Who: Blake and Evan What: A random encounter of two sluts at a club. Where:Tao Beach When: Recently Warnings/Rating: Language?
Tao Beach was not one of Evan’s usual haunts, but the increased activity on the steno pad he carried in the inside pocket of his blazer had sent him further from home than he normally ventured for his entertainment. He had left his A.A. meeting and walked the hot, sticky walk to the nightclub, and even the lack of sunlight hadn’t done anything to lessen the heat that promised the summer would be brutal. The cool water in the club drew his attention, but he wasn’t dressed for it, and he wasn’t about to go to the trouble of changing out of his clothing, not when all he wanted was a drink and some company that wouldn’t expect to suck his dick or get their dick sucked in return.
After finding a place at the bar, Evan slipped off the black blazer he wore and draped it behind his seat. His white, v-neck t-shirt stuck to him in places, and the belt that held his loose jeans at the hip was black with a large silver buckle made of rivets. His hair was mussed, and his eyes were unnaturally light and sharp, nothing dulling them yet. He’d said his peace at A.A., confessed his sin and wallowed in his guilt, and now he wanted a whiskey and numbness. He tapped his palm on the bar, and he asked for a double, straight, and he only glanced once at the girl that stood over the bartender’s shoulder. She was blonde tonight, with green eyes and a white sundress, and Evan didn’t need to look at her very long to know who she was. She changed her appearance on him all the time, but he always knew her, regardless.
Whiskey in his hand, Evan swiveled the seat so that his view of the blue water was unobscured. The men and women in the pool were Las Vegas’ most desirable, and Evan could appreciate that as much as the next guy, even if it such delicacies were off the table. Maybe it was the booze, and maybe it was the antidepressants, and maybe it was the guilt, but those days were long gone, and he thought maybe it was a fitting penance for all the shit he’d done in his life. He slammed back the whiskey. Correction. The shit that he was still doing.
Gorgeous mussed up things sitting at the bar might as well have had Blake’s name printed on their forehead in block letters, whether they were male or female, black or white, alive or ghostly. Alright, so he’d yet to see any ghosts, but he wasn’t about to rule them out unnecessarily, and lately he was starting to think they might show up any day.
The man at the bar who’d caught Blake’s eye looked little like a ghost himself, as washed out as he was sticky and present in the warmth of the club that swallowed every body as it came through the door. The pool promised cool comfort, but Blake wasn’t particularly interested. There was a decent chance he’d end up in there with someone later, probably plastered and fully clothed. He was confining his attentions to the bar at the moment, and right now, Evan was the most interesting thing sitting at it.
Maybe Blake was lying to himself a little about how the night was bound to end. He still went out just as much as he had before he’d dealt with the whole mess of the past year, and he hadn’t slowed down even after his life took a turn for the extra weird and a nagging dog started nipping his heels, but he didn’t relish in it like he once had. Maybe he was just tired - well, he was that, though that had never stopped him in the past. Maybe he was letting the critical old dog get to him. Maybe it was the lingering bad taste that Seattle and its occupants had left behind, which he kept telling himself was going to pass any day now. Regardless, it was more difficult than it used to be to make himself wade into the morass of writhing, beautiful bodies and net one for his own. It made no sense. He had every tool to to get anyone he wanted, but there it was all the same. Maybe. Maybe it was too easy.
The man at the bar, though, he stood out, looked a little different, and honestly it was just a relief to avoid the gaggle of girls who had tried to drag Blake to one of the back couches. He passed in front of Evan as he turned around, drawing smoke from his cigarette and exhaling it in twin plumes from his nostrils. He took the seat beside him. He was wearing a lightweight black suit and no tie, his collar ragged and crying out for a pressing. He actually looked better than he had in a long time - hair still just a little too long, clean-shaven and sharp-eyed. His gaze was like a punch. “Got your eye on someone?”
