francisco javier es una (pesadilla) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-03-26 23:19:00 |
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Lin’s fancy ass shoes clicked on the fancy ass parquet flooring. White-and-honey leather oxfords tapping on an amber and burgundy geometric pattern that hurt your eyes if you stared at it too hard and tried to figure out how it was all put together. It was easier to chalk it up to people being cray. Like the pyramids (though Lin knew how those had been built, more or less. Well, he had an idea). But, yes. Ah, the Venetian. What a piece of shit. For fancy assholes. No sneakers allowed. What the fuck was that? The boy tipped his head down, chin to his chest, as he moved through the lobby toward Tao, its fancy ass entrance denoted by huge, illuminated pink doorways. Holding the narrow throat of his fancy ass button up shirt (short sleeved, retro, with a 50s motel+guitars+palm trees motif washed out in purples all over), closed. He failed. Come Friday night, after a long week at work, the last thing Lin usually wanted to do was go out and get drunk. He’d done that so many times in the past. Now he much preferred to go home, to read or play video games or write to National Geographic regarding their erroneous conflation of the word ‘galaxy’ with ‘milky way’ (srsly, wtf). But, he hadn’t had a real work week, had he? No. He’d been fucking flying around the ‘Verse with a bunch of semi-strangers. Getting drunk seemed like the right choice for tonight. Like, really fucking drunk. It was ten or so minutes later that he finally got himself into the “Opium Room.” Purples, pinks, yellows, low, cool couches bathed in warm multicolored light, vaguely ‘oriental’ patterns molded on the walls and behind the bar. Okay. He sighed. It was fucking packed with people. Lin pushed through the crowd, hands parting the bodies like Moses did the Red Sea, though the Red Sea probs hadn’t been this unruly, sweaty, or drunk. Probs. He brushed off a hand that grabbed onto his shoulder with a smile and a friendly ‘fuck off, asshole,’ because he was sober as fuck and not ready for that. Once he breached the writhing mass enough to balance himself on the edge of the counter to wave down to bartender, he had himself a good three tequila shots, one right after another. Salt, shot, lemon. Salt, shot, lemon. Salt, shot, lemon. Now he was getting somewhere. It went without saying that Aubrey wasn’t entirely sure what time it was or how long ago he had arrived at the nightclub. Gun to his head, he couldn’t tell you what day it was - but he knew with an utmost certainty that he hadn’t been lacking inebriation for a good long while. He had, at some point, been sober enough to select a crisp white buttondown to wear sans tie under a black, two-button Westwood suit - and he rolled up to the Venetian looking damn good in the ensemble. The ground was already tilting beneath his feet when he’d climbed out of the limo, and for a brief, dizzying moment all the lights of the hotel blurred together into zig-zag constellations, packed tight behind his eyes and in his chest and throat and mouth. And then it was gone and he wanted a fucking drink, so he bypassed the line of plebeians clamouring for entry to Tao with hardly a second glance. Fortunately, he knew the security team well enough that a few crisp bills in the right palms saw him ushered into the Opium Room, straight through a door that opened behind the scenes. Two more minutes of laying on the charm and he had secured a booth in a corner of the room, with a row of cushioned seats that jutted up against the bar. “Four bottles of your best Prosecco, sweetheart.” He’d scarcely had time to mutter his order in the ear of a scantily-clad cocktail waitress (someone should have told her that silver lamé hot-pants weren’t a good look on anyone in the known universe, and that included Pride festivities) before the bottles were set in buckets of ice on the table before him. By the time the first bottle was cracked and half-drained, his own little corner of the universe was starting to fill up with the good-looking and the hangers-on alike. Of course, it wasn’t long before Aubrey caught sight of a familiar form and was forced to admit that his temporary posse was lacking the hottest piece of ass in the room. Hell, he’d know that ass from any angle - and the sight of Lin pressed up against the bar as he poured liquor down his throat was far too familiar to escape notice or temptation. Aubrey couldn’t help the lopsided grin that tugged at his lips, no more than he could help the toes that may have been squashed as he clambered rather clumsily out