#byzantium: that one spy au | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

itsheibai · 4 years

Text

—byzantium: trial by fire

pairing: markren | rating: M | angst, spy au | wc: 6.2k

Part 0 | Part 1 | Part 2

summary: “Was this a test?” Renjun asked. Exhaustion capping his question with a hitched sigh. Mark leaned over their minute distance and used his thumbs to wipe the dust and grime off his cheeks. He did it very gently, and Renjun could only blink when thinking how just hours earlier, he had those same thumbs pressing down so precisely on his trachea. “It’s classified.”

warning(s): description of physical injuries, lethal use of firearms

Renjun considered himself as someone unbreakable.

He had his hand cut off. Clean off the bone.

He had life wires inserted into the gangrenous flesh, both as a form of torture and as part of his recovery process. Unsedated.

He had walked unflinchingly through a shower of bullets. Drown and be revived for hundreds of times.

Pain was just as constant of a presence in his life as the high ringing within his ears.

Unbreakable. He was unbreakable.

But that was only until he saw the way Mark looked at him from across the rickety walkway that was teetering dangerously to the side, its foundation creaking beneath its weight from an earlier blast of makeshift explosives.

Renjun had a gun trained on his head. An arm looped tightly around his neck. Those were standard procedures.

The way Mark looked at him, though, broke him.

“Drop your weapon.” Their target screamed, and Renjun flinched. Not because of how he yelled it right beside his ears, not even because of how he shoved the gun’s nuzzle harshly against his temple.

But because Mark didn’t oblige.

“Keep that up and your friend here dies.” The threat was real and Renjun knew it. He was desperate. A cornered animal lashing around in fear and frustration.

But Mark didn’t budge. He kept his gun trained at his head. Hands firm, eyes locked. Not missing even a single millimeter even if the ground he was standing on has begun to shudder dangerously under their combined weight.

Renjun stared back at him. Silently pleading at him to please, please, please.

Don’t do it.

Renjun tried to prevent what he could see, even from miles away, would happen next by struggling all that desperately against his captor’s arm, reminding him that he was still there, god dammit. Because this mission shouldn’t have ended this way. It shouldn’t. They’ve worked so hard together for this that if Mark were to blow it in a last second moment of impulsivity…

“I said, drop your fucking weapon!!”

Though, no matter how hard he tried, even if he grew desperate enough and broke the illusion of power by using his hand to try and prevent their target from moving the gun away from his head, when Mark was determined, he was determined.

And from the look on his eyes, Renjun knew. Because from the very first second that he made the mistake of trusting that Mark would be able to ignore his heart and execute the plan as they’ve laid it out for months prior, he knew.

He wanted their target dead.

So he was.

The very moment their target pulled his gun away from Renjun’s head, a bullet lodged between his eyes. Another bullet flew between his collarbones. Three more on his chest. And the last five, pooling in a morbidly perfect circle within his stomach.

The agency wanted him alive. The agency told them, numerous times, that they wanted him alive.

Mark just killed their only ticket home.

“Are you okay?!” The empty gun clattered against the ashen metal grate and was kicked off the platform when Mark ran towards him and worriedly checked on his crumpled form.

But then it was his turn to flinch when Renjun yanked Mark’s hands away from his shoulders and nearly made him join the gun on the ground, three stories below, when he suddenly jumped back to his feet and drove him against the railing. “How will you explain this to the committee?!”

Mark was only stunned for a split second before his determination came back to him in full force. “Fuck them.” He spat out.

“Stop,-”

He pushed Renjun away from him and began walking to the start of the platform, “they already have what they need. This is gross indulgence.”

“Mark,-!”

“I am not going to trade your life for a fucking token confirmation!” He turned around, and the way he looked at Renjun, the way his eyes were set ablaze in a rage more frightening than anything Renjun had seen before, broke the unbreakable. “You’re too good an agent to be thrown away just like that.”

“We are not heroes, Mark.” No longer able to contain his frustration, Renjun retaliated with a burst of anger of his own. “We can’t choose how we die!”

“So you would?” Mark asked, one foot already beginning to descend down the barren stairs. The way he looked at Renjun showed so much hurt and disappointment. “You would die for them?”

Renjun took a deep breath, feeling the fragments of his broken heart rattling within his rib cage. “If it is what’s needed of me,” he paused. Forcing himself to steel out his resolve as he’d begun to feel a quiver growing on his bottom lip when he saw how Mark’s gaze was gradually growing softer and softer. More and more pitying. Very alarming. “Yes.”

Rogue agents have a kill on sight order.

Defected agents have a kill on sight order.

So Mark, the genius that he was, immediately eliminated his biggest threat, an active field agent who he thought would’ve terminated him if given the chance, with a bullet in his stomach.

The force blew Renjun’s already tattered body backwards. All this time he was able to stand up only through the adrenaline coursing through his veins and the power of his will. So Mark’s measly bullet, from his emergency disposable Glock, who even on his worst day would’ve meant nothing more but a mere mosquito bite, managed to knock the wind completely out of his lungs.

Renjun fell onto the platform with no means of dampening the force. The back of his head slammed directly onto the metal grate, sending a sharp tang of iron up his sinuses and causing his vision to swim.

With his consciousness compromised, nothing was left to take the rein on his senses, and everything flooded onto him at once. Pain. Bones broken in two different places. Tinnitus ringing and drowning the industrial hum that was echoing through their surroundings. And his sight. Colours far too vivid and shapes melting, mixing in together like the palette of an artist at the end stage of their painting.

He saw the tip of Mark’s boots entering his periphery, and he flinched. Genuinely, this time, as Renjun could already taste the dirtied rubber sole rubbing against his teeth even before Mark went and gave his bloodied face a kick.

But it never came.

Instead, Mark’s face, swirly and off coloured, filled his vision.

He grabbed Renjun by his neck, and squeezed.

Renjun didn’t fight back. He couldn’t. Not because he was tired, or in too much pain, as there was no such thing. But because by that point, he was so completely, utterly broken.

I guess, he thought, right before the stars in his vision brightened and night fell, if I die, it has to be because of him.

Renjun gained his consciousness like how raindrops would collect into the rusted metal bucket that stood just beside the entrance of their safe house. Excruciatingly slow and somewhat annoying.

