Happy Holidays, bananahater336!
Author: asasiasa
Recipient: bananahater336
Title: Je, Tu, Nous et Vous
Characters: Kevin, Joe, Nick and Garbo.
Pairings: Kevin/Joe.
Rating: R
Wordcount: 7,155
Disclaimer: I do not own the Jonas Brothers.
A/N: A thanks goes out to my dear inthenameofjuc for beta-ing.
Summary: Kevin receives an unwelcome Christmas "gift".
The Request: Top!Kevin, slutty!Joe, tattoos (on any of them), beach scenes.
“You ready to head out?”
A soft smile rested on Nick’s lips as he leaned loosely against the doorframe, his arms soft in the comforting embrace of a hand-me-down hoodie and his hair brightly haloed in the backlight of a setting sun. Nick looked ridiculously happy, and normal, and he was about to…Kevin groaned inwardly, slumping on the bed to glare morosely at his feet, hoping they might take the blame for what he had to tell Nick and save him the guilt. “I can’t. I know it’s tradition, but….” He trailed off as he reached down to pull off Italian leather cowboy boots, curls jerking stiffly against the snug fit.
Nick’s finely arched eyebrows rose, corners dipped low with concern. “You’re not coming?” At the shameful drop of Kevin’s head, lines appeared in the sunset-airbrushed surface of his face, too old for his twenty-two years. “C’mon, Kev….” Nick faltered, hoping for some reaction other than Kevin tiredly trying to extract his other foot from a boot. “It’s Christmas Eve, man. Garbo already staked out a spot and everything.”
He stared blindly at the sock he was carefully rearranging. “I just…I can’t. I’ve got way too much to do for this next recording session.” Before any of Nick’s half-formed rebuttals could be tried, Kevin solidly fixed his attention back on his little brother, eyes dark with apology. “I can’t. I’m sorry. But go and have fun with the guys for me, alright?” Kevin held his gaze, steady and soft, before turning to the well-organized folders on the table, letting the chill of his brother’s disappointment sink into the back of his bowed neck.
“Alright, uh, I guess you can just call me up if you change your mind later? Garbo should have his on, too….” Nick raked one hand back against the grain of his curls, the other having burrowed itself deeply into a jeans pocket. “…uh, yeah.” His eyes blindly searched the pattern of the carpet for something to say, fingers kneading into his thigh. There wasn’t anything to find.
The door lock clicked as Kevin flipped to the third page of their latest booking contract, his brother’s expression gnawing at him.
_______________________________________________
Kevin was halfway through a room-service Americano and their European touring schedule revisions when his concentration was broken by a barely-audible vibration, originating from his pants pocket. He fished his Blackberry out, clicking to view the message just as another one was received. And another one. All from Garbo. They were all picture messages, so blurry that he could barely make out what they were pictures of. After a minute of close scrutiny, he still had no idea what was happening in the first picture, (though he would no doubt be getting an account of the night’s events later), but he could vaguely make out the faces of John and Nick floating in the blur. He was pretty sure it was them, anyways. The second picture was what appeared to be Garbo’s attempt at a MySpace-Bathroom-Picture. Highly attractive, really. The third was too dark to see anything at all, even after he turned up the screen brightness. Typical. As Kevin was going to turn the vibration mode off, a fourth message came in. It was from Garbo again, but this time it was a text message.
“enjoy”
Kevin looked blandly at his phone, half waiting for it to explain how it would allow itself to receive such inane messages, (even if he did save the bathroom picture), before opting to turn the Blackberry off completely. Inhaling deep, he cracked his shoulder with a satisfying pop, slowly letting the fullness in his lungs ease as he turned back to his papers. In the minute that checking his phone had taken, the pages of careful Excel charts and footnoted schedules had melted into a swirling mass of intellectual nothingness that Kevin was wont to decipher. He made a few half-hearted attempts at decoding the papers to appease himself before leaning back in his chair and reaching for the worn neck of his favorite guitar. If he was going to take a break, he might as well make it a productive one.
_______________________________________________
He was picking idly at the strings, waiting for just the right tune to emerge from the melodic fracas, when a soft knocking met his ears. Setting the guitar back in its stand, Kevin navigated his way through the modern design of the suite, musing on how long the knocking might have been going on without him hearing it. It was probably his mother, who had probably been desperately trying to call him before this, probably to discuss something amusingly unimportant. At this rate, though, talking about what time to make lunch reservations for next week was going to be more inspirational than plucking at that guitar for any longer.
Instead of being greeted by the perpetual movement of his mother, Kevin found himself face-to-face with a strange young man.
What the heck?
Kevin paused in the doorway; completely dumbstruck as to what a twenty-something, well-dressed and rather attractive man could want from him…and why he came all the way here to get it. “Can I…help you?” Kevin drew back behind the door a little, eyes slitting in a frown.
The young man’s lips quirked with a soft, almost shy, smile-a strange contrast, Kevin thought, to the mischievous twinkle in those dark amber eyes. “Hi,” Kevin twitched back, cautious of the handshake that never came. “I’ll be your escort for tonite, if you approve.”
Well, fuck.
Kevin had to resist the urge to slam the door in the guy’s face. This was not happening. This was not happening. There was not a hooker, (definitely not a male hooker, either), standing right outside his hotel room, (which was most certainly not right next to his parents’ hotel room), practically dripping of sex and scandal and sin. Kevin could feel his reputation draining out with the color in his face. “I, just…no.” His mind was racing as he gave the stranger a once-over, rapid pulse decelerating a bit as he noted the distinctly un-prostitute-like appearance. Well, that was something, anyways. Maybe if he played his cards just right, he could get out of this…whatever this was…mostly unscathed. Just take a few breaths; think things out logically. Everything would be alright. Probably not. “I’m sorry, but, this is all some big mix-up. I never requested any of your…,” Kevin grappled for the right word, “…services.”
His eyebrows knit as he chewed contemplatively on the inner corner of his lip, unfocused stare flickering across the unnaturally serene young man as he mentally waded through seas of contingency plans. Suddenly, their gazes locked, the cloud of calculations completely dispelled from Kevin’s dark eyes. “You can just leave, right? I mean, that’s easier on you, anyways, isn’t it? I have money, I can pay you for the trouble of coming here-however much you want-just, I need you gone.”
Kevin was dumbstruck as that demure little smile blossomed into an impish grin. He leaned in close to Kevin, warm cologne and hotter breath latching on to Kevin’s senses against his will. “No can do. I’m yours for another,” he plucked up Kevin’s wrist, lifting it to read the small watch hands, “nine hours and twenty-three minutes.” He let the wrist slide from his grip as he sidled in closer, canting his hips firmly against Kevin’s as his eyelashes became a flirtatious veil. Kevin was disturbingly aware of the fingertips playing at the void between his slacks and shirt, and the lightheaded thrum of blood in his neck. “So, I suggest taking advantage of the love only money can buy.”
Wait. Kevin uncomfortably squirmed his way out of the prostitute’s hold, trying his best to make as little body contact as humanely possible, and to disregard that ever-growing grin. Panting softly, he stumbled back a few steps. “You’re saying someone put you up to this?”
“Yessir,” those pearly white teeth seemed to glow in the dim light of the hallway, “’Greg’, I believe,” he offered in advance of Kevin’s next question. “Said you needed to get laid.” Kevin didn’t appreciate the lilt on the last word, or the way this guy seemed to enjoy Kevin’s growing distress. “Paid me upfront-told me not to let you out of my sight.”
Fuck you, Garbo. Fuck you.
Kevin began to slowly thump his temple on the doorframe. “Can you not and say you did and just go?” He shot a withering glance at the young man. “Whatever you want, it’s yours, so long as you leave.” Something between a moan and a wail left his throat as the hooker shook his head cheerfully. This was not happening. This was not happening.
A flash of sudden inspiration had him digging down into his pants pocket to retrieve his Blackberry, bouncing nervously as the phone slowly came to life. Its startup music was too loud and too delayed in the demure silence of the hotel hallway, making Kevin fumble clumsily through his speed-dial contacts.
He huddled the phone close to his ear, distantly aware of his feet pacing the suite.
“Hello?”
“Fuck you, Garbo.”
Kevin’s ears flamed at the rich laughter on the other end of the line. “I see your Christmas present arrived. Feel free to open it early, if you know what I mean.”
He slowed his rapid pace, conserving energy for his plea. “Seriously, can you please-,” his attention was suddenly drawn to the hooker sitting cross-legged on his bed, drinking a bottle of twenty-dollar minibar juice. “Get off there!,” he hissed quickly, hand slapped over the phone’s mic. “-Can you please just call him off, or something? Get him out of here so our careers aren’t ruined?”
“Sorry, dude. It’s for your own good. Have fun,” Greg’s voice sing-songed, the line going utterly dead before he had a chance to argue. Kevin thumped his skull against a wall, slowly going limp as he let out a deep exhale of curses.
“Looks like you’re stuck with me now.”
The voice was bodyless and distant against his closed eyes, resonating lowly in the sinews of his chest. “I’m not stuck with you,” he mumbled, cheek stick against the wall. “I can kick you out, or call the police, or something.” His eyes cracked open to stare blindly at his knees, breaths washing back over his cheeks. Maybe if he stayed like this for long enough, he could fool himself into believing this would all just disappear.
“You wouldn’t.”
