Chapter Text
September 14th – eighteen hours earlier
Let's face it, Anthony Scavo had never been a patient person.
He pretended very well, of course, and to his sister's daughter he was the best uncle in the world – he would not have accepted to hear otherwise under any circumstances, especially if the author of the statement was an adorable seven-year-old girl with a wild passion for frog puppets – but when it comes to looking after other kids.. Nah. This was not the case.
He was better with dogs, he earned his living by doing so; the amount of bored rich New Yorkers who bought a pet dog and didn't have the material time to look after them was endless and their money a pleasant addition to the fact that he always liked them.
His dog-sitting senses, precisely, reminded him of the delay accumulated on his schedule cause that stupid detox program he had been forced to attend - a program sponsored by the very person he was supposed to meet at least twenty-five minutes ago. But still.
Not lowering his gaze at the brat seated in the plastic chair in front of him, on the other side of the clinic's waiting room, had become an irritating question of principle. Above all, given that he had stolen the last cherry lollipop from the glass vase at the reception and was eating it in front of him without shame; Anthony got the green apple one.
Who the fuck invented apple as a candy flavor?
Little shit.
The child, in response to this mature and polite silent thought which Anthony was very sure was written all over his face, continued to suck his lollipop, sticking his index finger in his left nostril.
An absolutely marvelous scene.
The only thing that prevented the present adult – at least in terms of age – from making an all too obvious disgusted grimace was the sound of the doctor's office door opening, accompanied by the chatter and the unmistakable crystalline and Disney-like tone of his favorite psychiatrist: Charlie.
There's plenty of irony to be inserted somewhere in the word ‘favorite’, considering that Anthony was too busy choking on his own vomit, being resuscitated, and listening to his sister cry and scream at him that either he was ‘off to rehab or they were done’ to choose who would be his shrink for the next nine months locked up in the Mountainside Treatment Center. And even after getting out of there.
“See you next week, Mrs. Tanner!”
Charlie dismissed her with a wave, while the aforementioned Mrs. Tanner approached the brat sitting in front of Anthony – who apparently was waiting for his mother – to hold out her hand for him and walk out of the room. Before leaving, the child in question stuck his cherry-red tongue out at him, unseen.
“Oh, you fuc–”
“Anthony!”
His indignant expression and the probable insult were interrupted by the lively and foresighted greeting of Charlie, a blondie with a loose braid that went down to her lower back, dressed in a masculine suit of black trousers, white shirt and red jacket.
Charlie Magne was the living expression that Disney princesses exist not only in movies and fairy tales but can also live in a Manhattan penthouse on Fifth Avenue – although Charlie would have gladly lived in an occupied basement without complaint, but the Magne family standards were of a certain kind. Above all, there was Samael's fatherly desire to keep his daughter out as much as he could from the irrepressible demon of being a Red Cross nurse and savior of the needy and derelicts, so that the entrepreneur's descendant would never be seen hanging out in a crack-house to bring lunch to the junkies who occupied it.
Page Six had been talking about it for weeks. But this is another story.
Anthony clicked his pierced tongue against his left cheek a couple of times, taking the apple-green lollipop out of his mouth, standing up and stretching his long, well-trained body – a thinness given to him not only by drug, but something that the Italian-American genetics had left him with; unlike Nicholas, the older brother who had stopped growing at a certain point during adolescence, Anthony and his twin Molly had blossomed; especially him.
A lanky blond man at least 6'1” – not counting the extra inches added by the tank of black Docs with fuchsia laces – stared at Charlie a good few inches below with a cheeky smirk. The right gold-encapsulated canine flashed for just a moment.
“Hey doc, always a pleasure.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting, but Mrs. Tanner had an emergency and I had to reschedule her appointment, I don't usually do this like, you know, I'm really sorry–”
“Charlie.”
Living proof that all psychiatrists have at least as many problems as their patients; in Miss Magne's case, logorrhea and the savior complex. Not to mention the obvious daddy issues, but that's another matter and Anthony hasn't studied enough psychology to be able to delve into it.
And to be honest, from which pulpit could he accuse her anyway.
“No problem, I already warned the owners that I would be stopping by later.”
“Thank you and sorry again.”
Charlie's smile could have summoned pretty little birds at the window, Anthony would have bet on it.