of the booth and crossed to the bar. “Leave the bottle,” he called out to the bartender over the din of music and voices, edging up so close behind Lin that he could smell the man’s shampoo. A beat, and he lowered his lips to sensitive spot just behind Lin’s left ear. “You going to come dance with me, or do I have to bottom out my standards and find someone else?” The alcohol flooded his body, a shock to his system, a small, pleasant zap to each bundle of nerves it rushed past as it washed over him, all warm and familiar. It was only three shots, but three shots in under a minute was, uh, more than Lin usually had. He blinked back the tears that sprang to his eyes and shook his head. A girl next to him, in her scrunchy red dress, tiny eyebrows, and fake tan, was giving him a curious looking over. Not in a way that made him think she was trying to pick him up. He could just feel the way her eyes moved over him, as if they wanted to find out what was making the small boy tick. He raised an eyebrow at her, pulpy lemon rind still caught between his lips. He wondered if he should offer her a drink and then maybe share some of the reasons humans evolved to keep their eyebrows, but all of that disappeared from his mind when someone came up behind him. Lin had half a mind to brush whoever this forward asshole was off until he had another couple shots, but then, before the words could even form in his mind, a very familiar voice breathed into his ear and goosebumps broke out over his skin, neck down. They inched out and over his arms. He shivered in his short-sleeved little shirt and reclined his head, until it bumped into the shoulder of the man behind him. He smiled at the upside down face above him, only then reaching up to take the lemon from his mouth. Aubrey. Lookin’ fine as fuck. He should have known. Lin’s black eyes traced the perfect coif of the hair and the twin arches of the eyebrows he knew so well, down the nose, and finally came to a halt on the curve of the man’s lips. His own smile widened and his gaze flicked to meet Aubrey’s. “Oh, hi,” Lin sounded amused. The back of his head felt pleasantly light. He lifted his head up and turned where he stood at the bar, creating enough of an opening between himself and No-Eyebrows Too-Tan for his ex-boyfriend to sneak in, if he wanted. “Mmm. You have to drink with me first.” Where was the party boy? Where had he disappeared off to? The man footing the bill for this raucous affair had appeared several times throughout the party - drinking in the corner with a cadre of the very good boys and girls who wanted to stay on the nice list and get gifted with the best booze in the joint, up against one of the back walls for a quick makeout session with a celebutante behind a wall of revelry protecting them from the prying eyes of camera phones, and then, now - Behind the bar. How had he gotten back there? Who had let him back by the booze? No one seemed to know, and the bartenders seemed more bemused than anything else. Blake Thorne was a regular and wealthy enough customer that he seemed totally at home buzzing around, pouring out the occasional drink for the patrons. He was wearing a button-down oxblood shirt that stood out obscenely against his pale skin. There was a cigarette between his lips even though he wasn't entirely sure whether smoking was legal in this place. A clove, because he might as well keep the nasty, sweaty room of dancing drunk people fresh as a daisy. As he moved around the bar, pouring whiskeys, mixing giant drinks with umbrellas that a laughing bartender taught him how to clumsily make, and vodka martinis, he slid an obscenely oversized old-fashioned along the bar along with him. Where he went, it went. This was drink five, and he was pleasantly buzzed. He'd been nursing his way through the evening instead of totally blowing it out, since he intended to drink until he blacked out in the arms of someone with arms (that was about as specific as the goal got). Why rush things? Serving drinks kept him pleasantly occupied, telling dirty jokes and pouring double the necessary amount of booze into everything, until he saw the couple at the end, against the bar. The one guy he didn't know, but he liked. Pretty chocolate eyes and a small, liquid mouth. Good. And then he was standing too close to just be friends with a more familiar face. Always a good sign. "Gentlemen," Blake said, leaning far over the bar with a grin. "Can I get you anything, or will you just be taking one of each other and calling it a fucking night?" “Sweetheart, I’m really sorry - but that is not your colour. I - I swear I’m not an asshole, okay? Burgundy stripes are