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Frank can’t really explain it.
Not that he’s ever been particularly good at explaining things, anyway — any of the tech interns at Sarif Industries will tell you that. Something about an unwillingness to be understood, to be the one reaching out. Uptight, unlikeable — that’s him to a tee. But he usually is able to make sense even if it’s just of code lines and hardware specs and whatnot.
This, though?
He’s got no way of explaining it, so, with a grave and sinking feeling of fatality, Frank knocks back the remaining whiskey in the tumbler he’s been glaring at for the past ten minutes and leaves his lab.
He’s late already, but he usually is for this. As if being late will make it less incriminating, as if he’ll want it any less. At least he’s got a slight buzz going on, thanks to the whiskey. Just enough to give him courage, to make him careless.
Not enough to be an excuse, though.
No matter how late Frank is, when he knocks on the door of Adam Jensen’s office, Adam is still there.
Waiting, but trying to act casual. Just like Frank. And, just like Frank, failing spectacularly at it.
His shades retract, swift, the sight of his naked eyes just one more layer of strangeness on this wretched day. It’s Friday. Again. It’s late and most of their coworkers are already gone, home or out or wherever it is they go when work is finally done.
Alcohol churning inside his stomach, Frank lets the door slide closed behind his back and steps closer. Behind the desk, Adam stands up and makes his way towards the other.
“So, I am done for the day,” Frank says, like me means nothing by it. He lets his eyes purposely stray towards the glass wall across the room, gets a glimpse of the empty foyer below, his face blank, voice carefully neutral.
“So am I.” Adam’s voice stirs like smoke, a hint of amusement curling around it. Frank wants to inhale it.
“Are… we leaving then?” A slight hesitation, the pronoun used very deliberately. Adam steps even closer. It’s been… what? A week since the last time they’ve been together? Frank’s face feels very warm and they haven’t even touched yet.
“Dunno.” Barely above a whisper. Adam steps closer still, effectively backs Frank up against the desk in one smooth movement. He’s so elegant when he moves and it used to annoy Frank — a uniformed thug like Jensen had no right to move like that. Something changed, though, and now it just makes Frank’s heart soar inside his chest. Frank raises his eyes to meet Adam’s, feels the tickle of Adam’s breath on his lips when he asks, “Are we?”
They did last week. Left together. No one saw them, Frank is pretty sure. They managed to get to the elevator of Adam’s building before the levee broke, barely made it to Adam’s bed and completely forgot to lock the apartment door. Two days later, Adam received a stern message from the building administrator about inappropriate behavior in communal spaces.
It would be nice to repeat the experience, Frank thinks. He only made it out of Adam’s apartment late Sunday afternoon, unable to postpone what he vaguely described as a family appointment.
Coolness finally breaking, Frank reaches for Adam’s face, tips of his fingers sliding almost lovingly over the angles of Adam’s cheekbones and temples before burying into Adam’s hair. He takes the soft strands in a firm grip, holds it, pulling Adam away from him as if to prevent the inevitable kiss.
A hiss between Adam’s clenched teeth, a pleasantly surprised glint in his eyes that’s almost a challenge.
The week before last, they didn’t leave fast enough. Ended up fucking in the tech lab and then washing the stains on their pants and shirts in the men’s room between bruising kisses, touches that linger, gazes that reveal way too much.
Adam tries to lean closer now, testing the give of Frank’s grasp on his hair. When Frank tightens his fingers, Adam’s eyes narrow.
“We should. Leave, I mean,” Frank ponders. He lets go of Adam’s hair slowly, lets their foreheads press together, electricity filling the small space between them. Adam licks his lips slowly and Frank wants nothing more than to kiss him, his throat tight with it, heart beating wildly inside his chest. He doesn’t trust himself to be able to stop once they get started, though. “We’ve been pushing our luck, to say the least.”
