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New York City, East Village, Late 1995
When your name is Hubert, you’re always looking for an excuse to punch something. Fortunately, the assholes who sometimes turn up at Memento Mori are always more than happy to give him the chance.
Tonight it’s the f-word ringing out from across the coffin-shaped bar, audible even over the thrumming bass of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” Hubert clenches his teeth, letting the easy prickle of rage flare across his skin, and tosses a quick glance toward Edelgard in the DJ booth. But she’s got her hands full, and in any case, she’s given him carte blanche to do whatever he needs to keep Memento Mori clean of skinheads, frat boys looking for a freak show, and any other debris that washes up.
As Hubert rounds the bar, he sees Bernadetta standing next a waterfall of wavy copper hair over a creamy poet blouse and burgundy trousers that are squeezing one incredible ass like the ripe peach it looks to be. Said ass’s owner, unfortunately, appears to be cornered by a Lacoste-wearing blond in aviators, his gold Rolex flashing in the club lights. “I told you to get out of my way, cocksucker,” American Psycho is shouting at the redhead.
“I warned you not to speak to the lady that way,” the redhead is saying as Hubert approaches. “But apparently you do not know how to speak politely to anyone—”
“There a problem here?” Hubert asks, and lightly taps Bernie’s arm.
She shoves a tuft of purple Manic Panic hair out of her face and gives him a bitter nod. “I told him I didn’t want to dance, then Ferd—”
“God damn. You’re all a bunch of pussies.” The frat boy’s drunken gaze rakes over Hubert: his ripped black jeans and tank top, his armsleeve tattoos, the eyeshadow smudged under his eyes. “Who the fuck are you supposed to be, some kinda gay Nosferatu?”
Hubert makes a fist—the hand with the oversized pewter raven-skull ring. “The lady told you to fuck off. I’m gonna tell you to get the fuck out of our club. You’ve got three seconds to grab your shit—”
Then the douchebag lunges at him, bottle of Michelob sloshing them both.
Fucking finally, Hubert thinks.
He easily ducks out of his grasp, and catches the bottle as it swings around. Uses it to twist the guy’s wrist around until he howls and lets go of it. Hubert brings one steel-toed Doc Marten slamming down onto his boat shoes, then crashes the mostly-full bottle into the side of his head in a glorious spray of cheap beer. Finally, he brings the jagged, broken-off bottle’s neck to the underside of the guy’s jaw as he wrenches one arm behind his back.
“Get. The fuck. Out.”
Hubert then realizes several things in quick succession:
There was a second frat boy, just now joining them from the bar.
And he’s flinging a martini in Hubert’s face.
And the blur of orange hair tackling the second guy before he can come in for a punch—the owner of that exemplary ass—is none other than Ferdinand von Fucking Aegir, rising from the ashes of Hubert’s burned-down former life like some kind of pre-Raphaelite beauty, and Hubert is briefly furious that in all his countless fantasies he never even once considered how incredible Ferdinand would look with hair like that—
And he uses that fury to fling the first guy down beside the second and crams the sole of his boot against his throat.
Ferdinand gazes up at him with a similar expression of shock, and holy fuck, is he wearing eyeliner and lip gloss, are those gold and garnet earrings dangling from his ears to frame the kiss of freckles on both his cheeks, who even is this Ferdinand?
Hubert huffs out his breath—he’s not sure what else to do with this sweet poisonous mix of anger and nostalgia and awe currently pulsing through him—and whistles for Caspar, the club bouncer.
“These two.” Hubert gestures to the men currently groaning on the floor. “Make sure you get cash from them to cover their tab.”
“You got it, boss!” Caspar shouts, and gets to work.
“Let me help,” Bernie says. “It’d be my pleasure.”
Hubert makes some kind of noise of agreement, but he’s staring at Ferdinand again, all those horrible yet wonderful memories of St. Garreg’s bodyslamming him as he does. Finally, he manages to hold out a hand to help Ferdinand up.
Ferdinand blinks, then takes the hand. “Hubert,” he says softly, then pulls himself up with those incredible lacrosse thigh muscles that definitely have starred in many of Hubert’s countless fantasies. “I did not know you worked here. Or well—I suppose I should have known, I just didn’t . . . know.”