Kevin let the truth of the statement settle over him like a wet blanket. “Yeah,” he sighed, “I wouldn’t.” Boneless, he sat there, allowing the soft slurping noises of his companion to pull him from the thick, contemplative stew of his thoughts. Satisfactorily resigned to his miserable fate, Kevin lolled his head to the side to gaze on his strange guest, undeniably real and terrible in the ambient lights and soft focus of misplaced curls. “What do I do with you?” He caught himself as the young man’s face lit up, “besides the obvious.” Kevin snorted into the wall, amused by the bitter, half-formed ironies of it all.
The man eyed the last of his juice, swirling it with a sommelier’s flare before gulping it down. He held the shapely bottle to the glow of a floor lamp, angling it just right to catch the light and make it flit across Kevin’s huddled body. “No matter what you say, I’m totally gonna fuck you tonight.” Kevin grimaced. A smile pulled at the young man’s cheeks as he pitched the bottle towards a garbage can. “Or the other way around. I don’t judge.” He leaned back against the side of the bed, Adam’s apple an unexpected hill on the terrain of his tanned neck. “It’ll be awesome.”
Kevin tried for the blandest facial expression possible. “It’s not going to happen.” He rolled himself up a bit, settling his head down on crossed arms. “Thanks for the offer, but I really don’t need to ‘get laid,’ no matter what Garbo told you. I don’t really need whatever weird hooker S-T-D-I-or-whatever-they’re-called things you have, either.” He paused for a second, “no offense, or anything.”
“Hey now, I’ll have you know that I am one of the finest pieces of hired ass in this city,” the man puffed out his chest triumphantly. “They don’t call me the ‘King of Cock’ for nothing, you know.” His face split into a wider grin as Kevin let out a laughing scoff. “They do! Seriously!,” he tried to pout, shoving out a full lower lip. “No, but really man, it’ll be awesome. More than awesome. Like, fireworks of dicks and awesome and dicks.” His hips made a terrible attempt at seated pelvic thrusts.
A lopsided smile played on Kevin’s lips-the first genuine one in too long. “Not happening.” He sat up fully, back stretching then relaxing against the guide of the wall in a supremely cat-like motion. “So, if you’re not going to leave, and I’m not going to do you, what are we supposed to do?”
The lanky guest scooted sideways against the bed to grab one of Kevin’s socked feet, grip just tight enough to keep Kevin from pulling away as he studied and rolled it in his palm. “Well,” he mused with his trademark Cheshire Cat smile, “you could try what some of my other clients do.”
Apprehensiveness stirred in Kevin’s gut-he had never liked feet, especially his own-but the sensation was more than compensated for by the strange fascination of watching the method with which his feet were turned and flexed in another’s palm. “What’s that?” His toes squirmed and his face contorted as his sock was pulled off by the tip, allowing cooler air to rush over the flushed soles.
Long fingers pressed at each of Kevin’s toes one-by-one, firm pressure testing the fleshy resistance of the pads. “Sob and tell me about your sexual inadequacies.” Kevin snorted a laugh at this and leaned back into the further back into the wall. “No, but seriously, I’m starving,” Kevin’s foot was let gently to the floor. “Let’s get something to eat.”
Kevin frowned. “You just drank, like, fifteen dollars worth of juice. Without my permission, may I add.”
“I had to drink something, since you refuse to let me drink your-“
“Alright, alright, I get it!” Kevin managed a halfway -disapproving look to cover his smile. Slowly, he stood up and stuck a hand out for his sock to be deposited into. While the other sock came off, he jerkily hopped over to the desk chair. “I’ve got the room service menu here,” he glanced over his shoulder, “but they’ll make pretty much anything you want.” Chocolate curls bounced with the rhythm his heels were tapping out on the bottom of the seat. “I’m told the chef makes an excellent shrimp ragout. The seafood’s supposed to be really superb here in general-though that’s probably because we’re, like, on the ocean. I mean, how could you not be good with seafood?” He thumbed over to the next page, oblivious to the movements of the man behind him. “When the food comes, it’d probably be best to hide you in the-,” Kevin turned at this moment to see the young man sliding open the veranda door, “-where are you going?”
“Getting something to eat.” His voice remained in the room as he slipped out the door, Kevin bolting out of his chair in pursuit.
“You can’t get out this way!” Kevin yelled from the doorway at the departing figure, careful to keep his volume semi-inconspicuous. A growl rumbled deep in his chest as the man kept walking, forcing him to follow barefoot across the still-warm sand. Seriously, Garbo was beyond dead when he got back.
A cocky smile blossomed on the young man’s face as Kevin’s panting, frustrated breaths sidled up next to him, perfectly straight teeth glinting with the remnants of sunset. “Maybe.” He dared a glance at the curly-haired man’s glowering face, bobbing irregularly with his uncoordinated steps in the sand.
“You’re supposed to be staying with me, aren’t you?”
“Oh, but I am,” he wrapped a lanky arm around Kevin’s shoulders, gesturing grandly. “We’re together right now, aren’t we?”
Kevin shied away from the arm, sidestepping as he continued to trail the other man. “I’m not following you, you know.” His focus fell from the fence, far-off and barely visible in the city lights beyond, to the sprays of the sand at his feet, occasionally colliding with those of his companion in a fleeting firefight. “What if I would just go back?”
“You wouldn’t,” the man smiled, noticeably increasing the amount of sand he kicked up. Kevin frowned at this. “And if you somehow grew the balls to do that, I’d just call up the paparazzi and tell them Kevin Jonas hired the King of Cock.”
Kevin winced at the use of his name. An unexpectedly large wave of sand sprayed against the other man’s bare calf, fine dust settling on the thin hairs of his exposed calves. He’d probably be able to start up his own beach from the contents of his jeans cuffs by the time they made it to the street. “That’s not true. You can’t just lie to the media.” The wrinkles in Kevin’s forehead grew deeper when he realized you could lie to the media…and this guy had a pretty good case on him. “They’d throw you in jail.”
“For what?” The young man laughed.
“For being a prostitute.”
He snorted loudly. “The term is ‘escort’,” he air-quoted. “We’re too classy to go to jail. And even if I did get sent to jail, I don’t think I’d mind. You’ve got nothing on me.”
There was a half-formed question on the tip of Kevin’s tongue when he found himself face-to-face with a large, wooden fence. A fence which his companion was now climbing, sinewy calves and arms adroitly pulling his lanky form over. “You’re not supposed to do that,” Kevin stood back, arms stiffly crossed. “There’s an opening over there-you’re going to break the fence,” he warned as the fence shivered under the unaccustomed load.
“No I’m not,” the man called back as he bounced over the top.
“You’re going to get in trouble.”
“We’re going to get in trouble.”
Kevin sighed for what seemed like the hundredth time that night. “I’m not climbing this thing.”
“Yes you are.” The melodic voice was softer with distance. “Or I’ll call the paparazzi.”
“You wouldn’t,” Kevin grunted as he began to grapple up the faux-aged boards. The scrape of the splintering boards against his tender feet reminded him of his barefooted condition. God, what the hell was he doing? And then he was tumbling, half-sliding down the wobbling face of the fence, all gawky limbs and no grace.
“Probably not.” Amber eyes gleamed right above Kevin’s own, strong arms easily holding Kevin off the sand.
Bridal-style, no less.
Kevin covered the reddened hue of his ears with a witheringly monotone expression. “You have saved my life. How will I ever repay you, Prince….”
“Joe,” the young man offered, setting Kevin on his feet with a theatrical flair. He pulled in close to waggle his caterpillar eyebrows. “Now, how about a kiss, princess?”
With a snort, Kevin pushed Joe away via his dorky face, still not completely comfortable with the way that hot breath fell on his face. “Not likely. You make a terrible prince.”
“Hey now, you’re the one who said it,” Joe held up his hands defensively, loping loosely towards the street. “I prefer to think of myself as the Edward to your Bella-the dark, handsome, mysterious-“
Kevin cuffed him over the head with a grin. “You talk too much.”
_______________________________________________
“It’s Christmas Eve, and it’s, like…,” Kevin extracted his Blackberry, flicking the screen to life, “it’s almost midnight. Nowhere’s going to be open.” He traced a fingernail over the smooth finish of the screen, feeling for any scratches from their “adventures,” feet slowing to a shuffle in his thoughts.
“Ahh, ye of little faith. I know a place. Many places, in fact.” Joe resumed humming, the melody, Kevin having deciphered over the last ten minutes, being something very closely related to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme. Though he hadn’t remembered it being quite so pretty as it sounded now. “Burgers or Chinese? They’re, like, right next to each other.”
“Seriously, I’m not wearing shoes-which is pretty gross, by the way-the gas station won’t even let me in,” Kevin complained, feeling his foot adhere to an unknown substance for the nth time that night. With a disgusted flick, he removed his foot, taking a few steps to stop on safer ground. “Can we just stop? I don’t know, get me some shoes, get out of this neighborhood, I don’t care. Just, not this.”
Joe kept walking, dark waves winking in the streetlights. “No can do, partner.” He turned back to smile at Kevin, who sighed and resumed his unwilling game of follow-the-leader. “Besides, if worst comes to worst, you can always borrow one of my shoes. It’ll be totally legit if we stand on one foot.”
Kevin scanned the buildings on either side of his, disdainfully taking in the dark layer of grime that seemed to coat everything, and the cheap neon buzz that refracted strangely off of Joe’s patterned shirt. “Flawless plan. If we don’t get killed in a drive-by shooting first.”
“You worry too much.” Abruptly, Joe stopped, hands loosely settled in his pockets and body facing a row of run-down little establishments. “Chinese or burgers?”