just not flattering on pear-shapes. You’ll thank me later.” And so what if Aubrey’s words were just a little bit louder, a little more slurred than was strictly necessary? The skank was shooting all sorts of dirty looks in Lin’s direction, as if she had any more right to be here than the next functioning alcoholic. He took advantage of Lin’s strategic shuffling and slid in behind him at the bar, pressed up close with one broad, tanned hand on the curve of the younger man’s waist. The skank took a moment to paste an appropriately-offended expression on her face before she moved on, no doubt prowling for some piece of meat who might be distracted by her painted mouth and her too-small dress. “Hi, yourself,” he laughed softly, lingering for the briefest of moments with his nose buried in Lin’s hair, the sweet scent of mint filling his nose - before he pulled back a fraction of an inch, meeting Lin’s upside-down gaze and allowing a wide grin to play across his lips. He felt warm from the inside-out; he felt content from his head to the toes of his Italian leather shoes. And because he was warm and sloshing-full of tequila and expensive, bubbly wine - because he felt hot and cold and so many things at once - because he was happy and because he admired the way that Lin’s wet, flushed lips glistened in the dim lighting of the club - for every reason and more, he couldn’t help himself. A beat, a breath, and suddenly his lips were aiming for the column of Lin’s throat when he heard a familiar voice that cut through the cacophony. Blake. But that couldn’t be. Because it didn’t make sense. Because worlds were not supposed to collide. Because Aubrey was not supposed to feel particularly inclined to redirect the kiss to Lin’s cheek in the instant that he heard that voice, even if he did so. Right? Of course not. “Since when does Tao hire such inexperienced bartenders?” He let out an incredulous laugh after a suspended moment of disbelief, with a twinkle in his eyes while his mouth curved upward into a crooked smirk. He blinked several times and leaned across the bar, eyeing the boy for several long seconds before he reached out and gently took the clove cigarette from his mouth. “I will give you a thousand dollars if you can prove that you’ve worked a day in your life before tonight. Go ahead. Make me a... hmmm. A neon prostitute,” he announced with a grand air, blue eyes flashing as he dared Blake to concoct an entirely new drink on the spot. He took a drag off the clove and smirked at the bemused bartenders that hovered just beyond Blake’s elbow. Of course, he couldn’t help it if his right hand continued to caress the curve of Lin’s back, fingertips just barely slipping beneath the hem of his shirt. He was only fucking human, after all. When Lin realized what was going to happen, as he stood there with Aubrey’s hand pressing into the small of his back and their bodies close and faces closer and with three shots of tequila buzzing in the back of his mind, he tilted his head just a centimeter or two to bare his throat that much more, more out of instinct than anything else. But, the kiss never came. Someone was leaning across the bar, someone he didn’t recognize - small, red shirt, long, dark hair, pretty as all get-out, sassy, and wearing a smirk that warned of trouble. Suddenly, once he’d forgotten the reason for tipping his head so, Aubrey’s lips met Lin’s cheek in an afterthought of a kiss. Lin blinked. What? He watched as his ex-boyfriend leaned forward to take the cigarette from the other boy’s mouth, and then proceed to joke with him, all without taking his hand from Lin’s back. There was another half-second of confusion, then he decided to ease forward himself. Because why the fuck not? He was getting tipsy. His elbows settled on the surface of the bar and he smiled gleefully at the boy. He waited until Aubrey was done trying to set up a bet. He didn’t ask how they knew each other, because it was none of his business. But he did nudge his shoulder against Aubrey’s and say playfully, eyebrows raised high: “$1000 for a neon prostitute? Someone’s getting ripped off. Not that I would know.” Then his attention transferred seamlessly back to the boy. “One of each other is more than enough. Trust me. We don’t want two of him.” It was a reference to the kid’s introductory question. One of Lin’s thumbs hooked toward Aubrey. His voice and face said he was serious, though his eyes betrayed his amusement. “Secondly, ‘a fucking night’ is what I call every night. And, thirdly, hi, I’m Lin, though I’m going by Lady Marmalade tonight.” Blake let Aubrey take the cigarette with a faint, playful noise of dissatisfaction. Not