They’re face to face now, though Hubert’s acutely aware of the deep V of Ferdinand’s ruffled blouse and the sturdy chest heaving beneath it. “I. Uh. Yeah.” He realizes he’s still squeezing Ferdinand’s hand, their rings clacking together, so he forces himself to let go, and Ferdinand makes a soft little sigh. “I, uh. I work for Edelgard now.”
Ferdinand smiles; and it’s a sadder smile than it used to be, in a way that wrenches Hubert’s heart. But it feels more honest, somehow, than the one he flashed at everyone back at school. Vice President of the Student Council, captain of the lacrosse, crew, and polo teams, he was probably president of some fucking young stock traders club or Future Business Leaders or whatever bullshit too that Hubert conveniently overlooked at the time. He should be the one in Topsiders and Ralph Lauren, dining with some Kate Moss waif at Balthazar while he corners the market on corn futures.
Not biting his rosy lower lip as he looks at Hubert like something he wants to savor.
Ugh, fuck, and there’s his imagination running off with him again. “Are you okay?” Hubert asks, because it seems safer than the million other things he wants to know.
Ferdinand laughs gently as he takes a step back. At some point, the music rolled over to Ministry, and Hubert didn’t even notice. He isn’t noticing much outside of the revelation that is long-haired Ferdinand dressed like he’s headed to a picnic on Byron’s grave. “I, ah. I do seem to be wearing a martini,” Ferdinand says.
“Right.” Hubert resists the sudden urge to touch glistening, vodka-soaked pectorals. “Uh. I might have a spare shirt in the office.”
“That’s all right. I . . . Maybe it was a mistake to come here. I’m sorry, Hubert, I did not mean to cause any trouble.” Ferdinand bites that lower lip again and glances toward the door. “I just—wished to see Edelgard’s new business, and . . . reminisce, I suppose.”
“About better days?” Hubert asks dubiously.
“Simpler ones.”
Hubert isn’t sure what to say to that. Sure, high school at the posh St. Garreg’s on the Upper West Side was the height of privilege and comfort. But those privileges, those comforts came with a billion fine gold chains that bound him up—to his father, to Vestra Analytics, to his proscribed future with a faceless, dispassionate wife and two point three kids and summers in the Hamptons or Martha’s Vineyard and endless board meetings and charity galas and underhanded deals and backstabbings (metaphorical and literal, not that it could ever be proved) and never, ever straying from his father’s leash—
Hubert takes a deep breath. “Guess it depends.”
Ferdinand’s expression is—curious? Eyes and mouth soft, but with something searching in that gaze that makes Hubert uneasy. He wonders just how much Ferdinand knows about the circuitous path Hubert, Edelgard, and a few of the others took from St. Garreg’s marble halls to the grungy goth night club in the East Village.
“Do you know what I could use?” Ferdinand tilts his head. “A warm cup of tea.”
Hubert winces. “Pretty sure the only kind we’ve got is Long Island Iced. But, um.” And oh, fuck, his Hubert gonna kick himself for this later—“My place is just a few blocks from here. If you, uh.” He scrunches his sweat-spiky hair. “Wanted. Uh. Some.”
Does he have tea? God, he’s probably still got that fancy tin of Russian Caravan he’d planned to give Ferdinand as a birthday present in college, then chickened out. Maybe. Hopefully. Not like Ferdinand’s going to accept, it’s been years, and they were never more than acquaintances (if not outright adversaries) through Edelgard . . .
“That would be lovely.” Ferdinand smiles.
Hubert snags his black leather jacket from his abandoned seat and tries to ignore the whatthefuckwhatthefuck butterflies currently losing their shit in his stomach. As he pulls on his jacket and guides Ferdinand toward the door, the music shifts again—Nine Inch Nails’s “Closer” starts screeching through the sound system. He glances over his shoulder at Edelgard, giving him a thumbs-up from the DJ booth, and lovingly flips her off, to her great delight.
“C’mon.” Hubert stifles his grin. “Let’s go.”
“So, uh.” Hubert jams his fingers into the shallow pockets of his jeans, hunching his shoulders as they make their way down St. Mark’s. “I guess you graduated NYU? You in business school now or something?”
Ferdinand glances down at the sidewalk. “I am, shall we say, taking a break.”