Kevin raised a skeptical eyebrow. “The burger place looks marginally ghetto…I guess.” He pulled up tightly behind Joe, his clean cologne a small haven in a cloud of smog and grease. He could always hope that the drive-by shooters would get Joe first…though, upon further consideration, he highly doubted a creature such as Joe was capable of dying. No matter how much anyone wished they would.
“Alright, Chinese it is.” Joe swaggered into the restaurant, eyes darting back to issue a challenge, one eyebrow cocked high on his forehead.
He pretty much knew that was coming. “Chinese it is,” Kevin exhaled, shimmying his jeans further down over his bare feet and following Joe into the great abyss.
_______________________________________________
It had actually been good.
Like, really good in that greasy, totally-terrible-for-your-everything sort of way that Kevin hadn’t quite been able to appreciate since becoming rich and famous. There was still a third of a platter of beef lo mein sitting in front of him, though Joe was quickly reducing that ratio from across the table, chopsticks flailing and leaving greasy marks on the paper zodiac placemats. Joe made a pleased noise through a mouthful of noodles when the too-young waitress brought the bill and two crinkling fortune cookies. He swallowed down the half-chewed food, eyeing the slip of paper. “You got a pen?”
“No?” Kevin leaned back against the sticky pleather seat, adjusting his pants over his expanded stomach. Fascinated, he watched Joe stir his fingers in the lo mein remnants, then scrawl “Joe” on the receipt in big capital letters. Joe admired his work proudly before eyeing up the cookies he had pushed aside. “Pick.”
“I…,” Kevin thought about it for a moment and grabbed the one closest to himself. Joe snatched up the other and quickly ripped the seam open. “So, you have a tab here…?”
There was a grunted affirmative, and Joe swallowed thickly, prominent Adam’s apple bobbing. “Yeah.” He extracted his little piece of paper, and popped the other half of the cookie into his mouth. “Oooh,” he cooed, spitting wet little crumbs onto the tabletop, “a pleasant surprise is in store for me. How awesome and generic,” he grinned.
Kevin snorted a laugh as he carefully freed his cookie from its plastic confines, cracking it in two. He held the slip of paper dramatically away from himself. “’Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals,’” he let out another little laugh under his breath, trading the fortune in his hand for the cookie halves. “That’s not even a fortune, is it?” Joe’s rich chuckle bubbled and filled his ears as he leaned his head back, stretching his toes out on the booth seat next to Joe’s thigh, way more relaxed than he probably be under such circumstances. He pulled his phone out to hover it over his face, lazy-lidded eyes assessing the little glowing display. “Merry Christmas.”
“Fucking awesome Christmas, if you ask me.” Joe worked at extracting himself around Kevin’s legs and out of the booth.
“Nothing screams Jesus’ Birthday quite like hanging around in shady Chinese restaurants with hookers.”
“It’s what Jesus would be doing, if he could.” Kevin laughed, against his better, Christian judgement. “Wait, you’re right-it’s not a birthday party without a few adult beverages.” Joe’s eyebrows danced cheerily on his forehead as Kevin moaned in objection. “If we get wine, it’ll be like drinking his blood. Bad. Ass.”
Kevin leaned his head back farther to study a water stain on the ceiling. “I’m not going to even try to correct everything wrong with that statement.” His eyes flickered back to Joe. “But, in all seriousness, this has already gone too far. We, well, I, could get into-hey!” The other man was halfway to the door. Kevin scrambled to catch up. “C’mon, Joe, this is…this a really bad idea.” Joe didn’t meet his concerned look, instead his focus was straight ahead, brilliant in the neon lights.
“Maybe.”
_______________________________________________
A soft pink mark remained even after Kevin lifted his cheek from his hand’s support. “I’m utterly shocked that I haven’t died yet. Pleased, but utterly shocked. Flabbergasted, really.” He swirled a colored curly straw in his beer. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure why he ordered that-he didn’t even like beer-but it did make his first three drinks look awfully boring in comparison. It helped distract him from the finely shaped fingers carding into his curls.
Joe’s grin was set a slightly more lopsided angle than usual. “Let’s go do something stupid while you’re still drunk,” he pulled at a curl and watched it rebound, ever-so-slightly misshapen.
“I’m not drunk,” Kevin stuck out his lip a little and pulled his head away from Joe’s curious hands. They just came back. He didn’t have the initiative to push the issue any further.
“Yeah, dude, I’m pretty sure you are,” Joe laughed a little too loudly. “But the million dollar question is ‘are you drunk enough to fuck me?’”
Kevin could feel the burn on the back of his neck return at the words suffusing the very public room; the warm press of Joe’s thigh against his own; the fleeting moment of want in his loins. Ears reddened, he quickly buried his misery in his drink. “Not enough alcohol in the world,” he muttered lowly.
“We gotta find something else to do, then. Something sweet.” He ruffled the surface of Kevin’s curls, fighting the hair product to see them imperfect. The chair tipped just barely underneath him as he swayed in thought, the hint of danger keeping the blood pumping to his brain.
“We could go trespassing, or something,” Kevin offered, waving down the bartender for a refill.
Joe raised an eyebrow. “And then loiter somewhere? No, man, we need to do something cool. You gotta do something cool with your life,” he grinned. “I’ve already reached the absolute limits of awesome.”
“What, you want to rob a bank, or something? I’m not drunk enough for that, either.”
“I’m not so stupid as you give me credit for,” he scoffed. He leaned to the side to thump his head on Kevin’s shoulder. “Think, think…awesome. Something awesome.” In an attempt to increase his mental powers, Joe scrunched up his face, making little muttering noises and gnawing at Kevin’s shoulder through his cheek. “Dude, I’ve got it!” He sprung up, brilliantly alert and excited. Kevin swore he could see a tail wagging. “We’re gonna get you a tattoo!”
Kevin blanched. “No, I…no.”
“C’mon, what’s cooler than a tattoo? They increase your legit-factor, by, like, three million percent. They totally don’t hurt as bad as anyone says they do, either.” Joe wiggled closer into Kevin, twisting to shove his face further into Kevin’s personal space bubble with big puppy-dog eyes.
“Says you. And no, it’s not happening.”
No, seriously man, like, look…,” he shimmied the hem of his shirt up and pulled it all the way over his shoulders. Kevin looked. What the fabric had covered was a pair of large, mechanical wings, darkly beautiful spread against the tan skin of Joe’s back. They were unnaturally beautiful, Kevin thought, but perhaps that was just the canvas-a smooth, curving back; rich color and understated muscle telling of days spent on the beach. The alcohol was buzzing noisily through Kevin’s veins, telling him to touch, to take….
“It’s nice,” Kevin looked away and ordered another, stronger drink, “but it’s still not happening.”
_______________________________________________
“I hate you,” Kevin moaned loudly, cheek rub-sticking coldly against the toilet seat. His knuckles dragged along the curving sides, coolness easing the nausea boiling in his head and gut. “I hate you so much. I hate Garbo, too. A lot.”
“Merry Christmas,” came the jovial reply through the bathroom door. “Best present ever, am I right?”
Groggily, he stared into the slowly-refilling bowl, watching his reflection ripple and distort. “Totally. God, who lets their friends drink that much?”
“You wouldn’t have gotten that sweet tattoo otherwise.”
“I wouldn’t have passed out and vomited all over myself if I didn’t have to look at that thing oozing fluids….” Kevin shuddered in remembrance, having to clamp down on his throat again to keep beer and lo mein from making an unwelcome appearance. Tonight sucked.
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t get it on your hip? Totally would’ve made you look like a chick, anyways.”
“That was your idea!”
“Details, details.”
Kevin wiped his sweat-damp forehead against the porcelain, trying to find a cold spot. His slow breaths fanned back from the surface of the water, drying and cooling his moist skin as his bare back slowly radiated heat into the stagnant air of the suite bathroom. The nausea was beginning to pass, though the dulling discomfort in his stomach only allowed him to feel the nagging soreness in his shoulder blade even more. Kevin paused as his cheek found an unused portion of the toilet seat. What the hell did he get tattooed on there, anyways? God, it could be a dolphin, or something. Fuck. “Joe?” He paused to hear rustling noises in response. “Joe, what’s my tattoo of?”
The bathroom door opened, and the fan turned on. “Don’t move, I’ll take a picture.” Kevin nestled his face closer into his arms watched Joe’s tripled shadow glide across the tile.
“I wouldn’t suggest getting too close. I probably smell like puke.”
“I’m a hooker. I’ve smelled worse.”
Kevin winced in advance of the pain as Joe carefully peeled up an edge of the medical tape, and then ripped the gauze pad down quickly. “Ohh,” he exhaled as cool air settled over the sticky-slick skin, hypersensitive and swollen pink. The strange sensation radiated outwards across his skin, loud in the near-silence of soft breaths and a distant ocean.
A barely audible shutter noise, and the shuffle of socked feet. “There.” The glow of a camera screen hovered by Kevin’s cheek. He turned a bit, reaching out to steady Joe’s bobbing wrist. “It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”
Through the blur and tender pinkness, Kevin could make out the dark curves of a stylized cross, elegant edges wrapped in an intricate pattern of loops and points. Kevin stared at it a moment, taking it all in-this was a part of him now. “Yeah,” he exhaled, “it is.” He allowed his head to droop back down onto crossed arms, myriad sensations pooling in a pleasant buzz high in his head. Dimly, he could sense Joe shuffling in on the other side of the toilet, hot skin warming the back of Kevin’s hands. His own breaths were nearly deafening.
“It smells like spew in here.”
Kevin laughed lowly into his arm.
