Chapter Text
September 15th – fourteen hours earlier
It’s complicated.
Anthony raised his left eyebrow again, looking even more skeptical than before, snatching back the cigarette Husk was holding out to him and waving his free hand lazily to keep the smoke from landing near the detector on the ceiling.
“Look, you're definitely not the first married man I’ve ended up screwing, so–”
“No.”
The blond watched the other shake his head again, looking more determined; he took yet another drag from his cigarette, making the embers blaze, with an interested flicker deep in his hazel eyes as he caught a hint of genuine blush on Husk’s cheeks, who in the meantime had looked away and was quite interested in picking a thread off wrinkled sheets.
Interesting.
He exhaled the smoke, while the other swallowed who knows what elaborate justification – he stopped to peek at the bobbing Adam's apple, the same one he had run his tongue over the night before.
The rough sensation of his beard against the hot lips, the contrast with the cold ball of the piercing, that low, husky sound in Husk’s throat that Anthony had felt purring directly in his mouth when he had started to suck that same spot in which he had run the–
“..ter not to.”
Anthony blinked a couple of times, coming back to the present and focusing on that amber gaze that had returned to stare at him in the meantime.
“Mh?”
“I said it’s better not to.” Husk reiterated, without a trace of resentment but with all the firmness that the hangover was able to grant him, as he began to get out of bed.
Anthony stood there watching him fumble with the sheet in a not very successful attempt to drape it over himself. He curved his lips into yet another sharp and tender smile at that rather superfluous display of modesty. He folded his arms lazily, the cigarette still dangling from his lips and his left shoulder – uncovered, given the bathrobe that had slipped seductively further down – leaning against the wall in front of which the headboard of the unmade bed rested.
“I’ve seen it all, handsome,” he pointed out, as Husk finished securing the sheet around his waist. “No need, I don’t mean to jump on you.”
The man muttered some more grumpy, embarrassed grumbles that Anthony didn’t even bother to understand, distracted once again by watching the hem of the white sheet’s fabric curled over the man’s butt as he was currently bending over to pick up his clothes.
Big, strong hands, urgently sliding his teddy jacket off the shoulders, a fuchsia stain on the floor on which they both threatened to stumble over, then grasping with an urgency that spoke of need at the collar of his black tank top and pulling him again. More against, more over him, more everything. Those hands tugging the tank top again to take it off, with a sound of tearing fabric, his own low, ecstatic laughter and that “sorry” murmured against his mouth – it wasn’t that that had excited Anthony even more, but the purring that followed. A ‘I’ll buy it back, whatever you want’ panted on his lips, before those strong but gentle hands found his thighs to pick Anthony up and straddle him in his lap, letting himself fall sitting on the bed, then sliding down to find his pierced nipple and start sucking. Biting.
The last puff of smoke that Anthony took from his cigarette was to convince himself once again that no, he’s not gonna jump on him. Or to say it better, he couldn’t jump on him but for fuck’s sake, how much he wanted to.
“I think this is yours.”
He eyed the torn tank top in Husk’s hands, who was holding it out with his metaphorically lowered ears of someone who had messed up but with the usual gruff look that made him smile yet again; he chuckled, then shrugged and moved away from the wall in a fluid thrust of the hips to go and throw the now burned-out cigarette in the toilet before returning to the room.
“Take it as a gift. And anyway–” he sighed theatrically, dropping onto the bed with a still somewhat sleepy indolence. “What do you mean it’s better not to?”
Husk, in the meantime, had found his black boxers and had abandoned the sheet to its fate.
Anthony's hazel gaze fixated on him, following the soft twitches of his belly as he bent down to pick up the trousers of his elegant suit and put them on too. Observing that broad back disappearing under the whiteness of a wrinkled shirt, he couldn’t help but absentmindedly fiddle with the ball of the tongue piercing, while an unmistakable tug on his lower abdomen reminded him that before leaving that hotel room he needed to release excitement somehow. Probably jerking in the shower.
A detail of that back stuck in his head – strange scars, burns or carved in the flesh he couldn’t say, in a bizarre shape that resembled a pair of wings – but he was still too excited to dwell on it too much.
“That we don’t know each other well enough to tell you my shit.” Husk replied, as rough as his fingers busy fastening the buttons as best they could.
“Ah-anh.” Anthony replied, unruffled, leaning back on the bed and supporting himself lazily with his elbows, his gaze still glued to the other and a cocky smile. “It doesn't answer the question of why it’s better not to get laid.” He tilted his head slightly towards his right shoulder, almost flirtatiously, chasing Husk now on all fours on the carpeted floor retrieving a shoe that had ended up under the nightstand.
A tired huff, like someone who is feeling all the hangover, before getting up again with the shoe on, his hands now busy rearranging the dark red tie.
