Blake Thorne ; Sirius Black (ex_toujours322) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-03-09 20:53:00 |
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Entry tags: | ballerina, highwayman |
Who: Blake and Poe
What: A visit
Where: The Aubade
When: After this.
Warnings: Inappropriate kissing?
Poe left his lunch meeting with Shiloh and Preston, and he walked to Hamartia. by the time he got there, he was a mess of red eyes and splotchy, freckled cheeks, and he looked like a pussy, and he couldn’t go back to class, not right away, not like that, He showered, trying to wash away whatever had just gone all terribly wrong, and when that didn’t work, he tried other ways to make it all go away.
By the time Poe called the head of the ballet at three, he was calmer, but he was still all freckles and puffy eyes, and then the man told him Blake Thorne had gotten in touch about Poe’s scholarship. Poe was sure Blake had canceled it, but no, and the man began lecturing Poe about being grateful, and it was all Poe could do not to throw the phone, or hang up on him, or both.
It was a whim, when Poe left Hamartia and began the long, thankless trek to Aubade. He was still dressed in the loose overalls and tight white shirt that bared a sliver of hip, and he walked with his head down and his hands shoved in now-empty pockets. He had no job, and having no job meant having no money for a cab or food, and he’d spent his last bit of money from Boston on the bar he’d gone to with Luke and Bly.
By the time Poe arrived at Aubade, he was tired, and it was dark, and the doorman looked at him like he’d gotten lost when Poe gave him Blake’s name.
Blake hadn't gone out this particular evening, a rare exception. He'd gone out the night before and gotten very drunk with a blonde twentysomething he'd fucked a few times before, and they made a night of it. She'd been gone when he woke up in the morning, which was exactly what he'd expected, and he'd spent the day nursing a truly spectacular hangover.
By the time evening rolled around, Blake had made the decision to waste the night at home with another drink to ease things along. He had just poured himself a whiskey when the intercom buzzed. He wasn't expecting anyone, so it did come as a bit of a surprise, and when they gave Poe's name it stopped him cold. He hadn't thought Poe would come to Aubade looking for him - he didn't even know that Poe knew where he lived. After a moment's pause, he told the doorman to buzz him up, ran a hand through his hair, and downed the rest of the whiskey. He had a feeling he'd need it.
It took Poe longer than it should have to get upstairs, because he was busy staring at everything. It almost made him forget how miserable he was, and by the time he knocked on Blake’s door he was looking a little less freckly and splotchy, though his hands were still shoved in his pocket, dragging the denim down even lower over pale, bared skin.
Blake opened the door and did his best not to stare. Poe looked like a crime - he looked like he'd been crying, he looked like something begging to be further rumpled, and he looked miserable. He dragged his gaze up from a once over of him that had managed to stop at that exposed sliver of skin. "Are you here to break my nose?"
The question just made Poe look at Blake’s nose, and then he shook his head and reminded himself to try to be cool, instead of looking like he’d just walked all the way there after crying like a baby, which maybe he had. Cool, he reminded himself. “That would be messy,” he said, and it was a little triumphant, because at least it all came out with any hitching of his breath. “You got me in trouble,” he added, a little bit of the ire coming back to help him feel better. He didn’t wait to be invited in; instead, he pushed past the other man, hands coming out of his pockets to nudge at his stomach without any real thought of how the touch could be construed.
Blake moved to let him by, pivoting but not moving away from Poe's hands. "That wasn't my intention," he said, and he shut the door when Poe was through it. "Did the head of the company give you hell? He seems like a prick." He stood against the doorframe. "I just told him that you might ask him about the scholarship, and that I wasn't cancelling it if you asked."
Poe stared at the apartment as soon as he was through the door, his mouth in a little, awed o, and it took him a minute to get it together enough to respond to Blake. “He lectured me about being grateful, and I’ve kind of heard that forever, so if you want me to be grateful I won’t be,” he said, all Boston and petulance, “and if you want to get mad at me fine. I think there’s a line today or something of people wanting to be mad at me,” he added, starting to look sheepish by the end of the sentence, but fighting it.
"I don't want you to be grateful," Blake said, watching him gape at the apartment with a small, involuntary smile. "And I'm not mad at you. I don't know why you keep saying that." Something clicked at last, and he moved away from the door toward him. "How did things go with Preston and Preston?"
Poe dropped down onto a leather couch, and he kicked off the shoes, which were completely threadbare from the long walk. “I ran out through the kitchen,” he admitted. “And my father ran out the front door before that. And I made Preston angry.” He said it all while looking at his feet and wiggling aching toes. “And then I got lectured, and I walked all the way here, and I didn’t even get to eat, and the only good thing that happened today was I jacked off in the shower without worrying about being in a dorm.” He realized what he was saying as the last words passed his lips, and he looked up slowly, slowly, slowly, blue eyes wide.