Hubert raises an eyebrow, waiting for him to elaborate on that. Ferdinand had been two years behind him at St. Garreg’s, in Edelgard’s class, as if, just in case it wasn’t pathetic enough to have a crush on the obviously, painfully straight lacrosse captain who was constantly trying to one-up Hubert’s best friend, he had to be an underclassman, too. God, watch, Ferdie’s gonna follow us to NYU too, she’d said to Hubert once, and sure enough, there he’d been two years later, but he’d gotten lost in the depths of the business college while Hubert focused on Fine Arts. There hadn’t been the same sense of forced closeness like there was in claustrophobic St. Garreg’s.
“A break from what?”
“Well.” Ferdinand wraps his arms around himself. “Our old life, I suppose. You and Edelgard made a clean escape of it—”
Hubert winces. “I wouldn’t call it clean—”
“But I am having to slide into it more cautiously.” He glances down. “I never had the same sort of courage as you.”
“Bullshit. You’ve always been fearless.” As Ferdinand shivers again, Hubert starts to shrug out of his jacket. “Hey. Do you want my coat?”
Ferdinand smiles up at him. “Oh. I am not sure it would, ah, fit me.”
Hubert can see his point. Even ignoring his heeled riding boots, Ferdinand’s definitely grown a few inches, and while he was always athletic, his shoulders have broadened considerably. Even with Hubert’s height, there’s no way the jacket so snug on his wiry frame would even fit on all that beef.
Not that he wouldn’t love to see Ferdinand try.
“Oh. Uh—here we are.”
Hubert steers him up the stairs of the prewar brownstone and unlocks the side door leading to his second-floor studio apartment. The radiator hisses loudly as he ushers Ferdinand inside and sweeps his hand to indicate the breadth of his tiny empire: a kitchenette against the back wall, dark wood floors, his painting and music corner, a gorgeous marble fireplace, and the mattress on the floor beneath the front window. He keeps it tidy—ascetic, really—aside from a few scarves draped over brass sconces and tacked to the elaborate crown moulding ornamentation.
“Sorry. It isn’t much. But at least it’s mine—completely.”
“How lovely that must be,” Ferdinand says, stepping inside.
God, it had been hard. Damn near impossible, or at least, so it felt. Turning his back on his gold-paved path with Vestra Analytics and his trust funds and all the rest. It only would have cost him his soul.
He still harbors vague notions of toppling the empire. The stack of floppy disks buried at the bottom of his coat closet will be more than enough to accomplish that, in the right Times reporter’s hands. But if they’re going to burn their families down, they have to do it all together: the Vestras, Hresvelgs, Hevrings, Bergliezes, Varleys, and more. The Aegirs, too, though it had once seemed impossible to think that Ferdinand would ever agree to it. Maybe it’s not as distant as he thought.
Only then does he really let himself acknowledge that this is Ferdinand standing in his place, an incredibly hot and gentle yet determined Ferdinand unlike any he’d ever imagined—and that fire in his chest burns brighter.
He’d been enamored with Ferdinand before. What he feels now is more than adoration, more than lust—it’s all-consuming wonder. How is this man even real?
“Let me get you that tea,” Hubert says, trying to cover the sudden thickness in his tone, and ducks into the kitchenette to look for the tin.
Once he’s unearthed it and started his electric kettle—the one he uses for his French press, his sole indulgence—he pours himself a few fingers of whiskey and joins Ferdinand, who’s studying the framed lithographs on his wall: J. C. Leyendecker, Bauhaus, and Tamara de Lempicka. “You’ve good taste,” Ferdinand says, smiling from behind a curtain of orange hair.
Hubert swallows the cheap whiskey and lets it burn his throat raw. “Sometimes.”
“But, um.” Ferdinand worries that pink lower lip with his teeth again, and he really needs to stop doing it, because the more he does it, the more Hubert wants to bite it for himself—“What about your art?”
Hubert’s face is burning, but he reaches down for one of his oversized sketchbooks in the bookshelf—then wisely remembers that some of the earlier pages might have nude studies that feature his shoddy memory’s version of Ferdinand’s face transposed onto them. He chooses a smaller book with photographs of his MFA paintings instead and hands it over.
He can’t watch while Ferdinand looks at his bloody heart smeared all over the canvases, so he hovers over the electric kettle and lights up a clove cigarette. As soon as it shuts off, he pours the steaming water into a Siouxsie and the Banshees mug and brings it to him. But Ferdinand is just staring at him, wide-eyed, the photo book still clenched in his hands.
“Hubert.” Ferdinand blinks, amber eyes aglow in the dim light. “Hubert, these are phenomenal.”
Hubert scrunches his nose. “Yeah, well. I was going through it, I guess.”