First he felt the damp earth, pressed against his cheek. Mark’d somehow towed him out of the dreary industrial complex and deep into a forest of unknown location. His surroundings were flooded by a blaring white light from a portable electric lantern. But past the one meter radius, it was pitch dark.

There was the strong smell of cut grass and pungent fungus, tickling his nostrils. Crickets, chirping, melding in so seamlessly with the ringing in his ears that it took him a while to notice the soft breaths of Mark, who was sitting against a fallen tree trunk right beside his prone form.

His tongue felt like they were made out of fifty layers of forty grit sandpaper, and it hurt for him to swallow his thick, blood coated saliva.

Renjun let out an involuntary cough and it caused Mark to whip his head in Renjun's direction.

“You’ll get us both killed.” He spat. Literally. What remained of his spittle and globs of blood shot out to the earth when he hacked out another round of coughs that rattled the gunshot wound on his stomach like a blood-filled flesh maraca.

His neck ached from the long period of it being bent in an awkward position, but still Renjun forced it to tilt so he could stare into Mark’s eyes, which were empty and uncaring, with his own. Which burned with what essentially was pure, undistilled, irritation.

At that, Mark only rolled his eyes. He rose from his resting spot and traversed the gap between them. Sitting back down in an angle that caused Renjun’s vision to be filled completely with his black combat pants. “Me. I’m the one who went rogue.” He said, hand first smacked right in the middle of his back so firmly it forced Renjun to hack out another painful cough, before it slowly made its way up his spine. Landing on the strip of exposed skin of his nape. Mark pressed down on the tender skin and it caused him to shudder. “You’re my hostage.”

Sane. Guiltless. Clean.

His blood, which previously was boiling hot, turned into ice.

It made too much sense. Every single one of it.

“Until they terminate me, I just want to,-“ Mark paused, retracting his hand away from Renjun’s neck and threw his head back so he could stare, wistfully, at the dark canopy of the forest. “I just want to be me.”

When Mark returned his attention to him, he looked so hopeful, so childlike, that it further broke what was not yet broken, and ground the ones already snapped into tiny, unrecognizable pieces. His desire to protect Mark. His resolve to delay the inevitable. His promise to quell the dangerous doubts swirling within Mark’s brain. All broken. All gone.

Renjun killed him with his inaction. And together with that, he killed himself.

He would not retract his earlier statement, no matter what. Renjun knew, by the end of the day, or the week, if they were lucky, they both would die. Even if Renjun was spared and was relocated to a new cell, what was the use?

The only person who knew his true existence sat in front of him.

If Mark dies, who was he?

As not even he knows who he was.

“You’re so fucking selfish, you know that?” Words, uncontrollable words that he knew he would regret saying the moment each letter was put in front of the last one, escaped from the gaps of his broken hope. “Go die for all I care. Just don’t drag me down with you.”

“They won’t kill you.“

“They’ll reset me.” He insisted, voice almost breaking from the sheer amount of frustration he felt. “What is that if not death in all aspects but physical?”

“But won’t it be… fun?” Mark’s voice dropped down into a low hush, and Renjun could feel the sensation of cold earth digging into the underside of his nails when he had to dig his fingers into the ground to prevent himself from emoting more than he was right then. Because he knew that the dam would break if he put any more strain to it. And the last thing Renjun wanted Mark to see coming from him at that moment was sympathy. “To be able to be free, even if just for a second?”

“I’d rather live.” Renjun then used the last of his strength to push himself up to his hands and knees. Groaning with every screech of his muscles and the pops of his joints. Mark attempted to help him at one point, but he was deterred with only one glare that encompassed the entirety of Renjun’s fury. “With or without you. I’d rather live.”

Mark scoffed at his determination, and something within him seemed to snap together with it. The innocence in his eyes, what previously looked genuine, now looked like a mockery of such a concept.

Dread rippled through his limbs when Renjun started to see more and more cracks grow on the reality, which was actually nothing more but a screen of illusion that Mark had erected between them.

Did he say something wrong? Did he do something wrong? Would Mark actually sell him out to trade for his safety?

Mark grinned, suddenly, after he saw the shift on Renjun’s expression. He grinned his usual grin and nudged his head to a vague point to the left of his head and Renjun felt an impulsive urge to slam his forehead against the fallen log for forgetting how much of a good con artist Mark was.

But noting that he was essentially backed up on an inescapable corner, Renjun didn’t have any other choice but to turn his head to look at what Mark was pointing at.

A cleaning squad? A hidden camera? The head of their agency tutting their tongue in disappointment?

None of that.

The far edge of Mark’s electric lantern caught the glint of something metallic.

A rusted metal bucket. And above it, a corrugated metal roof that, under even the finest misting of rain, would make a full ruckus of clanging and banging that Mark would not stop bitching about, but Renjun would secretly thank as it gave him an anchor point to ignore the chaos happening within his own ears.

As he slowly turned his head back, Renjun reached deep within himself and came out feeling the stitches that bound his fresh wound close. Tidy and even. A job only Mark was able to do. A job he could only do with the means provided to them by the agency inside their safe house.

His gaze came to where Mark was, and Renjun was greeted with a smile, so sweet, so satisfied which, off course he was. Mark was successful in manipulating Renjun to tell him his truth. Because yes, everyone has their desires. Their true motives in life. It was just that Renjun’s could only be pried out of him with the help of a bullet being dislodged into one’s stomach.

He didn’t know if he should be glad, that Mark wasn’t actually dumb enough to throw his life away just like that. Or if he actually should be mad, that Mark essentially betrayed him. Frayed their trust on each other just because he was told to do so by the agency.

“Was this a test?” He asked. Exhaustion capping his question with a hitched sigh.

Mark leaned over their minute distance and used his thumbs to wipe the dust and grime off his cheeks, together with a bead of tears Renjun never realised he’d shed. He did it very gently, and Renjun could only blink when thinking how just hours earlier, he had those same thumbs pressing down so precisely on his trachea.

“It’s classified.”

“Did I at least pass?”

