It was dirt, and sweat, and filthy sheets that they never seemed to get the yellowness out of, even if they bleached. Far from making love, it was the clinging of one dirty body to another. And it was as far from beautiful as one could get-- yet he missed putting his mouth around a cock. He missed the throbbing, the whispers, the cries, and the taut back as he reached pinnacle.

He lit a cigarette in the dark -- always pulling on a cigarette, inhaling scratchy smoke into coughing, hacking, dirty lungs.

"LeBeau, oh god, LeBeau, d'you know how you feel to me?" And he'd shown him. Telepathic or not, he'd seen it. Mouth, hands, and body had done away with voices, words, and names. Nothing sacred, nothing elegant or artistic or magical. Want. Need. Enchanting? Hell no.

One night, they'd found each other, pissed drunk in a pub that should have been condemned to demolition. The barstool was cold, and the bar, where he had put his little row of empty glasses, was greasy. Farther down its shiny, but germ-ridden length, there was another soul. Lost, alone, and that mirror face smiled at him. They got to talking, and drinking, and more drinking, and smoking, and it all ran together into a whirlwind of forgotten moments, and finally the man with him cursed his forgotten keys. He offered up his flat, of course, and it had seemed natural at the time.

The street should have been empty around him, but about half a block down, a slouching figure was treading away from him. He passed under a street lamp, and the frayed light filtered down through the smog to illuminate his dirty, ragged body. Dressed in tatty, shabby clothing, he had no home-- he fit in perfectly. The figure went back into blackness, and was eaten up by the streets, but he could still make out an indistinct shape-- his mutant eyes. He puffed on his cigarette again, and followed the outline of black on black across the street, then into a wreck of a building. He flicked the ash away soundlessly.

"Christ, I want you so badly... oh LORD..." The body on top of his pushed himself in, harshly, desperately, and he hadn't refused... instead bowing down, bending, allowing the contact, any form of contact from a friend. And he knew that they both needed it, somehow-- the body inside his was like his own, using every unconscious movement to feel more skin on skin, engorging in the moment. And the walls were dingy, and the fluorescent glow from the window across from their apartment made them dingier, and every night afterwards, they'd shared a smoke -- and it had felt like love, of a sort.

He held the burning filter between two long fingers for a moment, then let it fall to the sidewalk. It was just a smoke, and he was just another man. Another triumph, another soul. There had been men in the past-- he'd needed to survive, to coerce, to manipulate, and each and every time, it had meant nothing. He hadn't needed. This was... it wasn't any different. Pete was just another fling.

His mind whispered, Just another fuck, even though he didn't want to believe it.

He had better things to do than stare up at windows, and so he walked off into the glow of the dark streets. Not the happy, contented glow you see in the country, of a thousand little stars shining down on you, or the glitzy glow you get in a fancy cosmopolitan area where people and buildings never sleep. No, here he drenched himself in the off-white, tinged, dank glow of yellow street lamps reflecting off slick, oily pavement -- and then the light was eaten up by the dark beyond, illuminating alley ways just enough to make you feel like you were underground, and there was no sky, even though it was right above you. The people and the dirt and the grime somehow blocked out all the stars. This was where they had met. This was where they had lived.

Months followed that first night, and he always found himself winding up back in Pete's flat. Each morning, he would tell himself to get up and leave, but the mirror image face, with all those unshed tears staring back at him, forced him to stay. If this was purgatory, and if Fate was deciding where to put him, he didn't know whether hell was here or not.

And life with Pete had gone on.

That first night, he'd sized up the man that looked vaguely familiar, and lonely, and surmised him to be a quick lay, something to ward off the chill of the night. It was so much more complicated. In the dark, everything was so complicated.

"Wisdom, d'you ever wish we were somewhere else, dif'rent people?" The man he'd found himself sleeping with had asked him this, a month after the first time, while they were in bed.