“I—I wish I could put my feelings into words this way. Well, not words, but—you know what I mean.” He closes the book and sets it on top of Hubert’s bookshelf, eyes glistening. “I wish I knew how to be as . . . honestly myself as you. I always admired that about you.”
“What, all that dumb shit I used to say to you in high school?” Hubert hands him his tea and takes a drag off the cigarette. “Fuck, I must’ve come off as such a fucking weirdo—”
“Ah. Yes. I do remember something about suggesting we study my skull in biology lab—”
Hubert shoves his bangs down into his face. “Look, I meant it as a compliment.”
“I know you did.”
And there’s his smile, which is one thing—but it reaches his eyes, and that’s new. That’s what was always missing before. More than the way his current appearance seems to suit him, though that’s surely a part of it—he finally feels like he matches.
But now Ferdinand is standing way too close, and his breath is warm and spicy from the tea he’s sipping, and those fucking earrings sparkle from the depths of his long hair and the way he’s looking at Hubert like Hubert has all the answers, when he’d be lucky to have even one—
Hubert turns abruptly, Ferdinand letting out a breath, and faces the wall where his guitar is in its stand. Takes another long inhale and exhale on the cigarette.
Then nearly jumps as Ferdinand appears behind him. Yet again.
“You played at the Battle of the Bands at NYU,” Ferdinand says. “I think that might have been the last time I saw you.”
Hubert remembers. He’d been shaggy-haired, surrounded by his Kappa Sig bros, shrunk down into himself while he held a full cup of beer. It had made Hubert—angry, just the sight of him, the very idea that Ferdinand was exactly who Hubert had always known he’d become, in the end. But seeing it now without the haze of resentment, he can feel the sadness radiating off of him.
He wish he’d paid better attention.
“Yeah,” Hubert says, trying to clear the thickness from his voice. “The Immaculate Ones. Caspar’s our drummer, Linhardt on bass. We still play some, though we’re short a vocalist now that Dorothea’s an understudy for Christine in Phantom.”
As he says it, Hubert is vaguely aware that Ferdinand had been in the choir back at St. Garreg’s. He’d landed the role of Sky Masterson opposite Dorothea in Guys and Dolls, in fact, now that Hubert is thinking about it—but then there’d been some stink with his dad, made him drop out of the production or something.
Ferdinand’s cheeks darken as he smiles. “I’d love it if you’d play for me.”
Hubert’s heart thuds. “Only if you’ll sing.”
Ferdinand is quiet for a long moment, and Hubert worries he’s overstepped. If singing was something his dad had made him give up—like a lot of things, now that Hubert is remembering their old lives—then it might be too painful. But then Ferdinand nods to himself, earrings swinging. “I’d love to.”
Hubert lights a fresh cigarette, kicks on his aux speaker on the landlord-approved settings, and settles in on one end of his narrow couch. Ferdinand takes the other, ring-covered hands on his dense thighs. Hubert swallows. Music. Right. Definitely not thinking about those thighs or the delicate smudge of Ferdinand’s eyeshadow or how good his hair smells even from here—
Hubert strums out the opening chords of “True Faith” and watches Ferdinand’s face for recognition. Ferdinand’s head tilts to the side, then lights up, and his smile makes Hubert’s whole body tingle.
I feel so extraordinary, something’s got a hold on me
I get this feeling I’m in motion, a sudden sense of liberty…
I used to think that the day would never come,
I’d see delight in the shade of the morning sun
He has an incredible, rich tenor—which Hubert expected, but hearing it so close, right in his ear, is another experience entirely, the tingles racing up and down his arms. Like the real Ferdinand is tearing his way out of the old, leaving behind a husk. A husk Hubert had been enamored with—but this one is something even more. All-consuming.
He shifts the chords into “Old Souls” from The Phantom of the Paradise—a little risky, but Ferdinand always did love musical movies, and Faith and the Muse cover it at their live performances sometimes. Ferdinand starts in right away, clear and diamond-bright:
Our love is an old love, it’s older than all our years
I’ve seen in strange young eyes familiar tears
We’re old souls in a new life, they gave us a new life to live and learn
Some time to touch old friends and still return
Our paths have crossed and parted, this love affair was started long, long ago
This love survives the ages, its story lives fill pages, fill them up, may ours turn slow
And fuck him and his sentimentality, his imagination, his overwhelming adoration—he can feel those old souls tugging at him. Ferdinand at his side in the rain-slashed streets of Vienna, eternity’s blood pulsing in their veins. At a country estate, a slow promenade danced between them, a love hidden but safe. On opposite sides of a war—surrendering his convictions, his stubbornness, as Ferdinand coaxes him into a new world. Working together, however reluctantly, to build something better even as war rages around them.