Mark didn’t answer him. Instead, he chuckled and pulled Renjun close into a casual hug, before giving his cheek a playful kiss. Renjun would’ve normally swat him away in annoyance, especially after everything he’d done. But then, he let Mark linger longer than usual. Because Renjun could feel his mouth, moving surely on his grimy skin.

Thank god, thank god, thank god.

So he passed. They passed. And he could feel the fragments of his heart, slowly congealing itself back into something no longer fragmented. Deformed, yes. But more unbreakable than it was before.

“Do you think I’m weak, Huang?” Mark whispered, out of the blue. And to him, it sounded like an apology. The way he clutched to the shirt caking against Renjun’s back was bordering on something sacrilegious. Something, that if it were just that tiny bit more vulnerable, would’ve led to another test of a higher difficulty being sent to their mailbox come next morning.

Though Renjun knew, oddly, that they would’ve easily passed that one. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. Because he lied when he said he didn’t know if he was glad or mad at Mark for doing what he did. Renjun only needed a second to know that Mark would never betray him.

Everything he did was out of necessity. Everything he did. The little, subtle nudges. His perfect choice of words. The location on Renjun’s stomach that his bullet lodged into. All calculated, all monitored with the pair of his eagle eye.

So he gave in, ignoring the screams of alarm that blared so loudly in his ears, and returned Mark’s hug with one of his own.

“Yes.”

But so was he. So, it didn’t really matter, no?

Mark, even if Renjun insisted against it, helped him clean up the layers of grime, blood, and dirt he’d accumulated through the last 24 hours that they were awake. “Finishing a mission and going straight through to a test of loyalty!” He said, chipper and uncaring, as he sprayed a shivering Renjun with bucketfuls after bucketfuls of lukewarm water.

Renjun nearly told Mark to not bother with boiling any water for his bath. But then Mark only looked flatly at him, and said, “and to see you die from shock? No.”

It pulled the first genuine laughter from Renjun, which he quickly regretted, because it rattled the delicate stitches of his gunshot wound so harshly he had to press a hand over it to prevent any thread from snapping free.

“You’re tempting fate.” He mumbled through the clacking sound of his teeth bumping against each other.

“They don’t bug our bathroom.” Mark responded, as he was carefully combing through the cuts on Renjun’s arms with a flashlight and a pinset, to pick out forgotten debris of glass and fine shavings of wood.

“How do you know?”

Mark pulled one long shard of glass and it fell soundlessly on the spare towel spread on the earthen flooring of their makeshift bathroom, “for how nosy they are, I bet they don’t want to hear us pissing or shitting around the clock.”

Renjun laughed again at that. He really was starting to lose his grip on reality from how exhausted he was, huh? “Fair enough.”

Once he was happy with his work, Mark pulled Renjun into a bundle of towel, before draping a woolen blanket over his shoulders. All of them were warm to the touch, as clearly he’d had them toasting over the heater for the duration of his bath.

“Wait at the med bay,” Mark said as he swiftly took off his mud-caked top after shoving Renjun out of the bathroom. “I’ll give your arm a look.”

Ah, right. His left arm.

The non-stop barrage of twists, turns, and revelations made Renjun forget for a hot second that his ulna was broken on two different spots.

He stared at the skin of his lower arm with near disinterest. Bruised skin, broken capillaries and all. Dull pain pulsed in long intervals through his inflamed flesh.

Renjun could only maintain his patience for five cycles before he sighed and took the inflammation retardant shot from the medicine cabinet, absentmindedly pumping it to his forearm before he rummaged through the box of hardwares for a piece of wooden plank suitable enough to be turned into a makeshift splint.

Renjun was in the middle of tightening a knot with the help of his teeth when Mark rounded the corner. Half his face was covered by his hair and towel he was using to dry it but he could see, from the way his shoulders dropped, that Mark lost just a little bit more of his faith on Renjun who only responded to him with a casual shrug.

“Didn’t I tell you to wait.”

“You took too long,” he said, offering his arm to Mark who instantly took it into his care. “What did you do in there? A bubble bath?”

Mark chuckled at that, “I wish.” Mark, for all his fire and hot shot attitude at facing life, was a surprisingly gentle healer. His fingers barely registered on Renjun’s quickly numbing skin as he unravelled the haphazardly wounded gauze and readministered the splint with perfect accuracy. All the while being nicely mindful that it didn’t unecessarly add weight and pressure on Renjun’s mechanical hand.

The thing was so lifelike (as in, riddled to the brim with problems) that sometimes Renjun forgot how it was just an amalgamation of polymers and artificial neurons. A state of the art engineering marvel invested in him by their agency heads.

Mark also, unnecessarily, topped his care with the application of a topical ointment on Renjun’s neck. Focusing his fingers on the sore spot deep between the center nook that's started to bloom in a reddish bruise. Both of Mark’s hands circled at the base of his neck, his thumbs gliding easily with the help of the heated cream, so softly that he understood it served as a form of apology. And like earlier, Renjun did nothing else but comply. Though unlike earlier it was not based on despair, or defeat, but trust. Such undying trust that it would’ve been so easy for Mark to kill him, right then and there. But he didn’t. Even if Renjun’s easy hand, lazily hanging on the nook of his elbow, indicated that he wouldn’t mind if Mark really needed to do it. To save his identity, to save his career, to save himself. But of course, he didn’t.

“Done. Wait for me in the bedroom,” Mark capped Renjun’s treatment with a shove on his uninjured arm. But Renjun didn’t budge.

“Only when you tell me how you are planning to staple that wound on your back.” He said, cocking his chin. To Mark’s incredulous scoff, Renjun only responded with a genuine shrug, “I’m serious! This might come in handy in the future when you betray me for real and I have to dress my wound by myself.”

“God, alright.” Mark, defeated, tossed the medical grade staple gun at Renjun who easily caught it with his healthy hand. “Just make it tidy.”

“Enlighten me, sir. In what universe are untidy staples better than nothing at all?” Using his one hand, Renjun did his job with only one initial snippy comment. Mark also only scoffed once, only at his retort, and not a peep afterwards. Not when Renjun used the side of his hand against Mark’s shoulder blade to steady his fingers, not when he released the metal staple onto his irritated skin, binding the open wound shut.

Mark also didn’t make a sound, not even as a byproduct of his body moving involuntarily due to shock, when Renjun leaned in and gave the wound a fleeting kiss.