“Hm. Is that so?” One fluid movement brings the pressure of an augmented hand right between Frank’s legs, sudden heat and friction against his already half-hard cock. Frank is easy, yeah, but it’s more than that. Adam knows exactly how to touch, where to press, how to look at him and talk him into a shivering mess. He read Frank like a book the very first time they kissed, learned all his sweet spots and kept at it like it was his job. Keeps at it, even now that Frank is pretty much a sure thing.
Frank groans, hips pushing forward involuntarily, and then, as suddenly as it started, the pressure is gone. Adam is gone, stepping back, an infuriating little smirk on his lips.
“I guess you’re right. Come on, then.”
Frank crosses his arms and asks, “Where?”
Like he is going to think about it or something.
Adam pulls his coat on, lets the shades cover his eyes once more and then opens the door with a quiet, “A friend of mine is in this band. They’re playing a gig downtown. I said I’d stop by.”
It’s almost not an invitation, but Frank will come along. Of fucking course he will. He huffs out a laugh that sounds less put-upon than he intended and offers a half-heated, “Didn’t know you had any friends.”
Instead of replying, Adam wraps an arm around Frank and pulls him along, discretion be damned.
-x-
It’s easy as breathing, walking through the dark streets of the city center, Adam’s arm around his back, his own around Adam’s waist. Frank can almost believe that he can have this, have it for real, between the conspiracies and corporate espionage, terrorism, transhumanism — these stolen kisses in dark corners, heart fluttering almost painfully all the time, all the fucking time.
Frank wanted to kiss Adam earlier and he still does. Why hasn’t he yet? He keeps glancing sideways, almost, almost leaning in for it, but it’s as if Adam knows what he’s thinking, like he’s enjoying playing hard-to-get.
“We’re here,” Adam suddenly says. They’ve stopped walking. He doesn’t let go of Frank, but he isn’t looking at him either. Frank allows his eyes to linger, to follow the curve of Adam’s lips, that permanent sneer that used to drive him crazy… well, it kind of still does, but in a different way.
“Well,” Frank begins. It’s a bit strange, just standing out here on the sidewalk, night lights flickering all around like sequins. “Shall we go in, then?”
“In a minute.” The words and the swish of Adam’s shades retracting are all the warning Frank gets before his back hits the wall and those lips descend on his. He offers no resistance. Fuck, he’s missed this. He actually tells Adam that because with Adam kissing him like this Frank just does not care if he’s falling head first into something that’s too dangerous, does not care if they end up in flames. It’s easy to forget everything they have to worry about. Adam frames Frank’s face with both hands like he’s holding something precious and Frank never knew he could feel this way, but he parts his lips and sucks on Adam’s tongue and kisses him back like he’ll never get the chance to again, like this is all he’s ever wanted.
When Frank’s been kissed good and stupid, Adam pulls back with a small sigh. Contentment looks good on him.
The venue they enter is more of a warehouse than a bar, but they do have cold beer, so they grab a couple of bottles and find a table near the back. The crowd speaks volumes about the type of music Frank can expect tonight, lots of long-haired men in wearing leather and chains, unreadable band names on their chests and backs.
Sitting on the chair next to Frank’s, Adam wraps a gloved hand around his beer bottle, glimmering with condensation, and takes a swig. Frank thinks back to the very first time they kissed again, hands down each other pants, so angry, so tired, so hopelessly wound-up Frank came the instant Adam started sucking bruises on his throat. Adam came a minute later, gasping, smoke-infused groans pouring into Frank’s ears never to leave again.
Looking towards the stage area, Adam raises his beer bottle in a greeting, waves it over his head. On the stage, a muscular woman in a loose tank top waves back with a pair of drumsticks.
“That your friend?” Frank asks, drinking his beer in greedy gulps. Adam nods. He’s smiling just a bit, comfortable in a way he rarely allows himself to be and Frank can’t stop staring.
“Yeah. I’ll introduce you later.” Adam drinks deeply from his bottle and confides, “She’s pretty good, but beware: her band sucks.”
It sounds like it, with the way she’s pounding on the drums while the rest of the band settles in. “She’s impressive,” Frank offers and then a strange thought occurs him. “How do you know her?”
