(no subject)
Moulin Rouge AU
Brendon/Ryan, Spencer/Ryan, Brendon/Spencer ( Panic! At The Disco )
NC-17
For the wtf27 prompt #15: “Hookers. At least one of the characters sells sex for money”. I apologize profusely for character death. It’s the Moulin Rouge AU. What did you expect? Beta by _safi, who was careful to make it more French for me. Apologies for the name. I’m not THAT creative.
They’d spent two months going to and from classes without really seeing any of the city. They’d been in a haze of class-work, and as October began to draw to a close, a small group of boys decided that it was high time they got out and did something. Something besides class-work.
They’d all heard about a revue in Montmartre, had been hearing about it since they’d first arrived at the university, and they’d finally worked up the courage to go. It wasn’t like going to a play or to the opera, they’d heard, since at the end of the night the dancers were auctioned off for the night to the highest bidder. None of them really believed that that actually happened.
They crowded around a table near the edge of the dance floor and near the edge of the stage. They were laughing and nudging each other, sharing bottles of wine and waiting for the show to start.
Spencer sat on the outside edge of the table, the seat facing the most toward the stage. They had been drinking for quite a while, most of the walk over there in fact, and Spencer was half-drunk by the time they sank into their seats. By the time the house lights went down and the stage lights went up, they were all having such a good time that it didn’t really matter what went on in the show.
The music exploded and there were suddenly people crowded onto the stage, girls in bright costumes with feathers in their hair, boys in dark pants and bright shirts with their faces painted. They spun each other and pushed each other and tumbled around the dance floor in an explosion of motion and colour and Spencer was far, far too drunk for this. They moved at what seemed to be a dizzying pace, making Spencer’s head spin.
It seemed like it was all over too fast, and the stage lights changed, a spotlight illuminating a dark haired dark skinned man who could only have been a gypsy in a past life ( or a couple of years before, as the case actually was ). A pretty dark haired girl walked out to stand in the spotlight beside him, the bare skin that showed around her costume glistening with sweat and glitter. Her makeup had run slightly but Spencer could clearly see that she was gorgeous.
“Who wants to take Alicia home with him tonight?” the gypsy asked, and the girl tossed her hair, laughing as the crowd roared. Men crowded toward the stage, and Alicia walked back and forth, her hips swaying as she moved from one side of the stage to the other. It took Spencer nearly a whole minute to realize that the men were yelling out prices, as though they were at an auction.
They really did auction off the dancers to the highest bidder. A man was chosen and helped onto the stage, pressing a wad of bills into the gypsy’s hand, before wrapping his arm around the dancer’s - Alicia’s - waist and walking off the stage with her. Spencer looked at his friends; at the way their eyes went wide. Clearly they hadn’t believed that the dancers would actually be auctioned off at the end of the evening, either.
Spencer was almost completely scandalized to realize that he was in a place where the women were being auctioned off like whores. It was another twenty minutes before he realized that it wasn’t just the women. It was the girls that had been spun around the dance floor, and the boys who had been doing the spinning.
Two boys ran out onstage and spun each other around the gypsy, who laughed. They stopped on either side of him and he put his arm around one of them with his free hand. The boy he wrapped his arm around had dark hair and dark eyes ( they both did, actually ), full lips and eyeliner laid thick around his eyes. If Spencer was going to buy one of the whores ( not that Spencer would ever, ever think of a thing like that, and especially not about a boy ), he might have bought this one.
“Who wants to spend one. Spectacular. Night. With-“
“Spencer!” one of his friends bellowed into his ear, loud enough that he didn’t quite catch the boy’s name. “We have to leave!”
Spencer looked over his shoulder as the dark haired boy was carried offstage by the man who’d bought him for the night, and the gypsy wrapped his arm around the other boy. Then the sound was dampened as the doors swung shut behind them.
***
Spencer couldn’t resist going back to Montmartre. He managed to hold off on it until the next weekend, before heading into that part of the city again, this time in the daylight. He wandered in and out of the dingy little stores, feeling overdressed and like everyone was staring at him ( maybe they were, maybe they weren’t ). Eventually, he ducked into a café for a drink, and his heart leapt into his throat.
The boy from the revue was there, sitting at a tiny table, a cup of coffee on the table in front of him. Spencer stared for a moment. He couldn’t stop himself from walking over and talking to the boy.
“Hello,” Spencer said, standing beside the table that the boy shared with another boy. “I couldn’t help noticing - I was in Montmartre last weekend - I saw you in one of the shows, and -“
“You must be mistaken,” the boy said, looking at Spencer as though he’d gone completely mad.
“No,” Spencer said. “I remember you.”
“That’s not possible,” the boy said. The boy across the table hid behind his coffee cup, and Spencer was pretty sure that he was laughing, judging by the look in his eyes. That was all Spencer could see of him, with the cup raised in front of his face and a battered grey cap pulled low over his hair. He also had dark eyes, and Spencer was sure that this was the boy who had danced onstage with the first one.
“But -“ Spencer began. The boy cut him off.
“You’re mistaken,” the boy told him. “I’ve never been in a show in my life.”
Spencer stood there awkwardly for a moment, looking at them. He took a deep breath, worked up his courage, and then - “May I join you?” he asked them.
The second boy lowered his cup. He looked younger than the first, and his eyes were wide and innocent, but his lips twisted in a way that no boy whose mouth was that beautiful should have moved. The smile he gave Spencer was cold.
“No,” he said, and stood up. The other boy stood as well, and they walked out of the café.
Spencer felt like an ass. He sighed and followed them out of the café, keeping his distance as they walked down the sidewalk. They slowed as they passed a tiny boulangerie, and the second boy reached out and unlocked the door that led up to the upper level of the building.
Spencer continued on down the sidewalk, making his way back to the school.
***
It took another week for Spencer to work up the courage to go back to Montmartre. It was late afternoon by the time he walked past the door that lead to the upstairs of the boulangerie, and into the boulangerie itself, holding his coat closed tightly around him. It was late in the day, and the boulangerie wasn’t busy. Spencer purchased pastry and sat at one of the small tables beside the windows, trying to ignore the proprietor of the store suspiciously staring holes through the back of his head.
He shivered as the door pushed open and he turned, placing the last bite of the pastry into his mouth - and his heart stopped. The second boy from the café had come in, followed by a tall, thin boy with long hair. Neither was quite dressed for the weather, and the boy from the café was wearing the same cap as the day before. He looked so young that Spencer couldn’t imagine he was possibly a whore like the other boy.
“Joseph,” The boy said brightly, walking up to the counter and the proprietor - Joseph, apparently - frowned at him. He leaned on the counter with the longhaired boy standing just behind him.
“I hope whatever you’re about to ask me involves exchange of money today, Ryan,” Joseph said dryly. The boy from the café - Ryan, Spencer was pleased to think, because now he had a name to call the boy he hadn’t been able to get out of his head since that day the week before - looked sad, and the boy with long hair touched his back gently.
“Well,” Ryan said quietly, “the thing is, all our money went to rent this week.”
“Brendon bought bread yesterday,” Joseph pointed out.
“Brendon had money yesterday,” the boy with the long hair said, reaching up and tucking his hair behind his ear. Spencer recognized him from the show, the first boy they’d sold off, but couldn’t remember his name. “But that was it.”
“And he doesn’t now?” Joseph asked, looking at them. Ryan shook his head.
“We’re not. Um.” Ryan’s voice dropped low so that Spencer had to strain to hear what he was saying. “We haven’t been doing well, Joseph. Just. Please. Make a bill, and we’ll pay you back when we can. I will. I promise you.”
“Not this time, Ryan,” Joseph said. “I can’t keep giving you boys food. And I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”
Ryan nodded and turned around. The other boy followed him out of the shop, and Spencer could see that they went back up the stairs to the flat. Spencer stood and went to the counter.
“Sorry about that, sir,” Joseph said, and the smile on his face was fake, but it was there. “They live near here, and sometimes come begging for food. I suspect that it’s because my wife gives them bread if I’m not here. Is there anything else that you’d like?”
“Two baguettes,” Spencer said. Joseph looked at him in surprise.
“Their owner isn’t going to let them starve, you know,” Joseph said as he got the loaves for Spencer and took his money. “I wouldn’t worry about them, anyway.”
“I’m not,” Spencer lied, and walked out of the shop. He stopped in front of the door and knocked hard, hoping that one of them would hear him and answer the door.
Fortunately, someone did, and Ryan pulled open the door. Spencer watched his eyes go wide when he saw Spencer standing there. He started to close the door, but stopped.
“What do you want,” Ryan asked. Spencer held out the loaves of bread. Ryan looked at him.
Spencer watched the look on Ryan’s face change. Watched the frown soften, then get harder, like he was fighting with himself over this. Like he wanted to take the bread, but didn’t. It seemed like it was a matter of pride. Spencer wondered how much pride someone who sold his body for money could have.
“I don’t. We don’t need charity,” Ryan said, and Spencer realized that it was pride that kept him from taking the bread.
“It’s not charity,” Spencer said, then realized it wasn’t true. “Okay, it is, maybe, but I want to do this. I don’t feel sorry for you. I just want to help you.”
“I don’t need help,” Ryan said.
“Then take it for your friend,” Spencer said. He never stopped holding out the loaves. Ryan looked at him for a moment, then reached out and took them.
“Thank you,” Ryan said quietly, and let the door swing closed as he hurried up the stairs.
Spencer couldn’t help but smile as he turned and walked away.
***
“Who was it,” William asked as Ryan opened the door and walked back into the flat. He looked up and was startled to see Ryan carrying two loaves of bread. “Where’d that come from?”
“A boy,” Ryan said. “The one from the café. The one that talked to Brendon.” Ryan walked over and handed William one of the loaves of bread, and took the other one back to the bed where Brendon was sitting.
“Is he following us or something?” Brendon asked, frowning as he took the bread from Ryan. Ryan sank down on the bed beside him with a shrug, watching William tear the other loaf in half and put one half down on the table for Michael when he returned.
“I don’t know,” Ryan said, shrugging as he slipped off his shoes and tucked his feet underneath the blankets, leaning against the wall. Brendon tore the bread in half and offered one end to Ryan, who shook his head. “I’m not hungry,” he said. Brendon knew that it was a lie, but he didn’t press it. He got up and put the other half away before coming back and sitting down with Ryan.
“Does he not know that he’s not supposed to do what he’s doing?” William asked, walking over to the bed and sitting cross-legged beside Brendon.
“I guess not,” Brendon said. “But he keeps coming back.”
“Maybe he’ll buy you at the show,” Ryan said. “He looks like he has money. And he obviously does if he buys things for people he doesn’t even know.”
“Maybe,” Brendon said. “Are you sure you’re not hungry?”
“Yes,” Ryan said.
Brendon wished that he wouldn’t lie. He was sure that Ryan probably turned down the bread if the boy had offered it to just him. The kid must have told Ryan to give it to them - Brendon knew that would be the only reason Ryan would have taken it.
Brendon also wished that Ryan wouldn’t be so fucking stubborn sometimes.
***
The bidding was going higher and higher and Ryan couldn’t stop smiling as Pete picked called out the highest numbers he heard being yelled. At least Ryan wouldn’t have to worry about eating for the next few days, not after this.
The only downside was really that one of the men - the one he could really see bidding on him, standing at the front of the crowd looking at him, almost salivating at the thought of spending the night with Ryan. It was scary, and Ryan hoped that the person pushing up the price - the one he couldn’t see - won, and that it would be someone who looked much, much safer than the man eyeing him.
The price went higher and everyone got louder, and Ryan’s heart stopped as Pete yelled out the final price and a young man from the back pushed his way toward the front, the wad of bills in his hand. Ryan’s eyes went wide as he realized who it was.
The boy from the café, who’d bought the bread for them from the boulangerie.
***
“Wait,” Spencer said, stopping Ryan from taking off his shirt and tossing it onto a chair against the wall. “Wait,” he repeated. Ryan turned toward him, waiting.
“What am I waiting for,” Ryan asked. He didn’t really mean to be mouthy, but he was pretty sure no one had ever told him to wait to take his clothes off after buying him for the night.
“I didn’t buy you for this,” Spencer said. “I just want to talk to you.”
Ryan laughed. “Okay,” he said, and continued pulling his shirt off.
“I mean it,” Spencer said. “Your name is Ryan, right? That’s what the gypsy called you.”
“Peter,” Ryan said. “His name is Peter. And yes, my name is Ryan.”
“Mine’s Spencer, and I didn’t buy you for the night to have sex with me,” Spencer said. Ryan’s eyes went wide and he froze. “I really do want to talk to you.”
