The Mansion of Men

Dum and Dee

While Pete filled in the answers to his online, Statistics test, Porsche rummaged through the shelf of books at the far end of Pete's office. 

They'd been guessing for a while now, but they just couldn't figure out who was behind the site. The people who could do it were too busy and the people who were free, couldn't. 

"It's Arm and Pol," Vegas said, sitting up from where he was lying on the sofa.

"No, it's not," Porsche said.

"Arm knows tech. Pol is the writer."

"Where would they get the time?" Pete asked. "Between their individual duties, guarding Khun-Tankhun and following Khun-Kinn on missions, at what point do you think they'd take a break to write about their bosses fucking?"

Vegas sighed in exasperation and left the room.

***

That night, Pete found his ringing phone before it woke Vegas.

"What the fuck, Porsche?" Pete whispered.

"Vegas was right," Porsche whispered back.

"About what?" Pete looked over to check if Vegas had woken, but he hadn't.

"About Arm and Pol."

"Why are you whispering?"

"Why are you whispering?" Porsche asked back.

"Vegas is tired."

"So is Kinn."

"How did you find out?"

Porsche was silent.

"Porsche?"

"Okay, so it's not that I don't trust my boyfriend-"

"What did you do?"

"Arm and I have a system. If Kinn goes out without support, I like to know where he goes, so Arm... helps."

Pete rubbed his temple, softly.

"Okay?"

"So, I went to supervise, while Arm went after Kinn and would you guess what I found? His email was open and I saw dozens of emails between him and Pol. Rough notes, first drafts. You name it. It's them, Pete," Porsche said, sounding horrified.

Naked, Pete rushed into the bathroom.

"Oh fuck, Vegas is going to be so horrible if he finds out he was right."

"I know!" Porsche agreed.

"He will never let us live this down."

"What do we do?"

"What do you mean, what do we do?" Pete asked. "Nothing."

"We can't just let him get us."

"We don't bring it up. We just - we just forget the whole thing."

"And then the next time he talks about it, we pretend that we were the ones who suggested Arm and Pol."

Pete wanted to agree but, "You want me to gaslight him?"

"Hey, you owe me, Pete."

"The fuck for?"

"Remember that time you convinced me to go through Kinn's things without his permission?"

Pete flinched. He'd walked right into that one.

"Porsche!"

"Let's do it this way and we can call it even. Deal?"

"Deal," Pete said reluctantly, just before the line went dead.

Fuck. Pete hated lying to Vegas. But Porsche was right. They'd both connived against Kinn. Maybe this was Pete's turn to keep something from Vegas.

Or...

He could tell the Vegas the whole truth, double-cross Porsche and let Porsche think that Pete was on his side.

Yeah. Yes. Right. That sounded like a much better plan.