The image of Adam hanging out with musical types suddenly pops into Frank’s mind. Frank frowns.
“Business,” Adam cryptically replies and Frank is ready to press on, but Adam dodges him by standing up with a cheerful, “Hey, Olive!”
A dark-skinned girl, so short that for a second, in the low-light, Frank wonders if she’s old enough to even be in this place, blinks at Adam like he has two heads.
“Adam Jensen,” she gasps dramatically as she stumbles over, stepping around the metal-heads waiting for the show to start. She nods at Frank, squints at Adam, and, pulling a chair to sit at their table, asks, “So, Joanie dragged you into this too, huh?”
Adam shrugs, a hand coming to rest heavy and possessive on Frank’s thigh, unseen but oh-so meaningful. He nods towards the tech next to him with a quiet, “This is Frank.”
Comprehension dawns on Olive’s face and she’s smiling in a very friendly manner when she offers Frank her hand with a cheerful, “Hi there, Frank. I’m Olive.”
So today is ‘meet your not-exactly-boyfriend’s friends day’, Frank thinks as he shakes Olive’s hand. They make meaningless small talk over the groans of microphones and guitars being set up for a few minutes. All the while, he’s acutely aware of Adam’s hand on his leg. Until, that is, Olive takes what looks like a bubblegum piece out of a small metal box, unwraps it and pops it into her mouth with a pleased grin. She offers the box to Frank with a polite, “Do you partake, hun?”
Not bubblegum, then, but Bubblegum. Frank’s heard of it, but never actually tried it. He’s curious, though. He’s been keeping away from most perception-altering substances for a while, but there’s something inviting in the air tonight. He’s feeling reckless. He reaches for the box curiously, tilts it to peek at the innocent-looking pieces inside and cautiously replies, “Well, if you’re offering.” He glances sideways at Adam, who is watching the whole interaction with an amused little smirk, and tries and fails to remember what this particular drug does. “What am I in for?”
Olive leans closer, chewing loudly. “So, you ever smoked weed?” Adam snorts. Frank doesn’t reply. “It’s similar, but lasts a lot longer. A bit more euphoric, none of that indica-induced coma bullshit. No paranoia, either. Only good vibes.”
Frank nods, a curious tilt to his eyebrows. He likes the sound of it. Why isn’t it more popular then? “No visuals?” he asks, because fuck visuals. Last time he dropped acid he had nightmares for a whole month. When Olive shakes her head, he extends his open palm. “I’m in.”
Adam rests his hand on the back of Frank’s neck as he chews, grimacing. It’s not really like bubblegum. It breaks apart too easily, but it’s sweet enough and tastes vaguely like cherry. His whole throat tingles when he swallows. Olive mentions that she’d offer Adam some, but he might not enjoy it that much. Frank’s eardrums pop, his heartbeat speeding up as he settles in for the ride. Olive is saying something about Adam’s augs and, hold up, “What was that about augs? I have augs.”
Olive takes a second too long to cover up the concern on her face.
He should be fine, she says, but panic is already right there alongside the euphoria rising inside Frank’s chest, his thoughts getting all foggy. Yeah, it’s a bit like weed, like she said, but Frank can tell the difference very clearly, the way it comes on. The band is still fiddling with their instruments and the simple bass line they’re playing thrums throughout Frank’s entire body.
He shudders, finds grounding in the pressure of Adam’s hand on his neck. Fuck, it’s intense. He has to close his eyes for a second and Adam leans in, lips brushing Frank’s ear. A promise.
Don’t worry, he says, but not really. He tells Frank to relax. Trip out if he wants.
“I’ll take care of you.”
Those words. Those magic, perfect words. It’s all Frank needs to hear, really. How did Adam know? It’s like entering a warm bath, letting that knowledge wash over him. Adam is here. Adam will look after him, he can just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Panic gives way to a warm sort of ease.