“Why?” Ryan asked, completely confused. Never, ever had someone paid that amount of money for him and not immediately wanted him to take his clothes off.
“I don’t think I have a reason,” Spencer said honestly. Truthfully, the reason might have been the way Ryan looked, so young to be so tired and sad. “But it shouldn’t make a difference. Wouldn’t you be grateful for the break?”
That had been the right thing to say, because Ryan’s eyes lit up. “Yes,” he breathed, tugging his shirt back into place. Spencer smiled at how eager he seemed. He couldn’t imagine what it must be like to come up here night after night and take his clothes off to do whatever someone demanded of him.
“Come with me,” Spencer said, and opened the door. Ryan was startled.
“I really shouldn’t,” Ryan said. He never, ever left with his johns. He’d heard stories about boys who had left with their johns and hadn’t ever come back. They were warned never, ever to leave with one of them.
“I’ve a hotel room,” Spencer said. “Much more… comfortable than this room. I swear to you that I really only want to talk to you. My word on that.”
Ryan looked at him for a long time. Spencer didn’t seem like he was particularly threatening, or like he really wanted to hurt Ryan, so finally, he nodded.
“Okay,” he said, and they left the room, passing down the hallway, able to hear the moans and cries of the other whores as they walked out. To Ryan, it almost felt like a kind of freedom, walking away from all of this.
***
Spencer’s hotel room was possibly one of the nicest places Ryan had ever been - no. It was the nicest place Ryan had ever been. He’d been in an orphanage as long as he could remember, until he’d run away when he was fourteen, and that certainly hadn’t been nice. Living on the street hadn’t been nice, and the flat that he shared with the other three boys wasn’t nice. It was mostly cold and a little crowded, unless it was summertime, and then it was too hot and far too crowded. But this room, this was nice.
“You’re welcome to use the bath, if you like,” Spencer said. “And I can get you something to eat, if you like.” Because if he was correct, Ryan wouldn’t have touched the bread that Spencer had given him earlier in the day.
“You don’t have to do all of this,” Ryan said, looking at Spencer. He felt awkward and uncomfortable. He felt out of place.
“I want to,” Spencer said. “Besides, I bought you for the night. Should you really be turning down what I want to do?”
Ryan just looked at Spencer for a moment. “Clever,” he said. Spencer smiled at him, and after a moment, Ryan smiled back. Spencer felt like he’d won a major battle, just getting the other boy to smile.
“Sit down, make yourself comfortable,” Spencer said, and even then, he saw Ryan hesitate, as though he didn’t know what to do, before moving and sitting down on the edge of the bed. Spencer watched him for a moment, his dark hair falling into his eyes and his stage makeup still on his face. He didn’t look at all like he should be sitting on the edge of that bed.
“Thank you,” Ryan said quietly, not looking at Spencer. Spencer made his way over and sat down closer to the head of the bed, looking at Ryan’s back and shoulders. The other boy didn’t turn.
“You’re welcome,” Spencer said just as quietly. “Do you want something to eat? You’re still welcome to bathe, if you want.”
That caused Ryan to turn to him with eyes wide. Spencer realized that Ryan had probably never lived anywhere with indoor plumbing like the hotel had. “Honestly?” Ryan asked, and Spencer watched him try not to look excited by the idea.
“Of course,” Spencer said. Ryan stood up off the edge of the bed and made his way slowly across the room. “Did you have anything in particular that you’d like to eat? Things that you don’t?”
“No,” Ryan said, standing near the window, looking out. The view from the window was far better than anything he’d ever seen.
“Then if you’d like to, ah, clean up, I’ll get us something to eat,” Spencer said. Ryan nodded and disappeared into the bathroom.
He stared at himself in the mirror for a long, long moment. He just felt so out of place. Whores weren’t supposed to be in places like this, and that was all Ryan was. Just a whore that Spencer had picked up in Montmartre. Nothing special, standing there in his frayed stage clothes, worn from wear, stage makeup smeared all over his face, streaked from sweat in a few places and smeared by his own fingers in others.
It just seemed so overwhelming. He sank down onto the edge of the bathtub, gripping it hard. He wished that Spencer had just paid for him and fucked him like every other john who paid for a night with him. He didn’t want to taste this then go back to the tiny, dirty flat that he shared with Brendon and Michael and William. He didn’t want to have someone who just wanted to talk to him for a night and then go back to getting abused almost every night.
He sat there for a moment in silence, listening for Spencer in the other room. He didn’t hear the other boy, then leaned down and plugged up the drain, starting the water. He just watched it run into the tub for a moment before standing.
***
Spencer was waiting for him with the food when Ryan came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He was skittish and scared about being around someone who supposedly just wanted to talk, but deep down, he was just a whore, and had no problem baring his body in front of someone who had actually paid for him for the night. Spencer just raised an eyebrow at him.
“I wondered if you had perhaps drowned,” Spencer said dryly, and was rewarded with a smile from Ryan.
“No, it’s just that that’s the first time I’ve-“ He broke off, his eyes getting wide. How was he supposed to say that that was the first time he’d ever actually taken a bath with running water? “I’m clean, anyway,” Ryan said, and walked over.
“And naked,” Spencer said, too warm inside his shirt collar.
“No,” Ryan said. “I am not. I am wearing a towel.”
“Right,” Spencer said, feeling a little warmer as Ryan made his way over and sat on the bed with him. At least he had the grace to keep everything important covered, even as he moved. Spencer wondered if that was just Ryan, of if he’d been trained to be that little bit more of a tease. He pushed the tray of food between them.
Ryan stared at it, and Spencer couldn’t quite read his face. It wasn’t neatly arranged or anything like it would have been if actual hotel staff had brought it up. Spencer had walked down and grabbed whatever he thought that Ryan might like, and brought it back up to the room. He wished that he could understand the look on the boy’s face as he looked at the food.
Ryan reached out and picked up a peach from the tray, holding it up. “Is this a peach?” he asked Spencer. He’d only ever seen pictures on tins, and certainly never seen the real thing. Spencer nodded and Ryan brought it to his mouth, taking a bite. Spencer almost laughed at the tiny noise of pleasure that Ryan made, but stifled it immediately, thinking that Ryan would probably get upset at Spencer laughing at him. Spencer reached out and picked up a handful of cherries, putting one into his mouth and chewing slowly as he watched Ryan.
He couldn’t take his eyes off of Ryan. The other boy wasn’t paying any attention to him at all, completely caught up in eating the peach. Spencer’s eyes travelled over him.
He looked so much younger out of makeup, out of his stage clothes, and much closer to Spencer in age than Spencer had initially thought. He was too pale and too thin and Spencer could see a ring of faded fingerprint-shaped bruises around Ryan’s upper arm and one almost gone across his side, just above his hipbone, like he’d done something someone hadn’t liked and they’d punished him for it.
“Do you like your job?” Spencer blurted out without thinking, and Ryan looked up at him. The look on his face was far older than his features. He took a long moment to answer, still chewing.
“It is my job,” Ryan said, and his voice was almost hollow, dead. It tore at Spencer’s heart. He could see the fading bruises, and hell, he could even see scars. He couldn’t imagine that anyone would like doing the job that Ryan had. Ryan was quiet for a moment, taking another bite of the peach, and Spencer was afraid to say anything else, lest it be something equally stupid. “I like performing,” Ryan said after a long moment. He didn’t have to tell Spencer that it was being sold for sex afterward that he didn’t like.
“You could do something else,” Spencer suggested. Ryan smiled slightly, and gave a tiny, bitter snort of a laugh.
“No,” Ryan said. Spencer was almost shocked by such a prompt answer. “What else would I do?”
“I’m sure there are other things,” Spencer said.
“Gentlemen do not hire uneducated whores,” Ryan said, and Spencer wondered if he’d done something completely wrong, by the way Ryan refused to meet his eyes after that. “And that is all that I am.”
“Surely not,” Spencer said. His hands were shaking, and he was almost angry at hearing this boy talk himself down in such a way.
“Mm,” Ryan said, and it was the only thing that he offered after that. They ate for a long while in silence, because Spencer no longer knew what to say, and Ryan wasn’t offering anything. One thing that didn’t surprise Spencer in the slightest was the amount of food that Ryan was able to eat. It seemed to Spencer like he didn’t expect to get much for a while, and was taking what he could get when he could get it.
Spencer wondered if he could buy Ryan from the cabaret, and keep him, find him work doing something that wasn’t selling his body night after night.
“I have to leave soon,” Ryan said after a while. Spencer was surprised. If he were in Ryan’s position, the last thing that he’d want to do would be leave and go home. If he were even able to call it home.
“You’re welcome to stay here tonight,” Spencer said, watching as Ryan started to get up. Ryan just shook his head.
“Brendon worries when I don’t come back to the flat,” Ryan said. There had been more than a few times where he’d been too exhausted to even drag himself home, and in the morning when he’d finally dragged in he’d received lectures about how he’d scared Brendon to death and not to ever do it again. “I have to go.”
“I’ll tell him,” Spencer said. “If you’ll stay with me tonight, I’ll walk down there right now and tell him where you are and that you’re fine.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Ryan protested, but Spencer shook his head.
“I want to,” Spencer said, and with that, he got off the bed and picked up the tray, moving it and putting it down on the table. He stood at the end of the bed and looked down at Ryan sitting there. “Please stay.”
“Okay,” Ryan said after a long moment. Spencer smiled at him and went to pick his coat up.
“I won’t be long,” Spencer said, and Ryan nodded. Spencer pulled his coat on and walked out the door, leaving Ryan sitting in the middle of the enormous bed, all alone in Spencer’s fancy hotel room.
***
Brendon was not pleased that Ryan was spending the night in another part of town with someone who’d paid to fuck him, even if that had never been Spencer’s intention. Brendon disliked Spencer, from the first moment he’d come up to them in the boulangerie and asked Brendon if he was the boy from the show.
“If you hurt him in any way, I swear to God I will hunt you down and kill you with my bare hands,” Brendon snapped. His eyes were dark and angry and his voice was hoarse. Spencer could see fingerprint-shaped bruises on Brendon’s neck and had a pretty good idea of how they got there. They reminded him of the bruises on Ryan’s arm, the one on his ribs, and Spencer wondered if all of the dancers had bruises and scars like Ryan’s.
“I don’t want to hurt him,” Spencer said. “I’m not that sort of person.”
“There are more ways to hurt someone than physically,” Brendon said, and Spencer was a little surprised. Brendon was apparently smarter than Spencer was giving him credit for. Spencer realized that he had been thinking that the other boy would be less intelligent because he was a whore, but apparently that wasn’t actually the case. Brendon had been educated somewhere the same as Spencer had, Spencer realized, when he finally listened to the way Brendon spoke.
“I’m not going to hurt him,” Spencer said. He really hadn’t ever intended to hurt Ryan, physically or in any other way. The thought had never even crossed his mind. “He didn’t want you to worry about him, so I came to tell you where he was.” And with that, Spencer walked back down the stairs, leaving Brendon standing in the doorway, watching him walk away.
***
Spencer had expected Ryan to be asleep when he arrived back at the hotel room over an hour later. But Ryan wasn’t. He was curled underneath the blankets and Spencer could see that his eyes were open in the moonlight coming in through the curtains.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Spencer asked as he shed his coat onto a chair and unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt, looking at Ryan lying there.
“The bed’s empty,” Ryan said, and to Spencer, that didn’t make any sense.
“Of course it is,” Spencer said. He watched as Ryan smiled slightly, pushing himself up, and Spencer walked over, untucking his shirt, intending to make his way over to sleep on the sofa.
“You don’t understand,” Ryan said, pulling the blanket back up around him, and Spencer wondered if he was actually cold, or just didn’t want Spencer to see anything. “I don’t ever sleep alone,” Ryan explained. “I live with three other people, and we just all sleep in one place.” He couldn’t explain it. It was in part because the flat really wasn’t big enough to accommodate four people, let alone four beds, and part because none of them wanted to be alone.
“You can still go back,” Spencer said. Ryan shook his head.
“I told you that I’d stay here,” Ryan said. “But I can’t sleep alone.”
It took Spencer a moment to realize what Ryan was asking, and when he did, his eyes went wide. Ryan was surprised to realize that Spencer really had never had any intention of sleeping with him when he’d paid for him at the cabaret that night. Spencer walked to the edge of the bed, suddenly nervous.
“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to,” Ryan said, and his tone was teasing, and Spencer could imagine that he used the very same tone on other men who had bought him, men who were still unsure about sleeping with another man.
Spencer slid off his shoes and climbed onto the edge of the bed. “We’re just sleeping. I am sleeping here so that you’re not alone,” Spencer said.