that it mattered - he still had the rest of a pack in his back pocket. "Are you fucking kidding me? I'm the best motherfucking bartender in all the land." As if to prove this, he reached for a highball glass, then a few cubes of ice, plucking them out of the cooler below the counter like petals and dropping them in. "Neon prostitute coming right up, smartass. Get ready to feed me a thousand bucks." Blake appeared supremely confident in his abilities to mix a drink that didn't exist, and not the least bit surprised to see Aubrey. He had invited him, hadn't he? Along with half of Vegas, but still. It was his little friend who was the pleasant surprise - had hadn't expected Aubrey to come plus one. But hey, the more the merrier. He caught Aubrey's slip of fingers under Lin's shirt when he reached for the bottle of triple sec, and it earned him a smirk. "Really?" Blake asked, of Aubrey's friend Lady Marmalade. That did ring a bell, and the smirk turned into a full out grin. "Then call me Christina, sugar. And I am beautiful, as you can see." He was buzzed enough that this seemed profoundly witty, and he continued to fetch alcohol. The layer of triple sec was being followed up by blue curacao, and the drink, like the night, seemed full of the promise of possible blindness. Blake turned around, cataloguing the bottles on the shelf, and grabbed a bottle of Crystal Skull because he wanted to pour out of a skull-shaped bottle and it was vodka, and covered the ice with it. Then, the finishing touches on this grand masterpiece - a thin layer of St. Germain, and a brutally stabbed cherry pierced on a plastic sword. Blake picked the drink up carefully, a little spilling over the sides, and set it on the bar. "Alright, fucking nonbeliever. It's fun, it's neon, it's fruity, it's got a layer of the fancy smelling stuff on top to make you forget the rest of it is trashy, it'll get you fucking hammered, it's got some stuff in it that's expensive just because of the packaging, and like any good whore, somebody already popped the cherry for you." He displayed it, magician style, with both hands open toward the drink, head back, eyes closed, triumphant. "I...am a motherfucking mixologist." Of course, there was no logical reason that Aubrey should be so surprised by the intersection of two very different parts of his life - it was Blake’s party, and there was an undeniable fact that Lin seemed to pop up everywhere he went, like one of those stubborn moles in the midway game where you smacked them with a giant mallet. (Focus, Aubrey.) But somewhere in the midst of four scotches at home and champagne on the way over and sparkling wine in the booth, logic had slipped entirely out the window. It was the sort of inebriated tunnel-vision that reduced the universe to his own little corner of the world, and turned coincidences into small miracles. “Excuse you, asshole -“ he bumped Lin’s ribcage with his elbow and painted an offended look on his face, even as his eyes twinkled with a spark of amusement. “You should be so lucky to have two of me. God, we could practically put on our own production of Rent. I could be Joanne and Collins. How perfect would that be?” It was a rhetorical question. ‘Very’ was the obvious answer. “And you,” he continued, rounding on Blake and the fruity, colourful monstrosity that had been placed on the bar between them. “You have clearly missed your calling. All this time you’ve been living a life of debauchery and splendor, and what have you got to show for it? You could have your own gay bar on the Strip, with one of those ridiculously unsubtle names like ‘The Manhole’ or ‘White Swallow‘. Jesus, this thing is going to give me diabetes.” Oh, the joys of a tongue loosened by liberal amounts of alcohol. Fortunately, his taste test of Blake’s concoction (resist the urge to make a dirty joke, Aubrey) occupied his mouth just long enough to give the other men a brief respite. It was sharp and tangy on his tongue, and it would most definitely be sure to give him the shittiest hangover ever. After downing a couple of sips, he pulled out the little plastic sword and tugged the cherry free with his teeth. Grabbing the drink had meant that he’d removed his hand from the warm, smooth expanse of Lin’s back, and now he leaned over the bar just a little bit, inclining his chin towards Blake’s position. “So, are you gonna be a working girl all night long? You can’t drag a homebody like myself out to an event like this and not show me a good time. Shit, Lady Marmalade is so close to sober that it’s embarrassing.” A beat of silence, as he had another flash of genius. “Parking At The Rear! How does that gay