God, he’s hopeless. Hubert switches over to something newer, safer. Like “If Only Tonight.”
If only tonight, we could sleep on a bed made of flowers—
Or maybe not that. Quick changeup—
You keep your distance with a system of touch and gentle persuasion
I'm lost in admiration, could I need you this much?
Oh, you're wasting my time
Something happens and I’m head over heels . . .
Hubert finishes with an embarrassed laugh as Ferdinand sustains the last note. “It is funny how time flies, hm?”
“Yeah. Uh. Man.” Hubert coughs; inhales on the cigarette. “High school, huh.”
Ferdinand must have scooted closer at some point; their knees are nearly touching. “Indeed.”
Hubert’s fingers dance restlessly over the strings without strumming. “I, uh. Do you want to hear something that’s real fuckin’ high school?”
Ferdinand grins wickedly. “That sounds like a challenge.”
“God, you’re telling me.” Hubert rubs his jaw. “I used to, like, sprawl on my bedroom floor and listen to it on repeat and feel like shit. Mostly when I was heartbroken over a stupid unrequited crush.”
And now he feels just as idiotic and nervous as he did at seventeen. But there’s only amusement on Ferdinand’s face as he raises one eyebrow. “She—ah, they—they must not have recognized how lucky they were.”
Hubert coughs in a huff of smoke. “Yeah, well. I never actually told him.” Another thud in his ribcage. “So I guess that’s on me.”
Ferdinand’s eyes seem to dance in the amber light, his expression inscrutable. “I—I see.” The ruffles on his chest flutter as he breathes slowly. “Let’s hear it, then.”
Hubert’s being strangled with years of self-loathing and doubt. Every time he watched Ferdinand walk down the hallways at school, throwing that smile over his shoulder that was too big to be genuine. All the times he’d laugh with his lacrosse friends, the same ones who’d turn around and threaten Hubert—the ones on whom Hubert perfected the art of quick, brutal brawling. He’d choke every night on a yearning he couldn’t put into words, a yearning for that slice of sunlight that stood, he thought, for everything he hated in the world—and yet was everything he craved.
And this song, above all else, was where he poured that yearning when it had nowhere else to go. Well. That, and his fist crashing into assholes’ jaws. But most of all, this song.
So he begins to pick the mournful bass line, transposing up for the guitar, and then sings in his deep baritone.
And now the torch and shadows lead
Were it not so black and hard to see
How can it help you when you don’t know what you need?
How can anybody set you free?
Would he walk upon the water if he couldn’t walk away?
And would you—would you carry the torch for me?
Ferdinand’s stare is scorching on his skin as he sings. The cigarette bobs on his lower lip, stuck to chapped skin, and he doesn’t feel it as ash scatters down onto his hand as he strums. He doesn’t feel anything except that stare, paring him down to his bones, exposing all the yearning he tried so hard to lock away.
And, fuck, if he isn’t still hopelessly in love with Ferdinand. The untouchable boy trapped by all his family’s expectations he was—and the beautiful, honest man he’s become.
And what if I gave you the key to the doors of your design,
Lit the corridors of desire?
Were it not so black and not so hard to see,
What use to you, then, any fire?
Ferdinand’s face is right in front of his now, one knee between Hubert’s thighs, that freckled face so earnest and open and completely transformed. Hubert’s fingers falter, but he can’t look away. Not anymore.
“You’ve always known who you are,” Ferdinand says, his voice dry and small. “I’ve always envied you that. Maybe disliked you for it, for a time. But envied.” He swallows. “I envy it still.”
Hubert tightens his grip on the guitar’s neck. “It hasn’t been easy.”
“No. I imagine not.”
Ferdinand reaches out, then, and plucks the cigarette from Hubert’s lips.
As he takes a long, slow drag off of it, it feels like it’s Hubert’s own soul getting sucked away, leaving behind nothing but embers flaring and sparking to life.
And then as he exhales, the smoke caresses over Hubert’s lips, licks at the corners of his throat and runs shadowy fingers into his messy hair, laps into his mouth with a sweet and smoky scent—
“That torch of yours,” Ferdinand says. “D-do you carry it still?”
