All right, fine, Patrick could admit it: he missed Will.

Walking around Monte Carlo quickly lost its charm without Will by his side. Will was always eager to learn and explore, and he always had a joke available, and the way he would casually initiate little touches and wink at Patrick had become something that Patrick had grown used to without realizing it. Now it was all gone, and he was just by himself again.

The thing was, Patrick was used to being by himself. After Aunt Laura had died, he’d been by himself all the time. He’d only been with Will for a couple of weeks. Why would three days without him seem like a huge loss?

It was probably just that he was also having to avoid all of the places that he and Will had frequented together, like the sandwich place and the coffee shop. It wasn’t anything more than that. Patrick couldn’t let it be.

He had the odd feeling of Aunt Laura looking over his shoulder and shaking her head at him, disappointed. Well, she was hardly one to judge.

He still had no idea how the hell she’d fallen in love with someone like Thomas Keene. The guy was clearly an asshole. But then, Patrick also had no idea how someone like Will, who could have anybody he wanted, could claim to want to be with someone like Patrick. Patrick knew that he was an asset and a damn good criminal, but he wasn’t exactly the kind of guy you’d want to invite over for dinner and a movie. He was stuck up, for one thing.

To try and calm himself while he had next to nothing to do, he took up forging paintings again. There would always be a market for forgeries, no matter how tight security got, and besides, it calmed him. He set up shop along the waterfront at dawn and proceeded to practice his Monet imitation.

“I forgot that you could paint.”

Patrick nearly jumped a mile. He hadn’t heard Will approach. “You’re not supposed to be making contact with me.”

“I didn’t mean to, did I? Just thought I’d take a nice early walk to clear my thoughts and bam, there you are, straight out of a picture.”

“What are you doing taking an early morning walk?”

Will huffed. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that stretched out across his chest and shoulders, emphasizing his athletic stature. God, Patrick had missed being able to look at him. “Keene got me a little spooked.”

“How so?” Patrick set down his brush and turned his full attention to Will. If anyone asked he could just pretend that they were talking about the sunrise or something, he supposed.

“Nothing specific.”

“Was he being creepy? I mean, in a sexual way.”

Will shook his head. “No, nothing like that. It was just the way he talked. Like he knew everything about me. That just don’t sit well, y’know?”

“There’s no way he can find out about our connection to one another. We didn’t know each other until a couple of weeks ago, and nobody who saw us together knows our real names.”

“I know that. It’s just. My instincts, yeah? I grew up in pubs where a fight could break out any minute. Played card games where shanks were on the table. Even had a gun, once. Not me, some other bloke. But yeah, I think I know when something might go sideways, and I’m getting that feeling with this.”

“Do you think we should call it off?” Patrick desperately didn’t want to. He wasn’t sure that he could. Revenge was so close he could almost taste it. It would hurt him deeply, like a physical wound, if he had to let go and waste more time waiting and start all over again.

“Not yet.” Will shook his head. “It’s just a feeling. I don’t even know what it’s about. Could just be nerves, yeah? I’ve never done anything like this before, and I think it’s just getting to me, like stage fright.”

“If you ever don’t feel comfortable, you can tell me.”

“I know that, pengting,” Will said, smiling at him with an easy affection that Patrick wasn’t sure he deserved. “I was actually getting into it the past couple nights. Felt real good. Like I was in the zone.”

“That’s how it always feels. You get this… it’s a rush, but it’s not, at the same time. It’s calm, kind of. You’re tricking all of these people and you know it and they have no clue and it turns into this game but only you know that everyone’s playing it. It’s having power over others, and getting to play a game, and be the most skilled person in the room and knowing it, and it all combines into this feeling.”

“I know why you keep doing it, if it gives you that feeling. It was sick, that was.”

“Well, after we finish this, I’m sure I can find you some guys who’ll want a good conman. You can keep doing this as long as you want.”

For some reason, that made Will look unhappy. Patrick ignored the unhappy pang in his own chest at the thought of not seeing Will again. It was stupid and ridiculous and he wasn’t going to think about it anymore.

To his surprise, it was Will who changed the subject, jerking his chin at Patrick’s barely-started painting. “What’s it going to be?”

“A sunrise, Monet-style.” Patrick gestured out at the water. “There are two kinds of forgeries: you can forge a painting that already exists, or you can create an entirely new painting in the style of a particular artist and claim that it’s a lost work that you’ve just re-discovered.”

