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By the time he woke up the next morning, Pink felt as if he’d been through a meat grinder. It had been gone two in the morning before they’d got back to the hotel. He’d never been so glad to lay down in a proper bed in his entire life.
Mordant had been told to wake him up every two hours and ask him questions to make sure he wasn’t having some sort of post-bang-on-the-head brain bleed; and he’d taken his job seriously despite Pink telling him to go away and get some sleep himself.
His mouth felt dry and sticky, and his head and wrist were throbbing in counterpoint. He blinked his eyelids apart with difficulty. The room was pale with early morning sunlight and when he turned his head away from the window, he saw Mordant asleep on the bed beside him.
He looked different in sleep. Less closed off. More relaxed.
Well, duh. Of course he was. He’d been kind last night, despite not liking Pink much. He was a few years older than the rest of Heggarty’s Bow but not much older than Pink himself. Pink had heard Pete Heggarty telling someone that Mordant had been like a big brother to him when they were growing up and it had never quite worn off. The rest of the band were a bit younger than Pink, in their mid-twenties, and Mordant seemed to be the one who parented them all.
Oh well. It didn’t much matter to Pink now. He was going home to Cornwall for six weeks rather than Europe and then on to Japan and the US. This was supposed to be his big break; he’d never done a tour with a band this size before. He probably wouldn’t again. By the time he was healed enough to work again, the band would have bedded in with a new sound guy.
He sighed and shut his eyes, head thumping in resentful accompaniment to his thoughts.
He must have dozed off again because that was the last thing he remembered before he woke up to Mordant patting his face and anxiously saying, “Wake up, Pink, will you? I need to look at your pupils.”
He stirred and stretched his neck before he opened his eyes, blinking up into Mordant’s concerned expression. “I’m okay, I think,” he said.
“What’s your name?” Mordant asked, like an echo.
“Charlie Pinkerton, you annoying fucker,” Pink told him. “And it’s still 2021 and we’re still in the Royal Hotel and the Prime Minister is still that arsehole.”
Mordant laughed and took his hand off Pink’s cheek. “Well, that seems fairly clear,” he said. “Your pupils are still the same size. So we can probably assume you’re okay. How’s your head?” He was lying on his side, propped up on an elbow.
“Hurts like a bastard,” Pink said, brushing his good hand across his forehead and wincing. “And my wrist, too.” He tried to wriggle his sausage-like fingers gently where his arm was semi-immobilised across his chest with the brace and the sling and decided it was a bad plan. He flicked his eyes up again to Mordant’s face. Mordant was watching him. “Yeah, no,” Pink said. “I don’t think I’ll be doing much with that hand for a bit.”
He pulled a face. “Shit,” he said. He splayed his good hand across his eyes, in a faint attempt at hiding his emotions. “I really wanted this job.”
Giving up the house had seemed such a good idea. Both saving on rent and a comprehensive way to prevent Malcolm constantly turning up on his doorstep. It wasn’t that he’d have to live on the street or anything. His mum would be delighted to have him home for a few weeks instead of only popping in and out during breaks in the tour. But he didn’t want to bring Malc down on her, too.
He supposed he had some insurance, somewhere. He couldn’t remember. The perils of being a self-employed person with a head injury and a bad night’s sleep.
He was very tired and it was an effort not to cry.
“Hey,” Mordant’s voice was gentle as his fingers wrapped round Pink’s hand over his eyes, drawing it down so he could look at Pink. “Hey. It’ll be okay.”
“Yeah...but I wanted this,” Pink said, refusing to meet his gaze. “It was what I needed.” He heard the plaintive note in his own voice. He blinked furiously. He wasn’t going to let Mordant see him cry. Mordant’s fingers were warm where they still covered Pink’s in the middle of his chest. His heart hurt underneath their joined hands.
“Hey,” Mordant said again, “It’s not that bad, is it?” He let go Pink’s hand and smoothed away the hair that always fell across Pink’s face as he slept.
Pink shook his head, winced at the resulting pain, and stubbornly turned his face aside.
“Pink?”
Pink shut his eyes.
“Okay,” Mordant said. “Okay. If you want to talk about it, I’m here, all right?”
“You should go,” Pink said, quietly, eyes still shut. “Thanks for waking me up every two hours to check I was still alive and all that; but I’m fine and you should go.”
It was really hard to get the words out. He wanted nothing more than to stay here with Mordant’s big hand with its drummer’s calluses covering his, his big warm body stretched out beside him...even with him on top of the covers and Pink under them, he could feel the heat of him.
He wanted to pretend, for a little bit, that things were okay and that he still had a job and he had a safe home of his own he could go back to and he didn’t have a crazy stalker ex-boyfriend...
Mordant was silent.
In the pause, Pink’s brain finally caught up with what Mordant had said about being there for him. “That’s bollocks,” he said, suddenly, opening his eyes and looking up at him. “About being there for me. You don’t even like me! Before yesterday you barely spoke to me except to complain about not having enough monitors!”
Mordant looked back at him, amused and slightly offended. “I like you fine,” he said.
He was still holding Pink’s hand. As Pink glared at him, his eyes dipped down to look at Pink’s mouth before coming back up and meeting his glare with a slightly guilty expression.
Hmm.
Pink held his gaze and gently put his tongue out deliberately and slicked it along his bottom lip to dampen it; and then caught his lip between his teeth and bit down, still watching Mordant as he did so.
Mordant’s eyes dropped to his mouth again and Pink could see his pupils expanding in tandem. Definitely no concussion there.
“Oh,” Pink said softly. He could hear the note of discovery in his own voice.
Mordant stopped looking at his mouth and met his eyes again. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Oh.” Pink realised the hand covering his own was trembling slightly.
The moment hung between them. Mordant was there, warm and real and not backing away. All the distance he usually kept between them gone.
Fuck it, thought Pink. I’m leaving anyway. He ignored the pounding in his head and lifted up a little bit to press his mouth to Mordant’s.
Mordant’s mouth was soft and warm and a bit chapped. Dehydrated from the gig and a night’s sleep, probably. He held perfectly still under Pink’s lips, not welcoming him, but not pushing him away, either. The tremble in his fingers continued.
Pink drew back after a second or two and looked at him. “No?” he asked, eyebrows raised. Mordant’s eyes were shut.
The other man sighed. It was a shaky sigh—nerves? Or reluctance? It was followed by a little pause before he said, “Yes, all right,” opened his eyes, bent closer to Pink as he lay there on his back, and kissed him.
This time it was longer, hotter and wetter. With considerably more tongue. Mordant manhandled him around, taking care not to jostle his arm, until they were pressed together with the duvet between them, Pink’s injured wrist sandwiched carefully against his chest and Mordant’s. Mordant had a hand on Pink’s arse and a hand on the back of his head, scooping him close.
By the time they drew back by mutual consent, they were both breathing heavily and Pink’s trousers felt way too tight. He buried his face in Mordant’s neck. He smelled of the cheap soap from the Arena and sleep and himself.
“You are so much trouble,” Mordant said quietly beside his ear. “So much bloody trouble.”