At first, this cheerfulness that seemed forced bothered him immensely, but having spent nine months in therapy and having been seen in the worst conditions had given him the certainty that Charlie was anything but false. It was a reassuring thought, in a certain sense, the same one he felt in that moment, softening that slightly annoyed smile from just before.
“Loona, can you call Mr. Kepler and tell him to delay our appointment by half an hour? So we don't keep him waiting.”
The pop! of a pink chewing gum was the first response Charlie received, while Anthony lazily cast a hazel glance at the receptionist seated behind the counter.
In three months of going to the studio once a week, the perpetually bored-looking goth girl sitting back there – lots of piercings, the right side of her head shaved and long hair bleached gray – had barely looked up from her cell phone to welcome patients. So, like always, she simply shot Charlie a black-coated look and muttered a sort of indolent assent, before going back to scrolling Instagram with her thumb lacquered in black nail polish.
Anthony wondered again, genuinely, how they could have hired her in the first place.
Charlie giggled with incredible nonchalance, satisfied, walking away and leading the way into her study.
The Mountainside Treatment Center was a palette of warm, light colors, a riot of beige, cream, various shades of wood and gray; abstract prints on the walls – in the same sandy, relaxing shades – and ivory carpets everywhere in what looked more like a luxury SPA than a detox center.
After all, Manhattan has a certain reputation, as does the Scavo family: even though his father no longer wanted to see him or finance him after he discovered ‘certain things’, Molly had full access to the family funds.
Absolutely illegal and up to their elbows in the Mafia's dirty money, but money doesn't look in anyone's face.
Thus, his hospitalization in the previous months had gone smoothly and, at the moment, the follow up sessions with Dr. Magne were also going well – those and the meetings with the other recovering drug addicts. Even if, as everyone told him, you never really heal: you just learn to live with the desire to get a fix, take a snort, swallow a pill down.
Anthony sank lazily onto the chocolate brown leather sofa inside Charlie's studio, lifting his Docs to plant the heels of his long, slender, freckled legs on the armrest as the doctor closed the door and moved to her usual position: the opposite sofa, next to the bookcase filled with various medical texts, slightly suffering plants and a few photographs here and there.
“So, Anthony.” Charlie began, crossing her legs to place the notebook on her left knee and swing the black pointed high heel shoes lazily, clicking the pen ready to take notes. “How was this week?”
“Great.” he replied promptly, with a certain indolence, without staring at her but scrolling with his thumb on his cell phone one Instagram reel after another; a background perhaps irritating but which didn't seem to disturb Charlie even by mistake. “Just great, yeah. I have a new number at the club and Fat Nuggets’ family recommended me to some of their friends, now I walk their dogs too.”
“Valentino's club?”
The question – which wasn't really, despite the question mark – made Anthony remain silent for a few moments, busy scrolling the screen without wanting to look at her yet. The thin wrinkle between his slightly furrowed eyebrows confirmed that he had heard her perfectly, however.
“.. Obviously.”
“And what happened to what we said to each other–” the rustle of paper that reached the blond's ears suggested him that Charlie was going back through her notes, even though he remembered very well the conversation she’s trying to recall. “Three sessions ago?”
“Mh?”
“The resolution you had set for yourself to find work as a performer in another club.”
Anthony remained silent, darkening slightly: his brow was now visibly furrowed and he looked like someone who didn't seem very inclined to talk about that particular topic.
He heard Charlie's sigh, which made him blink and take his hazel gaze away from the screen to finally look at the psychiatrist, with an insolent face. The other was not discouraged and offered him another of her Disney-like smiles, open and calm.
“And how is it going with the weekly NA meetings? Are you going?”
The hum that came out of Anthony's throat sounded like a sort of assent but a very doubtful one.
“.. Aaaaaalmost all the time.”
“Anthony–”
“Hey I know, I know, doctor's order otherwise you’ll put me back in here.” he cut her short, sitting up properly now and blocking the screen to put the phone away; he looked directly at Charlie, who returned the look with a vaguely melancholy expression. “I only missed two meetings, and for the evening one last week I had a very good reason to skip, Cherri had found tickets for–”
“Anthony.”
He swallowed whatever retort was about to emerge as he caught sight of the psychiatrist’s gaze. Okay, Charlie was a Disney princess, but when she looked at her patients like that, she was no joke at all. No threat, never: just the solemn and conscious expression of someone who takes her job seriously.
