(no subject)
title: all the dead seas/neon dreams (3/3)
summary: the end
rating: still the same
a/n: cheers to mumblemutter for introducing me to baby prostitute daniel!
“Life is a great surprise. I don’t see why death should not be an even greater one.”
-Vladimir Nabokov
*
When he gets back to his flat later, he feels flat and bruised. He’s hyper-critical of everything, from the shitty bed to the shitty carpet to the shitty little cracks spider-webbing their way along the ceiling. He shucks off his suit and puts on a pair of jeans; and then, after glancing left and right (but he’s being stupid, he knows, there’s nobody looking at him now, nobody to see him at all) he picks up his shirt and inhales deeply, just once.
Carlotta calls him in later, asks him how it went.
“It went well. He’s a nice guy,” Daniel says.
“I’m sure his personality is what endeared him to you,” Carlotta says idly, writing some figures, holding the pen delicately, like a paintbrush.
“His wallet, too. But he was a nice guy all the same.”
“Sam is a good tipper, when he’s in the mood. He seemed to like you, anyway. If we were in high school, I’d ask if you like totally thought he was cute. But we’re not, so I don’t really care. Make sure you get that suit cleaned. Richardson asked again for you tomorrow.”
Daniel shudders; Richardson is a greasy, balding man who is without a doubt the sloppiest kisser he’s ever met, who treats Daniel’s face like a particularly wobbly piece of jelly, who didn’t get the hint even when Daniel produced a tissue that one time. He groans and Carlotta says, “Sweetheart, if you weren’t possessed of the cutest little pair of chipmunk cheeks I ever saw then he wouldn’t be so fond of you. You have only yourself to blame.”
*
Eventually Carlotta informs him that he’s got another appointment with Sam, an all-nighter like the last. He spends too long picking out his suit and shirt; making sure that his hair is perfect; wondering if he needs to shave (deciding, with a hint of bitterness, that shaving every three days is doing the job fine). He focuses on trivial things.
It’s a weird sort of anticipation, more specific than before, because Daniel has been anticipating the arrival of Sam Fogarino in his life for the past three years. On one hand, he’s looking forward to seeing him again. On the other, he’s looking forward to seeing him with a bullet in his head. He’s idly wondering whether Sam would bring him into a city again, or whether he’d just be going to a hotel this time, when he realizes just how much he is looking forward to seeing him. When he realizes that he’s looking forward to his date with a murderer. A wave of sickness overwhelms him, pins-and-needles in his lungs, a sick blinding white burn of shame in his throat. He leans against the mirror, the cold glass slick against his forehead, when he pulls back, he doesn’t look at his face.
He doesn’t feel like talking, much; when Sam refuses to give him a glass of wine, he feels like pushing the table over. You’re a fucking hypocrite, Sam Fogarino, he wants to shout, I’m not old enough to drink but I’m old enough for you to fucking maul. He’s jittery and on-edge; he avoids Sam’s eyes. He feels irrationally angry at the fact that they’re in a restaurant; it’s a nice gesture on Sam’s part and it’s the first proper meal he’s had in a week but he’s a fucking whore and he doesn’t belong here, not any more. It feels like Sam’s trying to - to get to know him, and maybe he has Daniel’s body but that’s it.
*
So of course he downs the wine and forgets that he has fuck-all tolerance, particularly. But it helps, it takes the edge off, and Daniel’s balloon-floating outside while Sam pays the bill - he deliberately walked out without thanking Sam. Standing on the rooftop, he watches the city lights flicker softly beneath him. He spreads his arms out and thinks about floating away in a glittering cloud, thinks about death as soft as the halo of light shimmering about him. Whenever he breathes out, the city breathes in, a choking, dying, beautiful monster. He’s standing at the edge now, leaning over the wall, looking through the chainlink diamonds to the gloom below, threading his fingers through the wires.
When he turns around Sam’s eyes are picked out in light, like they’ve been embroidered with comets and cheap neon. He has his hands in his pockets and he’s watching Daniel, his face expressionless, his body almost blending into the sickly orange night sky behind him. As Daniel walks towards him, he realizes he can’t see any stars, not out here above the glitter and the gloom. Sam’s hand is warm on his back as he’s led to the car.
When they get back he wakes up with a sore neck, the lights bright as pistol-cracks in his eyes, and he’s so fucking sick of everything. He hates Sam for being there, but he hates himself more for walking back to him.