Oh, that tie.
Anthony sank his teeth into his lower lip in a thick breath, reflexively parting his thighs under the bathrobe, fully aware that his arousal was completely showing at the moment.
That tie he had grabbed with his left hand, tightening the knot and pulling it just enough to elicit yet another low, throaty sound from Husk. Dilated black pupils in those amber eyes, and judging by the erection he felt pushing against the crotch of his shorts, it wasn't just alcohol. The shirt undone, the dark red fabric twisted around the palm a couple of times to hold it better in the hand – that fucking tie – and pull it a little more as if it were a leash to force the man he was straddling to lift his head and parting his lips in a hungry groan, mixed with a growl. A grin of pure excitement, intoxicated as if Anthony had just snorted a line in the toilet of some random club.
“Because I’m a mess, kid.” There was no paternalism in that nickname. It tasted more like what Humphrey Bogart had muttered to Ingrid Bergman in a bar in Casablanca.
“It doesn't seem fair to drag you into my mess just because I had a bad day.”
Damn Husk and his being a truly old-time Hollywood gentleman.
Anthony pushed the memories – clear, vivid, so fucking exciting – to the back of his consciousness so he could analyze them calmly later and focus on yet another statement that stirred a feeling in the pit of his stomach; a feeling that had nothing to do with sex.
That man – who was currently patting his pockets, uneasily, as if searching for something only to realize that said “something” was gone along with his jacket stolen at the Black Dot – seemed capable of taking every label Anthony tried to stick on him from the night before and peeling it off.
Husk wasn’t the usual bored and drunk husband who Anthony used to pick up in bars, or the desperate man from whom he could extract money by making him believe he had sucked his cock; and he wasn’t the one that regretted, the one who stammered about having a wife while he zipped up his pants, the one who couldn’t get hard and preferred to take it only to say later that it had never happened before, that he’d never been turned on by men.
He had attached a ton of labels and they had always all turned out to be just right.
But Husk.
“I can’t pay you back for that tank top.”
Husk and that golden, feline gaze with which he was now staring at him, standing in front of the bed, as if he wanted to tie up all the loose ends before returning to his life and his mess. The same mess he didn’t want to drag him into.
At that very moment, Anthony thought, looking up at him, that he had never wanted to be dragged into someone's mess so badly. And he had had far too many messy relationships in his thirty-something years – Valentino above all.
It was just the thought of Valentino that made that pleasant warmth that had spread in the pit of his stomach freeze; he blinked again and cleared his throat, to quickly put that feeling away with the other pleasant memories of a night that was perhaps much better left like this: hazy, soaked in alcohol and the potential of what could have been.
The fantasies, at least, would not have disappointed him – kicked on a floor while crying that no, he hadn't hidden any more money, that he had already bought the last dose and pushed it into his veins. That he was so sorry, that he wouldn’t do it again. Which was absolutely superfluous: Valentino had always liked to hear him beg, it didn't matter if he did it on nothing.
Anthony shrugged his shoulders idly, letting Husk’s kindness slide over him: apparently, it wasn't just the alcohol that made him so gentle.
“Nah, no need, don’t worry. This gives me an excuse to go shopping.”
Husk gave him a small, closed-mouth smile – something the blond noticed more in the depths of his amber eyes than on the lips. Yet another brushstroke of sweetness that Anthony packed away in the back of his mind, in what had now become a whole box of sensations to be locked away.
“So… Thank you.”
He looked down at the hand professionally held out towards him, to seal that night.
Anthony chuckled again, his hazel eyes trailing to search the other’s in yet another amused flicker.
“For what?”
“For making me—“ Husk hesitated for a moment or two, before shrugging. “You really made me feel better.”
No, dear Husky, it was you who made me feel good.
But no, Anthony didn’t say that. He simply tilted his head towards his left shoulder again, the cocky smirk softening.
On the wave of amusement – and that warm and light sensation – Anthony raised his right hand but, instead of squeezing the other’s, he slid it towards the dark red tie to use it for sitting up again while he dragged Husk a little further down to find his lips halfway.
The kiss he pressed against that slightly parted mouth captured a breath and a word stuck on the other’s lips; it was a soft kiss, slow but quick. The kind you might give with the habit of someone who does it every morning before leaving for work. A kiss that had nothing sensual about it, but which said exactly what Anthony hadn’t had the courage to say out loud: thanks to you.
He pulled away after a couple of moments, letting the tie slip from his fingers and rubbing his freckled nose against Husk’s. He grinned again – the golden canine half sunk into his lower lip – as he noticed the other man's somewhat hazy expression.