Evan had been watching the dark-haired man weave his way through the crowd. Once upon a time, he’d been better than anyone at figuring someone out as they made their way across a bar. He was out of practice now, and not as interested as he’d once been in the things that had gotten his rocks off. This guy was too masculine for his liking anyway, even before the antidepressants and ghosts made his dick go soft, and he just tipped back the drink and asked for another as he watched the vulture circling the carrion. “Bet that gets you laid,” he said when the man approached, motioning to the trick with the smoke and nostrils. The ice in his fresh glass clinked, and he swirled the amber liquid before tipping it back. This close, he smelled sweet, his pours not yet clear of the previous day’s binge, and his eyes were dull around the unnaturally light irises. “Smoking was always a good trick if you knew how to do it right,” he added, the past-tense strangely out of place in the conversation.
Looking away, Evan glanced over the crowd again, trying to find enough interest in any of them to say he had his eye on someone in particular. He decided it wouldn’t hurt to play the game, and he pointed his drink at a boy in the corner. Mousy, brown hair, uncomfortable in his skin. “That one,” he said, his smile social and friendly. One thing about Evan, insane or not, he always liked people, and it always came across. “If I could think of him as something more than ashes in a grave long enough, that is.” He tipped back his drink. “You?”
Blake laughed with pleased, surprised amusement at being called out, and he turned to face the crowd himself to see who his barside companion was eying. "Who needs tricks?" he asked, smirk as smug as they come. He crushed the cigarette out in on the bar behind him to punctuate the thought. He nodded to the uncomfortable boy. Just his type, actually. "Him? Oh, I could get him out of here in five minutes dressed as a Mormon missionary," he declared. "Please. You've got halfway decent taste, though, I'll give you that. Might want to lay off the fucking death talk, though. Just a friendly piece of advice. You'd be a hit with the serial killer and the necrophiliac crowd, but nobody else gets hard talking about coffin ashes." Blake gestured to the bartender for a scotch.
“Can’t say Mormon missionaries are my kink, but more power to you,” Evan said amiably, and he reached for the pack of cigarettes in the pocket of his jeans and lit one as he watched the boy in question. “Regardless, no one’s fucked him yet, and no one’s fucked him up, and he looks like a tasty appetizer. Let me know how it goes.” He exhaled, and it was all said and done with the attitude of someone who wasn’t bothered by anything at all. There was confidence in the way Evan sat, in the way he held the cigarette, and even in the way he canted a shoulder forward to point out another young man near the water. Black hair, striking eyes, and looking cocky and smug, obviously too young to be in the club with a legitimate ID. “That’s an entirely different kind of appealing.” he commented, and he looked to his right when Blake mentioned the necrophiliac crowd, looking past the other man to where the blonde girl was standing. “Death isn’t just talk. It’s real, and just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” he said, all with the same kind of ease, even as he looked past Blake to a very empty spot beside the bar.
"Corruption of the innocent," Blake offered with a shrug. That should explain the missionaries no questions asked. He should be breaking away from the weird, handsome coffin guy at the bar and crossing the room toward the unsure little thing in the corner, but something held him back. He followed the I Spy to the next candidate, who did indeed promise a whole different set of joys. "Buy that one a drink and let his friends see he grabbed an older guy and he's done," Blake said. He was beginning to regret making a point with his cigarette, but the scotch arrived just in time to distract him. He sipped it. "Too easy."
Blake was playing the game of following his new friend's eyeline, but when he traced it again he found no one there, just an empty place. The talk of death and his fixed gaze on an absent presence prickled Blake. "Yeah, well, same thing goes for my dick, if you were wondering. It isn't just talk, and just because you can't see it right now doesn't mean it's not there, let me tell you."
Evan laughed, and it was the kind of friendly laugh that passed between friends. “I know those walls. No point in bothering, not with me,” he said, drink three in his hand between that statement and the next. “You can be defensive about your dick and the fact that you only stick it places for fun with someone else.” He grinned, and it was a grin that made it clear he’d spent his entire life being loved, and that it hadn’t only been because of the money. “He isn’t too easy,” he added of the dark-haired boy. “Look at his friends. All straight, all punk. He thinks he’s straight too, or he pretends he is. Not easy at all.” His tone said he appreciated that particular challenge, or he had once. He started to point out a girl in the corner, but he stopped just short of doing it. He hadn’t been able to even pretend to play that game in years. “And the difference is everyone can see your dick if you pull those pants down. The same doesn’t go for the dead.” He lifted his glass, and he toasted the girl beside Blake, the one only he could see.