Though to be fair, what was a shock to the likes of them? An explosion could’ve rattled their lodging this very second and they would’ve responded with only a disinterested ‘huh?’

Renjun didn’t wait around to see if Mark were (or were not) ever going react to his stupid, impulsive action. He just walked to their shared sleeping area and carefully lowered himself to the hard mattress on the floor.

He lied there, on his side, facing the entrance as he battled on the idea of whether to ask Mark for another set of blanket, or to just tough it up like how he usually did.

Turns out, all his time contemplating was for naught.

Mark walked into the room already holding a bundle of extra blankets he must’ve nicked from their emergency cupboard.

He then laid a thin, scratchy cotton blanket over Renjun’s curled form after spending a good two minutes having a tug of war from trying to pull the damp towel away from his naked body.

“Let it be,” Renjun grumbled in annoyance.

Mark also grumbled, when he tried to disentangle the bulky fabric from Renjun’s limbs “You’ll catch a cold.”

“I’m already cold.”

“Well, you’ll only get colder with this around your neck, you dumb shit.” Mark said. Insult capping his sentence together with the laughter for when he managed to yank the towel cleanly away from Renjun. Mark then draped another cotton blanket over him, “your fault too that you didn’t bother to put on some clothes.”

“Too lazy.”

Mark’s laughter devolved into a chuckle as he himself grunted his way into his set of firm mattress and thin blanket, “that’ll kill you one day.”

“Me sleeping naked?”

“Your laziness.” Mark’s wound was on his right shoulder. But still, he ignored what must’ve been an annoying pulling sensation on his stapled skin so he could lie on his side that faced Renjun. But for what? He ended up doing nothing more but taking jabs at him. “It’ll be hilarious if we were to get ambushed and we have to run out right now.”

“I’ll have it neutralised in the time it takes for them to recover from seeing a naked penis.”

“Swinging around as you take aim.” Mark’s laugh sounded very childish, and Renjun bit down on the snarky comment that he planned to say. He wanted to let the air settle on a good note.

They fooled around the last night they spent in this safe house, and the proximity of their mattresses, which usually would’ve been pushed flush against the opposing walls but were now pressed against the others’, served as proof of their disobedience.

No distracting stimuli before any major mission, they said.

But how could they not? To touch a person who seemed to be a mere extension of oneself. Spiritually, physically. How could that be a distraction?

They knew, back then, that they were not going to be able to even acknowledge the other’s existence once their mission started. So they rationalised, just once. To sate my needs. And your cravings. Because we won’t be able to get any action after we step out from this place, Renjun remembered Mark’s joke when they were riding down the highs of the night.

“Only you won't, nerd.” Renjun replied, knowing that Mark was assigned the character of an ‘antisocial star scientist’ for their then upcoming mission. “As his PA I would definitely have lots of action.”

Mark’s grip around his wrist tensed for a split second before he let go and rolled to the far edge of his mattress with a tired scoff. “Rest, Huang.” He mumbled.

It was done so naturally that Renjun only realised the implication of his action at the moment when he met their target and felt eyes roaming around his body in a way that made his blood boil.

With rage.

But everything has come to an end. All was said, all was done, the bastard died loaded with hot lead and they’ve found themselves in a position that mirrored their last night together so much that, if it weren’t for his wounds, Renjun would’ve believed no time had passed since the last time he blinked six months ago to the day.

They stared, silently, into each other. Slowly shedding the layers of characters they put up for the infiltration with each exhale until they were left as they were in the eyes that held them.

He didn’t need to do much to touch Mark that night. Renjun’s wrist was still covered by his blanket when his fingers made contact against him, softly running across his forearm. The barely there movement of his fingers ghosting over his skin must’ve sent overwhelming tingles up his spine, as Mark could only close his eyes in the face of such a sensation.

“When do we have to pick up Chenle tomorrow?”

Mark’s peculiar choice of words caused Renjun to let out a thin laugh. “Around 2.”

“Good. We can sleep in.” He mumbled, before snuggling himself deeper into the thin pillow that cushioned his sagging cheeks.

They were tired. Exhausted beyond belief. And probably, most wisely, Renjun should’ve kept his desires, and in extension, his fingers, to himself. There’s always tomorrow, isn’t that how it goes?

But the warmth of Mark’s skin underneath the palm of his hand felt too good for Renjun to stop his dazed exploration on his upper arm. They trickled, slowly, down his sides. Past his shoulders that were damp from his wet hair, down to his chest. Renjun could feel how Mark’s heartbeat jolted awake the moment he ran his index finger past the opening of his clavicle.

But he didn’t move. Didn’t even say a word. Not until Renjun creeped up past the hem of his shirt and pressed his palm against his hips that Mark responded.

“You have to rest, Huang.” He said. And when that didn’t change the placement of Renjun’s hand, Mark was forced to open his eyes and looked at him with a pitiful attempt of a warning glare. “Please.”

It only led to Renjun clutching down onto him that much firmer.

“No.”

When Mark frowned, and put his hand on top of Renjun’s with the goal of pulling it away, he rose from his mattress and glided over, all three blankets and all, to hover on top of Mark like a ghostly apparition.

“Do you not want this?” He asked, running the back of his injured hand across Mark’s cheeks that were growing more and more flushed by the second. The way he responded to Renjun’s touch gave him all the answers he needed. Like a moth chasing the deathly lick of a fire. “Let’s just pretend that I can’t sleep and this is you helping me to.”

Under the drapery of Renjun’s mirriad of blankets, Mark gave his palm a lingering kiss. But when he aligned himself and re-emerged into the cool night air, where nothing of the likes should ever exist, Mark acted accordingly. His disapproving frown was cold and harsh. His words, calculated. “That goes against the directive.”

They’re watching us closer, he meant. And to that, Renjun tilted his head in defiance.

“You’re embarrassed now?” He said, snipping words that were successful in pulling an involuntary smile out of Mark’s sullen face.