“You better get going, whiskers.” he crooned, leaning back on the bed and staring up at him, parting his thighs again to show clearly what was going on between his legs, the bulge visible under the slightly pulled away bathrobe. “Unless you want to watch me wanking in the shower.”
Husk cleared his throat for the umpteenth time, rearranging his tie and frowning – a cat ruffling fur again – as he headed for the bedroom door without any other words.
On the threshold he stopped to eye Anthony with an indecipherable expression.
“.. I’m going.”
“Off you go.”
The sound of the doorknob going down, the electronic lock clicking, the muffled footsteps on the carpet and the last glance still searching for him.
What do you say in these cases? A little lie to make farewell less bitter.
“See you around, Husk.”
Anthony had told so many lies to so many lovers that it had become a habit by now but, for the first time, he really wished it wasn't a lie.
The faint smile of the man at the door came after a deeper breath, as if he was waiting for those very words, along with an amused and compliant shake of the head.
“See you around, Anthony.”
September 15th – present
“Anthony?”
In the mirror, a pair of hazel eyes focused not only on his reflection but also on Kitty’s, one of Valentino’s assistants who is in charge of “organizing” the backstage of the club and deciding who goes on stage and when.
“Are you ready? You're on in five minutes.”
“Yeah darling, here I come. Just the finishing touches.”
Kitty's understanding smile vanished from the reflection of Anthony’s dressing room mirror, swallowed up by the door along with music’s volume which returned as muffled as his thoughts.
Anthony sighed, brushing back his blond tuft and ending up filling his long fingers with pink glitter – the same shade as his nail polish – as he looked back at himself to finish applying three round glitters under his eyes, following the line of his cheekbone.
It had been a beautiful day, despite a slightly bizarre start.
He had closed the night he had just spent in that metaphorical box, got dressed and went to the Narcotics Anonymous meeting that he just couldn't afford to miss again. Charlie hadn’t specified to be there on time, just to go, and Anthony had no intention of ending up locked up in rehab again. So he’d spent his lunch break eating stale donuts and drinking coffee that tastes like tar, listening to Amelia talk about how she’d been tempted to steal the hospital’s supply of oxycodone but hadn’t.
Sitting in a circle, on that uncomfortable chair, Anthony hadn't said anything – he rarely shared his experience with those illustrious strangers – but he found himself thinking about Husk; who knows what he was doing at that moment, whether he had filed a report for the jacket’s theft, whether he had argued with his wife for getting drunk and spending the night out. Or who knows if he had already forgotten about him.
In the afternoon he had met the new family to whom he had been recommended by Fat Nuggets’s owners and had taken their dog for a walk – a rather chubby pug with the lazy look of someone who really doesn’t like walks. Even in Central Park, sitting on a bench with his fourth coffee of the day while the aforementioned pug sniffed every single blade of grass with great interest, the thought of Husk had crossed his mind again: there's nothing wrong with daydreaming a bit about someone you’ll never see again anyway, right?
Arriving at The Vees – Valentino’s club – for rehearsals, he hadn’t even met the owner; which obviously made the day even better. He had had dinner with the other performers, agreed on the performances schedule; he had even found time to call his sister to confirm the usual Sunday lunch.
So yes: it had been a beautiful day.
And yet.
The relentless, insistent worm of that box that didn't want to stay closed continued to eat his brain. Because fantasizing is fine, but there were so many things that Angel could have done to avoid it going the way it had and, clearly, his brain had chosen the moment right before going on stage to show him all of them. A long series of ‘if I had done’ this or ‘if I had said’ that had definitely dampened his mood.
“See you around, Husk.” he repeated, mocking himself and chewing those words with a certain disgust. “Shit, couldn't you just have asked for his number? But no, congratulations you dickhead.” he muttered those thoughts, pressing the last pink rhinestone into place more firmly than necessary and sliding both of his hands into his hair again.
He clutched at the blond locks in a heavy, exasperated sigh, propping his elbows against the top of his vanity table and looking again at himself in the mirror.
The reflection did not show the man who had jack off in the shower that morning thinking about a stranger with an odd nickname; the one who looked at him from the frame lit by pink lights, from the clean glass on which a dancer had left a red lipstick kiss, was a young man in a black fishnet shirt – made to show off his lean, trained body, freckled and sprinkled with the same glitter that was in his hair; a pair of equally black leather shorts that would have lasted very little out there, and the stage makeup.
It was Angel Dust, in that reflection, and something in Anthony told him that the cheeky but empty smile he saw on his glossy lips wasn’t really his.
Angel Dust did not ask drunk, married, messed-up forty-year-olds for phone numbers.
Angel Dust did not think all day about how good it would be – not hot, not just hot – to spend the morning in that shower with Husk and make him blush again, or growl that low, fucking horny sound as he took his cock in his hand and did what he had done to himself under the water a couple of times.