Frank doesn’t even remember leaning in, but suddenly he’s kissing Adam again, Olive giggling to herself across the table. Someone from the band is introducing the members, wishing everyone a good night and are you all ready for-
Adam pulls away and Frank whines in protest. Shit, that felt good, from the tip of his tongue all the way down to his toes. Why do they have to stop kissing, again?
Well, it’s logistically impossible to keep going at it, what with Adam standing up, pulling Frank along with a hand on the middle of his back, but that’s just another reason not to move at all, right.
It’s dark in front of the stage, but that only makes the two dozen spotlights hanging from the ceiling shine brighter. The first song begins with what sounds like a hundred horses angrily galloping just as a cold beer bottle slides into Frank’s grasp. Adam tells him to drink up. People bump against them, pushing to get closer to the stage, bodies swinging, heads banging. Every aggressively distorted chord echoes inside Frank’s chest, his skin electrified.
Frank smiles to himself. It’s definitely a good buzz, with the beer and the whisky he had earlier. Adam wraps an arm around his shoulders, anchors him. The song ends, the band thanks the audience and another song begins. The lead singer is just slightly off-key, but it hardly matters to the mosh pit roaring in front of the stage. Adam maneuvers them to the side. Close enough to have a good view of the stage, but safe from getting accidentally elbowed in the face.
Adam crowds up against Frank’s back, warm and solid, arms looped around Frank’s middle. Slowly, Frank’s eyelids drop closed as the music washes over them. He lets Adam support most of his weight, rocking them together like they’re watching a performance of slow love ballads and not thrash metal.
Frank doesn’t know how long they stay like that. Eventually, he turns around inside the circle of Adam’s arms with a lazy, “I feel good.” Somehow, his lips find the soft skin of Adam’s throat, hungry, eager, prickle of the edge of Adam’s beard on his tongue, his steady, strong pulse under his lips.
“Yeah, I can tell.” Adam’s voice rumbles like thunder in the distance. Frank can feel it against his teeth.
“Hmm,” he makes, tongue sliding around the shell of Adam’s ear. “You taste good. You taste so good.”
Adam shudders, a ticklish smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Hey, be nice,” he warns when Frank’s teeth start worrying at his throat. Frank replies with a low groan, a sharp bite. “I said, be nice,” Adam insists, but doesn’t pull away.
“I missed you,” Frank breathes into Adam’s lips. “Missed this.” He punctuates his words with a kiss, hands sliding under Adam’s clothes, trying to find the warm skin of his waist, thigh pressing up against the heat of Adam’s groin. His mouth waters. “Missed your cock,” he murmurs, almost too quietly to be heard.
Adam, of course, hears it.
“Goddamnit, Pritchard,” he snaps, pushing Frank to the side so that he can kiss him the way he wants, lips parted wide, tongues sliding together. It’s messy and too intimate, but no one’s paying them any attention. Adam fits a leg between Frank’s, lets Frank grind up against his thigh as they kiss and kiss. It’s considerably dark, so they’ll probably not get kicked out anytime soon, but he doesn’t really want to come in his pants and with the way Frank’s moving against him? That’s a very likely possibility. Adam pulls away chuckling at the frustrated groan Frank lets out and offers, “We should get you high more often.”
Frank actually laughs at that, even though he’s shaking with how much he wants Adam, the euphoric waves that had come to a simmer as they listened to the band now crashing violently over him.
Hips circling against the push of Adam’s body, grinding forward out of their own accord, Frank hisses, “Can we go?”
Adam pretends to ponder the question as he gazes into Frank’s eyes. God, the hacker’s pupils are huge, his eyes so dark. There’s a very tempting blush high on Frank’s face, his lips kissed bright pink.
Adam nods. They absolutely can go.
They stumble out into the cold night, Frank mumbling something about Adam’s skin and how good it feels. How much he wants to touch him. Taste him. All of it, his chest, his cock. His ass.
“God, I want to eat you out,” Frank tells him and the thing is, Adam is stronger than Frank. If he wanted to stop it, push him away, make him wait until after they got home, he could. Instead, he goes pliant in the push of Frank’s arms, lets Frank lead them into the first dark alley they come across, which speaks volumes about how many fucks Adam actually gives about propriety. They end up half-hidden behind a big electric box, Adam choking sobs against his own forearm while Frank rims him within an inch of his life.
