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It was expected that a dinner between a man’s supposed boyfriend and his ex-boyfriend-slash-kidnapping-victim would be awkward. However, Vier didn’t expect that having dinner with Kelvin’s beau would be this soul-suckingly tense.
At least the steakhouse that this James had brought him to was sufficiently elegant. And private.
“Kelvin recommended this place,” James said, “told me it would be refined enough for you.”
Vier tried to pretend that it didn’t warm his heart at least a little bit that Kelvin still thought so much about his preferences. If it weren’t for the company, if the person who was dining with him was, perhaps, Kelvin himself, Vier would’ve much more appreciated the perfectly dim golden light, the tall ceilings, and the beaten bronze mirror walls. However, he was not with Kelvin. He was there with Kelvin’s boyfriend. Not that Vier thought Kelvin had any emotional attachment to James.
This still didn’t make his instinctual hostility against James any better.
“It’s good. Tell Kelvin thanks on my behalf, it’s great that a good friend knows me so well.” Vier smiled; it was much more likely he would see Kelvin first thing in the morning, before James even had a chance to see him, considering how enmeshed their professional lives now were.
Perhaps Vier would pop into Kelvin’s office and ask him to discuss the newest hotel chain over breakfast. He stewed over the details of his plan while offhandedly ordering some overpriced cut of meat. They talked about nothing much in those short minutes before the food arrived, mostly about their respective businesses, but Vier couldn’t grasp just why James had brought him here. Perhaps he wanted the VPG Group to invest in his failing corporation, though Vier hadn’t heard Kelvin say anything about James struggling lately. Not that Kelvin said much about James, in general.
“Honestly, Kelvin is one of the best things that has happened to me, so far,” James said as soon as the food arrived.
“Not many people can say that,” Vier said. ‘Or even want to,’ he added, internally.
“No, not really,” James said, “I’m one of the few with the honor. So did you at one point, I believe.” James seemed to smile at the words missing from the end of that sentence, ‘You no longer can because he’s with me and not with you.’
Not even Ken in his glory days was as irritating as James.
“Kelvin kidnapped me, you know?” Vier asked. It was important that James knew that. Perhaps if he knew just how bad Kelvin could get, he would run for the hills, and this farce of Kelvin dating anyone would end. “Kept me in this bunker for a year and wouldn’t let me go, would follow no matter where I went, acted as if everything was fine, and only really stopped because he thought I killed myself.”
“Yes?” James looked at Vier questioningly. “Everyone circle knows that. There’s not a person that enters a room he’s in that doesn’t know he’s insane.”
“And you're fine with that?” Vier asked. Sometimes, it irked Vier to know that the seemingly soft-spoken, tender, and vulnerable guy he first fell in love with was nothing more than a facade for what Kelvin truly was. This is not to say that Kelvin's twisted obsession and ruthlessness repulsed him, but it felt as if that new Kelvin was no longer the Kelvin who was Vier's.
“I don’t know, he’s cute when he gets that maniacal grin of his.” James smiled at his own joke.
“How do you know that he won’t do the same thing? How do you know he won’t use you for his purposes?”
Because that’s what Kelvin was doing with James, if to a lesser extent. Vier didn’t quite know how or why Kelvin was adding James into his schemes, but Vier was sure it wasn’t for the goodness of his heart. And it couldn’t be that Kelvin was now in love with James.
Vier tried to think back to the past few months. He looked back at that first meeting with the Wave group, when Kelvin had broken his cold mask to give James’s tall figure a once-over. He remembered their excursions while surveying the terrain for their latest hotel, how Kelvin let James grab him by the wrist and stabilize him by the waist. He thought about the hickey on Kelvin’s neck earlier that morning, and Kelvin’s small smile while he was giving excuses before shuttling off in the name of some balance sheet or another. He thought of a thousand and one moments with Kelvin, and by proxy with James, with the clarity of a digital camera. Had Kelvin’s eyes ever turned and looked at James fondly? Had his cold, shark-like eyes warmed over and gazed at James as they once gazed at Vier?
When was the last time Kelvin had looked at Vier as he should? When was the last time Kelvin had looked at him as something more than business partners?
Vier stabbed a piece of the steak, bringing it to his mouth. It wasn’t as good as Kelvin’s. He chewed contemplatively. No, Kelvin couldn’t be in love with James.
James, who had been staring at Vier with something akin to contempt, took a sip of his wine before sighing. “It’s funny. You think I don’t already know that he is one-hundred percent using me.”
“What?”