*
In the morning he wakes up alone. He jerks up in the bed and looks wildly around him, checks that he’s alone. He feels fuzzy and incoherent; checking his watch he realizes that he’s slept for eight hours, more than the past three days combined. He’s relieved that he can be alone to collect his thoughts. Waking up alone has never bothered him; Daniel considers it a relief, because it means he doesn’t have to have morning sex. Mornings are pure and clean.
When he remembers last night he buries his head in his pillow and exhales loudly; remembers the surge of utter loathing, the hate that he’s tried so hard to choke, rushing up like seawater from a dead man’s throat.
And God, what is it about Sam? Sam Sam Sam, who makes Daniel look him in the eye when all he wants to do is look away. Sam Fogarino who owns Daniel’s body and has owned his mind for the past three years, all for $300 an hour and two bullets. Sam Fogarino and it’s all Daniel can think about, that name over and over, swelling in his throat, the brassy foghorn syllables rolling on his tongue, black hair and eyes like dirty turquoise stones in a rusted ring. Sam whose hands were all over him, whose hands have already done much more than he can ever truly comprehend; every single thing Daniel has done in the past three years is all because of him, and him alone.
Being with Sam is the most confusing thing that has ever happened to Daniel, in a world that’s never made sense, that consistently fucks him over at every opportunity like an opportunistic junkie.
*
The basic business contract is there; they’re both constantly aware of it. But rather than being a relief, an excuse for treating Daniel more like an animated doll than a human being, it’s this awkward thing between them. It’s always there when they’re together, smirking, like a pervert in the closet with a camera, watching them. Because Sam, Sam doesn’t seem to consider it just sex, but sex with Daniel. With him. Daniel sees him looking, and while he knows that he’s a pretty good-looking guy, on the better end of average, he’s used to considering it in an entirely abstract way. How he looks doesn’t generally have much bearing on how he feels; it’s all about how it makes the other person feel. But Sam looks at him with this expression in his eyes, and Daniel’s beginning to understand what it’s like to be desired as an individual, and not as a necessary accessory to an orgasm.
Of course he’s still a working boy with appointments to keep, but now he’s beginning to notice a difference between Sam’s style and the others. He supposes this is what it must be like to have a boyfriend - a standard of comparison. Not that Sam’s his boyfriend.
He’s taken to imagining what Sam’s wife must look like.
*
Sam’s in a good mood, now; he comes in with his eyes all green glitter like a parade and his hair blowing around his face. He plants an affectionate kiss on Daniel’s face, and if he doesn’t how chaste and, well, domestic it is, Daniel does. Sam grins, fingers the shirt.
“For someone with such beautiful clothes, you sure seem to like mine,” he says, grinning.
Daniel can think of a thousand things to say to him, like, Well excuse me while I run back to the crack-den whorehouse for a clean shirt, or, I’m not your girlfriend and I haven’t actually moved in; but it’s sunny and he’s so sick of being sad, so instead he says, “You’ve got nice clothes. Sort of unexpected, but nice.”
“Unexpected?”
“I really can’t imagine you wearing a stripy tshirt,” Daniel says, plucking at the material draping loosely across his chest.
“I could say the same for you, Daniel,” Sam says, and kisses him again, picks him up and plonks him onto the counter. Daniel loses the novel he was reading, falling to the floor like an ivory fan. They’re eye-to-eye now, a moment of silence; Daniel looks at Sam without being told to. There’s this funny little smile on Sam’s face, sort of shining, like a gold coin in the sand. He opens his mouth to say something, closes it uselessly after a minute; rests his forehead against Daniel’s. Together, in the sunlit, terracotta-tiled kitchen, Sam standing between Daniel’s legs, his hands on his shoulders - oh, and his hands are almost the full width of Daniel’s shoulders, but they’re not holding him down, not this time. Daniel’s hand creeps silently until it’s on Sam’s wrist and they stand together. He presses his face into Sam’s lapels.
It’s only when he pulls away that he realizes a tear has silently fallen down his cheek. He wipes it away hastily, and when Sam looks at him questioningly he reaches for Sam’s belt. Sam looks surprised; it’s the first time he’s ever initiated anything, but Daniel’s grinning at him and if it’s maybe a little empty, well, whoever said mindless sex didn’t help take your mind off things?
*
“What were you like as a child?”
“Small.”
“Very funny, Daniel.”
“… What were you like?”
“My childhood, as it were, was very short. But I’m told I was excessively charming.”
“Of course.”
“But really.”
“I… well, everyone would be surprised at what I turned out to be.”