bar not exist already?” Bemused and more than a little curious, Lin leaned in a little more to check out this ‘neon prostitute’ as it splashed all over the bar in sticky drops. It was layered, ugly and bright, overly red cherry pierced by one of those awesome little swords than Lin had definitely collected as a kid. You know. For Barbie. (After putting on makeup, she liked to practice her fencing. So fucking what?) That was a neon prostitute if Lin had ever seen one. He smiled at the brew. He was going to enjoy watching Aubrey trying to choke that thing down. But, before he could let him do that, Lin’s shoulder hit his ex-boyfriend’s a second time, but harder. Much harder. That’s what happened when you elbowed him in the ribs, jackass. He didn’t respond to the comment about Rent. It’s not like he was going to argue with that assessment. No. Instead, he stilled and poured himself another tequila shot from the bottle that had been left behind, as Aubrey lifted the radioactive glass. The boy grimaced in sympathy disgust and readied his own salt. He liked Christina already. He talked nearly as much as Lin himself and that was always a good thing. He was small and loud and obviously skilled at making drinks. Plus, he was cute. There was a moment of quiet - relative quiet - as the neon prostitute was drained. Lin smiled at the other boy. “If you’re going to take this mixology/magician thing on the road, can I be your assistant? I mean, I already have the fishnets on under my pants, if you remember correctly.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully at Blake, only glancing over at Aubrey as the man withdrew his hand and fought to remove the cherry from its skewer. But there wasn’t time for anything more, because once that was done, Aubrey was talking again. Apparently, he couldn’t hold his tongue whilst drunk - who knew? Lin took the time to down his own shot. The room around them was still busy, loud, hot, and full, but the boy at the bar hardly noticed anything going on outside of the three foot radius that contained himself, Aubrey, and Blaketina. Indeed, it was captivating to watch Aubrey, drunk as he was, trying to split himself between the two younger men. Now Lin understood why he’d been asked to stop in his “harassment” of Blake. Because Aubrey liked him. They obviously knew each other. And Lin could read his ex-boyfriend well enough, from the degree to which he leaned in close to Blake, to the size of his smile, to know that it was the kind of ‘knowing each other’ that extended beyond flirty small talk. A'ight den. “Why not just call it Anal Sex and be done with it?” was all he said to the flash of brilliance with a laugh, and by then he was readying shot number five. "Top Shelf? Too tame. What about Brown Eyes?" Blake suggested. Now this was a thing. "I should open a gay bar. It's not like I can't afford it. It might be fun to be the sleazy nightclub mogul in the back room at the big ass desk in the leather chair, like the bad guy in an after school special about drugs? I could totally do this." Aubrey's proposition that Blake show him a good time was met by a wide grin and a sudden abandoning of his bar duties. Someone nearby yelped as Blake hopped up on the bar, leveraging himself with his hands, getting purchase on the top of the ice chest. He dropped down and sat on the bar, legs folded underneath him. "I created my masterpiece," he said, reaching behind himself to precariously reach for his half-finished gigantic old-fashioned. "I think I ought to go out on top. So to speak." A brief lascivious raised brow and bright smile for Aubrey at the terrible pun, and then he fished for the black straw swimming in a circle away from him in the tall glass. "I hope you like itty bitty skirts," he informed Lin. "Itty bitty skirts to go with the fishnets. And sequins. Lots of sequins." Blake pondered Lin's name suggestion. Apparently it passed muster, because he began to nod as he drained what was left of his drink. "It works," he said, setting the empty glass down behind him again. His world was shifting in front of him pleasantly, and it occurred to him he was very lucky to have made it safely to a sitting position on the bar. It had to speak to his skill and balance. Like a cat. "I mean, let's go more blunt with it. Why not 'Suck My Cock'?" he proposed, sliding a hand through the air in front of him on an imaginary marquee. There is a careful sort of orchestration required of one attempting to navigate the waters of ex-meets-fling, or whatever unofficial title it was that Blake had earned by now. Not quite ‘friend with benefits’, as they had started with the benefits in the first