“You sound like you’re trying to talk yourself out of something,” Ryan said, and God, Spencer hated that teasing tone of voice. He was most certainly not trying to talk himself out of anything. He climbed into the bed, still wearing his shirt and pants, and was suddenly acutely aware that Ryan had apparently just shed the towel and climbed underneath the sheets. Spencer climbed underneath the blankets and lay next to Ryan, but didn’t touch him. Ryan lay there looking at him for a long moment before turning onto his other side and closing his eyes. Maybe Spencer’s weight on the mattress beside him would be enough.
“Why did you start doing this?” Spencer asked after a while. He was shaking, terrified to be sharing the bed with a pretty, naked boy who he’d paid to be there. It felt dirty, but at the same time, he wasn’t doing anything. Ryan turned over onto his back and tipped his head so that he was looking at Spencer.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Ryan said. “I could sell my body or I could starve. I’m scared of dying, and my body doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“Oh,” Spencer said, surprised. “But you weren’t born in France. You speak French, but you don’t have a French name.” Spencer said nothing about the particular way Ryan spoke French. Unlike Brendon, Ryan had obviously not learned to speak French in a school.
“No,” Ryan said. “I don’t. My family wasn’t French.” Spencer couldn’t help noticing the past tense, but he said nothing.
“Then why do you speak it?” Spencer asked.
“Because they didn’t speak or teach anything else in the orphanage,” Ryan said, turning his head back, staring up at the ceiling. Spencer’s stomach twisted. There was the reason Ryan had ended up dancing in Montmartre, why he’d ended up a whore.
“Is that how you ended up in Montmartre?” Spencer asked quietly, watching Ryan. “When they let you out of the orphanage you went there?”
“No,” Ryan said, and followed it with a bitter little laugh. “I wish I’d only been doing this for such a short time. I ran away when I was fourteen.”
“How old are you now?” Spencer asked, even though he was almost positive that Ryan was nearly the same age he was, maybe younger.
“Twenty,” Ryan said. He was lucky to even have survived that long. Twelve years in an orphanage, and almost six as a whore.
“Was Brendon in the orphanage with you? Or did you meet him in Montmartre?” Spencer asked. He was almost sure that it had to be the latter. No one who spoke educated French the way Brendon did could have grown up in an orphanage the way Ryan had. Spencer almost would have bet that Brendon spoke English just as fluently as he spoke French.
“We joined the chorus at about the same time,” Ryan said, and turned and looked at Spencer again. “Why do you want to know?”
“I was curious,” Spencer said. “Because of the way he speaks. I couldn’t imagine that he would have grown up in an orphanage as well.”
“No, he…he had different circumstances,” Ryan said, turning back onto his opposite side, putting his back to Spencer. He didn’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t any of Spencer’s business, besides.
“He’s very protective of you,” Spencer said quietly, looking at Ryan’s back. He could just make out a scar on Ryan’s shoulder blade, running across the skin and disappearing beneath the blankets.
“You’d be protective of the only person you trusted not to hurt or betray you,” Ryan said quietly. He didn’t turn back to look at Spencer. Spencer wondered if Ryan would have been as protective of Brendon if their situations were reversed.
“I suppose so,” Spencer said quietly. He reached out, and touched Ryan’s back, running his fingers down the scar. He felt Ryan shudder underneath his fingertips as he followed the scar all the way down to the middle of Ryan’s back. “How did you get that? At the orphanage?”
“At the cabaret,” Ryan said. His body was tensed, like he was preparing himself for anything that Spencer might do to him, and Spencer thought that might really be the case. “Sometimes our customers aren’t as comfortable with what they’re doing as they think they are.”
“How so,” Spencer asked. He didn’t quite understand. Why would anyone pay that amount of money and not be comfortable with what they were doing, his own feelings aside.
“They’re married men who have paid to fuck some rent boy for the night, Spencer, why do you think?” Ryan asked. He almost sounded angry. “So they think that hurting us will make us keep quiet. They don’t know that the only people who ever hear about what we’ve done are other whores and that hurting us makes us tell more people than just fucking us would.”
“And one of them gave you this?” Spencer said, trailing his finger back up the scar. He didn’t realize that Ryan was shaking when he did it, didn’t have enough experience to realize that it actually turned Ryan on to have Spencer’s finger move along the scar that way.
“Yes,” Ryan said. “Would you please stop doing that?” Spencer pulled his hand away, a little startled.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize that I was doing something wrong,” Spencer said quietly, and Ryan almost laughed.
“Just. Don’t touch me like that if you don’t want what you paid for,” Ryan said equally quietly.
“What did I pay for, exactly?” Spencer asked.
“Spencer, I’m not saying this to offend you, but… you’ve never. Actually been with a man before, have you?” Ryan asked, turning back onto his side and looking at Spencer, his hair falling across his eyes. Spencer had the urge to reach out and brush it away, but Ryan got to it before he did. Spencer was just grateful for the darkness, so that Ryan couldn’t see how badly he was blushing. “Women, of course, but never someone like me.”
“I…no, I haven’t,” Spencer admitted. Ryan just smiled and lay back down.
“Go to sleep, Spencer,” he said, and didn’t say anything else.
***
Spencer woke to the startling sensation of someone pressed against him. It was still dark out when he opened his eyes and looked around. Ryan was asleep, snuggled up to him with his face buried in Spencer’s shirt. Spencer’s heart started to race. Ryan was touching him, pressed against him, his breath warm on the bare skin where Spencer’s shirt gaped open.
Spencer was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that Ryan was naked, pressed against him.
Spencer must have moved in some slight way, because Ryan sighed softly, raising his arm and pulling Spencer closer, pressing them together, pressing his lips against the small bit of skin exposed on Spencer’s chest. “Why are you wearing clothes?” he asked without opening his eyes. “You never wear clothes to-“ His eyes opened suddenly and he looked at Spencer like he was realizing something, and then jerked away. “Sorry,” he said, and looked away from Spencer. “So sorry.”
“I never wear clothes to where?” Spencer asked, looking at Ryan. Ryan shook his head.
“Not. Not you,” Ryan said. “I. You’re not who I thought you were.”
“Who else would I be?” Spencer asked, confused. Ryan shook his head again, and got up off the bed.
“I should go,” he said, and - oh God, Spencer thought, watching him walk across the room toward where he’d left his clothes in the bathroom - went to get dressed.
“You don’t have to leave,” Spencer said. Ryan didn’t answer, and returned from the bathroom a few minutes later, dressed in the costume he’d worn in the last number of the show the night before. It looked so different in the daylight, more tattered and frayed than Spencer had realized. But it hid the bruises and the scars on Ryan’s too-thin body.
“I have to go home,” Ryan said after a moment.
“At least have breakfast with me,” Spencer said. He saw Ryan hesitate at the idea of food. Spencer could imagine if he’d been in a boulangerie begging for food the day before, he’d be interested in the prospect of a free meal as well.
“I don’t want to take anything else from you,” Ryan said, not looking at Spencer. Spencer wished that the other boy could just give up his pride for just a little while. “You’ve already done enough. Last night, the bread yesterday…”
“I want to do this,” Spencer said, and he would just keep insisting until Ryan let him do this. “If you’ll at least let me buy you breakfast, then you can take it back to your flat.” It had worked with the bread, so maybe it would work with the breakfast. The other boys Ryan lived with didn’t seem to have the same issue with pride as Ryan did.
“Fine,” Ryan said. He wouldn’t have to keep taking Spencer’s charity. The other guys wouldn’t mind it, though. He knew that much. He waited, sitting on the edge of the bed while Spencer dressed.
Ryan stayed mostly quiet as they picked up the food. People were watching him, like he was going to start stealing things or causing problems because he looked dirty and out of place compared to everyone else. Spencer ignored them, and Ryan tried to keep his head down. He was still quiet as they walked back to Montmartre, and Ryan’s flat.
They stopped in front of the door, and for a moment, Spencer thought that Ryan might actually let him in, but Ryan stopped without opening the door.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “For everything.”
“You’re welcome,” Spencer said. Ryan started to open the door. “Ryan.”
Ryan turned around and looked at Spencer, wondering what he could possibly want. He had a strange sort of look on his face.
“I…” Spencer began. He didn’t really know how to say what he was about to ask. “I’ve never kissed a man. Ever. And I… I sort of hoped that I’d get the chance to…”
“I don’t kiss anyone who pays for me,” Ryan said quietly. Spencer was a little startled.
“Then who do you kiss?” Spencer asked, watching as Ryan reached out to unlock the door and let himself inside.
“No one,” Ryan said. “Thank you for breakfast.”
With that, he walked into the stairwell and closed the door behind him, leaving Spencer standing stunned and somewhat hurt on the sidewalk.
***
“He really likes you,” Brendon said. He was sitting on the edge of a makeup counter, watching as Gerard carefully painted Ryan’s face. He knew that Ryan couldn’t exactly talk back. He also knew that Ryan would try. Ryan opened his mouth to say something.
“Close,” Gerard ordered. Ryan’s mouth snapped shut and he narrowed his eyes at Brendon, who was grinning at him.
Once Gerard was through, Ryan motioned for Brendon to come with him. “Where are we going?” Brendon asked as they walked out of the dressing room.
“To find Pete,” Ryan said. “So that I can keep Spencer from buying me again.”
“Why?” Brendon asked.
“Because he likes me too much. Because he wants to… I’ve never had someone who paid me for my company to ask me for a kiss before,” Ryan said. “What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” Brendon said, shrugging. “Kiss him?” Ryan hit him in the arm. Hard. Brendon shoved him and he flung his arm out to catch himself on the wall, not wanting to fall down. He almost crashed into one of the dancers, causing her to yelp. He kissed her on the cheek and continued walking.
“I can’t just kiss him,” Ryan said.
“Why not?” Brendon asked. “He paid for you. Plus, he’s nice. He buys us food.”
“I just can’t,” Ryan said. They started down the stairs and into the area underneath the stage.
Pete was in the dark area underneath the stairs with William pushed up against the wall. Ryan cleared his throat loudly and Pete waved them off.
“Gerard’s going to be pissed off if you fuck up all his hard work,” Brendon said, leaning against a support beam. Pete turned around and smiled at him, and William ran his fingers through his hair and moved out from underneath the stairs, hurrying up. Brendon leaned out and watched him go, before turning back to Pete.
“Pete, can I ask you a favour?” Ryan asked. Pete nodded. “You remember the … the man who bought me last night?” If Pete didn’t remember him, that was going to make things a lot harder.
“Young, handsome, pretty blue eyes?” Pete said. “I almost wished that he’d bought me.”
“I need you to keep him from buying me again,” Ryan said. He fidgeted nervously, and Brendon reached out, rubbing his hand across Ryan’s back. He couldn’t even feel the warmth of Ryan’s skin through the fabric of his vest.
“Did he do something that you didn’t like?” Pete asked, frowning.
“No, he... just…” Ryan shrugged helplessly. “I just don’t want him to buy me again. So please, Pete, don’t let him buy me again.”
He turned around and started back up the stairs, leaving Brendon and Pete standing underneath the stairs. Pete raised his eyebrows at Brendon.
“I can’t explain it,” Brendon said, and turned and hurried up the stairs after Ryan.
***
It worked for two weeks. That wasn’t to say that Spencer wasn’t at the show every night. Spencer showed up, Spencer bid, and Pete pretended not to be able to hear him. It worked well, especially when Pete sold Ryan off to someone every night that only wanted to do what they’d paid him for, not kiss him or take him to breakfast.
It worked until Spencer got wise to what was going on. It worked until Spencer brought one of his friends with him, until Spencer had one of his friends buy Ryan.
“I’m sorry,” Pete whispered to Ryan as Spencer paid and Ryan walked away with him.
Spencer didn’t speak until they got into the hallway, on the way to the rooms. “That was smart, what you did,” he said, watching Ryan’s back as he walked. Ryan pushed one of the doors open, not turning to look at Spencer. “Getting the gypsy to ignore my bids.”
Ryan walked into the room and slid his vest off, then his shirt. Spencer closed the door behind them. “His name is Peter,” Ryan said quietly. He said nothing else, but sat down on the edge of the bed, sliding his shoes off.
“Fine, getting Peter to ignore my bids,” Spencer said. He could see new bruises on Ryan’s skin, ones that weren’t there the last time he’d seen Ryan, some worse than others.
“Apparently not that smart, since you’re here,” Ryan said. He started to unbutton his pants.
“No, stop,” Spencer said. “I don’t… Please don’t…”
“Look,” Ryan said. “This is my job. This is what I do. I’m not here for you to take me out to breakfast and ask me if you can kiss me.” He slid his pants off and sat down on the bed. “I’m not here for that. I’m here for you to do to my body what you want. That’s what you paid for.”