Frank is a lost cause, way up high in his own overstimulated cloud, groaning at the taste and feel of Adam’s hole fluttering open at every swipe of his tongue. He loses track of time, thinking only of having more and more of Adam, his scent, his flavor, his heat. Frank’s a bit rougher than usual when he enters Adam, hasn’t really gotten him ready for his cock other than licking him stupid, but Adam pushes back against the pressure of his thrusts, comes quickly after Frank wraps a tight fist around his length. Frank pulls out, comes against Adam’s back and almost bites a piece of Adam’s neck off when he does so. Adam flinches. Hisses out a curse. Calls Frank a fucking vampire. But Frank knows he’ll shiver every time Frank kisses that spot later on, knows Adam’ll keep touching the tender spot every day until the ache fades.
The aftermath is… sticky. It makes for an uncomfortable walk home. Frank is being very affectionate, stealing kisses here and there, tracing the back of Adam’s neck with his fingertips as they walk.
It’s a different side of the hacker, but Adam welcomes it with open arms.
“You drive me fucking crazy, you know that, Francis?” Adam offers, city lights shining on his shades as Frank pulls back from a kiss that was just too short for Adam’s liking. Frank doesn’t mind that he’s got his shades on again, not as much as he normally would, so he grins at Adam, cheeky and optimistic as he rarely allows himself to be.
“I’m hungry,” is his answer, shoulder pushing against Adam’s. “Feed me, Jensen.”
They find a curry place that is still open, so they both smell like beer and a million different spices when they finally get to Frank’s apartment. It’s closer, they reason, but it’s also the first time Adam is entering Frank’s place and it feels meaningful, somehow.
It’s a small apartment, but very neat and clean. When they go inside, Adam says, “Nice place,” and then his next words are breathless curses and Frank’s name as Frank pulls him with him down onto the couch with slow and deep kisses that make him feel like he’s melting. Seems like they’re nowhere near done for the night.
“Fuck, I love you like this,” Frank tells Adam as he rolls them over, pushing Adam down onto the couch. He wants Adam again — or maybe he still wants him, his desire and arousal haven’t really faded at all since they fucked outside the warehouse bar. Adam’s ass is still wet when Frank slides a finger into him, easy to work open when Frank bends him over the arm of his couch. Adam lets Frank have his way with him, clothes only half off their bodies. He encourages Frank, really, moaning and pushing backward and all but begging for Frank to touch him, use his hands and cock to make him come.
Frank obliges all too happily. He likes that Adam is in his space, clawing at his pillows, coming all over his couch. It adds a layer of intensity to the pleasure building and burning inside him. He tells Adam that, tells him everything. How he feels, how absolutely terrified and filled with light he feels when they’re together. He tells Adam he never wants him to leave. Wants them to be even closer, as close as possible.
He wants everything.
Adam feels like shit because he likes what he hears, loves it, really, but Frank is tripping balls and will probably regret everything the following morning, if he even remembers saying any of it.
“I need a shower,” Adam tells Frank after they’re done, sweaty and sticky and breathless. He wonders what is going on inside Frank’s head, if he’s coming down, if he’s embarrassed or if he already regrets getting this close, but Frank remains calm and sated and then he leads Adam to the bathroom with a small smile Adam doesn’t really recognize.
Frank usually keeps his cards so close, Adam almost can’t tell what’s real here and what is just an effect of the drug Frank took.
They shower together, kissing as their soaped up skin slides together. Once they move into the bedroom, Frank kisses Adam from the shell of his ear to the arch of his prosthetic feet, asking, all the time, how does it feel?
Warm and faint, like it should tickle, but it doesn’t. “Is this okay?”
And, “I could just do this all night.”