He took enough of a pause to seriously consider the question. "I... Christ. Not really. What kinda question is that?" Ever since the first time they had woke up together -- and he'd never admit to doing so voluntarily -- Pete had been hostile. It was the fact that, late and into the drink, the only way to deal with fucking a man was to be savage. Brunt. It helped him try and stay away from thinking why, each night, they went home. Together. The self-loathing that came with wanting someone that didn't want you, and letting them manipulate you, as LeBeau no doubt was -- the hostility -- came back. "You want to talk about feelings now, LeBeau?"

And LeBeau hadn't answered, and turned off the light, and hadn't asked again, and stopped wishing. Pete accepted the silence for dismissal. LeBeau didn't honestly care about feelings, did he? He'd never get over Kitty, and LeBeau would never stop using him, even if he wanted to. They would never be anyone but who they were, and that was that.

The moon was sickly tonight, and if he stared at it long enough, he might just be able to see where Pete had said was the perfect spot for a moon landing. Three months since the bugger skipped town, and he could still remember bits and pieces of their conversations like that.

It burned, even though he was just another fuck. Even though, three months later, he was still seeing him everywhere. The bastard wouldn't leave him be.

He whispered, "Bastard," then sighed, as it was the sort of thing Pete would have said.

"You're a right bastard, LeBeau!" And he'd laughed, and clouted him on the arm, even though there was a little hint of bitter truth within the laughing. They'd been drinking, and smoking, and always it came back to one or the other. Both possessed of far too much earthly beauty than was healthy for them, and both tangled in sins far too deep to ever be fresh smelling. They didn't act more than friends in public.

He thought about it, once -- about perhaps touching LeBeau in the bar, about trying to be open. But tender feelings had no place in their little world of lies, horror, self-recrimination, and the waiting game. And so, to hide the need for comfort, he drank some more, and let LeBeau convince him that they needed each other, and became a whore, and didn't think about how things weren't in public anymore. And he was strangely satisfied when, while they slept, LeBeau needed his touch more, curled into his side and clung on for dear life. It was a mirror. They were mirrors, reflections, and it was something, even if it wasn't enough.

They weren't more than friends in public. And no matter how much sex and liquor, neither of them said 'I love you'.

The hurt came back, quieter, and even that stung.

He got back on his bike, and pulled out another smoke from the pack. He lit it absently, and before putting it in his mouth, he swerved the bike back onto the road to the airport. He watched the pavement fly past, backwards, the yellow headlamps reflecting off the yellow centerline of the road. The smoke hovered in the air for one tiny moment, then whipped past him and got left behind. His plane was leaving, back for New York, tonight. There was nothing left in London.

He's spent enough time here without a reason to stay. Three months.

They'd blown up a warehouse. They'd stained sheets. They'd wallowed in the mud of lies and sin. They'd understood. Ever since he'd been conned into letting LeBeau come home with him, the first night they'd drunk their sorrows away, ever since, in the middle of the night, he'd felt the soft touches, and LeBeau's shaky apology, and his gruff acceptance, although God knew why he'd let himself... It wasn't enough. It couldn't ever be enough.

It was still hot needles over every part of him, the longing tattooing him forever as Pete's boy, his lay. One day, he'd just not come home, not met up with him like they had planned. Maybe Kitty had called. Maybe someone else. Maybe he'd gotten a better offer.

Bee stings crawled up and down his spine, reminding him of the lack of intimacy. No more legs wrapped around his, keeping out the dreams. No more nights up, working on sabotage or illegality or bottles of wine. Part of him felt ashamed how often he'd manipulated Pete, but then another argued that Pete had been as lonely as he had been. As desperate as he had been.

His mind whispered, If he was as lonely, where is he now?

As the world rushed past, he thought about it again, against his will. Maybe he'd gotten drunk one night, slipped, and killed himself on London Bridge. Maybe that was it. That was a better solution than the most obvious one.

Maybe they'd broken up.

