You can't break my heart (because I was never in love)

Christophe could hear Wout’s footsteps coming down the hall before he appeared in the doorway. Wout swung into the room smelling like booze and sweat. His clothes were a bit disheveled. His tie hung loose around his neck and the top few buttons of his shirt were undone. His hair was still perfectly in place. He plopped himself down in an armchair next to Christophe’s desk.

“How did the contact go?” Christophe asked. He turned in his own chair so he could face Wout. Bars weren’t great places for Christophe to listen over a wire. Even with the improvements to noise filtering technology, the background noise of human chatter made conversations garbled.

“Good,” Wout said. His voice was steady despite his appearance, no trace of slurring at all. “He was a little nervous, but he was still willing to hand over the files. They might be encrypted, but I’m willing to let the techies handle that.” He reached into his pocket and fished out a USB drive. He flashed Christophe a smile. It wasn’t at full wattage, but it didn’t need to be at full wattage to still be devastating.

Christophe plucked it from his outstretched hand and deposited it into the waiting envelope, ready to be delivered back to HQ. “You don’t think his employers suspect anything?” The target for this mission was a biotech firm said to be taking money from terrorist organizations. Christophe and Wout had already spent time pouring through bank accounts and scouring through offices. Wout had cultivated an informant in one of the lead researchers, a man with a useful amount of curiosity and a functioning moral code. Tonight’s bar meeting was supposed to be the sort of innocuous social get together that wouldn’t raise any red flags with company security. Christophe had listened in on most of their previous conversations. Wout had expertly pulled at the man’s guilt, his sense of righteousness, his desire to do good. He had no reason to believe this time had been any different.

Wout shrugged, playing at coolness, as he fiddled with a Rubik’s cube Christophe kept on his desk. It was the sort of restless gesture Wout had to keep under control out in the field but let slip when they were alone together. “I didn’t catch sight of anyone tailing us,” he said.

“Okay,” Christophe said. He trusted Wout’s judgment. He had spent some of his own early years doing field work, and he had been good at it. Sometimes, he was still asked if he wanted to go back to it instead of lurking in the background as Wout’s handler. They didn’t understand what it was like to watch Wout in the field. Wout raised field work to an art form. He was sharp and clear-eyed and quick to adapt to any circumstances thrown at him. He could charm a mark just as easily as he could climb a building. Of course. Christophe didn’t want to be anywhere else but by his side.

Christophe stood up and nodded his head. Wout tossed the cube back onto the desk, one side stood up as well. They had developed something of their own language over their time working together, an unspoken understanding. Words were clumsy and inefficient in comparison.

They were of a similar height and build, which was convenient when they needed to swap clothing or confuse cameras. Up close, Christophe could see where Wout’s blond streak was growing out at the roots. It wasn’t too distinctive now, but they would need to retouch it in a few months. The last thing an agent like Wout needed was a distinctive, distinguishing mark.

Christophe reached up and pulled the tie from where it lay around Wout’s neck. It slid free without resistance. Wout’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His breath deepened. The curve of his throat seemed like the perfect place for Christophe to put his teeth.

The few buttons of Wout’s shirt were already undone, so he started on the third one. He went down the row, careful and practiced. This particular post-mission ritual had started after Wout had broken his arm in a fight a couple of years back. They’d switched roles for the rest of that job; Christophe went out to handle dead drops and tailing suspects, and Wout stayed back in their safe house, watching the computers and sending reports back to HQ. After all that, at the end of the day, they would talk about their discoveries as Christophe helped Wout navigate his clothing while his arm was in a cast. Even after Wout had fully recovered, they’d just never stopped. Christophe didn’t question it. He didn’t want to.

“What do you think our next steps should be?” Wout asked. “I know we still have to analyze the data on the drive.” Goosebumps rose on the skin of his arms as Christophe slid the sleeves off, leaving Wout bare-chested.

Christophe took the opportunity to examine the bruise on Wout’s ribs. The worst of the purple phase had passed. Now, there was just as much green and yellow. Wout had gotten it from jumping out of a second story window in order to escape from a security detail last week. After Wout had dragged himself back to their safe house, Christophe had held an ice pack to the injury and watched as Wout gritted his teeth and tried to hide how much pain he was in.

Christophe said, “We might want more corroborating evidence. Files can be faked. We want this to be air-tight.” He tried not to think about Wout’s bare skin so close, pale and inviting and begging to be touched. Christophe was a professional, and Wout was a professional, and this was just a part of their routine. Sure, it was strange, but everything about their lives was strange.

When Christophe’s hands found the button of Wout’s pants, Wout sucked in a rough breath. “Do you ever…?” Wout started. He watched Christophe from underneath his lashes. His eyes were wide and dark. His expression had a softness, a tenderness, that he rarely showed anyone.

Christophe wasn’t too proud to admit that he’d thought about it before. More times than he could count, probably. In the shower. Alone in his bed at night. Every time he got close enough to smell Wout’s shampoo. He wanted Wout with a hunger that sat heavy in his stomach day after day, week after week, year after year.

But Christophe also knew how dangerous this would be. Not only for their their missions and their careers, but also, because Christophe knew what Wout was like. He was charming and beautiful. He knew how to tell people exactly what they wanted to hear. If they did this, if they ever crossed this invisible line between them, Christophe wouldn’t be able to his job anymore. He wouldn’t be able to watch or listen as Wout lied and cheated and seduced without wondering if Wout had done it to him, too. It would eat away at Christophe until there would be nothing left of their relationship but bitterness and resentment. Christophe was too selfish to let that happen. He would much rather have this half thing — with all of its unresolved, unspoken frustrations — than that.

He let his hands fall away and turned his head to the side so he was no longer meeting Wout’s eyes. “No,” he said, pretending he couldn’t see the way Wout’s face fell as the word came out of his mouth.

Wout wasn’t the only liar in this relationship, after all.