“Seriously man, you reek,” Joe prodded at Kevin’s leg with a socked foot, goaded on by the other man’s complaining moan and retaliatory kick. “My Lord! I think I may expire from this dreadful stench! I can see the light! Mon Cœur! Sacrè Bleu! Veni Vidi Ve-“
Kevin smacked him over the head. “That isn’t even French.” He shook his head despairingly at that pearly grin as he slowly pulled himself up into a sitting position, wincing a little as his shoulder blade rotated. “I’m going to take a quick shower so I don’t smell like ‘spew’. Could you-?” He motioned his head towards his uncovered shoulder.
“Oh, yeah, just a sec.” Joe momentarily lifted himself against the sink cabinet to grab at the gauze pad and shuffled on his knees over to Kevin’s back. While the adhesive pressed tenderly into his shoulder, Kevin became all-too-aware of the lopsided curls falling into his face; the naseous thickness of vomit on the air; the soft ripples in the flesh of his curled stomach-god, he was a mess. “A’ight, you’re good to go,” Joe stood up. “I’ll let you be-I’ll go steal some shit in the meantime,” he grinned, closing the door behind him with an airy wave.
Kevin smiled softly to himself as he turned the water on full-blast. That guy was something else entirely.
_______________________________________________
The water cooled for a moment as Kevin closed the tap, the little afterstream loud on the stone floor. A careful hand wiggled the glass door open, wary of the cold-harboring draft as it maneuvered for a thick, fluffy hotel towel. Closing the door with a deliciously clean foot, he wiped his face first, inhaling the scent of clean laundry deep into his lungs. No matter how many requests he made, the tour bus’s towels never managed to smell quite so nice.
About halfway through scrunch-drying his hair, Kevin became aware of music, soft and gentle through the muffle of the bathroom door. It wasn’t the television or the radio. Kevin knew that for a fact. It was a guitar, an acoustic one…and a voice? What exactly was Joe up to? Not wanting the music to disappear, Kevin wrapped the towel loosely around his waist and stepped out of the shower, shivering when he hit the wall of cooler air beyond. He padded softly across the slick floor, and opened the door with an unexpectedly loud creak.
Thankfully, Joe wasn’t startled.
Kevin had no idea what the song was, other than startlingly, heartbreakingly beautiful. Foot taping and waves swaying, the young man finished the verse, voice smoothly climbing and falling to the rhythm he was strumming and pounding out on Kevin’s prized acoustic guitar, melody slowly fading into the rush of the ocean. Kevin found himself suddenly very breathless. “Hey,” Joe shined that million-watt smile on Kevin as he muted the strings. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“Joe…you can-“
“Woah, dude, what happened to your hair?” Joe stared at his hair with childish fascination.
“It…got…wet?,” he offered, a hand going up to verify its continued existence. It was still there. “Nevermind that-you can play? You can sing? Why didn’t you-“
“No, I mean it’s more…more….” Joe twirled a finger quickly. “More this thing.”
“…Curly?” Kevin’s eyebrows were nearly in his hairline.
Joe grinned widely. “Yeah, that! Sorry, brain fart.”
Kevin sighed. “It’s just hair-this is how it always looks before getting styled. Weird, I know. But seriously, you should’ve told me you could sing and play,” Kevin’s eyes were wide with earnest, irises light and wet. “Especially when it’s like…like that.” He laughed to himself at the unrealness of the music he had just heard. “I know I only heard, like, five seconds, but I could help make something out of you. You could be famous, Joe. I know a lot of people who-“
“I like it,” Joe smiled up at him, head cocked and features dreamy.
“Which part?”
“Your hair. I like it like that.”
Kevin groaned, irritation rising. “Be serious, here…I’m talking about your future,” he pleaded, shifting the towel on his hip. “Please.”
“Mmm, nah,” Joe leaned back and strummed chords thoughtfully. “I’m good with the whole hooker-thing.”
“Joe!”
The amber-eyed man only grinned and slowed the tempo to a rhythmic, warm pulse. “Yeah,” his voice dropped an octave, “I definitely am cool with the hooker-thing,” he gave Kevin’s dripping form a slow once-over, stoking a fire on the back of Kevin’s neck. “More that cool, actually.” He licked his lips slowly, biting the edge and plumping the flesh with deep, living color. Kevin squirmed under the predatory appraisal, more than uncomfortable with the way those eyes settled below the knot in his towel, and the way they made him hyper-aware of the soft curve of his stomach and the dark, shower-matted hairs of his chest. “I’m getting to you, aren’t I?,” that demon’s angelic voice teased. “I told you.”
Kevin straightened up with a deep inhale, willing the heat and the throb from his veins. “Still not happening.” He put on a small smirk to meet Joe’s challenging gaze, before turning to his bags to rustle through for clean clothes. “There’s only, what, two hours left? Can I assume we’re not going to run off somewhere in that timeframe and put on pajamas?” A pair of black knit pajama pants and black boxer briefs were flicked over his good shoulder, complementing the dark, uncovered curves on the other.
“I can’t make any promises.” A fingerpicked melody warmed the room, fading in and out as its creator explored the suite, eventually slowing by the veranda door. “The sun’s gonna be coming up soon. We should watch.”
Kevin shimmied his underwear on underneath the towel, unwrapping it then to wipe off what little moisture was left on his skin. He pulled the pants on, adjusting the waistband as he headed back towards the bathroom. “I assume I don’t have any choice in the matter?”
“Yeah, no, not really. Think of it…as…my Christmas…present…to you,” Joe’s breaths cut off in deep, half-huffs.
Kevin laughed, carefully extracting a razor from his leather grooming kit. “Aren’t you supposed to be my Christmas present?,” he spread pre-shave oil across the shadow of hair, “besides, I’ve only known you for…eight hours?” The lack of response meant Joe was probably up to something. Averting disaster could wait until after his face was baby smooth.
A carefully shaped sideburn emerged from yesterday’s stubble, nearly getting guillotined as Joe popped into the mirror. “God! You scared-are you wearing the sheets?”
Joe draped the bedsheets over his head and pouted melodramatically at his reflection. “Do you think I’m pretty? Don’t lie.”
“Put them back,” Kevin resumed sculpting the other side. He glanced at Joe’s reflection. “And no. The color makes your ass look fat.”
Joe turned to admire the wiggling curve of his butt in the mirror. “Oh, honey, do you really mean it?” He sat up on the marble countertop to bat his eyelashes at Kevin, then hopped back down and headed for the door. “I’m not gonna put ‘em back. You’re not expecting me to sit on sand to watch the sun rise, are you? My dress might get dirty….”
“Joe, no…,” Kevin rinsed off his face in record time and pursued the sheet-attired young man. “The sheets will get totally nasty and-“ When he got to the bedroom, he stopped dead.
“That’s what the mattress is for.”
The space where a bed had once been was now devoid of everything but a metal frame and headboard; the room suddenly depressing sparse and oversized except for the overwhelming presence of one very self-satisfied prostitute in the veranda doorway. Kevin was nearing absolute collapse. “You…you…you didn’t.”
“Oh, but I did,” Joe chirped happily, hooking Kevin’s wavering form in a loop of sheets and urging his feet from carpet to lukewarm sand. “Now, come along-the sun waits for no man.”
As soon as his leg hit that bed-the one that had been in his hotel room not even ten minutes ago-sitting plainly on the sand beach as if it were a common beach chair and not a bed-a giant, queen-sized bed that was really, really, really not supposed to be there-Kevin just let go. “It’s not worth fighting, is it?”
“No, probably not.” Joe grabbed his hand, pulling Kevin into the deep white plush of Egyptian cotton sheets and four-hundred dollar pillows, their legs entwining comfortably as their eyes trained on the dark hint of horizon coloring the farthest waves. “Merry Christmas,” Joe’s breaths ruffled the fan of Kevin’s curls, dark against the snow-white linens. Kevin laughed breathily as he pushed at the sheets with his feet, savoring the grit of sand against superfine threads. “Finally feeling as awesome as I do on a daily basis?”
He snorted sideways into the pillow his grin had smothered itself in, rolling to bump arms warmly with Joe. “Totally.” When he looked back, the horizon seemed brighter than it had a moment ago, but Kevin supposed that was just wishful thinking. That was okay, at least for tonight. He closed his eyes for a moment and imagined the wet coolness of sea breeze was instead the soft dust of snow, softly falling from a bright white sky. “It seems wrong,” Kevin ventured into the quiet, “…Christmas without snow.” Sunrise was still a ways off, and Kevin could feel his eyelids crack at the slight light, then droop lazily at the lull of ocean breeze and current.
“Yeah, maybe a little.”
The crash of waves mingled with the resonating hum of guitar strings and quiet lyrics of a song Kevin didn’t recognize. He let the music swell over him with the pulse of the ocean, warm fullness expanding slowly through his limbs and chest, pushing on his lungs. So near, he could feel the small breaths and hear the plucked buzz of metal strings and oh this was what happiness felt like….
“Joe.” The barely-risen sun was brighter in Joe’s eyes as Kevin wrapped around him in a warm and sleepy-soft push of skin against skin, lips against lips. “Joe, I…” One hand steadied him by Joe’s hip, the other trailed down a cheek while his breath flowed down the loose collar, kisses warm and lingering against that golden neck. He nudged the guitar off of Joe’s lap, callused fingers smoothing over a warm back, drinking in the damp and the life. His head fell, curls mingling in waves and words languid half-kisses against Joe’s neck, viscous and sweet with sleep. “Thank you, Joe.”