Will nodded, looking, as always, genuinely interested.

“I’m probably going to trash this one or paint over it or something,” Patrick admitted. “I’m just getting into practice again. I haven’t done a proper art forgery in a long time and I don’t want to get rusty. Lately it’s just been passports and poker chips and stuff like that.”

“You can forge poker chips?”

“Yup.” Patrick allowed himself a small, proud smile. “I’m the best, if I do say so myself.”

“I bet you’re the best at everything,” Will said, sounding earnest. Before Patrick could even start to hide his blush about that, Will continued. “What all styles of painting do you do?”

“Impressionism, Picasso, Cubism, Van Gogh, modern art, DADAism… it’s the really old ones that I struggle with. Renaissance and stuff. Although portraits are pretty easy to do. There were so many portraits done in those days, because it was the only way of preserving what someone looked like. It was a way to record yourself, to say, this is who I was. I was here, I existed. It’s easy to claim that a portrait of someone was lost over time and then found again. Forging sketches, like from artist’s notebooks, that’s another easy one. Artists were always leaving those around and getting them lost.”

Patrick looked up at Will, at the early morning beams of sunlight highlighting his face and getting caught in the dirty blonde strands of his hair, turning them temporarily golden, and making the contradictory colors of his eyes stand out all the more. The shadows played across his strong jawline and the curve of his neck, the dip of his clavicle.

“I could paint you,” Patrick said. The words were hushed. He wasn’t even sure why he said them.

Will looked at him, blushing a little, looking confused. “What’d you want to paint me for?”

“Because you’re…” Patrick shook his head. “Never mind. It’s a stupid idea.”

“It’s not stupid,” Will argued. “I’d love for you to paint me.”

Something about the way he said it made it sound like he was talking about something much more permanent, but then, in a way, wasn’t painting someone permanent? Wouldn’t they then be a part of your life forever? Even if you got rid of the painting, someday someone would find it and say, oh, this is a painting of so-and-so, done by the artist so-and-so. Your work, the way you looked at them, the way you saw them, would be a part of the world for all time.

Unless you burned the painting or something drastic like that. Patrick hadn’t burned any of his paintings yet and he wasn’t keen to start.

“Let’s make a deal, then,” Will said. “You owe me, as a part of my payment for doing this, one painting from you.”

“You don’t even know if I’ll do that good of a job.”

“You’re the Jackal. I’ve heard rumors that certain paintings in places like the Louvre are actually your forgeries. I know it’ll be good. Besides,” Will rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, grinning with a sudden burst of energy, “I’m curious what you think of me, y’know? They say a painting isn’t just of a person but of what the artist thinks of the person. I want to know what you think of me.”

“I don’t know if you’ll like what you see, in that case.”

As always, whenever Patrick thought that he could retreat and hide behind some dry wit, Will saw right through him and just laughed. Most people disliked Patrick for his cutting remarks, or rather, everyone else said they were cutting remarks. Patrick generally thought of them as both honest and a way to shut people up when they were being annoying, but Will was always amused by them. He thought that Patrick was genuinely funny.

It made Patrick’s stomach and chest do funny things like try to convince him he was halfway to flying.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what you paint, then,” Will said. “Better go now, gotta get my coffee and do my usual stroll. But I’ll keep you updated, yeah?”

Patrick nodded. “Thanks.”

Will shifted on his feet like he was going to walk away, but then shifted his weight back, leaning in closer. “The days is bare long without you, pengting,” he admitted, voice low and intimate.

Patrick would never understand where Will got the courage to just say things like that. “Sorry to hear it. Now hurry before Keene notices you changed something in your schedule.”

“You missed me too, I know it,” Will said, and before Patrick could stop him or predict what he was doing, Will had leaned forward just a bit more and planted a soft, quick kiss on Patrick’s cheek. It was nothing more than a soft brush of his lips against the skin, really, barely even qualified as a proper kiss. But it left Patrick feeling warm all over.

“Enjoy your painting,” Will said, winking at him as he turned to go.

“Have a good day at work, dear,” Patrick replied, his tone as dry and mocking as possible.

Will’s delighted laugh echoed in his ears for hours afterwards, as did the feeling of his lips on Patrick’s cheek.