“If you don't go to the meetings, I’ll be forced to write a negative report. And considering that your sister is still your legal guardian, after the last–"
“Come on, I’ve been clear for almost a fucking year!”
“–time you ended up hospitalized here, I strongly advise you to follow the prescriptions of your psychiatrist, that is me, if you don't want to be treated like a child.” Charlie continued, regardless of the interruption. Her cheeks became redder when she had to show off what she liked to call 'aggressive kindness' – as Anthony had heard it defined.
He sighed, annoyed, drifting to stare at the bookcase, suddenly interested in the few photographs that peeped out among the various medical and psychology texts; he focused in particular on a photo of Charlie and her girlfriend – he had seen her at least a couple of times, in the nine months in which he was hospitalized there, when she picked up the doctor on her motorbike after Charlie’s shift – sitting on a wall of who-knows-what building in Manhattan, half hugging and smiling. Charlie’s cheeks redder than usual and an empty wine glass in her hand.
God, it's been so long since he'd had a drop of alcohol.
“Fiiiiine ~” he chanted, in an exasperated sigh, his left cheek resting on the same hand and his elbow propped on the arm of the sofa, unable to look at the psychiatrist. “I'll go. Happy?”
Charlie's placid but enthusiastic ‘ mhm ’ confirmed to him that yes, she was definitely happy.
“Is there anything else you would like to tell me?”
September 14th – ten hours earlier
It probably wasn’t exactly how he expected the evening to end; it started in the usual way, with a couple of johns, and now he found himself in a pretty aroused situation. And no, not cause he had been paid.
Like, who would have thought that the guy he had saved – or picked up, point of views – at the Black Dot while he was enjoying a well-deserved ‘break’ from the johns, will end up pressed against the wall of the alley behind the club and not because some short-tempered dude wanted to punch him?
Funny, just how fast one night could change.
Anthony shoved the tongue in his mouth in a hungry kiss, like he could even get himself drunk with that breath of whiskey and tasting the cigarette the other had smacked away just before crashing his mouth against Anthony’s lips.
And it’s not that the other was standing still.
Oh no, not at all.
Husk’s hands firmly clinging to Anthony’s ass, a knee stuck between his legs against which Anthony rubbed himself in a soft moan; he tore the same sound, although decidedly more like a scratched and throaty growl, right from Husk when he sank his teeth into his lower lip before lapping the cold, metallic ball of the piercing over it.
Anthony moved away only to breathe on his mouth, eyes half lidded and expression languid, rubbing his forehead against Husk’s to stop him in a ‘ssssht’ while the other leaned forward to catch his lips again.
“Take it easy, kitten.”
“Call me a kitten one more time and I’ll punch your face.” Husk muttered without any real threat. Just ‘ Husk ’, which Anthony had assumed was some sort of nickname or surname, considering that he had not given him any other answers to that request for introductions which had occurred a couple of hours ago.
Hours, glasses – non-alcoholic for him – and chats.
Going from talking – even if Anthony’s had been a sort of monologue, Husk seemed more interested in listening to him and gulping down another hard-won whiskey only thanks to Anthony’s persuasion power – to coming out to take a taxi had been rather fast.
Going from staring at each other to kissing like that , stumbling into the alley, had been even faster.
Not that Anthony was complaining, of course: one of the main reasons why he had intervened in that pathetic scene between drunks and show-offs was the fact that Husk was a certified daddy: tall – even if less than him, which certainly wasn’t a problem – broad shoulders, well built, slightly silvery dark hair to get your fingers tangled in and pull, an equally salt and pepper beard bristling in all the right places, tawny skin and those eyes.
Oh yes, those amber eyes – vaguely feline, in a certain way – which in the moment they had stared at him, although clouded by the distillery he had downed, had made something flicker deep down in Anthony’s lower belly.
Anthony chuckled without restraint, massaging the back of Husk’s neck with the fingertips of the hand he had stuck right there, at the base of his skull, to hold on to his hair.
“Oh, kitten has claws.” he gurgled, languidly, getting in return a sort of another exasperated growl that took the form of yet another kiss – Anthony’s breath broken by the contact of those lips that made him close his eyelids again, open his mouth to welcome Husk’s tongue and start rubbing himself against the other’s knee in obvious demonstration of the effect he was having on him; and the fact that Husk had literally growled had made him even harder.