-The End-
Recipient: bananahater336
Title: Je, Tu, Nous et Vous
Characters: Kevin, Joe, Nick and Garbo.
Pairings: Kevin/Joe.
Rating: R
Wordcount: 7,155
Disclaimer: I do not own the Jonas Brothers.
A/N: A thanks goes out to my dear inthenameofjuc for beta-ing.
Summary: Kevin receives an unwelcome Christmas "gift".
The Request: Top!Kevin, slutty!Joe, tattoos (on any of them), beach scenes.
“You ready to head out?”
A soft smile rested on Nick’s lips as he leaned loosely against the doorframe, his arms soft in the comforting embrace of a hand-me-down hoodie and his hair brightly haloed in the backlight of a setting sun. Nick looked ridiculously happy, and normal, and he was about to…Kevin groaned inwardly, slumping on the bed to glare morosely at his feet, hoping they might take the blame for what he had to tell Nick and save him the guilt. “I can’t. I know it’s tradition, but….” He trailed off as he reached down to pull off Italian leather cowboy boots, curls jerking stiffly against the snug fit.
Nick’s finely arched eyebrows rose, corners dipped low with concern. “You’re not coming?” At the shameful drop of Kevin’s head, lines appeared in the sunset-airbrushed surface of his face, too old for his twenty-two years. “C’mon, Kev….” Nick faltered, hoping for some reaction other than Kevin tiredly trying to extract his other foot from a boot. “It’s Christmas Eve, man. Garbo already staked out a spot and everything.”
He stared blindly at the sock he was carefully rearranging. “I just…I can’t. I’ve got way too much to do for this next recording session.” Before any of Nick’s half-formed rebuttals could be tried, Kevin solidly fixed his attention back on his little brother, eyes dark with apology. “I can’t. I’m sorry. But go and have fun with the guys for me, alright?” Kevin held his gaze, steady and soft, before turning to the well-organized folders on the table, letting the chill of his brother’s disappointment sink into the back of his bowed neck.
“Alright, uh, I guess you can just call me up if you change your mind later? Garbo should have his on, too….” Nick raked one hand back against the grain of his curls, the other having burrowed itself deeply into a jeans pocket. “…uh, yeah.” His eyes blindly searched the pattern of the carpet for something to say, fingers kneading into his thigh. There wasn’t anything to find.
The door lock clicked as Kevin flipped to the third page of their latest booking contract, his brother’s expression gnawing at him.
_______________________________________________
Kevin was halfway through a room-service Americano and their European touring schedule revisions when his concentration was broken by a barely-audible vibration, originating from his pants pocket. He fished his Blackberry out, clicking to view the message just as another one was received. And another one. All from Garbo. They were all picture messages, so blurry that he could barely make out what they were pictures of. After a minute of close scrutiny, he still had no idea what was happening in the first picture, (though he would no doubt be getting an account of the night’s events later), but he could vaguely make out the faces of John and Nick floating in the blur. He was pretty sure it was them, anyways. The second picture was what appeared to be Garbo’s attempt at a MySpace-Bathroom-Picture. Highly attractive, really. The third was too dark to see anything at all, even after he turned up the screen brightness. Typical. As Kevin was going to turn the vibration mode off, a fourth message came in. It was from Garbo again, but this time it was a text message.
“enjoy”
Kevin looked blandly at his phone, half waiting for it to explain how it would allow itself to receive such inane messages, (even if he did save the bathroom picture), before opting to turn the Blackberry off completely. Inhaling deep, he cracked his shoulder with a satisfying pop, slowly letting the fullness in his lungs ease as he turned back to his papers. In the minute that checking his phone had taken, the pages of careful Excel charts and footnoted schedules had melted into a swirling mass of intellectual nothingness that Kevin was wont to decipher. He made a few half-hearted attempts at decoding the papers to appease himself before leaning back in his chair and reaching for the worn neck of his favorite guitar. If he was going to take a break, he might as well make it a productive one.
_______________________________________________
He was picking idly at the strings, waiting for just the right tune to emerge from the melodic fracas, when a soft knocking met his ears. Setting the guitar back in its stand, Kevin navigated his way through the modern design of the suite, musing on how long the knocking might have been going on without him hearing it. It was probably his mother, who had probably been desperately trying to call him before this, probably to discuss something amusingly unimportant. At this rate, though, talking about what time to make lunch reservations for next week was going to be more inspirational than plucking at that guitar for any longer.
Instead of being greeted by the perpetual movement of his mother, Kevin found himself face-to-face with a strange young man.
What the heck?
Kevin paused in the doorway; completely dumbstruck as to what a twenty-something, well-dressed and rather attractive man could want from him…and why he came all the way here to get it. “Can I…help you?” Kevin drew back behind the door a little, eyes slitting in a frown.
The young man’s lips quirked with a soft, almost shy, smile-a strange contrast, Kevin thought, to the mischievous twinkle in those dark amber eyes. “Hi,” Kevin twitched back, cautious of the handshake that never came. “I’ll be your escort for tonite, if you approve.”
Well, fuck.
Kevin had to resist the urge to slam the door in the guy’s face. This was not happening. This was not happening. There was not a hooker, (definitely not a male hooker, either), standing right outside his hotel room, (which was most certainly not right next to his parents’ hotel room), practically dripping of sex and scandal and sin. Kevin could feel his reputation draining out with the color in his face. “I, just…no.” His mind was racing as he gave the stranger a once-over, rapid pulse decelerating a bit as he noted the distinctly un-prostitute-like appearance. Well, that was something, anyways. Maybe if he played his cards just right, he could get out of this…whatever this was…mostly unscathed. Just take a few breaths; think things out logically. Everything would be alright. Probably not. “I’m sorry, but, this is all some big mix-up. I never requested any of your…,” Kevin grappled for the right word, “…services.”
His eyebrows knit as he chewed contemplatively on the inner corner of his lip, unfocused stare flickering across the unnaturally serene young man as he mentally waded through seas of contingency plans. Suddenly, their gazes locked, the cloud of calculations completely dispelled from Kevin’s dark eyes. “You can just leave, right? I mean, that’s easier on you, anyways, isn’t it? I have money, I can pay you for the trouble of coming here-however much you want-just, I need you gone.”
Kevin was dumbstruck as that demure little smile blossomed into an impish grin. He leaned in close to Kevin, warm cologne and hotter breath latching on to Kevin’s senses against his will. “No can do. I’m yours for another,” he plucked up Kevin’s wrist, lifting it to read the small watch hands, “nine hours and twenty-three minutes.” He let the wrist slide from his grip as he sidled in closer, canting his hips firmly against Kevin’s as his eyelashes became a flirtatious veil. Kevin was disturbingly aware of the fingertips playing at the void between his slacks and shirt, and the lightheaded thrum of blood in his neck. “So, I suggest taking advantage of the love only money can buy.”
Wait. Kevin uncomfortably squirmed his way out of the prostitute’s hold, trying his best to make as little body contact as humanely possible, and to disregard that ever-growing grin. Panting softly, he stumbled back a few steps. “You’re saying someone put you up to this?”
“Yessir,” those pearly white teeth seemed to glow in the dim light of the hallway, “’Greg’, I believe,” he offered in advance of Kevin’s next question. “Said you needed to get laid.” Kevin didn’t appreciate the lilt on the last word, or the way this guy seemed to enjoy Kevin’s growing distress. “Paid me upfront-told me not to let you out of my sight.”
Fuck you, Garbo. Fuck you.
Kevin began to slowly thump his temple on the doorframe. “Can you not and say you did and just go?” He shot a withering glance at the young man. “Whatever you want, it’s yours, so long as you leave.” Something between a moan and a wail left his throat as the hooker shook his head cheerfully. This was not happening. This was not happening.
A flash of sudden inspiration had him digging down into his pants pocket to retrieve his Blackberry, bouncing nervously as the phone slowly came to life. Its startup music was too loud and too delayed in the demure silence of the hotel hallway, making Kevin fumble clumsily through his speed-dial contacts.
He huddled the phone close to his ear, distantly aware of his feet pacing the suite.
“Hello?”
“Fuck you, Garbo.”
Kevin’s ears flamed at the rich laughter on the other end of the line. “I see your Christmas present arrived. Feel free to open it early, if you know what I mean.”
He slowed his rapid pace, conserving energy for his plea. “Seriously, can you please-,” his attention was suddenly drawn to the hooker sitting cross-legged on his bed, drinking a bottle of twenty-dollar minibar juice. “Get off there!,” he hissed quickly, hand slapped over the phone’s mic. “-Can you please just call him off, or something? Get him out of here so our careers aren’t ruined?”
“Sorry, dude. It’s for your own good. Have fun,” Greg’s voice sing-songed, the line going utterly dead before he had a chance to argue. Kevin thumped his skull against a wall, slowly going limp as he let out a deep exhale of curses.
“Looks like you’re stuck with me now.”
The voice was bodyless and distant against his closed eyes, resonating lowly in the sinews of his chest. “I’m not stuck with you,” he mumbled, cheek stick against the wall. “I can kick you out, or call the police, or something.” His eyes cracked open to stare blindly at his knees, breaths washing back over his cheeks. Maybe if he stayed like this for long enough, he could fool himself into believing this would all just disappear.
“You wouldn’t.”