Blake noted the shoes, and in noting them there would be new ones on his doorstep in the morning. He watched Poe's face, right up to the moment the words 'jerked off' passed those lips, and when he finally looked up, Blake was grinning. It took him a moment to get past the image of Poe jerking off in the shower, mouth open and beads of water rolling down his naked body - but if he was the sort of guy who completely collapsed the moment anything sexual entered the conversation he would not have gotten this far. "Congratulations," he said, amused by his expression more than anything else. "Don't make that face. I've had those days."
Blake moved toward the kitchen, which was just off the main room. "C'mon. I'm a terrible fucking cook, but I can find you some food and you can tell me why Preston got angry and how you figured out he was your uncle and not your dad. And why the ballet company didn't give you any money for shoes, because I definitely gave them enough to cover that."
Poe had been taking charity his entire life; he wasn’t about to argue. Being grateful was a problem, but taking things wasn’t, and he followed Blake on white socks and sore toes that were already wrapped and bloodied from dancing on them so much.
“You’ve had those days?” Poe asked, looking impressed. “Really? But you’re so-” he stopped himself before saying old, and he looked very proud of himself for managing it, “mature.” He stared at the kitchen as he walked into it, and it only took him a moment to appropriate a counter, climbing up on it with a dancer’s grace and sitting. “The scholarship covers ballet related things. You know, classes, housing, costumes, but not sneakers,” he told him, watching Blake in the light of the kitchen with a gaze that was (unknowingly) openly admiring. “I think Preston thinks I’m blaming Shiloh for stuff,” he said. “And I gave Shiloh my mother’s diary and he ran outside after.”
Blake chuckled, low in his throat. "Yeah, I think you're the only person in this town who would call me that. I wasn't always this 'mature' anyway." He looked over to Poe again, poised and graceful on the counter, returning his gaze for a moment longer than necessary before going to the refrigerator. He pulled out ingredients for a ham sandwich and set about making one. He had no idea what dancers ate, but he did know that Poe looked like he might break if you nudged him a little too hard and someone ought to rectify that. He pulled a dull knife from a drawer next to Poe's foot, gesturing as he talked. "I don't know Preston's brother very well, but I would personally count that as kind of bizarre, a grown man running away from a diary. And Preston has his head up his ass more often than not, you have to hit him over the head a few times before he gets something. Don't pay him too much mind, he'll come around." He laid ham and cheese inside the sandwich cut it with the knife, and slid the plate over to him. "Now, as for the scholarship, if they're not giving you all the money I'm going to give some of it to you directly. There's no fucking reason for you to be walking around in shoes with holes in them."
“Preston said Shiloh was emotional about finding out he had family he didn’t know about, and I said it wasn’t my mother’s fault she hadn’t told them, because she died,” Poe explained quietly, picking up the sandwich and tearing a corner off and popping it into his mouth. It was somehow shocking to hear Blake say his uncle (that was strange enough as it was) had his head up his ass, and Poe nibbled thoughtfully. “I think the money you’re giving them is what it costs,” he said, tearing off another bite. “I could find a job,” he said, trying to figure out when he’d fit it in, then smiling at Blake, remembering something. “Oh, we went to that bar,” he said.
Blake slowed, watching Poe after he pointed out in such a blase way that his mother had died, leaning against the counter. "That doesn't sound like blaming to me. Like I said, he'll come around." And if he didn't, Blake would make him come around. Poe seemed like someone who had been through enough as it was not to have his family get on his case when he did find them. "How did things go?" he asked. "Did you meet anyone?" The question was profoundly casual.
“Maybe,” Poe said to the comment about his father and uncle coming around, but he didn’t sound very sure. “I wanted them to like me a lot,” he admitted, the confession hanging in the quiet of the kitchen for a moment, before he thought to say something to brush it away like it was cool, like it didn’t matter. “I talked to someone named Gustav,” he admitted, tearing off another bit of sandwich and holding it up to Blake’s lips. “Can you believe people are named that?” he asked, something of a thrill in his belly as he anticipated Blake’s reaction to the question.
Blake softened, just a touch. "I'm sure they do like you," he said. "They're just surprised. Give them a couple of days." Yes, talking to Preston was definitely high on his list of priorities now.
"Gustav?" Blake said. His tone was measured, but his gaze was keen. "I can believe it. What did you think of 'Gustav'?" No particular reason he asked, of course.
Poe’s response to the assurance he was liked was an uncertain little hum and a fidget that resulted in the remainder of the sandwich being torn apart without him thinking about it until it was destroyed on the plate. He bit his lip, and he looked up apologetically. “Um, Gustav-” He paused, remembering his Gustav comment. “Oh, Gustav. We met this woman, Valerie, and she took us to this private room with all of these pretty people that had been drinking. My friend Bly liked her, but I think she knew Luke was rich,” he added. “And Gustav was in the room, but we had to go, because Luke and Bly were uncomfortable there.” His lips turned up a tiny bit in a mischievous smile. “He said he was twenty seven, and he said that I was pretty.”
Blake made note of Valerie’s name - anybody who dragged a bunch of teenage boys into the back room of a club and hung on the rich one was a certified predator in his book. He had enough experience with those women to spot them from miles away. He didn’t much like the sound of Gustav, either. “He didn’t do you nearly enough credit,” he said, giving himself permission to let his eyes rove again. “What was better?” he asked. “That he was twenty seven, or that he called you pretty?”