Hubert is entirely certain his whole body is nothing but a gigantic smoldering bonfire right now—
“—Because I do.”
Oh, fuck everything.
Hubert tosses his guitar away as delicately as he can, then lunges forward, seizing a fistful of bright curls and tugging, holding Ferdinand in place, assessing him. Theirs eyes meet, and for a split second, Hubert is worried he’s misjudged horribly, and Ferdinand is about to slip away from him yet again—
But then Ferdinand is leaning over him, crashing his mouth into Hubert’s. One jeweled hand fists in the thin cotton of Hubert’s tank top as their lips press, and at first it’s nothing but force and push and muffled sighs, but then it’s their lips parting and Ferdinand’s mouth folding around his and he tastes like smoky tea and cloves and cherry lip gloss and sweet wine and a lifetime wasted not kissing Ferdinand von Aegir, but what the fuck does he even care about that life, if it’s led him here now?
Ferdinand is so much, so present, and he’s bearing down on Hubert with all the force Hubert’s dreamed of until Hubert is crashing onto his back on the sofa. “God,” Hubert breathes, staring up at Ferdinand and the curtain of hair shielding him. “You’re so incredible.”
Ferdinand reaches over him to extinguish the cigarette in the ashtray, then clasps Hubert’s face in his hands. “I wish I could have realized earlier. That I wanted—this, this freedom. That I never wanted my father’s life, that I’m not meant for that cutthroat world, that I’m gay, that I’m me—And that I don’t have to ignore any of those things.” Ferdinand kisses him, pushing Hubert’s lower lip down and swirling his tongue against it. “That I want you.”
Hubert whimpers as Ferdinand licks into his mouth again, and then they tip dangerously over the edge of the sofa before rolling onto the faded rug over his hardwood floor. Hubert is briefly on top of him, attacking the edge of his throat where it meets silky cream high collar, and then Ferdinand is pinning him down, thick hand closed around the leather straps twisted around Hubert’s slender wrist, sucking at the space beneath Hubert’s ear until Hubert squirms and cries out.
“Easy,” Ferdinand murmurs, his thighs trapping Hubert’s slender hips. “I want to savor you.”
“Well, I want to devour you,” Hubert growls. He lurches up and catches Ferdinand’s lower lip in his teeth, relishing his sweet little gasp. “I’ve always wanted to devour you, and I’m not missing my chance now.”
Ferdinand kisses him again and keens into his mouth, and Hubert will certainly be playing that sound in his skull for weeks and months and years to come, and then Ferdinand is taking a sharp bite at Hubert’s throat that makes black spots dance in Hubert’s vision. “Fuck me,” Hubert wheezes, and Ferdinand laughs against his skin.
“May I?” Ferdinand whispers, suddenly tender as he noses at Hubert’s ear.
Hubert rocks his hips up, his cock uncomfortably rubbing against the inside of his jeans zipper, because he’s a vain motherfucker sometimes and didn’t wear any underwear, a fact he’s suddenly quite grateful for. “Yeah,” Hubert breathes. “I want you to fuck me.”
Ferdinand sits up just enough that Hubert can see his face, though his hair is still a stifling veil around them, and then Ferdinand nudges his hand between them and cups his palm around the bulge in Hubert’ jeans. “Oh, Hubert,” he purrs. “I really should take my time with you.”
“Dammit, Ferdie.” Hubert wriggles his hips, and he’s fairly sure he could flip them both over again if he really wanted to, but Ferdinand always was far stronger than he looked. “Such a fucking tease—”
“How is this teasing?”
Ferdinand’s rings clack together as he pops open the button on Hubert’s jeans, then eases the zipper open click by agonizing click. Hubert’s whining by the time Ferdinand finally inches Hubert’s cock free from the too-tight jeans, holding it with the lightest of touch.
“Goodness, that’s lovely.” Ferdinand grins up at Hubert, suddenly shy again. “Um. I don’t suppose you have, ah—”
“Right. Yeah.” Hubert reaches for his dresser behind him and digs around for a minute before finally unearthing a handful of condoms—strawberry-flavored, humiliatingly enough—and lube (blueberry), and hopes Ferdinand doesn’t notice him checking the expiration date on the wrapper as he passes one over. Ferdinand’s long, mascaraed lashes catch the light as he bites the wrapper’s corner to tear it open, and Hubert isn’t too fucking proud to whimper appreciatively, or bother suppressing his sharp inhale as Ferdinand’s painted nails roll the condom down the length of his shaft. He shimmies Hubert’s jeans further down his thighs, then squirts a generous dose of lube onto one hand as he raises a suggestive eyebrow at Hubert.