Kevin let the truth of the statement settle over him like a wet blanket. “Yeah,” he sighed, “I wouldn’t.” Boneless, he sat there, allowing the soft slurping noises of his companion to pull him from the thick, contemplative stew of his thoughts. Satisfactorily resigned to his miserable fate, Kevin lolled his head to the side to gaze on his strange guest, undeniably real and terrible in the ambient lights and soft focus of misplaced curls. “What do I do with you?” He caught himself as the young man’s face lit up, “besides the obvious.” Kevin snorted into the wall, amused by the bitter, half-formed ironies of it all.
The man eyed the last of his juice, swirling it with a sommelier’s flare before gulping it down. He held the shapely bottle to the glow of a floor lamp, angling it just right to catch the light and make it flit across Kevin’s huddled body. “No matter what you say, I’m totally gonna fuck you tonight.” Kevin grimaced. A smile pulled at the young man’s cheeks as he pitched the bottle towards a garbage can. “Or the other way around. I don’t judge.” He leaned back against the side of the bed, Adam’s apple an unexpected hill on the terrain of his tanned neck. “It’ll be awesome.”
Kevin tried for the blandest facial expression possible. “It’s not going to happen.” He rolled himself up a bit, settling his head down on crossed arms. “Thanks for the offer, but I really don’t need to ‘get laid,’ no matter what Garbo told you. I don’t really need whatever weird hooker S-T-D-I-or-whatever-they’re-called things you have, either.” He paused for a second, “no offense, or anything.”
“Hey now, I’ll have you know that I am one of the finest pieces of hired ass in this city,” the man puffed out his chest triumphantly. “They don’t call me the ‘King of Cock’ for nothing, you know.” His face split into a wider grin as Kevin let out a laughing scoff. “They do! Seriously!,” he tried to pout, shoving out a full lower lip. “No, but really man, it’ll be awesome. More than awesome. Like, fireworks of dicks and awesome and dicks.” His hips made a terrible attempt at seated pelvic thrusts.
A lopsided smile played on Kevin’s lips-the first genuine one in too long. “Not happening.” He sat up fully, back stretching then relaxing against the guide of the wall in a supremely cat-like motion. “So, if you’re not going to leave, and I’m not going to do you, what are we supposed to do?”
The lanky guest scooted sideways against the bed to grab one of Kevin’s socked feet, grip just tight enough to keep Kevin from pulling away as he studied and rolled it in his palm. “Well,” he mused with his trademark Cheshire Cat smile, “you could try what some of my other clients do.”
Apprehensiveness stirred in Kevin’s gut-he had never liked feet, especially his own-but the sensation was more than compensated for by the strange fascination of watching the method with which his feet were turned and flexed in another’s palm. “What’s that?” His toes squirmed and his face contorted as his sock was pulled off by the tip, allowing cooler air to rush over the flushed soles.
Long fingers pressed at each of Kevin’s toes one-by-one, firm pressure testing the fleshy resistance of the pads. “Sob and tell me about your sexual inadequacies.” Kevin snorted a laugh at this and leaned back into the further back into the wall. “No, but seriously, I’m starving,” Kevin’s foot was let gently to the floor. “Let’s get something to eat.”
Kevin frowned. “You just drank, like, fifteen dollars worth of juice. Without my permission, may I add.”
“I had to drink something, since you refuse to let me drink your-“
“Alright, alright, I get it!” Kevin managed a halfway -disapproving look to cover his smile. Slowly, he stood up and stuck a hand out for his sock to be deposited into. While the other sock came off, he jerkily hopped over to the desk chair. “I’ve got the room service menu here,” he glanced over his shoulder, “but they’ll make pretty much anything you want.” Chocolate curls bounced with the rhythm his heels were tapping out on the bottom of the seat. “I’m told the chef makes an excellent shrimp ragout. The seafood’s supposed to be really superb here in general-though that’s probably because we’re, like, on the ocean. I mean, how could you not be good with seafood?” He thumbed over to the next page, oblivious to the movements of the man behind him. “When the food comes, it’d probably be best to hide you in the-,” Kevin turned at this moment to see the young man sliding open the veranda door, “-where are you going?”
“Getting something to eat.” His voice remained in the room as he slipped out the door, Kevin bolting out of his chair in pursuit.
“You can’t get out this way!” Kevin yelled from the doorway at the departing figure, careful to keep his volume semi-inconspicuous. A growl rumbled deep in his chest as the man kept walking, forcing him to follow barefoot across the still-warm sand. Seriously, Garbo was beyond dead when he got back.
A cocky smile blossomed on the young man’s face as Kevin’s panting, frustrated breaths sidled up next to him, perfectly straight teeth glinting with the remnants of sunset. “Maybe.” He dared a glance at the curly-haired man’s glowering face, bobbing irregularly with his uncoordinated steps in the sand.
“You’re supposed to be staying with me, aren’t you?”
“Oh, but I am,” he wrapped a lanky arm around Kevin’s shoulders, gesturing grandly. “We’re together right now, aren’t we?”
Kevin shied away from the arm, sidestepping as he continued to trail the other man. “I’m not following you, you know.” His focus fell from the fence, far-off and barely visible in the city lights beyond, to the sprays of the sand at his feet, occasionally colliding with those of his companion in a fleeting firefight. “What if I would just go back?”
“You wouldn’t,” the man smiled, noticeably increasing the amount of sand he kicked up. Kevin frowned at this. “And if you somehow grew the balls to do that, I’d just call up the paparazzi and tell them Kevin Jonas hired the King of Cock.”
Kevin winced at the use of his name. An unexpectedly large wave of sand sprayed against the other man’s bare calf, fine dust settling on the thin hairs of his exposed calves. He’d probably be able to start up his own beach from the contents of his jeans cuffs by the time they made it to the street. “That’s not true. You can’t just lie to the media.” The wrinkles in Kevin’s forehead grew deeper when he realized you could lie to the media…and this guy had a pretty good case on him. “They’d throw you in jail.”
“For what?” The young man laughed.
“For being a prostitute.”
He snorted loudly. “The term is ‘escort’,” he air-quoted. “We’re too classy to go to jail. And even if I did get sent to jail, I don’t think I’d mind. You’ve got nothing on me.”
There was a half-formed question on the tip of Kevin’s tongue when he found himself face-to-face with a large, wooden fence. A fence which his companion was now climbing, sinewy calves and arms adroitly pulling his lanky form over. “You’re not supposed to do that,” Kevin stood back, arms stiffly crossed. “There’s an opening over there-you’re going to break the fence,” he warned as the fence shivered under the unaccustomed load.
“No I’m not,” the man called back as he bounced over the top.
“You’re going to get in trouble.”
“We’re going to get in trouble.”
Kevin sighed for what seemed like the hundredth time that night. “I’m not climbing this thing.”
“Yes you are.” The melodic voice was softer with distance. “Or I’ll call the paparazzi.”
“You wouldn’t,” Kevin grunted as he began to grapple up the faux-aged boards. The scrape of the splintering boards against his tender feet reminded him of his barefooted condition. God, what the hell was he doing? And then he was tumbling, half-sliding down the wobbling face of the fence, all gawky limbs and no grace.
“Probably not.” Amber eyes gleamed right above Kevin’s own, strong arms easily holding Kevin off the sand.
Bridal-style, no less.
Kevin covered the reddened hue of his ears with a witheringly monotone expression. “You have saved my life. How will I ever repay you, Prince….”
“Joe,” the young man offered, setting Kevin on his feet with a theatrical flair. He pulled in close to waggle his caterpillar eyebrows. “Now, how about a kiss, princess?”
With a snort, Kevin pushed Joe away via his dorky face, still not completely comfortable with the way that hot breath fell on his face. “Not likely. You make a terrible prince.”
“Hey now, you’re the one who said it,” Joe held up his hands defensively, loping loosely towards the street. “I prefer to think of myself as the Edward to your Bella-the dark, handsome, mysterious-“
Kevin cuffed him over the head with a grin. “You talk too much.”
_______________________________________________
“It’s Christmas Eve, and it’s, like…,” Kevin extracted his Blackberry, flicking the screen to life, “it’s almost midnight. Nowhere’s going to be open.” He traced a fingernail over the smooth finish of the screen, feeling for any scratches from their “adventures,” feet slowing to a shuffle in his thoughts.
“Ahh, ye of little faith. I know a place. Many places, in fact.” Joe resumed humming, the melody, Kevin having deciphered over the last ten minutes, being something very closely related to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme. Though he hadn’t remembered it being quite so pretty as it sounded now. “Burgers or Chinese? They’re, like, right next to each other.”
“Seriously, I’m not wearing shoes-which is pretty gross, by the way-the gas station won’t even let me in,” Kevin complained, feeling his foot adhere to an unknown substance for the nth time that night. With a disgusted flick, he removed his foot, taking a few steps to stop on safer ground. “Can we just stop? I don’t know, get me some shoes, get out of this neighborhood, I don’t care. Just, not this.”
Joe kept walking, dark waves winking in the streetlights. “No can do, partner.” He turned back to smile at Kevin, who sighed and resumed his unwilling game of follow-the-leader. “Besides, if worst comes to worst, you can always borrow one of my shoes. It’ll be totally legit if we stand on one foot.”
Kevin scanned the buildings on either side of his, disdainfully taking in the dark layer of grime that seemed to coat everything, and the cheap neon buzz that refracted strangely off of Joe’s patterned shirt. “Flawless plan. If we don’t get killed in a drive-by shooting first.”
“You worry too much.” Abruptly, Joe stopped, hands loosely settled in his pockets and body facing a row of run-down little establishments. “Chinese or burgers?”