He shrugged the mountain of blankets off his shoulders, letting it pool around his waist before settling in on a comfortable straddle across Mark’s torso. He quickly reached out for the bottle of lube that was there, still there from the last time they used it months and months ago, stuck at the crevice between their two mattresses, and with just one clicking sound of a plastic clasp unlatching, they both could no longer lie to themselves. They wanted it. And the quick work he made on his pants, and also on Renjun, how easily Mark made him collapse against him, with palms pressed hard and trembling at the sides of his face, acted as surefire proof.

“If they are seeing, let them,” Renjun whispered on the skin of Mark’s shoulder when he sensed a little hesitation in his movement, “let’s give them a good show.” He tilted his head, and caught Mark in his own dilemmatic rumination. His eyes were droopy with the peculiar mix of exhaustion and arousal, and it seemed that a little tipping point was all that he needed for the ‘fuck it’ potion to kick in. So Renjun began grinding on their point of bodily contact and Mark gave in with a kiss of his making. So deep and passionate, with his fingers gripping surely, hungrily around Renjun’s jaw, tipping it this way and that until he was happy with how much they were showing themselves to the surveillance camera watching steadily from the corner of the room.

Mark couldn’t have entered him in any better moment, the perfect spot on his upward journey that jolted him awake with a dose of pleasure so good it helped him find the hidden reservoir of energy to reciprocate his movement in their halfway point. But they were only able to go through a handful of cycles before they both groaned from how the movements were causing nagging strain on their freshly dressed wounds.

“Perhaps… this is not the best position for us right now.” Mark said, interspersed with a ringing of his pained laughter, and Renjun joined soon after.

“Should I go on my knees?” He asked. But Mark’s answer came with only a soft hand placed on his healthy shoulder, pushing at it gently until Renjun understood what Mark meant by his silent action.

So he rolled onto his back, and allowed Mark to lead the pace of their session, patiently accepting the care he was giving to each stroke, no matter how much he actually wanted to just grab him by his arms and demand him to fuck him senseless. Because Mark was doing what he’s always done everytime they do this, and Renjun didn’t have it in him the cruelty to disturb him. His ritual, where he would trace the wounds on Renjun’s body. This time lingering on those that were of his making. “I’m sorry,” Mark whispered, over and over, as he pressed his palm on the carefully stitched, bandaged, barely life threatening hole on Renjun’s abdomen. It was only then that Renjun realised how potent exhaustion was compared to any natural or artificial intoxicating substances, as Mark has never apologised to him, not even in text, not when he’s drunk, nor when he’s drugged out of his mind. Only then. Pushed beyond their personal limits of stamina that sent them both into a padded, floaty limbo where nothing seemed to matter and everything felt grand.

And it affected him too, Renjun figured out, when Mark angled his hips in this one particular way that would always make him feel things he never dared imagined, and he responded with an uncharacteristically desperate moan. His lips were pressed against the inner skin of Mark’s wrist, and in turn Renjun could feel his pulse racing up underneath the thin layers of scarred skin.

He’s never overtly shown his gratitude to how Mark was making him feel. No matter how good, he would try his best to be modest, at best, and emotionally shut down, at worst. But then, nothing mattered. Nothing did. There were only them in that chilly, blindly dark room. In the silent forest. In the entire world. Just them, and to that sentiment, Renjun reacted accordingly.

He hooked his legs around Mark’s back, and clawed his hands onto his arms. Hanging on with his dear life as Renjun, for the second time that night, divulged with Mark his deepest wish.

“Make me forget,” he whispered, eyes nothing more but two unfocused points that tried to seek confirmation on how his words affected Mark. Anger, he wished. Perhaps jealousy. Anything else but the slow pace that Mark was giving him. But although Renjun tasted bitterness in the way he kissed him shut, Mark didn’t change his approach. Only that sweet, unnecessarily careful way that he would only do when he’s feeling particularly cruel. And by that, it meant particularly loving.

Renjun hated it, of course. Hated it because he enjoyed it far too much. That it felt far too good. Far too satisfying. Though at that moment, he was far too exhausted to exercise his usual self-control in the face of Mark’s kindness. So Renjun took it in. Unabashedly, and reciprocated in light. With the sweet sounds and sweet callings of his name, the sweet kisses on his calloused fingers that would always leave Mark shuddering at its wake.

Regret could come later. Regret may come tomorrow morning, when they wake up with questionable things caking on Mark’s shirt, or Renjun’s hair stuck against the crinkled bedsheet. Their bodies would be aching and they would be exhausted, waking up 30 minutes too late to the reprimands of their handlers. Those things didn’t matter then, though.

Because then, they exist.

Euphoria led to bliss, led to their exhaustion returning in full force, led to them, lying side by side under Renjun’s three layers of blanket. Mark lent him his sleeping pants, and Renjun said his thanks by draping his healthy arm over his chest. Because he knew Mark likes it. He hated it. But for that one night, he relented.

Silence has spanned between them for a while that Renjun was surprised to find Mark still awake when he whispered a confession to the night. “I’m glad they allowed me to kill him.” His words caused the start of another episode of suffocation to simmer low at the base of Renjun’s lungs. “After everything he did to you…”

‘Stop.’ Under the blanket, Renjun used the last of his strength to tap his fingers weakly on Mark’s wrist, ‘they might hear you.’

“So?” Undeterred, he continued. “They saw us.”

Renjun found himself smiling in the dark. Touché. But he was adamant on his opinion. ‘That is different from this.’

Mark laughed at that, and gave his cheek a comforting caress, “the fact that they’ve tested us means they know.”

Did he say how his mended heart was more unbreakable than it was before? He lied. Renjun lied, or his heart betrayed him when it broke, again, so easily after he learned the extent of Mark stubbornness. Darkness pressed down on him, loomed over him, and Renjun was helpless in his confinement, pathetically unable to stop Mark from leaning over and capturing his lips into a kiss that he knew had sealed their fate. Whatever it might be.

“We are not weak,” Mark whispered, before he grew quiet once more. Either due to him giving up to sleep, or him, feigning that the former happened to him while he kept guard through the night. ‘They have nothing against us.’

They have you, Renjun thought. The last one before his brain switched off after overloading from the extreme strain he’d put it through. And so they have everything.

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itsheibai · 4 years

Text

—byzantium

pairing: markren | rating: M | smut, angst, spy au | wc: 3.7k

Part 0 | Part 1 | Part 2

summary: “Wanna spend the night together, Huang?” “Hm? Like, with Chenle? Like a sleepover?” “Like, you and me.”