place. In fact, deducing exactly what that title would be required a level of clarity that he had not seen for several hours. It was probably for the best; there was a very vague, booze-soaked part of his brain that knew how close the situation was to being fucking awkward - but as usual, drunk-Aubrey was proving particularly apt at drowning that voice with all that liquor poured down his throat. “Are we sure that we want to restrict it to a single act, though?” He mused with a pseudo-thoughtful expression, pretending to regard Blake’s invisible marquee as he took a slow haul on the slim black cigarette, then offered it back to the young man with a wink. His smile was a warm, syrupy thing that grew wider by the minute. “Don’t get me wrong, I defer entirely to your superior knowledge of how to make a good buck off a blowjob. And Lin knows just about everything there is to know about tiny, sequined wardrobe options. I think that we’re sitting on a goldmine, boys.” With that, he reached out to borrow the half-empty bottle of tequila - god, but he needed something to wash away the sickly-saccharine taste that coated his mouth. Two gulps, breathe out through the nose as he savoured the burn in his throat. The room was bright and warm and he turned to lean between the two younger men, elbows against the bar, and for just a moment he closed his eyes and was acutely aware the heat spreading through his chest. Another gulp. Smile, and pass the bottle back. He opened his eyes and tilted his head so that he could shoot a sly look in Lin’s direction. “You. Drink more.” Blake was up and over the bar before Lin could blink. Then, the three of them were pressed together, even with Blake there on the edge, three gay sardines in a tin with great music. Lin smiled, still taking in the winks and eyebrow raises like a kid watching porn for the first time (that is: wide-eyed, confused, and weirdly excited). He took the bottle that was passed to him (rude) and set it on the bar next to Blake’s thigh, ignoring Aubrey’s command and the sly look - or, rather, only countering them with a sort of ‘oh, you’ smile and lift to his brows. He rather wanted to watch right now, not participate. “The Reach Around could work,” he mused idly, leaning more on the wood of the bar, caught on the other side of Aubrey. He grinned up at Christina. “But he is right about the sequins. If it glitters, then I’m all over it like a motherfuckin’ magpie.” The boy licked his lips and rolled the rounded bottom of the bottle in a small puddle of condensation, turning his dark eyes on the pair again, curious as a cat. Aubrey had his eyes closed and looked, um, drunk as fuck and simultaneously dashing in a blatant attempt to thwart logic. Blake was pretty and pert on the bar with a distinctly mischievous look on his face. Lin pushed off the bar with his elbows and straightened himself with the over-casual ease of someone who’s more than a touch tipsy. He'd give them a minute then. “I’m going to the bathroom to see if I can’t find a glory hole. I’ll be back.” Honestly, he needed to piss, but close enough. Blake saluted Lin as he made clear his intentions to get blown in the bathroom. "See you in a minute," he said, with a teasing smile, and watched him wander drunkenly away. Blake gestured to the bartendresses to make him another drink, and a girl slid over with all due speed. "Vodka gimlet, sugar, little bit of lime. Mostly vodka, though." Then he turned his attention firmly back to Aubrey. He was still holding himself upright without too much difficulty, but the smooth swivel of his head implied a certain level of intoxication. "So. Who is he?" Blake asked, eyes alight with curiosity and interest. "You two aren't 'just friends' I take it. I mean, I hope. You practically had your hand up his ass. Anyone I should know?” The girl behind the bar brought Blake the drink he’d requested, and Blake gave her a thankful, theatrical inclination of his head before wrapping his tongue lasciviously around the little black straw that came with his very strong drink, being sure to give Aubrey and excellent view. The splash of tequila into his stomach had been more than welcome, and quite a bit less than necessary. By some small miracle the room had stopped spinning just as Aubrey chose to open his eyes - just barely in time to hear Lin’s declaration about seeking out a glory hole, and to catch sight of his retreating back. As the rush of liquor began to filter into his bloodstream, he could not help the almost-accented lilt that threatened his words (even after nearly thirty years of Anglo-acclimatization) and for a moment he found that words formed on his tongue