Kevin raised a skeptical eyebrow. “The burger place looks marginally ghetto…I guess.” He pulled up tightly behind Joe, his clean cologne a small haven in a cloud of smog and grease. He could always hope that the drive-by shooters would get Joe first…though, upon further consideration, he highly doubted a creature such as Joe was capable of dying. No matter how much anyone wished they would.
“Alright, Chinese it is.” Joe swaggered into the restaurant, eyes darting back to issue a challenge, one eyebrow cocked high on his forehead.
He pretty much knew that was coming. “Chinese it is,” Kevin exhaled, shimmying his jeans further down over his bare feet and following Joe into the great abyss.
_______________________________________________
It had actually been good.
Like, really good in that greasy, totally-terrible-for-your-everything sort of way that Kevin hadn’t quite been able to appreciate since becoming rich and famous. There was still a third of a platter of beef lo mein sitting in front of him, though Joe was quickly reducing that ratio from across the table, chopsticks flailing and leaving greasy marks on the paper zodiac placemats. Joe made a pleased noise through a mouthful of noodles when the too-young waitress brought the bill and two crinkling fortune cookies. He swallowed down the half-chewed food, eyeing the slip of paper. “You got a pen?”
“No?” Kevin leaned back against the sticky pleather seat, adjusting his pants over his expanded stomach. Fascinated, he watched Joe stir his fingers in the lo mein remnants, then scrawl “Joe” on the receipt in big capital letters. Joe admired his work proudly before eyeing up the cookies he had pushed aside. “Pick.”
“I…,” Kevin thought about it for a moment and grabbed the one closest to himself. Joe snatched up the other and quickly ripped the seam open. “So, you have a tab here…?”
There was a grunted affirmative, and Joe swallowed thickly, prominent Adam’s apple bobbing. “Yeah.” He extracted his little piece of paper, and popped the other half of the cookie into his mouth. “Oooh,” he cooed, spitting wet little crumbs onto the tabletop, “a pleasant surprise is in store for me. How awesome and generic,” he grinned.
Kevin snorted a laugh as he carefully freed his cookie from its plastic confines, cracking it in two. He held the slip of paper dramatically away from himself. “’Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals,’” he let out another little laugh under his breath, trading the fortune in his hand for the cookie halves. “That’s not even a fortune, is it?” Joe’s rich chuckle bubbled and filled his ears as he leaned his head back, stretching his toes out on the booth seat next to Joe’s thigh, way more relaxed than he probably be under such circumstances. He pulled his phone out to hover it over his face, lazy-lidded eyes assessing the little glowing display. “Merry Christmas.”
“Fucking awesome Christmas, if you ask me.” Joe worked at extracting himself around Kevin’s legs and out of the booth.
“Nothing screams Jesus’ Birthday quite like hanging around in shady Chinese restaurants with hookers.”
“It’s what Jesus would be doing, if he could.” Kevin laughed, against his better, Christian judgement. “Wait, you’re right-it’s not a birthday party without a few adult beverages.” Joe’s eyebrows danced cheerily on his forehead as Kevin moaned in objection. “If we get wine, it’ll be like drinking his blood. Bad. Ass.”
Kevin leaned his head back farther to study a water stain on the ceiling. “I’m not going to even try to correct everything wrong with that statement.” His eyes flickered back to Joe. “But, in all seriousness, this has already gone too far. We, well, I, could get into-hey!” The other man was halfway to the door. Kevin scrambled to catch up. “C’mon, Joe, this is…this a really bad idea.” Joe didn’t meet his concerned look, instead his focus was straight ahead, brilliant in the neon lights.
“Maybe.”
_______________________________________________
A soft pink mark remained even after Kevin lifted his cheek from his hand’s support. “I’m utterly shocked that I haven’t died yet. Pleased, but utterly shocked. Flabbergasted, really.” He swirled a colored curly straw in his beer. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure why he ordered that-he didn’t even like beer-but it did make his first three drinks look awfully boring in comparison. It helped distract him from the finely shaped fingers carding into his curls.
Joe’s grin was set a slightly more lopsided angle than usual. “Let’s go do something stupid while you’re still drunk,” he pulled at a curl and watched it rebound, ever-so-slightly misshapen.
“I’m not drunk,” Kevin stuck out his lip a little and pulled his head away from Joe’s curious hands. They just came back. He didn’t have the initiative to push the issue any further.
“Yeah, dude, I’m pretty sure you are,” Joe laughed a little too loudly. “But the million dollar question is ‘are you drunk enough to fuck me?’”
Kevin could feel the burn on the back of his neck return at the words suffusing the very public room; the warm press of Joe’s thigh against his own; the fleeting moment of want in his loins. Ears reddened, he quickly buried his misery in his drink. “Not enough alcohol in the world,” he muttered lowly.
“We gotta find something else to do, then. Something sweet.” He ruffled the surface of Kevin’s curls, fighting the hair product to see them imperfect. The chair tipped just barely underneath him as he swayed in thought, the hint of danger keeping the blood pumping to his brain.
“We could go trespassing, or something,” Kevin offered, waving down the bartender for a refill.
Joe raised an eyebrow. “And then loiter somewhere? No, man, we need to do something cool. You gotta do something cool with your life,” he grinned. “I’ve already reached the absolute limits of awesome.”
“What, you want to rob a bank, or something? I’m not drunk enough for that, either.”
“I’m not so stupid as you give me credit for,” he scoffed. He leaned to the side to thump his head on Kevin’s shoulder. “Think, think…awesome. Something awesome.” In an attempt to increase his mental powers, Joe scrunched up his face, making little muttering noises and gnawing at Kevin’s shoulder through his cheek. “Dude, I’ve got it!” He sprung up, brilliantly alert and excited. Kevin swore he could see a tail wagging. “We’re gonna get you a tattoo!”
Kevin blanched. “No, I…no.”
“C’mon, what’s cooler than a tattoo? They increase your legit-factor, by, like, three million percent. They totally don’t hurt as bad as anyone says they do, either.” Joe wiggled closer into Kevin, twisting to shove his face further into Kevin’s personal space bubble with big puppy-dog eyes.
“Says you. And no, it’s not happening.”
No, seriously man, like, look…,” he shimmied the hem of his shirt up and pulled it all the way over his shoulders. Kevin looked. What the fabric had covered was a pair of large, mechanical wings, darkly beautiful spread against the tan skin of Joe’s back. They were unnaturally beautiful, Kevin thought, but perhaps that was just the canvas-a smooth, curving back; rich color and understated muscle telling of days spent on the beach. The alcohol was buzzing noisily through Kevin’s veins, telling him to touch, to take….
“It’s nice,” Kevin looked away and ordered another, stronger drink, “but it’s still not happening.”
_______________________________________________
“I hate you,” Kevin moaned loudly, cheek rub-sticking coldly against the toilet seat. His knuckles dragged along the curving sides, coolness easing the nausea boiling in his head and gut. “I hate you so much. I hate Garbo, too. A lot.”
“Merry Christmas,” came the jovial reply through the bathroom door. “Best present ever, am I right?”
Groggily, he stared into the slowly-refilling bowl, watching his reflection ripple and distort. “Totally. God, who lets their friends drink that much?”
“You wouldn’t have gotten that sweet tattoo otherwise.”
“I wouldn’t have passed out and vomited all over myself if I didn’t have to look at that thing oozing fluids….” Kevin shuddered in remembrance, having to clamp down on his throat again to keep beer and lo mein from making an unwelcome appearance. Tonight sucked.
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t get it on your hip? Totally would’ve made you look like a chick, anyways.”
“That was your idea!”
“Details, details.”
Kevin wiped his sweat-damp forehead against the porcelain, trying to find a cold spot. His slow breaths fanned back from the surface of the water, drying and cooling his moist skin as his bare back slowly radiated heat into the stagnant air of the suite bathroom. The nausea was beginning to pass, though the dulling discomfort in his stomach only allowed him to feel the nagging soreness in his shoulder blade even more. Kevin paused as his cheek found an unused portion of the toilet seat. What the hell did he get tattooed on there, anyways? God, it could be a dolphin, or something. Fuck. “Joe?” He paused to hear rustling noises in response. “Joe, what’s my tattoo of?”
The bathroom door opened, and the fan turned on. “Don’t move, I’ll take a picture.” Kevin nestled his face closer into his arms watched Joe’s tripled shadow glide across the tile.
“I wouldn’t suggest getting too close. I probably smell like puke.”
“I’m a hooker. I’ve smelled worse.”
Kevin winced in advance of the pain as Joe carefully peeled up an edge of the medical tape, and then ripped the gauze pad down quickly. “Ohh,” he exhaled as cool air settled over the sticky-slick skin, hypersensitive and swollen pink. The strange sensation radiated outwards across his skin, loud in the near-silence of soft breaths and a distant ocean.
A barely audible shutter noise, and the shuffle of socked feet. “There.” The glow of a camera screen hovered by Kevin’s cheek. He turned a bit, reaching out to steady Joe’s bobbing wrist. “It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”
Through the blur and tender pinkness, Kevin could make out the dark curves of a stylized cross, elegant edges wrapped in an intricate pattern of loops and points. Kevin stared at it a moment, taking it all in-this was a part of him now. “Yeah,” he exhaled, “it is.” He allowed his head to droop back down onto crossed arms, myriad sensations pooling in a pleasant buzz high in his head. Dimly, he could sense Joe shuffling in on the other side of the toilet, hot skin warming the back of Kevin’s hands. His own breaths were nearly deafening.
“It smells like spew in here.”
Kevin laughed lowly into his arm.