The roving gaze made Poe blush and fidget, and he looked up at Blake from under eyelashes that were almost too long to belong to a boy. “Um, both?” he said, because he could imagine someone his own age being smooth and cool like that, no matter how much he and Bly and Luke tried to be cool like that. “I don’t think anyone’s ever looked at me like that before,” he said, and maybe he was playing with fire, because he was pretty sure he couldn’t breathe just then, his stomach roiling like it would never stop as he looked up at the older man. He worried his lip, and he gripped the countertop with fingers gone pale with nervousness and thrill.
Somewhere around Poe biting his lip Blake ceased to worry too much about the sort of hell he was going to bring down on himself from Preston for this. He closed what little distance there was between them, walking up to where Poe’s legs hung off the counter. “No one else?” he asked, looking back at those too long eyelashes and soft lips. If anything looked like trouble, Blake did in that moment.
Poe just shook his head and stared, mouth a little open, eyes a little wide. “I didn’t think boys called each other pretty,” he said, because it was the first thing that came to mind, but it was unthinking and followed by a nervous jump off the kitchen counter and a wince when he landed on bruised and battered feet.
Blake looked down at Poe's feet and felt a sudden, irrational sort of anger toward the head of his company, gone almost as soon as it had registered. "Not all boys do," he said, mouth crooked into a half smile, and he lazily wrapped an arm around Poe's waist. "But you are pretty." He pulled him close against him. "You're a fragile thing. If I hadn't seen you dance, I might think I could break you."
Poe had never been that close to anyone, and the unexpectedness of it made him forget to breathe, which he thought was completely stupid once he realized it. “Dancers aren’t fragile, they just look it because-” he began, but he forgot there was a sentence there halfway through, and he just watched Blake with rapt expectation, holding his breath again.
Blake kissed him. If this was the sort of encounter Blake usually had in his apartment, he wouldn't be wasting time with kissing him or talking to him in the kitchen - they would have been in the bedroom (if they even got that far) ten minutes earlier. But this was something different, something a little harder to quantify. It was a side of Blake that hardly anyone saw. Poe seemed vulnerable and distinctly breakable no matter what he said, and it wasn't going to benefit him to rush it.
Poe had never been kissed, and he fluttered his fingers, unsure of where to put his hands, and he tipped his head a little too much to the side, resulting in more teeth than lips, and he tried to move closer, only to end up tripping over his own loose socks. The loss of balance, so indicative of nerves in a dancer, meant that he grabbed onto Blake’s hips and stopped trying to figure it out. He didn’t think to keep his lips closed, to keep it chaste, and so he opened his mouth in unwitting invitation for please, please, more.
Blake chuckled low at Poe's fluttering fingers and insistent, open mouth. He slipped his tongue into Poe's mouth, trying to give him an example without making that too obvious. It had been a long time since he'd been with anyone nervous enough about a kiss to clash teeth, so her was careful with him, pulling Poe tighter against him when he grabbed at his hips.
To say Poe had no idea what to do was an understatement. Sure, people kissed in books, but this was different. A little chapped, a little wet, a little strange, and he didn’t realize he was being a little overzealous in his nervous response. He was torn between wanting it to go on, and wanting it to be done, so he could think about it while he was alone. And then there was breathing, and he had to breathe, but he didn’t know how he was supposed to, and he thought he might have breathed into Blake’s mouth, maybe, and his fingers were clutching the fabric at the hip of Blake’s track pants tighter than he realized.
Blake held the kiss for a long, long moment, giving Poe a chance to settle into it, but when Poe seemed desperate for air he finally broke it off, looking at him with a warm sort of smile. "Was that better than Gustav?"
Poe didn’t remember who Gustav was just then. No idea, and he licked his lips and tried to remember. And then the phone was ringing, and he startled and looked toward the kitchen door. “I, um, I better-” he jerked his thumb toward the door, forgetting the word go and its place in English vocabulary.
Blake hated the phone the moment it began ringing, and he was going to tell Poe that he would just let it ring, but Poe was already looking to escape. It didn't feel like all that much to Blake, but he had to admit that it was probably a hell of an eventful day for Poe. So he disentangled his arms from around him, with maybe a touch of reluctance, so what? "It's fine. You want me to call you a cab?"
“Um, yeah, sure. I’ll just go and wait for it,” Poe said, already moving toward the kitchen door, still licking his lips occasionally. He stopped partway, and if he’d been wearing sneakers they would have skidded on the kitchen floor. His fingers clenched at his side, his back to Blake, and then he turned in a rush, returned, and kissed Blake once - closed mouth and fast - pulling back with a bounce on aching, socked feet, and then running from the apartment.
The kiss actually surprised Blake, and he watched Poe flee from the apartment with the most genuine smile he'd worn in a long time. He pulled out his cell phone, and he ordered Poe a cab. And then, finally, he answered the insistent phone.