“You have new bruises,” Spencer said. He was trying not to look at Ryan, not really.
“So?” Ryan said, looking up at him. “I always have new bruises. Would you please do whatever you wanted me for so that I can go home?”
“Are you this rude to all of your customers?” Spencer asked.
“You are the first person to ever pay for me that hasn’t immediately shoved my face into the bed,” Ryan said. He lay back on the bed, and Spencer shifted uncomfortably.
“Ryan, I didn’t. I don’t want this,” Spencer said. “Can you please. Just put your clothes back on.”
“I’m not leaving with you again tonight. So either get what you want from me here or I will get dressed. And I’ll leave,” Ryan said. Spencer looked unhappy, watching Ryan.
“I just want to help you,” Spencer said quietly.
“No, you want to kiss me,” Ryan said. “You want more than just helping me, and you’re not going to get it, so you might as well keep your money, okay?”
Spencer climbed onto the bed and stretched out beside Ryan. Ryan didn’t move, but Spencer felt him tense up. He didn’t blame Ryan, really, because if he were constantly being beaten like Ryan seemed to be, then he’d be scared that it was just going to keep happening.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Spencer whispered, and pushed himself up, moving to kiss Ryan. Ryan turned his head to keep Spencer from kissing him and Spencer’s lips landed on his jaw. “Please.”
“You can’t kiss me,” Ryan said, keeping his head turned away. Spencer kissed over his jaw, down his neck. He’d only ever kissed women, and he could feel the stubble of beard just underneath the surface of Ryan’s skin. It was different.
Ryan held completely still as Spencer’s lips moved over his skin. Careful, light kisses, the way Spencer would have treated a woman. A way Ryan had never been treated by anyone. Spencer’s fingertips trailed over dark bruises on Ryan’s ribs, fitting against fingerprint shaped bruises on Ryan’s hips.
“I wouldn’t hurt you like this,” Spencer whispered, then pulled away. Ryan turned his face back and looked at Spencer, and Spencer looked back at him for a long moment before he said anything else. “You can go ahead and get dressed, and go home.”
Ryan just looked at him for a moment, before sitting up and reaching for his pants.
“Next time… next time, don’t just come in here and take your clothes off,” Spencer said. “I buy you because otherwise you won’t talk to me. You won’t just let me talk to you. Not outside of here, you won’t even talk to me here.”
“What if I promise to talk to you,” Ryan said. “If I see you on the street.”
“Not just if you see me on the street,” Spencer said. “I want you to… go to dinner with me.”
Ryan snorted. “Of course. I hate to break it to you, but I don’t have time for dinner,” he said. They’d eat breakfast and lunch, sure, but dinner consisted of a few bites of bread shoved into their mouths as they dressed and put on makeup for the show, maybe a few more bites before they collapsed into bed at night.
“Then breakfast, or lunch,” Spencer said. He just wanted anything, anything he could do. Ryan just looked at him, holding his shirt to his chest.
“Fine,” he said quietly. “Fine.”
Spencer was quiet as Ryan finished dressing and sat down beside him to put his shoes back on. Spencer leaned over and tried to kiss him again. Ryan turned his face away again.
“Don’t,” he said quietly.
“I’ll take you for breakfast tomorrow,” Spencer said, trailing his fingers over the back of Ryan’s neck. “Late.”
“Okay,” Ryan said, and stood up, he turned and looked at Spencer for a moment, before moving and opening the door to go out into the hall. Spencer sat there, silent. At least Ryan had agreed.
***
It was cold and raining the next morning when Spencer arrived at the flat. Ryan was waiting for him in the stairwell, wrapped tightly in a ragged coat, a hat in the same condition pulled low over his hair. The scarf wound around his neck was in better condition, but the gloves he was wearing weren’t.
“You look cold,” Spencer said. Ryan shrugged.
“I’m fine,” he said, standing up. He walked down the last couple of steps just as the door swung open and a boy with dark hair came through the door.
“Sorry,” he said quietly, maneuvering around Spencer. He was carrying what was apparently a loaf of bread. “Morning, Ryan.”
“Morning, Michael,” Ryan said as he and Spencer walked out the door.
“You live with three other guys?” Spencer asked as they started down the sidewalk. “Or are there more? It seems like an awfully small flat.”
“It makes rent easier to meet,” Ryan said quietly. Spencer noticed that he was quiet about a lot of things. “You know, with the four of us.”
“You’d think that with the prices you bring, you’d make more money,” Spencer said. Ryan stopped and looked at him.
“Can we not talk about what I do?” Ryan asked him. “It’s a rule. We don’t talk about what we do in public. Like the day you walked up and started talking to Brendon because you’d seen him at the show? People don’t do that. You can’t do that.”
“Where does the money go, though? Why is it hard for you to make rent? Why don’t you have enough money for food, or for newer clothes?” Spencer asked.
Ryan took a step back. “It all goes to the show,” he explained. “For clothes and shoes and makeup and for the new kids who haven’t started to work yet.”
“The new kids?” Spencer asked.
“Everyone’s new at one point,” Ryan said. “Before you can dance in the show you have to learn how to do it. You can’t just walk out not knowing. And before you learn, you sleep in the dressing rooms, you live on what little money they’re willing to give you so that you don’t starve to death. So you just concentrate on learning as fast as you can, because no one wants to sleep in those dressing rooms for a long time.”
“Did you learn quickly?” Spencer asked. He and Ryan started walking again, continuing down the sidewalk to wherever Spencer was taking them for breakfast.
“I had to,” Ryan said. “I didn’t want to live down there any more than anyone else. Sleeping on the floor with the rats? The smell of sweat and sex? It’s not… I got out of there as fast as I could.”
“How do you get out?” Spencer asked. Ryan turned and frowned at him. Hadn’t he just said that they shouldn’t talk about this? And they shouldn’t have been, but he wanted to talk about it. He’d never talked to anyone who hadn’t been through it.
“You sell your body,” Ryan said. “That’s the only way I’ve ever seen anyone else get out.”
“You can’t work for them?” Spencer asked. “There aren’t people who do other things? Like Peter? They don’t sell him.”
“They caught him stealing,” Ryan said. “That’s what I heard, anyway. It happened a long time before I started there, and I’ve been there five years now. They caught him stealing, and he’s a good talker, so they put him to work. To pay back his debt. Michael’s brother does our makeup, but he’s good at that. For those of us who aren’t actually good at anything, you know, we sell what we’ve got.”
“You’re honestly not good at anything else?” Spencer asked.
“I’ve never been to school,” Ryan said. “What else am I supposed to be good at? All I’m good at is dancing and letting men fuck me.”
Spencer’s breath caught in his throat at Ryan’s words. He hated to hear the other boy say that about himself, especially when he knew there had to be something. He reached out and touched Ryan’s arm. The other boy didn’t even seem to notice.
“Surely there’s something else,” Spencer said quietly. Ryan shook his head.
“I sold the only thing that I had five years ago when I started working there,” Ryan said. His voice was barely more than a whisper when he said it.
“What was that?” Spencer asked. Ryan kept his head down, not looking at Spencer.
“All I had was my virginity,” Ryan said, shrugging. “The dubious honor of being the first man to fuck the new dancer. He gets all the bragging rights. And bonus points if the new boy cries. That’s a big deal. If he cries.” Spencer was looking at him, horrified, but Ryan didn’t seem to notice. “You dance in the show, and then they auction you off, and you don’t really know what’s going to happen to you, until he shoves your face down into the mattress and starts … and starts…”
“Stop,” Spencer said. “You don’t… Please don’t keep talking about it.”
Ryan looked up at Spencer then and gave him a weak smile. “Sorry, I just… it’s what happens. It happens to all of us. Me, and… and everyone. It’s kind of funny, because after they buy you the first time, your price goes down. They never pay as much for you after someone’s already had you.”
“Ryan, please,” Spencer said. He didn’t want to hear any more of it. He’d already heard all he could stand to hear.
“You wanted to know,” Ryan said, looking at him. Spencer shook his head.
“Is that why you won’t let anyone kiss you?” Spencer asked. Ryan laughed, and it was a bitter, unhappy sound. Spencer flinched when he heard it.
“No one who’s ever paid for me has wanted to,” Ryan said.
“But you have kissed people,” Spencer said.
“Of course,” Ryan said, and he almost sounded offended by the idea.
“How can you want to see other people, after what they do to you?” Spencer said. Ryan just shrugged.
“Comfort,” he said. Spencer opened his mouth to ask what that meant, but Ryan spoke before he got the chance. “Where are we going?”
“There’s a café up ahead,” Spencer said. “They have exceptional breakfast.” Ryan nodded, and was grateful that Spencer seemed to be through asking questions.
***
They went to lunch or breakfast almost every other day for nearly a month. And then one morning, Spencer showed up at the flat and Ryan wasn’t waiting on him. He’d never gone up the stairs before, never dreamt of going inside. But this day, he was surprised to not see Ryan waiting there, since they’d planned to go to breakfast.
Spencer walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. The boy with the long hair that he’d seen in the boulangerie with Ryan answered the door. His eyes were red rimmed, like he hadn’t slept or like he’d been crying.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I’m here for Ryan,” Spencer said. “If he’s ready?”
“He’s not going anywhere,” the boy said.
“Why not?” Spencer said. The boy pulled the door open completely and grabbed Spencer’s arm, pulling him inside.
“Do you want to see why not?” the boy asked.
“William, what are you doing?” came another voice.
“He wants to know why Ryan isn’t going anywhere,” William said bitterly. His fingers dug into Spencer’s arm and it hurt. He dragged Spencer over to where the other voice had come from.
Brendon was sitting on the bed, Ryan’s head cradled in his lap, petting Ryan’s hair slowly. Spencer felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach when he saw the way Ryan looked.
Between when Spencer had seen him last, and that moment, someone had taken all of their frustrations out on Ryan. One eye was swollen shut, there were bruises all over his face. If his face looked like that, Spencer wasn’t sure that he wanted to see the rest of him.
Spencer walked over and sat down on the floor beside the bed, sliding his hand underneath the edge of the blanket and taking hold of Ryan’s hand. His eye fluttered open and he tried to focus on Spencer’s face. Apparently, he couldn’t, and he just closed his eye again, his head moving slightly against Brendon’s leg.
“What happened to him?” Spencer asked. Ryan’s fingers flexed slightly, as though he were gripping Spencer’s hand as best he could.
“Last night, the man who…he paid for Ryan, and then he decided that he…” Brendon’s voice cracked, like he didn’t want to talk about it. Spencer looked up at him, watching his face. Brendon’s eyes never left Ryan’s face, and Spencer felt a sharp twist in his stomach. Jealousy. Why was he jealous? “He decided that it was Ryan’s fault that he’d done what he’d done, and … decided to … well, you see.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Ryan said. His voice sounded weak, and Spencer stroked his hand. “I’m not supposed to fight back.”
“You should have,” Brendon said. “It’s worth getting in trouble to not let someone do this to you.” He sounded so upset. Spencer looked up at him again. He looked like he was going to start crying. William was sitting on the edge of the table, slowly swinging long legs back and forth, his hair falling around his face.
Spencer reached out and lifted up the edge of the blanket. The bruising on Ryan’s ribs was even worse than the bruising on his face. He dropped the blanket, and looked up at Brendon.
“Have you taken him to see a doctor?” Spencer asked.
“Th-the doctor at the show said that he… he just needed to rest. That he’d be in some pain but he’d be fine in a few days,” Brendon said. He continued petting Ryan’s hair, his fingers shaking.
“But I can’t move,” Ryan said. He sighed softly. “It hurts to move. It hurts to breathe.”
“You could have broken ribs,” Spencer said quietly. “The bruises… I’m not a doctor, but… “
“He saw the doctor we’ve got,” William said. “That’s all we’ve got.”
“He needs to go see a real doctor,” Spencer said.
“How?” Brendon asked.
“I know someone,” Spencer said. “We can take him there.”
“No,” Ryan whimpered. “No, please. Please don’t make me move. It hurts to breathe, Spencer, I can’t move. Please don’t make me move.”
“I can try and get him to come here,” Spencer said quietly. “I might be able to get him to come here and see you. So that you don’t have to move.”
“Thank you,” Ryan said. He tried squeezing Spencer’s hand again, and Spencer got to his feet.
“I’ll be back,” Spencer said. “If I can’t talk him into coming here, then I’ll figure out a way to get you to him, okay? I promise.”
Ryan nodded. “Thank you,” Brendon said. Spencer nodded to both of them, and William followed him out.
“Hurry, okay?” William said. Spencer looked at him for a moment. He looked tired and nervous.
“I’ll do my best,” Spencer said, and hurried off down the sidewalk.
***
go to part 2.