Angel Dust did not go to NA meetings to hear stories he didn’t give a shit about, because all he wanted was just another fix.
Angel Dust was easy to wear; he was sexy, carefree, always on top.
He was a mask that fit him like a glove, an invention to survive Valentino and all the bullshit that had messed up his life long before he met his boss – his ex, his drug dealer, his pimp.
Angel Dust, surely, was not that pathetic look that his reflection was now sending back at him.
How he wanted to snort a line right now.
Anthony took another breath, tightening the fingers in his locks and closing his eyes for a moment to get himself back together before going on stage; he straightened his back, cracked his neck in a sigh and slipped with the aforementioned ease into the wet dream role that haunted anyone who visited Valentino's nightclub – the numerous posters with his face and body in various highly suggestive poses were confirmation that the main attraction, in there, was always him.
The smile in the mirror became sensual, mischievous and alluring just as Kitty knocked on the door again and looked out to call him on stage, the same moment he finished putting on the black fingerless gloves with reinforced grip, essential for holding on to duty to the pole on which he would perform shortly thereafter.
“I'm all yours, sweetie.” Anthony announced, resting the soles of his shocking pink combat boots on the floor to get up and join the girl who was meanwhile checking the lineup, on her sheets. She was interrupted by the blond's hand reaching for her left, to make her do a pirouette.
“You look fabulous Kitty, you should come on stage with me, we'd get the whole audience excited!” Anthony teased her, finishing the pirouette to gallantly pull her into his arms.
“I'm sure you're more than enough, Angel Dust.” she giggled, passing her hand free from the folder over Anthony’s chest with a hint of affection before stepping away.
She then cleared her throat as he followed Anthony down the corridor, getting closer and closer to the music of the previous number which was now coming to an end.
“Tony…”
“Mh?” He pulled his elbow behind his shoulder blades in a preparatory stretch.
“Look, in the privé on the left of the stage there is–”
Ouch.
Anthony’s hazel gaze slid further down, seeking Kitty’s dark eyes as she suddenly seemed uncomfortable as tucking a lock of hair behind her left ear. So, standing in the middle of the corridor, they both listened to the end of the song and the applause mixed with the appreciative whistles of the audience.
There was only one person who could make everyone uncomfortable when they had to talk to Anthony about it.
“…Valentino.” a statement, not a question. “Don’t worry, I hadn’t seen him yet today, I expected he would be–”
“He’s not alone.”
Anthony blinked, again, to process that information; Kitty suddenly seemed very interested in the floor, unable to look him in the eyes, as the unpleasant, familiar feeling of jealousy sank its teeth into the blond’s stomach, dragging him down. He slowly lowered his arms, unable to formulate a ready response.
He had talked about it at length with the shrinks at the center, he kept talking about it with Charlie; they had told him that Valentino was a manipulator, a pathological narcissist, who had used every means to make him dependent on him: the drugs he supplied him with were just one of the many addictions with which he had fucked up his brain.
The worst one wasn’t something chemical, oh no . It was something much, much more deep-rooted and it was the most difficult feeling to detox from: love.
Anthony swallowed dryly, his mouth suddenly full of sand and his ears not really wanting to hear Kitty explain that Valentino had come accompanied by the sugar daddy with whom he had opened the club, the one who had always been there even when he and Anthony were dating. A certain Vox, or something like that – a fifty-year-old financial shark who thrived in Wall Street, owner of a lot of technology companies but with a soft spot for red-light clubs.
It certainly wasn’t the first time he saw them together, it shouldn’t have had this effect on him.
Who knows, maybe Husk didn't ask for your number because he realized you weren’t even worth a casual fuck.
Valentino's voice, in his consciousness, came before the annoying whistle of the music accompanied by Kitty's voice asking him if everything was okay.
Anthony came back to himself, refocusing on the girl and glancing at her vaguely worried expression; the backstage, his number, Valentino and Vox in the privè.
The box in which he had locked Husk and his kindness.
“Sure!” he forced himself to say, in a tone perhaps a little more pitched than he had liked. “Everything's fine. Let’s make these horny people spend some money, hmm?” he winked at her, placing both hands on his butt in a snap and leaning forward a little as if he wanted to show off his goods.
Kitty curved a sympathetic, slightly wistful smile before nodding and motioning him toward the lighted entrance to the wings – where a voice was already announcing his arrival. Anthony greeted her with a kiss on the top of her head, considerably lower than his height; taking a slow breath to calm himself, he walked towards the crowd trying to immerse himself in the music, even though the only sound he could hear at the moment were the crazy beating of his heart and another little voice that begged him to drown all that unpleasant sensation in a chemical shot.
Pushing oblivion into his vein until he can no longer think.