard to say no to those baby blues and that plaintive tone. Please, he said so prettily.

"All right. I'll stay."

[Alejandro Riviera]

Obviously he wanted to kiss Seth. Obviously. He wanted to kiss him back there at the club when Seth so nicely took care of him, mopping him up and bandaging up his throat and shoulders. He wanted to kiss him every time they stopped at a stoplight outside, on the way home. He wanted to kiss him when he smiled, when he laughed and the sound was so pleasant to Alejo's ears that it sent a thrill down his spine. Seth had such a nice laugh, such an enigmatic smile...

So much for no more good guys, though. Maybe he just needed this one last one. Maybe tonight he needed someone around who wasn't trying to get into his pants. That was a no-go anyway; he couldn't work his hips any better than he could offer his ass up for another pounding. Either way, Alejo was in no fit state to fuck or to be fucked and... Seth didn't make any overtures along those lines.

Seth was polite, a real gentleman, escorting him home without any expectation of payment in return. He was sort of rare, come to think of it—like a unicorn. An MMA fighting unicorn, if there ever was such a thing.

"Thank you." It was his turn to be polite now; he had hoped, secretly, that please would persuade Seth to stay, since he was such a polite person himself. Alejo leaned against him, hugging his arm to his chest like a safety blanket. "I don't want to sleep alone tonight," he whispered by way of explanation, eyes on the TV across the room. Its black surface reflected their blurred figures, seated together on the edge of the bed. Alejo smiled and turned to press a grateful kiss to the slope of the closest shoulder.

He let go so that he could painfully stand up and then crawl into bed, wincing again as he eased his battered body under the covers. "I don't suppose you'd let me have another... eight or ten aspirin?" Alejo laughed as he patted the spot beside him in invitation for Seth to join him. The painkillers he had earlier were taking effect, but not as well as he'd hoped, sadly. That walk back to the motel probably did more harm than good, much to his chagrin.

[Seth Spiros]

"That's understandable."

Alexo had been through a lot tonight. And that was just the part Seth saw and knew about. He didn't know anything about Alexo, other than he was an undercover cop from New York--curious, what was he doing all the way here on the other side of the country?--and that he had been at the club with a creep. And it seemed like maybe he wanted to die, the way he was talking about flying. The way he didn't fight the way that guy tried to choke him out.

Fragile.

He couldn't help applying that word to him. That was how it appeared to him. Like if Seth wasn't careful, whatever kept him quipping and flirting might just end up... shattering.

A kiss? To his shoulder. Seth looked over at Alexo but it just seemed to be some kind of gesture of gratitude. Seth smiled briefly. He wanted to... touch him. But he felt like it might have been wrong so he kept his hands to himself, instead running a hand up the back of his own neck. Definite tension there. He glanced back over at Alexo. The pain must have been pretty bad for him. Hard to imagine what it felt like... Seth saw it when he broke the pair up--the blood trickling down his legs. It wouldn't hurt to let him have a few more painkillers. So far, it didn't seem like the last ones had done anything to him.

But it seemed maybe to be a rhetorical question because Alexo patted the bed. Seth leaned down to untie his boots and take them off. He normally slept naked but that wasn't happening here, so he slid beneath the blankets with Alexo, fully clothed. But as he lay back against the pillow, he felt something prodding him in the back of the head.

"What's that?" he asked, half sitting up to turn the pillow over. The last thing he expected to find there was... a gun.

[Alejandro Riviera]

So polite. Too polite, really. Alejo couldn't help but be reminded of Judah again, recalling how things were when they first started out, how gentlemanly he was. Judah really had been sweet to him. He had been good to him and he was too good for Alejo, honestly. To have been cheated on, lied to, and still want to work things out... Alejo knew it was too late to realize how much Judah had loved him, but it couldn't stop the knot forming in his throat anyway. He turned his face into the pillow briefly to press back the sudden surge of emotion.

As the bed wiggled and jiggled and Seth got in under the covers—fully clothed, yet, what a silly thing he was—Alejo turned onto his side so that he could look at him. Ah—he felt the gun. Saw it when he flipped the pillow over, causing Alejo to laugh as he reached for it. "Sorry, I'm used to sleeping with it under my pillow. The safety's on, don't worry."

It was very much a real gun, though—fully loaded too. He set it down gently onto the bedside table alongside his badge. No doubt now, was there, that he was a cop? It was a standard-issue side-arm but he didn't anticipate having to use it out here. Hazleton had its own police department anyway and they looked to be doing just fine. Reaching out, he stroked Seth's arm soothingly, as one might stroke a spooked puppy. "Didn't scare you, did it? I swear I'm not hiding shotguns under the mattress or anything."

[Seth Spiros]

Shit. New York must have been shady as fuck, for Alexo to be sleeping with a firearm under his pillow. Or maybe Alexo was afraid of what might come for him here in the motel. What kind of job was he on? He wanted to ask but he had a feeling that it wasn't something Alexo could share--undercover--and besides, it wasn't Seth's business.

"Startled me," he said. Not really scared. Although he thought idly maybe it should have. For all he knew, sweet, boyish faced Alexo was part of the mafia or some gang. Again, he wondered about the undercover part of his job. Did it put him in danger? Maybe that was why the gun was there.

Slowly, he laid back down. He didn't mind all the arm stroking. Alexo seemed to like doing it. Maybe because it was the part of him that was unclothed. Having seen Alexo without a shirt for a good while, he was aware he didn't have any tattoos. And he didn't have any on the underside, either.

"Have you thought about getting one?" he asked. "A tattoo?" He seemed so interested in Seth's. Maybe he wanted his own.

[Alejandro Riviera]

Alejo more or less insinuated himself into Seth's arms after he laid back down, winding a leg over his, slipping an arm across his chest. He found a comfortable place to rest his head, too, somewhere between shoulder and chest, and snuggled down against him. Hm. Felt nice. Warm and cozy. Idly he slid the back of his foot against the side of Seth's calf, over the fabric of his jeans. Wasn't that uncomfortable, sleeping fully clothed? Alejo's hand slid under one of the shoulder straps of his tank, finding more warm skin to admire.

"A tattoo? Me?" There was humor in his tone as he traced another intricate design, this one across one of Seth's pectorals. His pinkie skirted the top of a nipple. Accidentally. Then it brushed it again. Accidentally. "And ruin this carefully crafted boy-next-door image? No rapist is going to want to come within ten feet of me baby!" He laughed—not that his job depended on him being pure and clean-looking, but it definitely helped. In some cases he did have to strip down, to coax the predator into doing something incriminating. They liked his innocence, the way his skin was unblemished and unmarked.

"I like them on you though. It goes with that whole MMA fighter ensemble." That was definitely a Jack word. Ensemble. As though Seth wore his profession like a suit. Well, maybe. Alejo sure as hell did—a suit that he sometimes took off and shoved way back into the darkest recesses of his closet. Out of sight, out of mind, right? He smiled again as his naughty hand moved on to the other side, to trace along another design. Very aesthetic. Very pretty.

"Why did you decide to become an MMA fighter? You could've been a model, or an actor, with your looks." He smiled up at Seth. "With those very beautiful eyes."