“You, me, Kelvin, we’re all monsters. We don’t really care for morals or goodness, just feeling good. You just had a problem: Kelvin didn't ask for permission. I will not begrudge Kelvin’s nature when he bites me. I will bite back twice as hard.” James smirked, then, and said, “It doesn’t hurt that Kelvin’s very pretty when he cries.”
Vier tried not to let it show on his face how disgusting he found the notion of anyone else, except him, knowing how Kelvin looked when he cried. Whether those tears were of ecstasy or despair, those tears were Vier’s. That’s what Kelvin owed him.
“And you think that Kelvin would let you do that?” Vier said, tightening his grip on his fork. “Kelvin doesn’t let anyone just do anything to him.”
“I don’t think there’s a single thing that Kelvin wouldn’t let me do to him, now. He’s mine.”
Vier’s blood went cold. Kelvin was cruel, yes, thoughtless and arrogant and machiavellian, but he had one of the softest hearts that Vier knew. It was a starving, gasping thing that ceded to the slightest bit of tenderness and lashed out violently at it being taken away. It would do anything in its power to make the person it loved happy with whatever twisted methods it could comprehend. It was not a good heart, by any means, but until then, Vier had been comforted by the knowledge that it was still his. That perhaps a few years down the line, when everything that happened during those two years they first knew each other turned hazy, Vier could return to that heart and embrace it as an old friend.
“That brings me to why we’re here,” James said, uncrossing his legs, smoothing his trousers, “Kelvin and I have good news.”
No. This wasn’t happening.
“I know it is unorthodox to announce this to an ex of his, but you are still his closest friend, and we’ve already told Nana and Lalyn yesterday. It would be too impersonal to let you know through the official announcement.”
Nana’s worried look at the office today, Lalyn’s knowing grin during the board meeting, when James asked him to have this dinner.
They all made sense now.
“I know that me and Kelvin have only known each other for a short while, but it’s for the best.”
Six months. James and Kelvin had known each other for six months, two weeks, and six days, and had dated each other officially for three months, one week, and three days. Vier and Kelvin had known each other for four years, and had been involved together (romantically or not, one-sidedly or not) for two of those years. James was about to do with Kelvin in little more than six months what Vier didn’t do in four years.
“I proposed to Kelvin last night. He said yes. We’re getting married.”
James was lying to him. Kelvin would never agree to marry anyone except Vier. Kelvin had promised he would always be Vier’s rock. Kelvin was Vier’s and Vier was Kelvin’s. Anyone who had an issue with that, including Kelvin himself, would have to learn to deal with it.
Vier had never understood Kelvin’s penchant for casual kidnapping as much as at that moment.
Vier thought back to the beginning of his and Kelvin’s relationship, to the grand opening of their first hotel, Kelvin’s personalized room, and his other gift.
He sat back, looking at Kelvin's supposed fiancé while remembering how Kelvin looked wearing the harness. Kelvin had looked so cute when he first said no, and the fact that he had inevitably just given in to Vier's wants was just even cuter. The harness had perfectly framed his chest, making it easier for Vier to knead and lick his tits. Kelvin had looked so beautiful, then, wearing Vier’s gift for him, looking at him so lovingly, moaning so sweetly as Vier thrust over and over again. At one point, Kelvin had passed out, but Vier just kept fucking him from behind, moving him like a puppet with the harness straps until Kelvin woke up again, screaming from a dry orgasm that Vier felt pulsing around his cock.
Perhaps Kelvin would look just as good, if not better, with a collar with Vier’s name on it, tied to Vier’s bed, blindfolded as he apologizes for even trying to move on from Vier, chanting ‘Yours, yours, yours,’ as he comes over and over again. Vier would take a picture, or a video, of Kelvin looking just so cute and tortured. He would then show it to Kelvin, making sure he saw just how desperate his cute pink hole swallowed his cock, how desperately his little dick drooled and sputtered as he got more and more overstimulated, how wanton his moans and gasps were. Kelvin would know, then, who he belonged to. No other man could use and please Kelvin like Vier could, and Kelvin would know this, too. Perhaps he would also send a clip to James, just long enough for him to see how, no matter what, he was just a stand-in before Vier came back to take what was his.
It was a bit unorthodox to fantasize about fucking a man’s future husband right in front of him, but Vier didn’t think it counted. Kelvin belonged with Vier, whether he realized that yet or not. It was just a matter of time before Kelvin knew his place again.
“Congratulations,” Vier gritted out, the fakest smile he had upon his lips.
That wedding would never come to pass.
He would make sure of it.