Blake wasn’t really sure what to make of the death-loving player at the bar with the stare that went on way too long, but he was interesting in a way most people weren’t, and he’d managed to capture his full attention, even if he didn’t like being called out on trying to changed the subject. “Now that sounds a little more interesting,” he mused. He hadn’t noticed the boy’s friends, and that ratcheted him up to the status of a challenge worth facing rather than a quick pick-up. Blake polished off his scotch. “I don’t know, I’m pretty sure if you yank down a dead guy’s pants, he’s still got a fucking dick. Generally speaking, anyway.” Blake followed his eyeline to the mysterious empty spot again, and this time he didn’t bother pretending he hadn’t. “Got someone on your mind?” he asked. He didn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that the guy was seeing things that weren’t there. He gave him at least the benefit of the doubt that far, and assumed there was someone missing in the room that he was toasting to. Maybe it explained why he was getting drunk at the bar instead of going for one of the boys he’d just pointed out. Blake didn’t linger on what that said about why he was doing the same.
“Always. For years,” Evan said of having someone on his mind. He knew his companion would misconstrue it, but he didn’t much care. Very little bothered Evan, and public opinion definitely wasn’t at the top of his give-a-shit list; it never had been. “What do you know about a dead guy’s pants?” he asked, turning his attention back to the man beside him and quirking a dark, thick brow. The questioning gaze melted into an easy grin, and he ashed the cigarette onto the floor and dared anyone to give him grief about it. “Deflecting with shock only works if the person you’re with can be shocked,” he offered, sage advice from someone who didn’t scare easily. He looked back to the dark-haired boy, and then to the frightened brunet, and he smiled. “If I was in the market, the brunet would be my choice. He’s lucky the only thing I’m in the market for is another drink.” He’d ruin the kid, or he would have once upon a time. Another drink found his fingers, and he took a sip without tasting it. “I’d only use him and throw him away, just like you would.” No chastisement there, only fact, acknowledgement from one fucker to the next.
Blake replied with nothing more than a smile to the question of what he knew about dead guys' pants. Now that, that was a ridiculous question, and he also knew when he was being baited. "My mistake. I'll play it sweet and innocent next time," he said. He gestured behind him to the bartender for another scotch. "Not on the market? What, you're taken? The Twink Coalition must be crying their fucking eyes out." If what his companion had said about the missing person was any indication he probably wasn’t taken at all, but it was a false assumption meant to draw out something real. Blake leaned back and laughed a little. "I think he'd be alright," he said of the brunet, not denying he'd cast him quickly aside. "One good fuck to get his confidence up and that kid would hit the ground running, I bet."
“That make you feel better?” Evan said with a grin. “Always made me feel better,” he admitted, tipping back the drink with the ease of an unrepentant, hard-core drinker. Someone else might have given up booze after the accident, but not Evan. No, Evan just drank harder, drank to forget, drank not to see the constant companion that was the girl with the changing hair color and shifting features. “Not on the market,” he added a second later. “Lucky for him,” he said, empty glass pointed at the brunet who would get away unscathed that night.
Blake grinned. "Sure it does, but I don't need it. It's something I'm pretty sure about, but even if I knew it wouldn't turn out that way, that doesn't mean I'm wouldn't still do it." That was the flat truth. He liked to idly think the kid would come out better on the other end, but he was far too calloused at this point to care. Sirius didn't like that one bit, and Blake downed his fresh drink in a long swallow in hopes of drowning out the disapproving headache he had coming on.