in French before the cogs turned and everything shifted that extra half-inch back into English. Qui est-il? And really, it was almost comical. Aubrey turned so that he was leaning with his forearms against the bar, sliding the dwindling bottle of tequila closer and tilting his head back so that he could aim a smirk in Blake’s direction. By no means did the coy, curling tongue escape his notice. “You are going to be so sorry you asked that,” he couldn’t help but joke in a playful tone, shaking his head and wrapping his fingers around the neck of the tequila bottle. Where exactly was he supposed to start? He spent a half-second gazing into the depths of the yellow-gold liquor in search of the answers, and eventually took another sip, as if to bolster his nerve. As if he needed to convince himself to open his mouth. And when he spoke, he leaned on one elbow so that he could shift his gaze between the bustling, writhing dance floor and Blake’s dark eyes. “He’s my ex. The ex, you know? The big bad. As in, probably would’ve married him if he hadn’t fucked someone else,” he mused, holding the tequila bottle out in front of him and tilting it back and forth in the light, watching the liquid slosh from side to side. Aubrey could hear the cool detachment in his voice, and for once he was grateful for it. “And yeah, you pretty much need to know him. He’s, like, the best person I know.” Aubrey considered the tequila for another moment before he turned and set it back down on the bar where Lin had left it - he had enough poison in his belly to knock him unconscious before very long, and he had every intention of getting something more out of the night. He tilted his head just enough to catch Blake’s gaze, and once more felt a smile tugging at his lips. “But I didn’t come here to talk about him. I came here to see you,” he said smoothly, sliding down the length of the bar until he was even with Blake’s catlike crouch. His broad, tanned hands found Blake’s thighs and rested there a moment as he leaned in, hazel eyes lingering on the curve of the boy’s mouth before rising and meeting his gaze. Aubrey’s hands hooked behind Blake’s knees and carefully pulled him to the edge of the bar, and then he leaned in just a little bit more. When he spoke, his voice was slick and quiet. “And you wanted to see me, whether or not you’ll admit it.” Blake dropped his legs, letting them hook insect-like over the front edge of the bar, heels grounded against a groove in the recessed bar front, and listened to Aubrey's sad tale of woe. No wonder he was all over the guy. He had kind of been hoping the answer would be funny rather than serious, a comical tale of meet-hot or something, but alright, messed up breakup worked too. "That sounds familiar," Blake said. It sounded like him, in fact. But Blake didn't make the mistake of hooking up with people, anymore. No, he was bound to disappoint, and there was always that sticky point of finding yourself in a position where you actually gave a shit about something and that thing slipped through your fingers in a shower of blood. Well that was a morbid thought, one of the only side effects of drinking he wasn't particularly fond of. In the colored light of the bar, his raven's wing hair was sleek and tar-dark. He looked down with the curiosity of the drunk at Aubrey's hands sliding over his legs, and his smile increased in proportion to the length of that touch, curling like the cat with the cream. "I just came for the booze and the music," Blake deferred, lifting a hand from the edge of the bar to nudge under his chin. He half-shrugged, all tease. "But you're here too, I guess." He let himself be tugged forward with a rueful expression - no one could mistake Blake for a doll to be posed, or for the type to melt under a touch, but every once in a while it was nice to be dragged around some. "You came all the way here for me, didn't you? You must have wanted to do something to me pretty fucking bad, then." He lifted his chin, close enough that his breath ghosted across Aubrey's lips. "Let's see it." The boy’s reprehensible smirk inspired his own flash of teeth - and, of course, there was the way that those dark eyes managed warn of danger and cajolery all at the same time, coaxing Aubrey to stay and play and touch and taste in the same instant that it urged him to run, as hard and fast as he could in the opposite direction. A look like that should be fucking outlawed. The point was that his own grin grew in proportion to the curl of the younger man’s lips, and also that he lacked the ability to help himself. Resistance, that elusive bitch - it was beyond his grasp. And so it was that