Brendon/Ryan, Spencer/Ryan, Brendon/Spencer ( Panic! At The Disco )
NC-17
For the wtf27 prompt #15: “Hookers. At least one of the characters sells sex for money”. I apologize profusely for character death. It’s the Moulin Rouge AU. What did you expect? Beta by _safi, who was careful to make it more French for me. Apologies for the name. I’m not THAT creative.
They’d spent two months going to and from classes without really seeing any of the city. They’d been in a haze of class-work, and as October began to draw to a close, a small group of boys decided that it was high time they got out and did something. Something besides class-work.
They’d all heard about a revue in Montmartre, had been hearing about it since they’d first arrived at the university, and they’d finally worked up the courage to go. It wasn’t like going to a play or to the opera, they’d heard, since at the end of the night the dancers were auctioned off for the night to the highest bidder. None of them really believed that that actually happened.
They crowded around a table near the edge of the dance floor and near the edge of the stage. They were laughing and nudging each other, sharing bottles of wine and waiting for the show to start.
Spencer sat on the outside edge of the table, the seat facing the most toward the stage. They had been drinking for quite a while, most of the walk over there in fact, and Spencer was half-drunk by the time they sank into their seats. By the time the house lights went down and the stage lights went up, they were all having such a good time that it didn’t really matter what went on in the show.
The music exploded and there were suddenly people crowded onto the stage, girls in bright costumes with feathers in their hair, boys in dark pants and bright shirts with their faces painted. They spun each other and pushed each other and tumbled around the dance floor in an explosion of motion and colour and Spencer was far, far too drunk for this. They moved at what seemed to be a dizzying pace, making Spencer’s head spin.
It seemed like it was all over too fast, and the stage lights changed, a spotlight illuminating a dark haired dark skinned man who could only have been a gypsy in a past life ( or a couple of years before, as the case actually was ). A pretty dark haired girl walked out to stand in the spotlight beside him, the bare skin that showed around her costume glistening with sweat and glitter. Her makeup had run slightly but Spencer could clearly see that she was gorgeous.
“Who wants to take Alicia home with him tonight?” the gypsy asked, and the girl tossed her hair, laughing as the crowd roared. Men crowded toward the stage, and Alicia walked back and forth, her hips swaying as she moved from one side of the stage to the other. It took Spencer nearly a whole minute to realize that the men were yelling out prices, as though they were at an auction.
They really did auction off the dancers to the highest bidder. A man was chosen and helped onto the stage, pressing a wad of bills into the gypsy’s hand, before wrapping his arm around the dancer’s - Alicia’s - waist and walking off the stage with her. Spencer looked at his friends; at the way their eyes went wide. Clearly they hadn’t believed that the dancers would actually be auctioned off at the end of the evening, either.
Spencer was almost completely scandalized to realize that he was in a place where the women were being auctioned off like whores. It was another twenty minutes before he realized that it wasn’t just the women. It was the girls that had been spun around the dance floor, and the boys who had been doing the spinning.
Two boys ran out onstage and spun each other around the gypsy, who laughed. They stopped on either side of him and he put his arm around one of them with his free hand. The boy he wrapped his arm around had dark hair and dark eyes ( they both did, actually ), full lips and eyeliner laid thick around his eyes. If Spencer was going to buy one of the whores ( not that Spencer would ever, ever think of a thing like that, and especially not about a boy ), he might have bought this one.
“Who wants to spend one. Spectacular. Night. With-“
“Spencer!” one of his friends bellowed into his ear, loud enough that he didn’t quite catch the boy’s name. “We have to leave!”
Spencer looked over his shoulder as the dark haired boy was carried offstage by the man who’d bought him for the night, and the gypsy wrapped his arm around the other boy. Then the sound was dampened as the doors swung shut behind them.
***
Spencer couldn’t resist going back to Montmartre. He managed to hold off on it until the next weekend, before heading into that part of the city again, this time in the daylight. He wandered in and out of the dingy little stores, feeling overdressed and like everyone was staring at him ( maybe they were, maybe they weren’t ). Eventually, he ducked into a café for a drink, and his heart leapt into his throat.
The boy from the revue was there, sitting at a tiny table, a cup of coffee on the table in front of him. Spencer stared for a moment. He couldn’t stop himself from walking over and talking to the boy.
“Hello,” Spencer said, standing beside the table that the boy shared with another boy. “I couldn’t help noticing - I was in Montmartre last weekend - I saw you in one of the shows, and -“
“You must be mistaken,” the boy said, looking at Spencer as though he’d gone completely mad.
“No,” Spencer said. “I remember you.”
“That’s not possible,” the boy said. The boy across the table hid behind his coffee cup, and Spencer was pretty sure that he was laughing, judging by the look in his eyes. That was all Spencer could see of him, with the cup raised in front of his face and a battered grey cap pulled low over his hair. He also had dark eyes, and Spencer was sure that this was the boy who had danced onstage with the first one.
“But -“ Spencer began. The boy cut him off.
“You’re mistaken,” the boy told him. “I’ve never been in a show in my life.”
Spencer stood there awkwardly for a moment, looking at them. He took a deep breath, worked up his courage, and then - “May I join you?” he asked them.
The second boy lowered his cup. He looked younger than the first, and his eyes were wide and innocent, but his lips twisted in a way that no boy whose mouth was that beautiful should have moved. The smile he gave Spencer was cold.
“No,” he said, and stood up. The other boy stood as well, and they walked out of the café.
Spencer felt like an ass. He sighed and followed them out of the café, keeping his distance as they walked down the sidewalk. They slowed as they passed a tiny boulangerie, and the second boy reached out and unlocked the door that led up to the upper level of the building.
Spencer continued on down the sidewalk, making his way back to the school.
***
It took another week for Spencer to work up the courage to go back to Montmartre. It was late afternoon by the time he walked past the door that lead to the upstairs of the boulangerie, and into the boulangerie itself, holding his coat closed tightly around him. It was late in the day, and the boulangerie wasn’t busy. Spencer purchased pastry and sat at one of the small tables beside the windows, trying to ignore the proprietor of the store suspiciously staring holes through the back of his head.
He shivered as the door pushed open and he turned, placing the last bite of the pastry into his mouth - and his heart stopped. The second boy from the café had come in, followed by a tall, thin boy with long hair. Neither was quite dressed for the weather, and the boy from the café was wearing the same cap as the day before. He looked so young that Spencer couldn’t imagine he was possibly a whore like the other boy.
“Joseph,” The boy said brightly, walking up to the counter and the proprietor - Joseph, apparently - frowned at him. He leaned on the counter with the longhaired boy standing just behind him.
“I hope whatever you’re about to ask me involves exchange of money today, Ryan,” Joseph said dryly. The boy from the café - Ryan, Spencer was pleased to think, because now he had a name to call the boy he hadn’t been able to get out of his head since that day the week before - looked sad, and the boy with long hair touched his back gently.
“Well,” Ryan said quietly, “the thing is, all our money went to rent this week.”
“Brendon bought bread yesterday,” Joseph pointed out.
“Brendon had money yesterday,” the boy with the long hair said, reaching up and tucking his hair behind his ear. Spencer recognized him from the show, the first boy they’d sold off, but couldn’t remember his name. “But that was it.”
“And he doesn’t now?” Joseph asked, looking at them. Ryan shook his head.
“We’re not. Um.” Ryan’s voice dropped low so that Spencer had to strain to hear what he was saying. “We haven’t been doing well, Joseph. Just. Please. Make a bill, and we’ll pay you back when we can. I will. I promise you.”
“Not this time, Ryan,” Joseph said. “I can’t keep giving you boys food. And I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”
Ryan nodded and turned around. The other boy followed him out of the shop, and Spencer could see that they went back up the stairs to the flat. Spencer stood and went to the counter.
“Sorry about that, sir,” Joseph said, and the smile on his face was fake, but it was there. “They live near here, and sometimes come begging for food. I suspect that it’s because my wife gives them bread if I’m not here. Is there anything else that you’d like?”
“Two baguettes,” Spencer said. Joseph looked at him in surprise.
“Their owner isn’t going to let them starve, you know,” Joseph said as he got the loaves for Spencer and took his money. “I wouldn’t worry about them, anyway.”
“I’m not,” Spencer lied, and walked out of the shop. He stopped in front of the door and knocked hard, hoping that one of them would hear him and answer the door.
Fortunately, someone did, and Ryan pulled open the door. Spencer watched his eyes go wide when he saw Spencer standing there. He started to close the door, but stopped.
“What do you want,” Ryan asked. Spencer held out the loaves of bread. Ryan looked at him.
Spencer watched the look on Ryan’s face change. Watched the frown soften, then get harder, like he was fighting with himself over this. Like he wanted to take the bread, but didn’t. It seemed like it was a matter of pride. Spencer wondered how much pride someone who sold his body for money could have.
“I don’t. We don’t need charity,” Ryan said, and Spencer realized that it was pride that kept him from taking the bread.
“It’s not charity,” Spencer said, then realized it wasn’t true. “Okay, it is, maybe, but I want to do this. I don’t feel sorry for you. I just want to help you.”
“I don’t need help,” Ryan said.
“Then take it for your friend,” Spencer said. He never stopped holding out the loaves. Ryan looked at him for a moment, then reached out and took them.
“Thank you,” Ryan said quietly, and let the door swing closed as he hurried up the stairs.
Spencer couldn’t help but smile as he turned and walked away.
***
“Who was it,” William asked as Ryan opened the door and walked back into the flat. He looked up and was startled to see Ryan carrying two loaves of bread. “Where’d that come from?”
“A boy,” Ryan said. “The one from the café. The one that talked to Brendon.” Ryan walked over and handed William one of the loaves of bread, and took the other one back to the bed where Brendon was sitting.
“Is he following us or something?” Brendon asked, frowning as he took the bread from Ryan. Ryan sank down on the bed beside him with a shrug, watching William tear the other loaf in half and put one half down on the table for Michael when he returned.
“I don’t know,” Ryan said, shrugging as he slipped off his shoes and tucked his feet underneath the blankets, leaning against the wall. Brendon tore the bread in half and offered one end to Ryan, who shook his head. “I’m not hungry,” he said. Brendon knew that it was a lie, but he didn’t press it. He got up and put the other half away before coming back and sitting down with Ryan.
“Does he not know that he’s not supposed to do what he’s doing?” William asked, walking over to the bed and sitting cross-legged beside Brendon.
“I guess not,” Brendon said. “But he keeps coming back.”
“Maybe he’ll buy you at the show,” Ryan said. “He looks like he has money. And he obviously does if he buys things for people he doesn’t even know.”
“Maybe,” Brendon said. “Are you sure you’re not hungry?”
“Yes,” Ryan said.
Brendon wished that he wouldn’t lie. He was sure that Ryan probably turned down the bread if the boy had offered it to just him. The kid must have told Ryan to give it to them - Brendon knew that would be the only reason Ryan would have taken it.
Brendon also wished that Ryan wouldn’t be so fucking stubborn sometimes.
***
The bidding was going higher and higher and Ryan couldn’t stop smiling as Pete picked called out the highest numbers he heard being yelled. At least Ryan wouldn’t have to worry about eating for the next few days, not after this.
The only downside was really that one of the men - the one he could really see bidding on him, standing at the front of the crowd looking at him, almost salivating at the thought of spending the night with Ryan. It was scary, and Ryan hoped that the person pushing up the price - the one he couldn’t see - won, and that it would be someone who looked much, much safer than the man eyeing him.
The price went higher and everyone got louder, and Ryan’s heart stopped as Pete yelled out the final price and a young man from the back pushed his way toward the front, the wad of bills in his hand. Ryan’s eyes went wide as he realized who it was.
The boy from the café, who’d bought the bread for them from the boulangerie.
***
“Wait,” Spencer said, stopping Ryan from taking off his shirt and tossing it onto a chair against the wall. “Wait,” he repeated. Ryan turned toward him, waiting.
“What am I waiting for,” Ryan asked. He didn’t really mean to be mouthy, but he was pretty sure no one had ever told him to wait to take his clothes off after buying him for the night.
“I didn’t buy you for this,” Spencer said. “I just want to talk to you.”
Ryan laughed. “Okay,” he said, and continued pulling his shirt off.
“I mean it,” Spencer said. “Your name is Ryan, right? That’s what the gypsy called you.”
“Peter,” Ryan said. “His name is Peter. And yes, my name is Ryan.”
“Mine’s Spencer, and I didn’t buy you for the night to have sex with me,” Spencer said. Ryan’s eyes went wide and he froze. “I really do want to talk to you.”
“Why?” Ryan asked, completely confused. Never, ever had someone paid that amount of money for him and not immediately wanted him to take his clothes off.