“Seriously man, you reek,” Joe prodded at Kevin’s leg with a socked foot, goaded on by the other man’s complaining moan and retaliatory kick. “My Lord! I think I may expire from this dreadful stench! I can see the light! Mon Cœur! Sacrè Bleu! Veni Vidi Ve-“
Kevin smacked him over the head. “That isn’t even French.” He shook his head despairingly at that pearly grin as he slowly pulled himself up into a sitting position, wincing a little as his shoulder blade rotated. “I’m going to take a quick shower so I don’t smell like ‘spew’. Could you-?” He motioned his head towards his uncovered shoulder.
“Oh, yeah, just a sec.” Joe momentarily lifted himself against the sink cabinet to grab at the gauze pad and shuffled on his knees over to Kevin’s back. While the adhesive pressed tenderly into his shoulder, Kevin became all-too-aware of the lopsided curls falling into his face; the naseous thickness of vomit on the air; the soft ripples in the flesh of his curled stomach-god, he was a mess. “A’ight, you’re good to go,” Joe stood up. “I’ll let you be-I’ll go steal some shit in the meantime,” he grinned, closing the door behind him with an airy wave.
Kevin smiled softly to himself as he turned the water on full-blast. That guy was something else entirely.
_______________________________________________
The water cooled for a moment as Kevin closed the tap, the little afterstream loud on the stone floor. A careful hand wiggled the glass door open, wary of the cold-harboring draft as it maneuvered for a thick, fluffy hotel towel. Closing the door with a deliciously clean foot, he wiped his face first, inhaling the scent of clean laundry deep into his lungs. No matter how many requests he made, the tour bus’s towels never managed to smell quite so nice.
About halfway through scrunch-drying his hair, Kevin became aware of music, soft and gentle through the muffle of the bathroom door. It wasn’t the television or the radio. Kevin knew that for a fact. It was a guitar, an acoustic one…and a voice? What exactly was Joe up to? Not wanting the music to disappear, Kevin wrapped the towel loosely around his waist and stepped out of the shower, shivering when he hit the wall of cooler air beyond. He padded softly across the slick floor, and opened the door with an unexpectedly loud creak.
Thankfully, Joe wasn’t startled.
Kevin had no idea what the song was, other than startlingly, heartbreakingly beautiful. Foot taping and waves swaying, the young man finished the verse, voice smoothly climbing and falling to the rhythm he was strumming and pounding out on Kevin’s prized acoustic guitar, melody slowly fading into the rush of the ocean. Kevin found himself suddenly very breathless. “Hey,” Joe shined that million-watt smile on Kevin as he muted the strings. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“Joe…you can-“
“Woah, dude, what happened to your hair?” Joe stared at his hair with childish fascination.
“It…got…wet?,” he offered, a hand going up to verify its continued existence. It was still there. “Nevermind that-you can play? You can sing? Why didn’t you-“
“No, I mean it’s more…more….” Joe twirled a finger quickly. “More this thing.”
“…Curly?” Kevin’s eyebrows were nearly in his hairline.
Joe grinned widely. “Yeah, that! Sorry, brain fart.”
Kevin sighed. “It’s just hair-this is how it always looks before getting styled. Weird, I know. But seriously, you should’ve told me you could sing and play,” Kevin’s eyes were wide with earnest, irises light and wet. “Especially when it’s like…like that.” He laughed to himself at the unrealness of the music he had just heard. “I know I only heard, like, five seconds, but I could help make something out of you. You could be famous, Joe. I know a lot of people who-“
“I like it,” Joe smiled up at him, head cocked and features dreamy.
“Which part?”
“Your hair. I like it like that.”
Kevin groaned, irritation rising. “Be serious, here…I’m talking about your future,” he pleaded, shifting the towel on his hip. “Please.”
“Mmm, nah,” Joe leaned back and strummed chords thoughtfully. “I’m good with the whole hooker-thing.”
“Joe!”
The amber-eyed man only grinned and slowed the tempo to a rhythmic, warm pulse. “Yeah,” his voice dropped an octave, “I definitely am cool with the hooker-thing,” he gave Kevin’s dripping form a slow once-over, stoking a fire on the back of Kevin’s neck. “More that cool, actually.” He licked his lips slowly, biting the edge and plumping the flesh with deep, living color. Kevin squirmed under the predatory appraisal, more than uncomfortable with the way those eyes settled below the knot in his towel, and the way they made him hyper-aware of the soft curve of his stomach and the dark, shower-matted hairs of his chest. “I’m getting to you, aren’t I?,” that demon’s angelic voice teased. “I told you.”
Kevin straightened up with a deep inhale, willing the heat and the throb from his veins. “Still not happening.” He put on a small smirk to meet Joe’s challenging gaze, before turning to his bags to rustle through for clean clothes. “There’s only, what, two hours left? Can I assume we’re not going to run off somewhere in that timeframe and put on pajamas?” A pair of black knit pajama pants and black boxer briefs were flicked over his good shoulder, complementing the dark, uncovered curves on the other.
“I can’t make any promises.” A fingerpicked melody warmed the room, fading in and out as its creator explored the suite, eventually slowing by the veranda door. “The sun’s gonna be coming up soon. We should watch.”
Kevin shimmied his underwear on underneath the towel, unwrapping it then to wipe off what little moisture was left on his skin. He pulled the pants on, adjusting the waistband as he headed back towards the bathroom. “I assume I don’t have any choice in the matter?”
“Yeah, no, not really. Think of it…as…my Christmas…present…to you,” Joe’s breaths cut off in deep, half-huffs.
Kevin laughed, carefully extracting a razor from his leather grooming kit. “Aren’t you supposed to be my Christmas present?,” he spread pre-shave oil across the shadow of hair, “besides, I’ve only known you for…eight hours?” The lack of response meant Joe was probably up to something. Averting disaster could wait until after his face was baby smooth.
A carefully shaped sideburn emerged from yesterday’s stubble, nearly getting guillotined as Joe popped into the mirror. “God! You scared-are you wearing the sheets?”
Joe draped the bedsheets over his head and pouted melodramatically at his reflection. “Do you think I’m pretty? Don’t lie.”
“Put them back,” Kevin resumed sculpting the other side. He glanced at Joe’s reflection. “And no. The color makes your ass look fat.”
Joe turned to admire the wiggling curve of his butt in the mirror. “Oh, honey, do you really mean it?” He sat up on the marble countertop to bat his eyelashes at Kevin, then hopped back down and headed for the door. “I’m not gonna put ‘em back. You’re not expecting me to sit on sand to watch the sun rise, are you? My dress might get dirty….”
“Joe, no…,” Kevin rinsed off his face in record time and pursued the sheet-attired young man. “The sheets will get totally nasty and-“ When he got to the bedroom, he stopped dead.
“That’s what the mattress is for.”
The space where a bed had once been was now devoid of everything but a metal frame and headboard; the room suddenly depressing sparse and oversized except for the overwhelming presence of one very self-satisfied prostitute in the veranda doorway. Kevin was nearing absolute collapse. “You…you…you didn’t.”
“Oh, but I did,” Joe chirped happily, hooking Kevin’s wavering form in a loop of sheets and urging his feet from carpet to lukewarm sand. “Now, come along-the sun waits for no man.”
As soon as his leg hit that bed-the one that had been in his hotel room not even ten minutes ago-sitting plainly on the sand beach as if it were a common beach chair and not a bed-a giant, queen-sized bed that was really, really, really not supposed to be there-Kevin just let go. “It’s not worth fighting, is it?”
“No, probably not.” Joe grabbed his hand, pulling Kevin into the deep white plush of Egyptian cotton sheets and four-hundred dollar pillows, their legs entwining comfortably as their eyes trained on the dark hint of horizon coloring the farthest waves. “Merry Christmas,” Joe’s breaths ruffled the fan of Kevin’s curls, dark against the snow-white linens. Kevin laughed breathily as he pushed at the sheets with his feet, savoring the grit of sand against superfine threads. “Finally feeling as awesome as I do on a daily basis?”
He snorted sideways into the pillow his grin had smothered itself in, rolling to bump arms warmly with Joe. “Totally.” When he looked back, the horizon seemed brighter than it had a moment ago, but Kevin supposed that was just wishful thinking. That was okay, at least for tonight. He closed his eyes for a moment and imagined the wet coolness of sea breeze was instead the soft dust of snow, softly falling from a bright white sky. “It seems wrong,” Kevin ventured into the quiet, “…Christmas without snow.” Sunrise was still a ways off, and Kevin could feel his eyelids crack at the slight light, then droop lazily at the lull of ocean breeze and current.
“Yeah, maybe a little.”
The crash of waves mingled with the resonating hum of guitar strings and quiet lyrics of a song Kevin didn’t recognize. He let the music swell over him with the pulse of the ocean, warm fullness expanding slowly through his limbs and chest, pushing on his lungs. So near, he could feel the small breaths and hear the plucked buzz of metal strings and oh this was what happiness felt like….
“Joe.” The barely-risen sun was brighter in Joe’s eyes as Kevin wrapped around him in a warm and sleepy-soft push of skin against skin, lips against lips. “Joe, I…” One hand steadied him by Joe’s hip, the other trailed down a cheek while his breath flowed down the loose collar, kisses warm and lingering against that golden neck. He nudged the guitar off of Joe’s lap, callused fingers smoothing over a warm back, drinking in the damp and the life. His head fell, curls mingling in waves and words languid half-kisses against Joe’s neck, viscous and sweet with sleep. “Thank you, Joe.”
-The End-