Aubrey simply shook his head slowly, a gesture both pleased and rueful. “You are a fabulous liar,” he murmured wryly, reaching up to cup the hinge of Blake’s jaw in his palm, just as the boy’s deliberate chin-tilt managed to close another few inches between them. He hesitated, and it was something like a suspension of time as he took in the fine details of Blake’s haughty, defiant expression. “But I’ve been with better liars, baby. Try harder. Convince me you’re a heartless bastard, empty all the way down.” And then, and then, and then. Despite the slow warmth of the liquor that made his head and his heart feel slow, blurry, he reached out and caught hold of the boy’s slender wrist. And as he stood there with Blake’s arm gathered in one hand and the sharpest angle of his jaw cupped in the other, Aubrey thought that those lies might forever fall short. “Most of it is too x-rated for a public screening. Then again, I know how much you love to put on a show.” A beat. There was a flicker of fire and danger in the boy’s eyes, and still Aubrey could not resist the need to wind his hand through the wreckage, fingers twining in soft, dark strands. At last he kissed him, with the ferocity and hunger afforded only teenagers and very drunk heads of security, all soft lips and skilled tongue and the slow, gentle scrape of teeth. He tightened his grip in Blake’s hair for a moment, angling his head back just enough to deepen the kiss, asking for more. Demanding, really. His free hand found its way back to the boy’s thigh and slid up, up, up, fingers curling against fabric instead of skin and just barely hinting at what he truly wanted. And what he wanted, he would get. There were no glory holes in the restroom. Fuck classy places. There was like, one fucking stall and a line of urinals. Lin pretended to be mildly disappointed as he peed, because, fuck you, he could, and then, he was washing his hands. Dark fingers washed over with warm water. The mirror over the sink showed a small, black-eyed boy in his collared shirt, eyelashes dark and inviting, hair a cloud, with desert pink lips perpetually parted, and Lin frowned at him. Fucking jackass. That stupid kid got him into so much fucking trouble. He really should have just stayed home. Something stirred in his stomach, swimming through the tequila and lemon, and it told him things were not going to go well. He hated that feeling. The boy shook his head at himself, flicking tears of water from the tips of his fingers as he turned back toward the door. He backed out of the room, his spine meeting the metal bar that opened the bathroom door. The heat of the dance floor rushed over him and the bass of the music shook the ground beneath his feet. He was sweating again already, black hair curled and stuck to the nape of his neck. A man with a fucking crewcut brushed past him, knocking his own hard, muscled shoulder against Lin's narrow, bony one. The smaller man staggered a half-step backward, nearly hitting his skull on the heavy wood of the door, and glared at the dickhead as he disappeared into the bathroom. "Fuck you too," he called after the asshole in an angry, but ultimately non-threatening tone. Lin sighed again and swept the room, the bodies, the pink and purple, with eyes like searchlights. Then they closed. They saw all they needed to. Indeed, the image, the position of bodies, the ardent hands, all of it was burned, seared and branded, into the black lids of his eyes. A show indeed. Aubrey had Blake by the hair, had a hand high on his thigh, and they were busy - like, high school PDA busy. He thought a trip to the bathroom would be long enough for them to -- whatever, but apparently not. That was fine. Yes. Alright. Cool. His curiosity was sated. He could just... do something else. There was no anger in Lin. He was past that. He was used to being the one getting attention, but, obviously, that was not the case here. Playing second fiddle was not his thing. There was a sort of diffused sadness that Lin didn't understand yet that slid to the back of his throat, thick and oppressive, but he wasn't jealous and he wasn't upset. There was none of that. Just the heavy settling of muzzy confusion and the tinge of blue. He just... didn't want to be there anymore. He was too tipsy for this. He would do something stupid, he knew, and they both seemed pretty into it. So, he would talk to the both of them later. That seemed the best course of action. Without another glance toward the tangled men then and without, for once, a word, the boy in the white shirt moved into the crowd, away from the bar, and he found someone else to buy him drinks and pay attention to him. |