Hubert swallows. He is so, so fucked, and completely delighted about it.
Then Ferdinand is sitting back on Hubert’s calves as he leans down and trails his tongue all the way from the base to tip.
“Mm,” Ferdinand says with a wry grin, “strawberry.”
Hubert would die on the spot if he wasn’t desperate to see what else Ferdinand would do. “How’d you think I’d taste?”
“Like coffee.” Ferdinand winks at him, then rounds his lips around Hubert’s head, and then Hubert is far, far too dizzy with pleasure and overwhelming want to feel embarrassed about his stupid flavored condoms. After shifting around, Ferdinand gets one of Hubert’s knees crooked up over his shoulder as he sucks him, and then there’s warm lube teasing at the seam of his ass, and a finger gliding into him until a jagged metal ring bumps up against the tight muscle of his hole, and the finger crooks with an agonizing sweep against Hubert’s prostate and he makes an extremely undignified whine.
“God, do that again. You’re—” Hubert clenches his teeth. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” Hubert manages, once he remembers language again, and reaches down to sweep Ferdinand’s hair out of his face and hold it back. “You know that? You’ve always been beautiful. But you—fuck—you look like yourself.”
Ferdinand makes an appreciative noise, glancing up at him through his lashes, then hollows out his cheeks as he shoves a second finger inside Hubert. Hubert snarls through gritted teeth and bashes his palm against the floor as pleasure pulsates through him.
“I’m—I’m real close, beautiful, please—please, I just wish you would fuck me—”
“Mm.” Ferdinand’s tongue swishes against the underside of his head, then he pulls his mouth off with a slurp. “How can I resist when you ask so sweetly?”
Hubert flinches as Ferdinand’s fingers slip out of him, then Ferdinand sets to work shoving Hubert’s jeans all the way down to the tops of his Doc Martens. Hubert blinks through the haze of lust and looks at Ferdinand, still way overdressed. “Um. I can take those off—”
“No.” Ferdinand pushes Hubert’s legs down like frog legs and ducks between them, so his ankles and the entrapping jeans are around his waist. “I like them.”
“Fuck, you’re a goddamned angel.”
Ferdinand blushes, doing nothing to dispel this assessment, and kisses Hubert’s face again, non-lubed fingers feathering against Hubert’s cheek. And sure enough, he tastes like slightly stale strawberry on top of everything else, but it’s suddenly Hubert’s goddamned favorite flavor in the whole world.
“Lemme see you,” Hubert slurs, fumbling at the apparently complicated fastenings on Ferdinand’s trousers. “Lemme see how beautiful that cock is, too.”
“Um. Yes.” Ferdinand presses a sloppy kiss to the corner of Hubert’s mouth. “I haven’t actually. Um. Before.”
“Fucked a man?” Hubert asks, and the heat he feels pouring off Ferdinand’s face is answer enough to that.
“Or, um. Anyone.”
Hubert grins. “Well, you could’ve fooled me, pushing me open like that—”
“Oh. Well, I know how to do that—erm, to myself.”
Christ, is that ever a mental picture Hubert wants to savor on a dark, rainy day. “You should show me sometime,” he purrs. “But if you don’t want to, uh, do the fucking—”
“Oh, no. I do.” Ferdinand sucks at Hubert’s earlobe and his toes curl up inside his Docs. “The way you moaned and squirmed on my fingers was far, far too enticing.”
Hubert winces with another throb of his cock. “I swear to god, if you keep talking like that and you aren’t inside me—”
Finally his hand closes around Ferdinand’s shaft, so much thicker than he’d imagined, and he had imagined quite a lot. He reaches for one of the condoms and wrestles to tear it open, and he knows he cannot possibly look half as sexy teasing it onto Ferdinand as the way Ferdinand’s enthusiasm had for him, but god, it’ll be worth it.
“No rush, beautiful. If you wanna take it slow—”
Is what he almost says, before Ferdinand is hoisting him into the air and shoving his back against his studio’s wall.
“Um.” They’re face to face, and Ferdinand—lip gloss smeared most becomingly around his lips—kisses him with a vengeance. “H-hi.”
