Territories

Chapter 1

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

… and it’s 1976, and this isn’t the Ozymandias who glues on a mask with spirit gum every night and firmly persuades bank robbers not to shoot. This is Adrian Veidt, the new media darling, the man behind that mask who pastes on a smirk for the cameras and hangs around at Studio 54 some nights and spends the rest of his time doing God knows what and making money off of it. Dan doesn’t want to talk about retiring. He won’t talk about Manhattan. He doesn’t want to hear any new grand plans the former Ozymandias has, he doesn’t want to see his face again… but he comes when he’s called.

It’s clear from the start that this won’t be all business, or his host would be ferrying him to a gleaming office building at a time other than 11 at night. (But it’s not an emergency either, something Dan catches onto pretty quickly, and he’s pretty glad he had the presence of mind to do more than throw on a bathrobe or something when the Pharaonic summons came. He’s still wearing his spare glasses, though.)

Adrian is still half-dressed in black tie formalwear, and even though Dan’s certainly seen more of him, and must himself look worse, it’s an uncomfortable way to find him. Half in and half out of his newspaper mode. It doesn’t look rakish. It seems careless, only one cufflink in and his collar a tiny bit askew. Dan has a guilty pang when he thinks Veidt might be here with a lover – he did always keep a remarkably well furnished guest bedroom. But his lagging manners when he takes Dan’s coat from him, and the circles under his eyes, make him look more overworked than well-bedded.

Veidt’s apartment, for all the motion picture glamour he projects as a former costumed adventurer and all the speculations about dope, is sleek and austere, all pale greys. (Furnished by Frigidaire, Dan remembers the line from something, or misremembers.) No bookshelves, no… well, nothing easily recognizable as artwork. Except for the occasional presence of cat hair, it’s stunningly unembellished, as gleamingly and despairingly stiff as its owner in a tuxedo.

Veidt makes no motions to taking the conversation into another room (“None of the others are suitable for entertaining,” as if this place is) nor does he threaten to slip into anything more comfortable. After about an hour of catching up on old news, they get right down to business.

“I’d appreciate it if you would come to bed with me.”

Adrian and nobody else on earth, excepting rock stars and some truly corrupt politicians, could hold out an offer like that and have it work. He just smiles, unrehearsed and radiantly warmed and – Goddammit. Dan has to turn away.

“You can tell me all about the newest discoveries in the field of ornithology after. I’ll listen. You’ve always had interesting pillow talk.”

“For old times’ sake, uh–”

“No, not for old times’ sake.” His voice is suddenly stormy. “If you aren’t interested, I can call you a taxi, Daniel. I simply thought you might like to renew our acquaintance.”

The world’s smartest man must be pretty depressed, if he’s calling up old boyfri– old ex-lovers, not even lovers, ex-compatriots in fighting crime – and expecting to get laid. Or calling at all. He might even be a little drunk. Which is kind of a scary thought. When the man that Daniel used to know got comfortable, a little of someone else seemed to make an appearance. He allowed himself to be younger, gentler, his whole demeanor shifted – and… the accent, which was the ultimate assurance of personal confidence. (Not that it was very noticeable, but you’d notice.) And now the opposite had happened. He sounded tired, and jaded, and old.

If he’d wanted someone to have sex with, he’d have picked up someone young and glittering at his charity event or fundraiser or wherever he’s been. (He goes both ways, something that’s no kind of surprise even if you haven’t seen the man’s choice of pornographic art before. The papers have started alluding to it. It’s pretty embarrassing.) There’s probably artwork in his bedroom, some priceless face from history under bulletproof glass that watches him while he has sex. If he really expects Dan to just hop back into bed with him when they’ve only been in the same house for an hour and a half after eight or more years of being strangers –

But his pleading voice and tired face and those godawful painted walls…

“Come on, let’s get you undressed, then. You’ve still got, uh, everything, right?”
Dan keeps his back turned, to spare him the smile on his lips. But it’s as if the whole room sighs.

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

“Would you like to see my bed?”

The bedroom as a whole is an improvement on the one at the last place, which had felt disconcertingly like fucking in a laboratory. Or a college dorm room on move-in day. There’d been music playing from some hidden stereo system, discreetly throbbing through the walls, and at first it had seemed like a nice touch. But any illusions of a carefully orchestrated seduction evaporated as soon as the music in question presented itself as being the shrieking and pounding of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and Adrian was sent groping for the remote control with equal hurry. Dan wasn’t sure if he’d been a student of music at the time or he just found the piece soothing.

There wasn’t any music this time around, as they cautiously approached, and there were no other obstructions, thank God, there weren’t any statues lying around, or open first-aid kits or half-translated Arabic texts or stray cats with splints camped out on the the bed. It’s a swingin’ bachelor pad, by Veidt’s standards. (No artwork, either. The bed itself is very nice.)

Come to think of it, it was a lot easier doing this the first time around. Dan had nothing to compare it to, and they only got together after particularly inspiring nights, when Rorschach was still out and at it. Now he’s a bit daunted.

Adrian strips out of his shirt according to his custom and Dan assists him; Daniel does everyone a courtesy and doesn’t quite. Dan doesn’t have any bruises to show off under his shirt, in fact he shies a little when the other man touches him, and they are both older, obviously. But Adrian just looks, well, better. Like – and this is courting cliche every time he sleeps with Veidt – a Greek god; polished, shaped, flawless. Not the tight-laid muscles that always used to bind up with stored tension and were in constant need of Dan’s attention to worry out the knots.

Fifteen years ago, would he have imagined himself with a man? A man like this, specifically. The chiseled planes of a male body – broad firm chest, narrow hips with the clean-cut line of Apollo’s belt delineating torso from groin – make Daniel recall guilty fleeting thoughts poring over the ads in comic books. Some other teenage boy was probably doing the exact same thing that very moment, with a print ad for the Veidt Method. Dan’s discarded embarrassment, and needs to touch. Both of them have changed, and it’s a moment of memorizing those changes – new verses set to the same tune.

Adrian shifts his body to accommodate him, as Dan’s other hand strokes and teases more relevant places. Dan kisses up from the crook of Adrian’s elbow to his perfect upper arms, to the smooth surface where his arm joins to the shoulder. To the gold-threaded concavity of his underarm.The salt of his skin, and the lingering scent of a new cotton undershirt, and a distinct but still cleanly musk. He wouldn’t tell Adrian it, of course, but it sends a little jolt of memory through him, of swimming pools and entire summers. Dan buries his face there for a moment.

He wasn’t actually expecting Adrian to moan like that. Throaty and abrupt, so much so that it almost sounds annoyed.

Dan swiftly pulls his head up.

“That wasn’t an instruction to stop–”

“Your armpit,” Dan repeats, as if somehow the body part in question was still a mystery. “Can I do that?”

“Don’t be shy,” Adrian mouths against his cheek, and he raises his arm a little, to welcome him to it. Dan cautiously begins again, approaching this time up his remarkable ribcage and applying his lips and his tongue a little. It’s strange in that it’s new, but Adrian’s chest rises as he draws in a raw erotic breath and it’s easy to suppose that he’s doing well.

They’re pressed back against the headboard, and there’s silk under Dan’s knees and supple flesh under his tongue and salt and hair and the rest of their bodies don’t seem to matter for a moment.