Sexual relationships between agents are not frowned upon. That’s true. But feelings? Feelings more than that of professional, perhaps casual friendship, between agents? Illegal. Completely and truly illegal.

warning(s): drunk sex, first time, mild language, description of physical injuries.

“Come on. I’m not dismissing you until you finish your drink.”

“But sir,-“

“Oh come on. As you said yourself, you owe me your life. The least you could do is drop this sir nonsense around me.”

Chenle looked at him in a desperate move to seek an ally who would back him up on this debriefing turned unauthorised hazing session, but Renjun could only give him a shrug. ‘He’s right, you know,’ he mouthed. It was successful in forcing Chenle to let out a defeated sigh.

“But… Mark,” Chenle’s voice hitched at the end and Renjun would’ve burst into an endeared giggle if Mark didn’t give his thigh a sharp pinch, “we’re not supposed to indulge in intoxicating substances during a mission.”

Mark’s eyes widened, as if challenging Chenle to also open his eyes and observe more clearly the evidence lying in front of him on the corner table of a fancy hotel bar.

A fancy, empty hotel bar that they broke into because Mark insisted for them to find a new environment to do their first debriefing as a team.

“What do you think these glasses held? Water?”

“I’ve been holding on to a prayer that it was coca cola.”

It was unfair that Mark allowed himself to let out a free laugh while underneath the table he used the heel of his boots to dig into Renjun’s shin, when he must’ve seen the sliver of a smirk flickering onto the corner of his mouth.

Bad cop, good cop dynamic is fun and all. Renjun just found it unfair that they were doing it this way, especially after everything that's happened earlier in the day.

‘Chenle is my mentee,’ he coded a stealth message with a frantic tapping on Mark’s knee. ‘How dare you.’

‘Calm down.’ Mark responded. Not with a code, but only with a fleeting squeeze of Renjun’s fingers. No further elaboration needed.

“Fair. I like your style, kid,” Mark huffed, before finally discarding his formal stance by leaning back into the plush backing of the corner booth they were all huddling on. He cocked his chin, and sent Chenle away from their brief meeting after throwing him the unopened can of coke that Renjun was planning to mix with the rest of his rum.

Chenle shot one last thankful look at Renjun before shooting out of his stool so quickly he nearly sent it skidding across the parqueted floor.

Lucky, that Chenle excused himself so hastily. Because not even three seconds later, Mark unravelled at his seams. Their newbie tech assistant hasn’t even exited the room and already he crumpled, like a balled tissue paper, onto Renjun’s shoulder.

“It was so close.” Mark’s trembling sigh was hot against his neck, and to that Renjun’s hand shot up, without even him commanding it, to land protectively over his temple. “It was his first mission, Renjun, his first.”

An avoidable mistake. Them, not being able to command their injured limbs to move faster than humanly possible. A miscalculation on their enemy’s motives.

Three slips. They were lucky it was only three. They were lucky their last second desperate effort to keep their mission from imploding in on itself worked. Four, and this mission would’ve been Chenle’s last.

Mark’s smile was gone. His ease, his calm, his confidence, his… lies. All gone. Taking their place was lips scrunched and bitten to kingdom come, and tears. Streaming freely down his deathly pale face.

Renjun didn’t need to see all that to know what was happening. He didn’t need to feel the warmth of Mark’s tears seeping into the sleeves of his shirt. Not even the nearly negligible shake of his shoulders, as he’s known it too well. They’ve gone through so many days like this that it was nothing more but a normal occurrence.

He remembered clearly their first day. Not their first day at work, no. But their first day that something went terribly, terribly wrong and they have to live their life with one less brick to protect them from falling to oblivion.

They lied on their backs at their safe house. Side by side. Way too close but not enough at the same time. They spent the night staring at the ceiling and letting the waves of tears nearly drown them.

Time passed way too quickly and none whatsoever that night that sometimes, Renjun felt that he would blink and find himself there again. On the cold concrete floor of the abandoned warehouse, with Mark’s nails digging firmly into his palm as the sole reminder for his humanity.

Since then, he’s learned to stop crying. Not on near misses, not on complete losses. Not when he has to fill in the damage report, nor when he has to be the one to push the button to clean all evidence.

But Mark, on the other hand?

Mark. Stoic, dependable Mark. Mark who has his back covered in raw notches so deep they reveal his bones. Yellowing and brittle. Signifying all the failures he thought only he must bear.

He cries. Always.

“I’ll book us all a spot for psych eval tomorrow.”

Mark let out a nasal laughter before discreetly wiping the tears off his cheeks. He picked his head up and away from Renjun’s shoulder before tipping it back to allow his fifth dose of whiskey to slide through his throat in a path of least resistance. “You and your psych evals.”

“You and your uncontrolled emotions.” Renjun quipped back.

“Crying is better than having a fucking lobotomy, Huang.”

Renjun tensed at that, just minutely. A brief, nearly unnoticeable second of pure animosity before everything went back to normal. But Mark felt it. He must have. Because he handwaved it with a drunken chuckle and forcibly pulled back the drape that Renjun’d so carefully put over the topic with a loud thud that his glass made when slammed against the wooden table.

“Wanna spend the night together?”

“Hm? Like, with Chenle? Like a sleepover?”

“Like, you and me.”

Renjun frowned. But not because of his preposition. Oh, no.

Sexual relationships between agents aren’t frowned upon. Everyone knows that when you just gotta do it, you gotta do it. Besides, it’s easy. As your partner is more often than not a. The only person with you at a month long stakeout or b. The only person who is allowed to know you exist.

He frowned because it was Mark who asked him for the favour. Chenle, he could even probably understand better. But Mark?

Five years they’ve been paired together in missions of varying difficulties, and each time Mark would rather risk a penalty for spending an unauthorised night in town than to do it with the only other person stuck with him in a cabin in the woods.

Not even once.

“Are you sure?” He tried to clarify. Maybe, to see if Mark was joking and he would be spared of any disappointment.