“I don’t think I have a reason,” Spencer said honestly. Truthfully, the reason might have been the way Ryan looked, so young to be so tired and sad. “But it shouldn’t make a difference. Wouldn’t you be grateful for the break?”
That had been the right thing to say, because Ryan’s eyes lit up. “Yes,” he breathed, tugging his shirt back into place. Spencer smiled at how eager he seemed. He couldn’t imagine what it must be like to come up here night after night and take his clothes off to do whatever someone demanded of him.
“Come with me,” Spencer said, and opened the door. Ryan was startled.
“I really shouldn’t,” Ryan said. He never, ever left with his johns. He’d heard stories about boys who had left with their johns and hadn’t ever come back. They were warned never, ever to leave with one of them.
“I’ve a hotel room,” Spencer said. “Much more… comfortable than this room. I swear to you that I really only want to talk to you. My word on that.”
Ryan looked at him for a long time. Spencer didn’t seem like he was particularly threatening, or like he really wanted to hurt Ryan, so finally, he nodded.
“Okay,” he said, and they left the room, passing down the hallway, able to hear the moans and cries of the other whores as they walked out. To Ryan, it almost felt like a kind of freedom, walking away from all of this.
***
Spencer’s hotel room was possibly one of the nicest places Ryan had ever been - no. It was the nicest place Ryan had ever been. He’d been in an orphanage as long as he could remember, until he’d run away when he was fourteen, and that certainly hadn’t been nice. Living on the street hadn’t been nice, and the flat that he shared with the other three boys wasn’t nice. It was mostly cold and a little crowded, unless it was summertime, and then it was too hot and far too crowded. But this room, this was nice.
“You’re welcome to use the bath, if you like,” Spencer said. “And I can get you something to eat, if you like.” Because if he was correct, Ryan wouldn’t have touched the bread that Spencer had given him earlier in the day.
“You don’t have to do all of this,” Ryan said, looking at Spencer. He felt awkward and uncomfortable. He felt out of place.
“I want to,” Spencer said. “Besides, I bought you for the night. Should you really be turning down what I want to do?”
Ryan just looked at Spencer for a moment. “Clever,” he said. Spencer smiled at him, and after a moment, Ryan smiled back. Spencer felt like he’d won a major battle, just getting the other boy to smile.
“Sit down, make yourself comfortable,” Spencer said, and even then, he saw Ryan hesitate, as though he didn’t know what to do, before moving and sitting down on the edge of the bed. Spencer watched him for a moment, his dark hair falling into his eyes and his stage makeup still on his face. He didn’t look at all like he should be sitting on the edge of that bed.
“Thank you,” Ryan said quietly, not looking at Spencer. Spencer made his way over and sat down closer to the head of the bed, looking at Ryan’s back and shoulders. The other boy didn’t turn.
“You’re welcome,” Spencer said just as quietly. “Do you want something to eat? You’re still welcome to bathe, if you want.”
That caused Ryan to turn to him with eyes wide. Spencer realized that Ryan had probably never lived anywhere with indoor plumbing like the hotel had. “Honestly?” Ryan asked, and Spencer watched him try not to look excited by the idea.
“Of course,” Spencer said. Ryan stood up off the edge of the bed and made his way slowly across the room. “Did you have anything in particular that you’d like to eat? Things that you don’t?”
“No,” Ryan said, standing near the window, looking out. The view from the window was far better than anything he’d ever seen.
“Then if you’d like to, ah, clean up, I’ll get us something to eat,” Spencer said. Ryan nodded and disappeared into the bathroom.
He stared at himself in the mirror for a long, long moment. He just felt so out of place. Whores weren’t supposed to be in places like this, and that was all Ryan was. Just a whore that Spencer had picked up in Montmartre. Nothing special, standing there in his frayed stage clothes, worn from wear, stage makeup smeared all over his face, streaked from sweat in a few places and smeared by his own fingers in others.
It just seemed so overwhelming. He sank down onto the edge of the bathtub, gripping it hard. He wished that Spencer had just paid for him and fucked him like every other john who paid for a night with him. He didn’t want to taste this then go back to the tiny, dirty flat that he shared with Brendon and Michael and William. He didn’t want to have someone who just wanted to talk to him for a night and then go back to getting abused almost every night.
He sat there for a moment in silence, listening for Spencer in the other room. He didn’t hear the other boy, then leaned down and plugged up the drain, starting the water. He just watched it run into the tub for a moment before standing.
***
Spencer was waiting for him with the food when Ryan came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He was skittish and scared about being around someone who supposedly just wanted to talk, but deep down, he was just a whore, and had no problem baring his body in front of someone who had actually paid for him for the night. Spencer just raised an eyebrow at him.
“I wondered if you had perhaps drowned,” Spencer said dryly, and was rewarded with a smile from Ryan.
“No, it’s just that that’s the first time I’ve-“ He broke off, his eyes getting wide. How was he supposed to say that that was the first time he’d ever actually taken a bath with running water? “I’m clean, anyway,” Ryan said, and walked over.
“And naked,” Spencer said, too warm inside his shirt collar.
“No,” Ryan said. “I am not. I am wearing a towel.”
“Right,” Spencer said, feeling a little warmer as Ryan made his way over and sat on the bed with him. At least he had the grace to keep everything important covered, even as he moved. Spencer wondered if that was just Ryan, of if he’d been trained to be that little bit more of a tease. He pushed the tray of food between them.
Ryan stared at it, and Spencer couldn’t quite read his face. It wasn’t neatly arranged or anything like it would have been if actual hotel staff had brought it up. Spencer had walked down and grabbed whatever he thought that Ryan might like, and brought it back up to the room. He wished that he could understand the look on the boy’s face as he looked at the food.
Ryan reached out and picked up a peach from the tray, holding it up. “Is this a peach?” he asked Spencer. He’d only ever seen pictures on tins, and certainly never seen the real thing. Spencer nodded and Ryan brought it to his mouth, taking a bite. Spencer almost laughed at the tiny noise of pleasure that Ryan made, but stifled it immediately, thinking that Ryan would probably get upset at Spencer laughing at him. Spencer reached out and picked up a handful of cherries, putting one into his mouth and chewing slowly as he watched Ryan.
He couldn’t take his eyes off of Ryan. The other boy wasn’t paying any attention to him at all, completely caught up in eating the peach. Spencer’s eyes travelled over him.
He looked so much younger out of makeup, out of his stage clothes, and much closer to Spencer in age than Spencer had initially thought. He was too pale and too thin and Spencer could see a ring of faded fingerprint-shaped bruises around Ryan’s upper arm and one almost gone across his side, just above his hipbone, like he’d done something someone hadn’t liked and they’d punished him for it.
“Do you like your job?” Spencer blurted out without thinking, and Ryan looked up at him. The look on his face was far older than his features. He took a long moment to answer, still chewing.
“It is my job,” Ryan said, and his voice was almost hollow, dead. It tore at Spencer’s heart. He could see the fading bruises, and hell, he could even see scars. He couldn’t imagine that anyone would like doing the job that Ryan had. Ryan was quiet for a moment, taking another bite of the peach, and Spencer was afraid to say anything else, lest it be something equally stupid. “I like performing,” Ryan said after a long moment. He didn’t have to tell Spencer that it was being sold for sex afterward that he didn’t like.
“You could do something else,” Spencer suggested. Ryan smiled slightly, and gave a tiny, bitter snort of a laugh.
“No,” Ryan said. Spencer was almost shocked by such a prompt answer. “What else would I do?”
“I’m sure there are other things,” Spencer said.
“Gentlemen do not hire uneducated whores,” Ryan said, and Spencer wondered if he’d done something completely wrong, by the way Ryan refused to meet his eyes after that. “And that is all that I am.”
“Surely not,” Spencer said. His hands were shaking, and he was almost angry at hearing this boy talk himself down in such a way.
“Mm,” Ryan said, and it was the only thing that he offered after that. They ate for a long while in silence, because Spencer no longer knew what to say, and Ryan wasn’t offering anything. One thing that didn’t surprise Spencer in the slightest was the amount of food that Ryan was able to eat. It seemed to Spencer like he didn’t expect to get much for a while, and was taking what he could get when he could get it.
Spencer wondered if he could buy Ryan from the cabaret, and keep him, find him work doing something that wasn’t selling his body night after night.
“I have to leave soon,” Ryan said after a while. Spencer was surprised. If he were in Ryan’s position, the last thing that he’d want to do would be leave and go home. If he were even able to call it home.
“You’re welcome to stay here tonight,” Spencer said, watching as Ryan started to get up. Ryan just shook his head.
“Brendon worries when I don’t come back to the flat,” Ryan said. There had been more than a few times where he’d been too exhausted to even drag himself home, and in the morning when he’d finally dragged in he’d received lectures about how he’d scared Brendon to death and not to ever do it again. “I have to go.”
“I’ll tell him,” Spencer said. “If you’ll stay with me tonight, I’ll walk down there right now and tell him where you are and that you’re fine.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Ryan protested, but Spencer shook his head.
“I want to,” Spencer said, and with that, he got off the bed and picked up the tray, moving it and putting it down on the table. He stood at the end of the bed and looked down at Ryan sitting there. “Please stay.”
“Okay,” Ryan said after a long moment. Spencer smiled at him and went to pick his coat up.
“I won’t be long,” Spencer said, and Ryan nodded. Spencer pulled his coat on and walked out the door, leaving Ryan sitting in the middle of the enormous bed, all alone in Spencer’s fancy hotel room.
***
Brendon was not pleased that Ryan was spending the night in another part of town with someone who’d paid to fuck him, even if that had never been Spencer’s intention. Brendon disliked Spencer, from the first moment he’d come up to them in the boulangerie and asked Brendon if he was the boy from the show.
“If you hurt him in any way, I swear to God I will hunt you down and kill you with my bare hands,” Brendon snapped. His eyes were dark and angry and his voice was hoarse. Spencer could see fingerprint-shaped bruises on Brendon’s neck and had a pretty good idea of how they got there. They reminded him of the bruises on Ryan’s arm, the one on his ribs, and Spencer wondered if all of the dancers had bruises and scars like Ryan’s.
“I don’t want to hurt him,” Spencer said. “I’m not that sort of person.”
“There are more ways to hurt someone than physically,” Brendon said, and Spencer was a little surprised. Brendon was apparently smarter than Spencer was giving him credit for. Spencer realized that he had been thinking that the other boy would be less intelligent because he was a whore, but apparently that wasn’t actually the case. Brendon had been educated somewhere the same as Spencer had, Spencer realized, when he finally listened to the way Brendon spoke.
“I’m not going to hurt him,” Spencer said. He really hadn’t ever intended to hurt Ryan, physically or in any other way. The thought had never even crossed his mind. “He didn’t want you to worry about him, so I came to tell you where he was.” And with that, Spencer walked back down the stairs, leaving Brendon standing in the doorway, watching him walk away.
***
Spencer had expected Ryan to be asleep when he arrived back at the hotel room over an hour later. But Ryan wasn’t. He was curled underneath the blankets and Spencer could see that his eyes were open in the moonlight coming in through the curtains.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Spencer asked as he shed his coat onto a chair and unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt, looking at Ryan lying there.
“The bed’s empty,” Ryan said, and to Spencer, that didn’t make any sense.
“Of course it is,” Spencer said. He watched as Ryan smiled slightly, pushing himself up, and Spencer walked over, untucking his shirt, intending to make his way over to sleep on the sofa.
“You don’t understand,” Ryan said, pulling the blanket back up around him, and Spencer wondered if he was actually cold, or just didn’t want Spencer to see anything. “I don’t ever sleep alone,” Ryan explained. “I live with three other people, and we just all sleep in one place.” He couldn’t explain it. It was in part because the flat really wasn’t big enough to accommodate four people, let alone four beds, and part because none of them wanted to be alone.
“You can still go back,” Spencer said. Ryan shook his head.
“I told you that I’d stay here,” Ryan said. “But I can’t sleep alone.”
It took Spencer a moment to realize what Ryan was asking, and when he did, his eyes went wide. Ryan was surprised to realize that Spencer really had never had any intention of sleeping with him when he’d paid for him at the cabaret that night. Spencer walked to the edge of the bed, suddenly nervous.
“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to,” Ryan said, and his tone was teasing, and Spencer could imagine that he used the very same tone on other men who had bought him, men who were still unsure about sleeping with another man.
Spencer slid off his shoes and climbed onto the edge of the bed. “We’re just sleeping. I am sleeping here so that you’re not alone,” Spencer said.