Just as Anthony was sliding his hand not gripping Husk's hair further down – to rest it right on the crotch of his trousers and moan softly against his mouth the satisfaction of feeling that the effect was definitely shared – there was yet another interruption.
Another thick and slightly shaky breath, not from Anthony this time, as Husk pressed their foreheads together to catch his breath.
The blond thought that looking at Husk short of breath, with those amber eyes and the look of someone who would fuck him right there in that alley, wasn't helping his self-control. At all.
“I’m not–”
There were several words he might not like associated with that ‘not.’
Anthony remained silent, however, his hand still firmly resting on Husk's cock to feel it over the fabric of his trousers and lightly rub his palm against that hardness, intoxicated.
And to think that he wasn't even getting paid; perhaps this was better not told to Valentino.
“I don't think you have any blood left in your brain to tell me what ‘you’re not’, Husky.” Anthony teased, grinning and slowly rubbing his freckled nose against his – he looked as if he'd broken it at least once.
There came a half-cuss under his breath and a shake of the head, as if Husk needed to clear his head.
“I'm drunk.”
“I noticed.”
“I'm not sober.”
“Do you want to give me other synonyms?”
“I can’t–” incredible how he still managed to hold a more or less meaningful conversation, even if it was slurred. Anthony was pleasantly surprised and incredibly amused. “Take advantage of you.”
The blond chuckled again, quite in disbelief.
“If anything they could accuse me of the opposite, considering that you are the drunk one.”
“I kissed you.”
Anthony's grin glinted gold in the darkness of the alleyway, while his grip on Husk's crotch tightened to feel it between his fingers – even through the fabric. This earned him yet another low, hungry sound from the other’s throat, as if it were a purr.
This man will make me go feral.
He leaned in to whisper directly in his ear.
“I know.”
Husk – who in all this had not yet removed his hands from Anthony's ass, clinging to those black shorts that left very little to the imagination – caught his breath, although his breathing showed no sign of slowing down, especially not when the blond began to trace a trail of kisses from the jaw down, along the throat and neck until reaching the wrinkled collar of the shirt; his amber eyes narrowed, languid again.
“There were the house keys in my jacket.”
A glimmer of awareness, in all that alcohol.
“It's okay, I know a place.”
“I'm not coming to your house, I don't know you.”
“And I don't want you there, whiskers.” Anthony replied without hesitation, while that hand on the crotch moved up a little to yank the shirt out of his pants and find the skin.
Oh, the delicious feeling of lower belly hair against his fingertips as he fumbled to undo the button.
“Say you’re a serial killer in a very sexy disguise, I'm not going to show you where I live.”
“I'm not sexy.”
“Oh, so you’re a serial killer?” Anthony joked, peering at him and raising his left eyebrow with an ironic look but an amused glint in the depths of his hazel eyes. “Can't you just take a compliment and shut up?”
Husk moaned again, before pressing his head against the brick wall behind his back and arching his hips in an instinctive gesture against the blond’s hand that had found its way inside his pants, and his boxers. He gripped his ass tighter to pull it onto him, making Anthony stumble a little as he giggled and tightened his grip around his cock.
“So, will you come with me and let’s see if we can do something about this, anh?” he mewed, sliding back to his ear in a wet trail of kisses to leave that hot murmur there.
Husk nodded, rubbing his profile against Anthony’s in what seemed to him a caress more animal than human, hungry and languid at the same time.
Yeah, definitely feral.
“Make me feel better.”
Anthony blinked, caught slightly off guard by those words that sounded far too ‘personal’ for a shag that was just about to start in an alley behind a completely random club in Brooklyn.
He stopped his hand in Husk’s pants and the grip on the back of his neck became a sort of caress, before letting him go and removing his other hand too.
“I'll call a cab.”
A kiss to seal that agreement and a nod from Husk who, left there against the wall, simply refastened his pants with some difficulty.
And while Anthony called the taxi, he tried not to think about everything Valentino might say to him – shout at him – if he found out that he was about to take a drunk to the usual hotel where he went to fuck the clients without getting paid a single cent.
But then again, he had promised Charlie this at every session, hadn't he?
Cutting ties with Valentino also and above all meant disobeying him.
And for that pair of amber eyes – for those words that had tickled his damned empathy – the consequences seemed like something rather distant, buried somewhere at the bottom of his conscience.