Mark only responded with an easy shrug, head lolling heavily from one side to the other with a careless smile propped on his pale lips. ‘You’re my only option here,’ he seemed to say, with how easy he stood up from the sofa before offering a helping hand to Renjun. ‘You’re easy.’

Insulting, but Renjun wouldn’t want it any other way.

The walk to Mark’s room was painfully uneventful, even if in all actuality Renjun was there, being the mental embodiment of a raging hurricane. Thoughts flying around, anticipation, worry, excitement, fear. From the lock breaking to his chest of denial that contained all the guilt he felt from spending the last five years of working with Mark fantasising about this happening to him, one day.

To silence it, he took charge.

The moment Mark closed the door behind him, Renjun charged at him and hounded relentlessly at his whiskey tinted lips. Tongue, forcing them to open. Teeth, biting them until they both tasted blood, not stopping until he felt a set of strong fingers grabbing his hair near his roots and pulling them back, hard enough that he finally let go.

“I never remember being taught that during our honeypot course,” Mark laughed, very easily, and Renjun forced himself to match it with something similar.

“I take a few liberties.”

Mark seemed to get that Renjun wished to take the lead, as he didn’t resist when Renjun practically dragged him to the bed and tossed him on it so easily. Just as easy as how he went and discarded Mark’s civilian clothes in one fell swoop.

He didn’t let even a single peep during the entire process. Not even a single witty quip.

At first Renjun found it to be odd, but not for long. The sight of a poorly healed wound on the side of Mark’s lower stomach, bumpy and raised and covered in strings of silvery skin, reminded him that they’ve actually done this quite often in the past. Undressing the other and holding them by the skin they were born in, that this, should be just another walk in the park.

Although, well, context matters. Usually, when that happened, the person being undressed would be teetering on the verge of death. The subtlety of this conditioning brought a bitter taste to the back of Renjun’s tongue, but he ignored it with a quick swallow.

“Will you take yours off?” Mark asked, fingers absently fiddling on the hem of Renjun’s shirt.

He swatted it off with a snip. “Of course.”

Mark raised his hands in defence and carelessly flung himself back to the bed. The way he rested on his folded arms with a peculiar crook on his eyebrows made Renjun feel as if he was being judged in the way he chose to undress himself. Which was hasty, and emotionless. Borderline clinical.

“That was depressing,” Mark scoffed.

“Give me 25% of your next salary if you want a performance.”

“Fair,” he said, followed by a hearty laugh, “I have no use of ‘em anyway.”

But contrary to his brazen words, Mark’s action was marred with uncertainty.

Renjun went on to straddle him and he could see Mark’s expression flickering briefly to one of panic.

His fingers teetered dangerously close to Renjun’s naked thighs, as if Mark was waiting for some sort of unneeded guidance, and it pulled an odd smile onto his lips.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never been with a man before.” Feeling suddenly brave in the face of Mark’s flustering, Renjun took his hands and boldly pressed it on the dip of his waist. Pressing them down as he also lowered himself so his inner thigh was fully pressing against Mark’s firm stomach.

His palms were cold. Clammy. Would’ve shook with nerves if they still had the nerves that allowed their hands to do such a thing.

Mark’s nervous gulp was audible and it only further widened Renjun’s smile. “Things have never worked in that favour.”

“Lucky you.”

“Lucky me because I’ve always gotten a catch, or lucky me because you’re my first?”

Renjun rolled his eyes and used the bed of his palm to push on Mark’s forehead. “You’re way too drunk. Just shut up.”

He then reached for the hotel room’s rickety bedside table. Rummaging through the complimentary knick knacks for that small bottle of lube because such a gaudy hotel must have provided one, right?

Absolutely.

He palmed the cheap plastic bottle and returned, only to see Mark had started to anxiously chew on his bottom lip.

Such an off character tick, he thought amusedly.

“Don’t worry, just think of this as your usual recourse. I have it all covered.” Renjun threw those reassurance while he busied himself with preparing for the activity ahead. The lube was cheap, and more sticky on his skin than anything else. But it’d make do.

He was so preoccupied with his action that it took him a good minute before noticing that Mark was still lying there with a worried expression on his face.

It caused him to chuckle. With pity, and nothing else. “Just do what you usually do, Mark. I got this.”

That one seemed to work. As soon after, his eyebrows began to untangle from the creases of his forehead in a moment of clarity. But Mark’s lightening of mood proved to be a hindrance soon enough. Because he then snatched the plastic bottle from between the creases of the bedsheet, poured the content onto his fingers, and forcefully replaced Renjun’s hand in their preparation with his.

To that, Renjun looked at him with surprise that bordered on alarm. But Mark didn’t share such sentiment.

“You told me to do what I usually do,” he said with such ease. A complete one eighty to the confusion he sported not even half a minute ago. At the same time, easily, he enacted a surprisingly needy gasp out of Renjun with an easy curl on his fingers. “Did you think I only ever lay down and ask my partner to do all the work?”

Renjun had to force out a scoff to stop the situation from taking a worse turn from the bad place he found himself in, “sorry for assuming. I was only basing it on your professional track record.”

“Oh fuck you.” Mark mumbled, before he easily flipped their positions around so that he was then straddling Renjun in turn.

Even if he was drunk, Mark still had a sharp eye in observing what buttons he should push to make Renjun unravel in his arms. One finger to two. One hand pushing him to two. Teeth nibbling at his ear, and a knee absentmindedly rubbing against his erection.

Too little turned too much in record time and Renjun had to wrangle all his willpower with all his might only to push Mark away so he could roll himself around to his belly and force the sludge of an unnecessary foreplay away from their session.

Renjun raised his hips, and commanded Mark to start with an easy tilt of his head. “Do it.” He added, when he didn’t sense any movement coming from his partner. He instantly regretted it. Speaking, in this case. Because his voice sounded so weak, then. Far too weak. A reedy, trembling tone completely betraying the wall of carefully constructed confidence that were actually made out of nothing but shredded sheets of paper bound together with school glue.

A wall which instantly crumbled down with something as easy as Mark’s hands coiling around his waist in a sure grip.

None of the walls remained when Mark entered him, so slow and carefully, giving Renjun an undeservingly long breathing period with his chest pressing flush against his feverish back.

