Snafu

Firing Squad - Part 1

On Saturday morning, Gideon was already gone even though he supposedly did not have work at the office on the weekends. He left a note in the usual place to let Cole know he had gone to the gym, probably to work off his nervous energy. Cole spent the morning soaking in the hot tub. He tried to convince himself that he could handle anything these people threw at him. After all, they had already tossed him and Gideon together at gunpoint. Any snide comments would pale in comparison. But it was hard not to be at least a little nervous, especially when Gideon was so obviously worked up, displeasure simmering beneath his skin, evident in his every movement.

Then, it was nearly time to leave. Cole frowned at himself in the mirror that hung in Gideon's closet. Behind his reflection, in flashes of shadowed movement, Gideon shrugged into a dress shirt. Cole had already finished getting dressed and joined Gideon in his bedroom because – loathe as he was to admit it – his nerves had begun to get the best of him, and he did not want to be alone with his jittery thoughts. Gideon was wearing a nice business casual combination of slacks and the button-down - what he usually wore to work sans the tie - whereas Cole had opted for something a little flashier.

"Is it too much?" He asked Gideon's reflection.

The navy satin blouse hugged his neck and flowed down the flat planes on the front of his torso while remaining completely open in the back. The fabric was cut away so that the hem sloped beneath his arms and disappeared into where he tucked it into a pair of slim black trousers. He had been thinking of getting a sheer mesh shirt. Something about Gideon's 'sure' when he asked if he should be on good behavior made him want to maybe, just a little bit, act out. But when he saw this shirt, he decided it was a classier option.

The expanse of his back, from his nape and his shoulder blades to the little dips at the base of his spine, was pale against the dark satin. Eye-catching. Gideon certainly had not been able to keep his eyes off the valley of his spine. Cole watched in the mirror as he looked again.

Then their eyes met in the reflection, and Gideon abandoned buttoning up his shirt to come stand behind Cole. The strong muscles of his chest peeked out of the vee of his half-buttoned shirt, close enough to Cole's bare skin that he could feel his warmth. A shiver skittered down his back as Gideon trailed a finger up his spine, tracing over each bump of his vertebra. After nearly a week of polite distance, the gentle touch stole his breath and made his belly clench.

Then Gideon spoke in that molten voice that he had not used since Valentine's Day. "I think it's perfect."

Cole blushed. It was painful to watch his own face go red in the mirror, so he turned around and ducked his head to finish buttoning Gideon's shirt. Gideon watched him, hands loose by his sides, his breath puffing across the curls of Cole's hair. It seemed a bit strange that he was toeing their line in the sand, but this dinner was making him act odd in general, so maybe this was just the way he was when he had his game face on.

"This is going to be a shit show. Just so that you know," he said.

"So, you've said many times." Cole slipped the top button through, then decided Gideon looked too uptight like that and undid it. He laid his hands flat on Gideon's chest to feel the warmth of it through the thin fabric, emboldened Gideon's touch on his back. This was not really helping him calm his nerves.

"I just want you to know that we can leave at any time." Gideon ducked his head to try and catch Cole's eyes, making sure he was being understood. It was amusing honestly, because Cole had been around these wealthy criminal types in much more vulnerable situations than the one they were walking into.

But Gideon was one of those wealthy criminal types, born into it and never working at the base of the pyramid where there was an astronomical turnover rate of pushers on street corners with racetracks up their arms. To him, a shit show was sitting around and listening to his family make passive-aggressive comments while drinking cognac. He never had to debase himself for food or shelter, so this was the ultimate chore.