“You sound like you’re trying to talk yourself out of something,” Ryan said, and God, Spencer hated that teasing tone of voice. He was most certainly not trying to talk himself out of anything. He climbed into the bed, still wearing his shirt and pants, and was suddenly acutely aware that Ryan had apparently just shed the towel and climbed underneath the sheets. Spencer climbed underneath the blankets and lay next to Ryan, but didn’t touch him. Ryan lay there looking at him for a long moment before turning onto his other side and closing his eyes. Maybe Spencer’s weight on the mattress beside him would be enough.
“Why did you start doing this?” Spencer asked after a while. He was shaking, terrified to be sharing the bed with a pretty, naked boy who he’d paid to be there. It felt dirty, but at the same time, he wasn’t doing anything. Ryan turned over onto his back and tipped his head so that he was looking at Spencer.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Ryan said. “I could sell my body or I could starve. I’m scared of dying, and my body doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“Oh,” Spencer said, surprised. “But you weren’t born in France. You speak French, but you don’t have a French name.” Spencer said nothing about the particular way Ryan spoke French. Unlike Brendon, Ryan had obviously not learned to speak French in a school.
“No,” Ryan said. “I don’t. My family wasn’t French.” Spencer couldn’t help noticing the past tense, but he said nothing.
“Then why do you speak it?” Spencer asked.
“Because they didn’t speak or teach anything else in the orphanage,” Ryan said, turning his head back, staring up at the ceiling. Spencer’s stomach twisted. There was the reason Ryan had ended up dancing in Montmartre, why he’d ended up a whore.
“Is that how you ended up in Montmartre?” Spencer asked quietly, watching Ryan. “When they let you out of the orphanage you went there?”
“No,” Ryan said, and followed it with a bitter little laugh. “I wish I’d only been doing this for such a short time. I ran away when I was fourteen.”
“How old are you now?” Spencer asked, even though he was almost positive that Ryan was nearly the same age he was, maybe younger.
“Twenty,” Ryan said. He was lucky to even have survived that long. Twelve years in an orphanage, and almost six as a whore.
“Was Brendon in the orphanage with you? Or did you meet him in Montmartre?” Spencer asked. He was almost sure that it had to be the latter. No one who spoke educated French the way Brendon did could have grown up in an orphanage the way Ryan had. Spencer almost would have bet that Brendon spoke English just as fluently as he spoke French.
“We joined the chorus at about the same time,” Ryan said, and turned and looked at Spencer again. “Why do you want to know?”
“I was curious,” Spencer said. “Because of the way he speaks. I couldn’t imagine that he would have grown up in an orphanage as well.”
“No, he…he had different circumstances,” Ryan said, turning back onto his opposite side, putting his back to Spencer. He didn’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t any of Spencer’s business, besides.
“He’s very protective of you,” Spencer said quietly, looking at Ryan’s back. He could just make out a scar on Ryan’s shoulder blade, running across the skin and disappearing beneath the blankets.
“You’d be protective of the only person you trusted not to hurt or betray you,” Ryan said quietly. He didn’t turn back to look at Spencer. Spencer wondered if Ryan would have been as protective of Brendon if their situations were reversed.
“I suppose so,” Spencer said quietly. He reached out, and touched Ryan’s back, running his fingers down the scar. He felt Ryan shudder underneath his fingertips as he followed the scar all the way down to the middle of Ryan’s back. “How did you get that? At the orphanage?”
“At the cabaret,” Ryan said. His body was tensed, like he was preparing himself for anything that Spencer might do to him, and Spencer thought that might really be the case. “Sometimes our customers aren’t as comfortable with what they’re doing as they think they are.”
“How so,” Spencer asked. He didn’t quite understand. Why would anyone pay that amount of money and not be comfortable with what they were doing, his own feelings aside.
“They’re married men who have paid to fuck some rent boy for the night, Spencer, why do you think?” Ryan asked. He almost sounded angry. “So they think that hurting us will make us keep quiet. They don’t know that the only people who ever hear about what we’ve done are other whores and that hurting us makes us tell more people than just fucking us would.”
“And one of them gave you this?” Spencer said, trailing his finger back up the scar. He didn’t realize that Ryan was shaking when he did it, didn’t have enough experience to realize that it actually turned Ryan on to have Spencer’s finger move along the scar that way.
“Yes,” Ryan said. “Would you please stop doing that?” Spencer pulled his hand away, a little startled.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize that I was doing something wrong,” Spencer said quietly, and Ryan almost laughed.
“Just. Don’t touch me like that if you don’t want what you paid for,” Ryan said equally quietly.
“What did I pay for, exactly?” Spencer asked.
“Spencer, I’m not saying this to offend you, but… you’ve never. Actually been with a man before, have you?” Ryan asked, turning back onto his side and looking at Spencer, his hair falling across his eyes. Spencer had the urge to reach out and brush it away, but Ryan got to it before he did. Spencer was just grateful for the darkness, so that Ryan couldn’t see how badly he was blushing. “Women, of course, but never someone like me.”
“I…no, I haven’t,” Spencer admitted. Ryan just smiled and lay back down.
“Go to sleep, Spencer,” he said, and didn’t say anything else.
***
Spencer woke to the startling sensation of someone pressed against him. It was still dark out when he opened his eyes and looked around. Ryan was asleep, snuggled up to him with his face buried in Spencer’s shirt. Spencer’s heart started to race. Ryan was touching him, pressed against him, his breath warm on the bare skin where Spencer’s shirt gaped open.
Spencer was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that Ryan was naked, pressed against him.
Spencer must have moved in some slight way, because Ryan sighed softly, raising his arm and pulling Spencer closer, pressing them together, pressing his lips against the small bit of skin exposed on Spencer’s chest. “Why are you wearing clothes?” he asked without opening his eyes. “You never wear clothes to-“ His eyes opened suddenly and he looked at Spencer like he was realizing something, and then jerked away. “Sorry,” he said, and looked away from Spencer. “So sorry.”
“I never wear clothes to where?” Spencer asked, looking at Ryan. Ryan shook his head.
“Not. Not you,” Ryan said. “I. You’re not who I thought you were.”
“Who else would I be?” Spencer asked, confused. Ryan shook his head again, and got up off the bed.
“I should go,” he said, and - oh God, Spencer thought, watching him walk across the room toward where he’d left his clothes in the bathroom - went to get dressed.
“You don’t have to leave,” Spencer said. Ryan didn’t answer, and returned from the bathroom a few minutes later, dressed in the costume he’d worn in the last number of the show the night before. It looked so different in the daylight, more tattered and frayed than Spencer had realized. But it hid the bruises and the scars on Ryan’s too-thin body.
“I have to go home,” Ryan said after a moment.
“At least have breakfast with me,” Spencer said. He saw Ryan hesitate at the idea of food. Spencer could imagine if he’d been in a boulangerie begging for food the day before, he’d be interested in the prospect of a free meal as well.
“I don’t want to take anything else from you,” Ryan said, not looking at Spencer. Spencer wished that the other boy could just give up his pride for just a little while. “You’ve already done enough. Last night, the bread yesterday…”
“I want to do this,” Spencer said, and he would just keep insisting until Ryan let him do this. “If you’ll at least let me buy you breakfast, then you can take it back to your flat.” It had worked with the bread, so maybe it would work with the breakfast. The other boys Ryan lived with didn’t seem to have the same issue with pride as Ryan did.
“Fine,” Ryan said. He wouldn’t have to keep taking Spencer’s charity. The other guys wouldn’t mind it, though. He knew that much. He waited, sitting on the edge of the bed while Spencer dressed.
Ryan stayed mostly quiet as they picked up the food. People were watching him, like he was going to start stealing things or causing problems because he looked dirty and out of place compared to everyone else. Spencer ignored them, and Ryan tried to keep his head down. He was still quiet as they walked back to Montmartre, and Ryan’s flat.
They stopped in front of the door, and for a moment, Spencer thought that Ryan might actually let him in, but Ryan stopped without opening the door.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “For everything.”
“You’re welcome,” Spencer said. Ryan started to open the door. “Ryan.”
Ryan turned around and looked at Spencer, wondering what he could possibly want. He had a strange sort of look on his face.
“I…” Spencer began. He didn’t really know how to say what he was about to ask. “I’ve never kissed a man. Ever. And I… I sort of hoped that I’d get the chance to…”
“I don’t kiss anyone who pays for me,” Ryan said quietly. Spencer was a little startled.
“Then who do you kiss?” Spencer asked, watching as Ryan reached out to unlock the door and let himself inside.
“No one,” Ryan said. “Thank you for breakfast.”
With that, he walked into the stairwell and closed the door behind him, leaving Spencer standing stunned and somewhat hurt on the sidewalk.
***
“He really likes you,” Brendon said. He was sitting on the edge of a makeup counter, watching as Gerard carefully painted Ryan’s face. He knew that Ryan couldn’t exactly talk back. He also knew that Ryan would try. Ryan opened his mouth to say something.
“Close,” Gerard ordered. Ryan’s mouth snapped shut and he narrowed his eyes at Brendon, who was grinning at him.
Once Gerard was through, Ryan motioned for Brendon to come with him. “Where are we going?” Brendon asked as they walked out of the dressing room.
“To find Pete,” Ryan said. “So that I can keep Spencer from buying me again.”
“Why?” Brendon asked.
“Because he likes me too much. Because he wants to… I’ve never had someone who paid me for my company to ask me for a kiss before,” Ryan said. “What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” Brendon said, shrugging. “Kiss him?” Ryan hit him in the arm. Hard. Brendon shoved him and he flung his arm out to catch himself on the wall, not wanting to fall down. He almost crashed into one of the dancers, causing her to yelp. He kissed her on the cheek and continued walking.
“I can’t just kiss him,” Ryan said.
“Why not?” Brendon asked. “He paid for you. Plus, he’s nice. He buys us food.”
“I just can’t,” Ryan said. They started down the stairs and into the area underneath the stage.
Pete was in the dark area underneath the stairs with William pushed up against the wall. Ryan cleared his throat loudly and Pete waved them off.
“Gerard’s going to be pissed off if you fuck up all his hard work,” Brendon said, leaning against a support beam. Pete turned around and smiled at him, and William ran his fingers through his hair and moved out from underneath the stairs, hurrying up. Brendon leaned out and watched him go, before turning back to Pete.
“Pete, can I ask you a favour?” Ryan asked. Pete nodded. “You remember the … the man who bought me last night?” If Pete didn’t remember him, that was going to make things a lot harder.
“Young, handsome, pretty blue eyes?” Pete said. “I almost wished that he’d bought me.”
“I need you to keep him from buying me again,” Ryan said. He fidgeted nervously, and Brendon reached out, rubbing his hand across Ryan’s back. He couldn’t even feel the warmth of Ryan’s skin through the fabric of his vest.
“Did he do something that you didn’t like?” Pete asked, frowning.
“No, he... just…” Ryan shrugged helplessly. “I just don’t want him to buy me again. So please, Pete, don’t let him buy me again.”
He turned around and started back up the stairs, leaving Brendon and Pete standing underneath the stairs. Pete raised his eyebrows at Brendon.
“I can’t explain it,” Brendon said, and turned and hurried up the stairs after Ryan.
***
It worked for two weeks. That wasn’t to say that Spencer wasn’t at the show every night. Spencer showed up, Spencer bid, and Pete pretended not to be able to hear him. It worked well, especially when Pete sold Ryan off to someone every night that only wanted to do what they’d paid him for, not kiss him or take him to breakfast.
It worked until Spencer got wise to what was going on. It worked until Spencer brought one of his friends with him, until Spencer had one of his friends buy Ryan.
“I’m sorry,” Pete whispered to Ryan as Spencer paid and Ryan walked away with him.
Spencer didn’t speak until they got into the hallway, on the way to the rooms. “That was smart, what you did,” he said, watching Ryan’s back as he walked. Ryan pushed one of the doors open, not turning to look at Spencer. “Getting the gypsy to ignore my bids.”
Ryan walked into the room and slid his vest off, then his shirt. Spencer closed the door behind them. “His name is Peter,” Ryan said quietly. He said nothing else, but sat down on the edge of the bed, sliding his shoes off.
“Fine, getting Peter to ignore my bids,” Spencer said. He could see new bruises on Ryan’s skin, ones that weren’t there the last time he’d seen Ryan, some worse than others.
“Apparently not that smart, since you’re here,” Ryan said. He started to unbutton his pants.
“No, stop,” Spencer said. “I don’t… Please don’t…”
“Look,” Ryan said. “This is my job. This is what I do. I’m not here for you to take me out to breakfast and ask me if you can kiss me.” He slid his pants off and sat down on the bed. “I’m not here for that. I’m here for you to do to my body what you want. That’s what you paid for.”
“You have new bruises,” Spencer said. He was trying not to look at Ryan, not really.