"We can't break up, LeBeau. Jesus. We're no more together than Xavier and Magneto. Bloody wankers, both of us, just usin' each other... I mean, whatever else we got... ah, hell." He didn't want to try and explain the desperation/rejection/denial he felt each time he let a man -- a MAN -- kiss him. Maybe it was because of the charm power... he didn't really care. Didn't want to think, didn't want to talk. Deed was done, and he didn't think how natural it was to get into bed.

He'd turned his back on LeBeau, and they'd gone back to the job, and fought internally, and never said another word about it that night. Or that week. Words were for Kitty, words were for lovers. Words were for other people. He knew that LeBeau felt the judgement closing in. All the horror pressing down on them, into something that was corrosive and nameless and nothing, nothing in the end, because it would never be enough to heal... They didn't need words. They understood enough without them.

He pulled into the airport, and grabbed the bags off the back of the bike. The sign on the sliding glass door announced 'No Smoking', and he resisted the urge to smash his fist against it. Smoking. He could have stared into the half-closed eyes forever, thoroughly _enjoying_ the smoke they passed back and forth. That was something they'd shared, together. Fucking, and smoking -- normally in that order.

LeBeau shuddered one final time, and then relaxed against the dirty mattress. He coughed, and said, hoarse, "Wisdom, pass me th'smokes." He complied, and they had laid on their backs, staring at the cracks and marks on the ceiling above their heads. There was a chip out of one tile, over in the corner. Soon, he thought. Soon, it would all come crashing down. They touched, and they needed each other -- needed it -- but would never admit it. Pete had one naked leg draped across LeBeau's, and each place his leg was jointed felt like it was glued to LeBeau's. The sweaty skin, he could feel that, and the touch was so very welcome.

Touch. Need-- for anything that wasn't hostile. Even though, deep in the night, he'd wanted to believe otherwise, wanted to see something better within himself, capable of seeing past these stolen moments in a pile of grime. But he kept asking because the need for anything outweighed the truth-- that him and LeBeau were just poor substitutes, flawed reflections of self-abuse.

That was all they were. Not words. Not names. Not people.

It was so cold outside, and the cigarette smoke warmed him up. Caressed his insides like a long lost lover, and he watched his breath exhale slowly. But of course, the momentary connection with the past, with their bed, had to end. He had to buy another pack-- only one left. The ritual of inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale had become even more important to him now, although for no particular reason. He needed a new pack, and soon. Not that it had anything to do with the connection between Pete and smoking. Not at all.

He put out the final butt in the conveniently placed ashtray beside the doorway, picked up his bags, and went inside. At the ticket agent, the girl smiled brightly and said, "Mr. Remy LeBeau? Here's your ticket." It startled him, to hear his full name said so casually. Like someone cared about his identity. Pete hadn't called him anything but LeBeau. Even in the throes of rutting, it was always 'LeBeau'. Just like he was always 'Wisdom'.

He looked at the girl, and blinked again. He said softly, "Oui. That's my name." He wandered over to the transit lounge, and sat down in a puke yellow colored plastic chair. Pete would have hated the color-- he hated anything that was even close to yellow. The pain twinged at the base of his spine, and he tried to ignore it, knowing that it wouldn't help to think. Nothing would help.

The night he left, they'd agreed to meet up by the bar like always. He pictured the scene that might have been, and in it, the figure approaching him was slouched just a little bit, bathed in toughness, and promised to beat the living daylights out of anyone standing in his way. There was a beautiful, dangerous dance in his steps, and each one beckoned to him. Strange pairing of dark and dark, danger and danger, haunted and haunted, trenchcoat and trenchcoat. He loved those red eyes, reminding him that this man was his, and both of them demons. And they say opposites attract.

He tried to look out the window, use the nighttime scene to block out the others, but it didn't work. The window outside revealed little but the wet runway and darker shapes, but in his imagination, one or two of the shapes moved with a familiar gait, burning orange speck, and wisp of smoke trailing behind.