“Hello.” Ferdinand smiles again, and adjusts his grip on the backs of Hubert’s thighs as Hubert tightens his ankles locked around Ferdinand’s waist. “Are you—erm, ready?”
“Ready for you to fill me up like I’ve dreamed of?” Hubert asks, and grins as he /feels/ the twitch of Ferdinand’s muscles at that. “Oh, I’m ready.”
Ferdinand kisses him again, slow and lingering. “Are you sure?”
“I fucking swear, Ferdinand, if you don’t hurry up and fuck me—”
“Just kidding.” Ferdinand pins him to the wall with those sturdy shoulders, then reaches down to push the head of his cock into the general area of Hubert’s hole. “Ah. Is this . . . is this all right . . .”
And soon enough he’s nudging inside, and Hubert growls, the friction delicious, and he rocks his hips to help Ferdinand find the right angle—
“Oh, god. Oh, fuck. Hubert.” Ferdinand is biting him—his lips, his cheek, his neck. “You feel incredible—”
“Easy, tiger—oh.” Hubert shudders as Ferdinand slides home, scraping him just right, making him see sparks behind his eyes. “Ferdie, jesus fuck—”
“God, you’re incredible.” Ferdinand makes an exploratory roll of his hips, easing out by a fraction before thrusting back inside. “I’ve wanted you so long, Hubert, but I never knew how to admit it, even to myself, and now you’re you, and you’re so fucking amazing—”
“Oh my god just fuck me—”
And then Hubert really can’t find the words for how incredible it feels to have Ferdinand’s mouth on him, his teeth clinging to him, his fingers digging into him for support even as his cock threatens to split him apart. And so maybe Hubert is far from the life he’d imagined for himself once—he’s far from the catharsis he wanted—but Ferdinand is right there too, they’re both trying their best, and if sloppily but powerfully getting fucked against the wall of his ascetic East Village studio is a far cry from the lives both their fathers wanted for them, at least they’re doing it together, finding their own path to carve out of all the greed and hate—
“God, I—I want to fill you—I hope this is all right to say, but the thought of you filled with me, spilling with it, dripping and gorgeous, all of you—”
“Keep talking filthy to me like that, Ferdie, don’t stop—”
And Ferdinand slams into him just so, so much that he doesn’t even need a hand on him, the smell of Ferdinand’s hair and the taste of his soiled mouth and the gorgeous sight of him and the thrust of his cock is plenty, and Hubert feels the condom fill up all around him, hot and stretching wide—
“Hubert, fuck—”
He feels it through his bliss, but he doesn’t, but somewhere his traitorous mind hopes that maybe this will be just the first of many times—
“I—I’ve got you.” Ferdinand slumps against him, still very much holding them both to the wall. “I’ve got you, Hubert,” he heaves.
And slumping into Ferdinand’s arms, letting Ferdinand carry him to his lonely little mattress on the floor, he knows he means it.
Somehow they manage to strip out of their boots and clothing and condoms and at least some of their jewelry, the sodium lights of the street outside splashing them in amber. Ferdinand’s warm, dense form is sprawled over Hubert’s chest, and he’s kissing idly at the seam where Hubert’s shoulder tattoos melt into sinew and bone, and all Hubert can think is: god, he wants this to be the rest of his life.
A stupid, stupid thought, but he’s been plenty stupid about Ferdinand before, and it’s worked out all right.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Ferdinand murmurs, lazily passing a cigarette over to Hubert, who takes a slow, steadying drag. His hands are shaking. They haven’t fucking shook since he told his dad he was leaving, but they’re shaking now. He anxiously passes the cigarette back, and Ferdinand issues a sweet little sigh.
“I’m glad I’m here, too.” Hubert kisses his forehead. “Under you’s a pretty great place to be.”
“Mm. I’m growing very fond of it.” Ferdinand nestles against it. “I—I hope that’s not too forward—”
“Oh, my god, Ferdinand. No. You’re not—no.” He shakes his head. “The rules have never applied to you. Or any of us. But especially you.”
“Well.” Ferdinand kisses Hubert’s chest, then tips his head up to exhale smoke over him again. As if he needs help looking unbearably sexy. Hubert’s cock pulses with renewed interest. “Then I’m glad to be back here with you.”
“I like us this way better,” Hubert admits.
Ferdinand smiles and scoots up to kiss him. “Me, too.”