“So?” Ryan said, looking up at him. “I always have new bruises. Would you please do whatever you wanted me for so that I can go home?”
“Are you this rude to all of your customers?” Spencer asked.
“You are the first person to ever pay for me that hasn’t immediately shoved my face into the bed,” Ryan said. He lay back on the bed, and Spencer shifted uncomfortably.
“Ryan, I didn’t. I don’t want this,” Spencer said. “Can you please. Just put your clothes back on.”
“I’m not leaving with you again tonight. So either get what you want from me here or I will get dressed. And I’ll leave,” Ryan said. Spencer looked unhappy, watching Ryan.
“I just want to help you,” Spencer said quietly.
“No, you want to kiss me,” Ryan said. “You want more than just helping me, and you’re not going to get it, so you might as well keep your money, okay?”
Spencer climbed onto the bed and stretched out beside Ryan. Ryan didn’t move, but Spencer felt him tense up. He didn’t blame Ryan, really, because if he were constantly being beaten like Ryan seemed to be, then he’d be scared that it was just going to keep happening.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Spencer whispered, and pushed himself up, moving to kiss Ryan. Ryan turned his head to keep Spencer from kissing him and Spencer’s lips landed on his jaw. “Please.”
“You can’t kiss me,” Ryan said, keeping his head turned away. Spencer kissed over his jaw, down his neck. He’d only ever kissed women, and he could feel the stubble of beard just underneath the surface of Ryan’s skin. It was different.
Ryan held completely still as Spencer’s lips moved over his skin. Careful, light kisses, the way Spencer would have treated a woman. A way Ryan had never been treated by anyone. Spencer’s fingertips trailed over dark bruises on Ryan’s ribs, fitting against fingerprint shaped bruises on Ryan’s hips.
“I wouldn’t hurt you like this,” Spencer whispered, then pulled away. Ryan turned his face back and looked at Spencer, and Spencer looked back at him for a long moment before he said anything else. “You can go ahead and get dressed, and go home.”
Ryan just looked at him for a moment, before sitting up and reaching for his pants.
“Next time… next time, don’t just come in here and take your clothes off,” Spencer said. “I buy you because otherwise you won’t talk to me. You won’t just let me talk to you. Not outside of here, you won’t even talk to me here.”
“What if I promise to talk to you,” Ryan said. “If I see you on the street.”
“Not just if you see me on the street,” Spencer said. “I want you to… go to dinner with me.”
Ryan snorted. “Of course. I hate to break it to you, but I don’t have time for dinner,” he said. They’d eat breakfast and lunch, sure, but dinner consisted of a few bites of bread shoved into their mouths as they dressed and put on makeup for the show, maybe a few more bites before they collapsed into bed at night.
“Then breakfast, or lunch,” Spencer said. He just wanted anything, anything he could do. Ryan just looked at him, holding his shirt to his chest.
“Fine,” he said quietly. “Fine.”
Spencer was quiet as Ryan finished dressing and sat down beside him to put his shoes back on. Spencer leaned over and tried to kiss him again. Ryan turned his face away again.
“Don’t,” he said quietly.
“I’ll take you for breakfast tomorrow,” Spencer said, trailing his fingers over the back of Ryan’s neck. “Late.”
“Okay,” Ryan said, and stood up, he turned and looked at Spencer for a moment, before moving and opening the door to go out into the hall. Spencer sat there, silent. At least Ryan had agreed.
***
It was cold and raining the next morning when Spencer arrived at the flat. Ryan was waiting for him in the stairwell, wrapped tightly in a ragged coat, a hat in the same condition pulled low over his hair. The scarf wound around his neck was in better condition, but the gloves he was wearing weren’t.
“You look cold,” Spencer said. Ryan shrugged.
“I’m fine,” he said, standing up. He walked down the last couple of steps just as the door swung open and a boy with dark hair came through the door.
“Sorry,” he said quietly, maneuvering around Spencer. He was carrying what was apparently a loaf of bread. “Morning, Ryan.”
“Morning, Michael,” Ryan said as he and Spencer walked out the door.
“You live with three other guys?” Spencer asked as they started down the sidewalk. “Or are there more? It seems like an awfully small flat.”
“It makes rent easier to meet,” Ryan said quietly. Spencer noticed that he was quiet about a lot of things. “You know, with the four of us.”
“You’d think that with the prices you bring, you’d make more money,” Spencer said. Ryan stopped and looked at him.
“Can we not talk about what I do?” Ryan asked him. “It’s a rule. We don’t talk about what we do in public. Like the day you walked up and started talking to Brendon because you’d seen him at the show? People don’t do that. You can’t do that.”
“Where does the money go, though? Why is it hard for you to make rent? Why don’t you have enough money for food, or for newer clothes?” Spencer asked.
Ryan took a step back. “It all goes to the show,” he explained. “For clothes and shoes and makeup and for the new kids who haven’t started to work yet.”
“The new kids?” Spencer asked.
“Everyone’s new at one point,” Ryan said. “Before you can dance in the show you have to learn how to do it. You can’t just walk out not knowing. And before you learn, you sleep in the dressing rooms, you live on what little money they’re willing to give you so that you don’t starve to death. So you just concentrate on learning as fast as you can, because no one wants to sleep in those dressing rooms for a long time.”
“Did you learn quickly?” Spencer asked. He and Ryan started walking again, continuing down the sidewalk to wherever Spencer was taking them for breakfast.
“I had to,” Ryan said. “I didn’t want to live down there any more than anyone else. Sleeping on the floor with the rats? The smell of sweat and sex? It’s not… I got out of there as fast as I could.”
“How do you get out?” Spencer asked. Ryan turned and frowned at him. Hadn’t he just said that they shouldn’t talk about this? And they shouldn’t have been, but he wanted to talk about it. He’d never talked to anyone who hadn’t been through it.
“You sell your body,” Ryan said. “That’s the only way I’ve ever seen anyone else get out.”
“You can’t work for them?” Spencer asked. “There aren’t people who do other things? Like Peter? They don’t sell him.”
“They caught him stealing,” Ryan said. “That’s what I heard, anyway. It happened a long time before I started there, and I’ve been there five years now. They caught him stealing, and he’s a good talker, so they put him to work. To pay back his debt. Michael’s brother does our makeup, but he’s good at that. For those of us who aren’t actually good at anything, you know, we sell what we’ve got.”
“You’re honestly not good at anything else?” Spencer asked.
“I’ve never been to school,” Ryan said. “What else am I supposed to be good at? All I’m good at is dancing and letting men fuck me.”
Spencer’s breath caught in his throat at Ryan’s words. He hated to hear the other boy say that about himself, especially when he knew there had to be something. He reached out and touched Ryan’s arm. The other boy didn’t even seem to notice.
“Surely there’s something else,” Spencer said quietly. Ryan shook his head.
“I sold the only thing that I had five years ago when I started working there,” Ryan said. His voice was barely more than a whisper when he said it.
“What was that?” Spencer asked. Ryan kept his head down, not looking at Spencer.
“All I had was my virginity,” Ryan said, shrugging. “The dubious honor of being the first man to fuck the new dancer. He gets all the bragging rights. And bonus points if the new boy cries. That’s a big deal. If he cries.” Spencer was looking at him, horrified, but Ryan didn’t seem to notice. “You dance in the show, and then they auction you off, and you don’t really know what’s going to happen to you, until he shoves your face down into the mattress and starts … and starts…”
“Stop,” Spencer said. “You don’t… Please don’t keep talking about it.”
Ryan looked up at Spencer then and gave him a weak smile. “Sorry, I just… it’s what happens. It happens to all of us. Me, and… and everyone. It’s kind of funny, because after they buy you the first time, your price goes down. They never pay as much for you after someone’s already had you.”
“Ryan, please,” Spencer said. He didn’t want to hear any more of it. He’d already heard all he could stand to hear.
“You wanted to know,” Ryan said, looking at him. Spencer shook his head.
“Is that why you won’t let anyone kiss you?” Spencer asked. Ryan laughed, and it was a bitter, unhappy sound. Spencer flinched when he heard it.
“No one who’s ever paid for me has wanted to,” Ryan said.
“But you have kissed people,” Spencer said.
“Of course,” Ryan said, and he almost sounded offended by the idea.
“How can you want to see other people, after what they do to you?” Spencer said. Ryan just shrugged.
“Comfort,” he said. Spencer opened his mouth to ask what that meant, but Ryan spoke before he got the chance. “Where are we going?”
“There’s a café up ahead,” Spencer said. “They have exceptional breakfast.” Ryan nodded, and was grateful that Spencer seemed to be through asking questions.
***
They went to lunch or breakfast almost every other day for nearly a month. And then one morning, Spencer showed up at the flat and Ryan wasn’t waiting on him. He’d never gone up the stairs before, never dreamt of going inside. But this day, he was surprised to not see Ryan waiting there, since they’d planned to go to breakfast.
Spencer walked up the stairs and knocked on the door. The boy with the long hair that he’d seen in the boulangerie with Ryan answered the door. His eyes were red rimmed, like he hadn’t slept or like he’d been crying.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I’m here for Ryan,” Spencer said. “If he’s ready?”
“He’s not going anywhere,” the boy said.
“Why not?” Spencer said. The boy pulled the door open completely and grabbed Spencer’s arm, pulling him inside.
“Do you want to see why not?” the boy asked.
“William, what are you doing?” came another voice.
“He wants to know why Ryan isn’t going anywhere,” William said bitterly. His fingers dug into Spencer’s arm and it hurt. He dragged Spencer over to where the other voice had come from.
Brendon was sitting on the bed, Ryan’s head cradled in his lap, petting Ryan’s hair slowly. Spencer felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach when he saw the way Ryan looked.
Between when Spencer had seen him last, and that moment, someone had taken all of their frustrations out on Ryan. One eye was swollen shut, there were bruises all over his face. If his face looked like that, Spencer wasn’t sure that he wanted to see the rest of him.
Spencer walked over and sat down on the floor beside the bed, sliding his hand underneath the edge of the blanket and taking hold of Ryan’s hand. His eye fluttered open and he tried to focus on Spencer’s face. Apparently, he couldn’t, and he just closed his eye again, his head moving slightly against Brendon’s leg.
“What happened to him?” Spencer asked. Ryan’s fingers flexed slightly, as though he were gripping Spencer’s hand as best he could.
“Last night, the man who…he paid for Ryan, and then he decided that he…” Brendon’s voice cracked, like he didn’t want to talk about it. Spencer looked up at him, watching his face. Brendon’s eyes never left Ryan’s face, and Spencer felt a sharp twist in his stomach. Jealousy. Why was he jealous? “He decided that it was Ryan’s fault that he’d done what he’d done, and … decided to … well, you see.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Ryan said. His voice sounded weak, and Spencer stroked his hand. “I’m not supposed to fight back.”
“You should have,” Brendon said. “It’s worth getting in trouble to not let someone do this to you.” He sounded so upset. Spencer looked up at him again. He looked like he was going to start crying. William was sitting on the edge of the table, slowly swinging long legs back and forth, his hair falling around his face.
Spencer reached out and lifted up the edge of the blanket. The bruising on Ryan’s ribs was even worse than the bruising on his face. He dropped the blanket, and looked up at Brendon.
“Have you taken him to see a doctor?” Spencer asked.
“Th-the doctor at the show said that he… he just needed to rest. That he’d be in some pain but he’d be fine in a few days,” Brendon said. He continued petting Ryan’s hair, his fingers shaking.
“But I can’t move,” Ryan said. He sighed softly. “It hurts to move. It hurts to breathe.”
“You could have broken ribs,” Spencer said quietly. “The bruises… I’m not a doctor, but… “
“He saw the doctor we’ve got,” William said. “That’s all we’ve got.”
“He needs to go see a real doctor,” Spencer said.
“How?” Brendon asked.
“I know someone,” Spencer said. “We can take him there.”
“No,” Ryan whimpered. “No, please. Please don’t make me move. It hurts to breathe, Spencer, I can’t move. Please don’t make me move.”
“I can try and get him to come here,” Spencer said quietly. “I might be able to get him to come here and see you. So that you don’t have to move.”
“Thank you,” Ryan said. He tried squeezing Spencer’s hand again, and Spencer got to his feet.
“I’ll be back,” Spencer said. “If I can’t talk him into coming here, then I’ll figure out a way to get you to him, okay? I promise.”
Ryan nodded. “Thank you,” Brendon said. Spencer nodded to both of them, and William followed him out.
“Hurry, okay?” William said. Spencer looked at him for a moment. He looked tired and nervous.
“I’ll do my best,” Spencer said, and hurried off down the sidewalk.
***
go to part 2.