Adam is too sore to be fucked again, so Frank carefully massages his prostate until he’s about to burst from pleasure. It almost hurts, coming a third time, and his eyes are wet as the devastating waves of his orgasm recede. Frank looks at him like he can’t believe his eyes and wraps a hand around his own cock, brings himself off against Adam’s abdomen, kissing his tears, his neck, groaning against his ear as he paints Adam’s skin with his warm seed.
It’s not the first time they sleep together. Not at all. It’s the first time Frank wraps himself around Adam likes this, though, like Adam is fragile and precious and deserves to be treated as such, Adam’s head on the hacker’s chest and Frank’s arms around his torso, fingertips tracing patterns across his naked back. It might also be Adam’s first time being treated like this and he doesn’t want to think about how tight and light his chest feels.
The next morning, though, the bed is empty when Adam wakes up. At first, he feels cold. Hurt.
Then, he feels stupid. Only a stupid person would take a great night in the arms of a lover who was high as kite and go catching feelings, right? Adam is just about to go looking for his clothes when Frank walks into the bedroom wearing soft-looking pajama bottoms that make Adam suddenly very aware of his own nakedness.
Frank’s bedroom is a very different place with the morning light sneaking in through the window, painting the grey of his furniture in warmth. Frank has two glasses of what looks like orange juice in his hands, one of which is only half-full because Frank is drinking from it, mumbling something about needing to have a closer look at what he took the night before, because he has absolutely no hangover whatsoever and isn’t that amazing?
“Here.” He hands Adam the other glass of juice and sits down next to him on the bed, eyes very soft. “I have some cereal in the kitchen, if you want.”
Adam takes the glass, but doesn’t drink. He’s staring at Frank, an unreadable expression on his face.
“Are you still tripping?” he asks. Frank raises an eyebrow.
“No.” The way he says it, like he thinks Adam is being annoyingly obtuse on purpose, is comfortingly familiar. Adam takes a sip of his orange juice. It’s very sweet, which he wasn’t expecting at all. Freshly squeezed, he thinks. He wonders if Frank’s hands smell like oranges now.
Adam would pull the shields over his eyes if he thought he could get away with it. As it is, he only looks away and lamely offers, “You’re very strange.”
Frank rolls his eyes. “Look, I know you just woke up, so I’ll cut you some slack. You can act like an emotionally stunted brat all you want, but I meant what I said last night.”
With that, Frank drinks the last of his juice and stands up with his empty glass. He walks up to the window, pulls it open all the way. It’s still early, but the sunlight is warm as it shines on Frank’s naked chest and shoulders. He looks good like this, Adam thinks. Bathed in pale gold, comfortable in his own space without the usual darkness and paranoia weighing in his gaze.
He looks like everything Adam wants and more.
“I’ll give you… space if that’s what you need,” Frank says after a moment. The way he says the word ‘space’, like it’s the worst thing in the world, makes Adam snort. At the sound, Frank glances at him with a raised eyebrow. “Do you know what you need?”
Adam ponders the question. “Not usually,” he admits, a small, self-conscious smile on his lips. His humor dies quickly, though, and his chest feels suddenly too small to contain everything he’s feeling, his throat very tight when he adds, “I think I need you.”
Adam catches the twitch on the corner of Frank’s lips before the tech can school his face into something more neutral. He can’t fight off the contented smile that is threatening to take over his whole face, though, so he looks away from Adam like he suddenly can’t bear to look at him. “Stay,” he very casually offers. “I’ll… make us lunch, later.”
Adam stands up from the bed slowly, gathering the covers around his waist for some semblance of modesty. He leaves his juice on the bedside table and walks closer to Frank. Then, he wraps an arm around Frank’s middle, pulls him close with a quiet, “That sounds good.” Frank leans into him, into what is not really an embrace, but it’s warm and just perfect. “Sounds really good.”
Frank’s lips taste sweet and citrusy and Adam kisses him like he can swallow his burst of fearlessness and make it his own, make it so that the future doesn’t scare him at all. The way they live, though, there’s just so much that could go wrong. And Frank can’t explain it, really, can’t make sense of any of it, but it hardly matters.