Renjun had to resort to his own strength by biting down onto his lips until droplets of blood fell on the pristine bedsheet when he felt Mark’s breath hot against his nape as he began to move. Slowly, at first. Before picking up in pace when he didn’t sense any resistance coming from Renjun, who was actually struggling to stay on his elbows beneath his drunken weight.

And, lastly, damningly, he couldn’t stop a choked moan from escaping him when Mark gave his earlobe a tender kiss before he whispered, “I want to see you.”

“It’s fine.” Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. Renjun’s words were trapped in the back of his throat, forced out in fragmented gasps everytime Mark were to drive himself far enough within him. “You don’t have to force yourself.”

“I want to see you.”

Mark took things into his own hands when Renjun was left petrified at his request. Dragging his shoulders so they rolled to the side, before pushing down on his wrists together with him reentering Renjun in one fluid motion. It pulled a shamefully blissful sigh and Renjun wished that he could sublimate to nothing at that very second.

But clever Mark, he didn’t let go, didn’t even make any moves until Renjun’d stopped resisting. Which was, coincidentally or not, the right thing to do. Because Renjun would’ve let his instinct overtake him and rushed away from the scene so fast if Mark wasn’t there, trapping him in a cage that for once he couldn’t find a way to escape from.

Mark wiped the thin stream of blood from Renjun’s chin before he captured his wounded lips in a deep kiss.

Life, wasn’t it? All this just so he could feel alive, to show that he is alive. To know that Renjun is alive, too. Making sure that he’s ok, with his hands roaming and lingering at tender spots that were beginning to bloom in purples and reds, tracing over tight skin that surrounded shallow cuts dyed brown with iodine. You’re alive. It was so clear. His desperate celebration, ringing each time Mark pressed his fingers onto the skin of his neck, memorising the beat of his racing heart.

Because at the end of the day, they only had each other. Nothing existed before their five years of working together. So nobody else understood their fear. A fear, they’ve discussed this before, but a fear that they won’t have any recollection of their partnership if one of them were to succeed the other.

If Mark wasn’t there to remember him, who would? If Mark wasn’t there to remember him, nobody would.

So each time, without fail, they would find themselves clinging to each other when the fear became too much to bear. Of how easily it would be for their memories, for their very own essence of being, to be ripped out of their hands together with the life of a person that you hold with much more reverence than even you would to a lover (if, they could have lovers).

Difference was, they’ve never done it physically. The clinging, that is. General presence was usually enough. Warmth, that seeped past their uniform to remind themselves that they were not alone, a luxury.

This?

Mark’s forehead pressing against his as he breathlessly mouthed his name to the rhythm of their movement?

Sexual relationships between agents are not frowned upon. That’s true.

But feelings? Feelings more than that of professional, perhaps casual friendship, between agents? Illegal.

Completely and truly illegal.

In an uncharacteristic moment of panic, Renjun regrettably lost control of his inhibitions. Body tensing up and face contorting into an expression of apprehension. Fear. Because he wanted this so much and yet… loathed it at the same time.

It was regrettable as it caused Mark to notice him even more than before. He slowed down and gave all his attention to Renjun, who, at that moment, wished for nothing more than to be treated as a worthless, mindless piece of toy for Mark to seek his pleasure in.

Too late for that, though.

‘Did I hurt you?’ The way Mark gingerly traced his fingers up along the length of his arms seemed to spell these questions. ‘What’s wrong?’

Mark paused, and the palm that caressed his cheeks felt too natural, too practiced, (too soft), that it pulled a tight knot within Renjun’s stomach.

Having no other choice, he answered Mark’s silent question with a silent answer of his own. With a hand on his nape, Renjun pulled him back down so his burning forehead was pressed against the nook of his shoulder. He forced Mark into action with an urgent whisper,

“Faster.”

Mark wouldn’t stop until he was sure that Renjun, too, finished.

Mark wouldn’t stop, not until he fell on Renjun in a heap of drunken, exhausted, snoring mess.

Renjun could only stare at the dusty ceiling until the warmth spreading over his stomach has turned gummy and cold. Embarrassing.

To let Mark see him in such a vulnerable moment.

Illegal.

Renjun carefully slipped away from underneath him, spending a total of three seconds scrubbing the extreme fatigue away from his brain (the ones who begged him to fuck it all and just lay down beside Mark and to deal with whatever would be the aftermath of such action come next morning), and dragged himself the the ensuite to do some very needed clean up.

Because of course Mark, that lazy bastard, finished inside of him.

Renjun nearly left him as he was for revenge, once he walked out of the shower fresh, warm, and sleepy as all hell and saw that Mark had belly flopped to the edge of the bed. Let him be, and Renjun was sure Mark would wake up with an annoying sore neck. Serves him right.

But no. Nah. Nope. Regretfully, he couldn’t allow their best asset to be compromised after such a petty reason. So Renjun, the kind man that he is, went and gently repositioned Mark so his head no longer lolled halfway on the firm pillow. Went and wet a small towel and cleaned him up. Took his pants and put it back on him, gently.

If Mark was awake during all that, he acted accordingly. Softly snoring and fully compliant. Didn’t stop Renjun when after he spent a good fifteen seconds admiring his handiwork, he bailed out of the room at the speed of light.

(Oh, he must’ve been awake. He must have. Mark wakes to the sound of a twig breaking from miles away. To the change in the air current of the room. To the sound of Renjun’s thought rattling within his brain.

He was awake, Renjun was sure of it. Mark only pretended to be asleep because he was being kind.)

Renjun reached his room after trudging through what felt like an endless corridor from hell. The scratchy dust covering felt comfortingly plush against his tired cheek, and his fractured hip bone sunk into the faulty springs of his bed like an anvil dropped into a pool of water.

He spent the rest of the night like that. Lying face down on the bed, feet dangling over the sunken edge.

His breath came about ragged and dry within his lungs, forcing them against his ribs so hard he thought he would suffocate. It was only then that Renjun finally admitted.

He never cried, not anymore, not since that night, because it allowed Mark to bear one less wound on his heart.

It allowed Mark to think that he’s not affected. To think that he’s sane. Guiltless. Clean.

If it’s the very least he could do, then he swore he would never fail to do it. For as long as he could bear and another day on top.

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