“You’re wrong,” was Evan’s sage advice. He looked at the brunet in the corner to verify it was his honest opinion, and not some kind of unable-to-perform jealousy. But, nope. It was his honest opinion. “He’s never had anyone. Male or female. You take him, turn him all around, and then leave him the next day, and you think that’s going to help him somehow?” He shook his head, and he pointed at the dark haired young man instead. “That one will be fine, our little brunet piece of ass, he won’t.” He stamped out the butt of his cigarette, and he leaned both elbows back against the bar. “No reason not to do it, but no point in lying to yourself about it. Don’t think it would make you feel better anyway, would it?”
Blake shrugged. "Like I said before, I'd still go through with it. Fuck, I'll probably go over there and do it tonight, when I'm done talking fucking philosophy with you." He went for his cigarettes again, because this was obviously a two cigarette conversation, and he'd barely gotten halfway through the first. He smiled, but there was something a little distant about it. "You gotta feel guilty before you need to feel better."
Evan laughed, and it was a bright and confident laugh that he didn’t silence or attempt to stifle. The dead girl was closer now, standing at the stranger’s elbow, and Evan looked at the empty nothing of air and blew smoke in her direction. “You already feel guilty,” he told Blake, “and that tail will only make you feel better until you shoot your load, and then you’ll be back where you started.” He grinned. “But by all means.”
"You," Blake said, lighting his cigarette and then snapping the lighter shut with a metallic click, "Seem to think you know a lot about me." On the surface he was more amused by that than anything else, although there was a little bite to it. His headache had only gotten worse since the beginning of this conversation. "I'll give you points for confidence, can't fault you there. You got a name to go with it?"
“Evan. Evan Hampton. Shipping,” he said, adding the source of his wealth to it, because the man beside him clearly had enough money to throw around as well. His parents had taught him two things very early in his life - your name and where your money came from were everything in this world. He set his empty glass on the bar, buzzed enough not to need another one yet. One of the good things about giving in and being a drunk was that he didn’t need to get shitfaced as often anymore, because he just stayed semi-drunk all the time; it made things a lot easier. “You?”
The alcohol hadn't really hit Blake yet, but he did have the beginnings of a decent buzz. "Blake Thorne. Media," he replied, dead dry. Evan's name rang a bell somewhere, probably from something someone had said at some function or other, but Blake had never cared enough to brush up on who was who in the upper echelon of wealth he inhabited.
Another drink had appeared behind Blake on the bar, and he picked it up with his free hand. He looked out at the pool and the thick clusters of people. The brunet was still there, but he didn't seem as appealing as he had a few minutes ago. Blake gave his drink a look. Apparently letting his guard down was having the opposite effect he'd hoped. Nothing left to do but resign to it, now. He didn't even consider sitting around and sobering up - now there was a horrifying thought.
Evan tried to remember all those boring parties, the ones his father had always insisted were necessary for the business, but that Evan had only tolerated in order to keep the family off his back. It wasn’t even a good place to find a lay because, unlike Blake, Evan toed the line when it came to the family reputation. Oh, he acted out, sure, but not in the middle of his mother’s ballroom. No, he came to Vegas for things like that, which was how he’d ended up in this mess to begin with. Another cigarette was lit, another flaming tip glowing in the light of the bar as Evan sucked on the filtered end, and he looked over at Blake and chuckled. “Didn’t mean to be a buzz kill, but that usually happens these days. Go stick your dick in it. Forget what I said,” he offered. He held the cigarette out to the dead girl, who just stared blankly (as she always did), and he shrugged in a suit yourself kind of way.
Blake grinned, and it was still charming, if a little plastic, a little well-oiled. “I wasn’t much in the mood even before I walked in here. Don’t give yourself too much credit.” He stood all the same, downing his scotch and setting the glass on the bar with finality. “But here,” he said, and gestured to the bartender. “I’ll buy your imaginary friend a drink. Maybe you can look me up sometime and kill my buzz again, tell me about it.” There was bite to it, but it was an invitation, complete with a smirk. “It’s early, and there’s better fucking clubs in Vegas than Tao.”
Blake moved away from the bar. On his way out, though, he grabbed the brunet and sent him over to the sorry looking hot guy at the bar, who he was told had a drink waiting for him.