*
One of the things that Daniel likes about Sam - yes, we’re at that stage now, and Daniel’s trying not to think about it, really - is how powerful he is. He knows there’s a power imbalance built into the relationship (and when did it become a relationship, exactly?) which is par for the course when one person in the relationship is at least twice the age of the other. But the thing is, as well as that, Daniel has to do whatever Sam wants him to do if he wants to stay. Which he does, because he intends to see Sam dead by the end of it. Of course. He hated it at first; hated having to look at Sam, hated having his wrists held down; hated that he couldn’t run; hated the way that Sam was clearly getting off on it. He hated being forced to look into those dirty green eyes, flecks of brown like rust in a stagnant puddle.
He doesn’t hate it so much anymore.
*
And then one evening Daniel is sitting nursing a throbbing headache on Sam’s couch with the TV muted and a book in his hand when Sam staggers in with his eyes bleary and fractured in his whiskey-coloured face. He stands in front of Daniel, watching him. Daniel can see what an effort it is to for him to focus, for him to even stand; eventually he collapses on the sofa, crushing Daniel’s left arm. He moves it irritably, continues to read - on screen, Robert DeNiro has just collapsed on the sofa, covered in blood, while Jodie Foster cries in the corner - and when Sam pulls him closer, he struggles away again without thinking.
“Daniel - ”
“Just… wait, I’m almost done with this,” he says. Sam narrows his eyes and focuses on the cover of the book; when Daniel doesn’t look up again he knocks it out of his hands. Anger flashes across his face, uncontrolled, like the flash of a cop car’s siren, before he restrains himself and gives that wide, toothy Sicilian smile, empty as a drunk’s philosophy.
“I was reading that.”
“Trying to make a fucking point, are you? Tough shit. Now you’re not,” and with that Sam pulls him forward, his grip tight enough to hurt. He kisses him with unpleasant, drunken abandon, sloppy and wet; when Daniel doesn’t respond, his fingers tightens around his arm.
“S - Jesus, Sam, that hurts,” Daniel snaps, trying to wrench his arm away; but he’s not strong enough, and Sam’s grip loosens and travels to his back, pulling him in. “Don’t-” Daniel tries to say, and is silenced again; and now Sam’s hand is hurting his shoulder and his head hurts worse than ever. Sam pulls back and slurs, “Now Daniel, I think you’re forgetting that word’s not in your vocabulary, not for such an expensive toy.”
His hand on Daniel’s shoulder is going to leave a bruise in the morning; his breath is sour with cigarettes and whiskey; he smells - God, he smells like a thousand backalleys Daniel has run though. It’s not fucking fair. He might be expensive but he’s nobody’s fucking toy, least of all a murdering arrogant prick like Fogarino. So Daniel lets his hand travel along Sam’s thigh and detaches himself from the kiss. He can feel Sam’s hot breath against his face, and leaning into Sam’s ear, he whispers, “Dying, dying, Lolita Haze; of hate and remorse I’m dying. And again my hairy fist I raise, and again I he- ”
The blow catches him square across the cheekbone and the force of it knocks him to the floor, pain snare-drumming along his elbow. He feels something wet trickle down his cheek, and dizzily he thinks there must be a leak in the roof, for the rain to have got him in here. Sam stands over him, holding the book. He’s trying to rip it up but the chunks of pages he’s grabbing are too thick so instead he flings it at Daniel, catching him on the shoulder. He moves closer, casting Daniel in shadow and for a tilting kaleidoscope second he thinks that he’s finally going to die - and maybe it’s better off this way. He's lived in Sam Fogarino's shadow all his life so he might as well die there too. The dirty indigo thrum of rain above and just another scarlet starshape left of him on the carpet for Sam to clean up.
But when he opens his eyes, he’s alone.
*
The next time Sam strips off his shirt, he stops to examine the florid bruises garlanding Daniel’s shoulder like so many withered roses, brows furrowed and concerned. Neither of them say anything, but it’s Daniel who resumes the kiss.
*
It seems like all the words in the world rocket past him backwards. When he touches people he only feels layers of dead skin; he counts the hours until he can go back to Sam’s house. Sam’s Town means Las Vegas, he thinks, and he wonders why he didn’t go there instead. It occurs to him sometimes that he doesn’t have to do this - he doesn’t have to do anything - but he knows that’s not true.
At night he knows the creaks of the house; in the mornings he’s always cold, but Sam pulls him close; he has the most body heat of anyone Daniel’s ever known. He draws the cosmos on Sam’s bare shoulder and wonders that it doesn’t taste like whiskey; wonders if maybe all the nicotine has stained his skin this colour. He submits to being fondled and fucked and it’s the first time he’s ever submitted to anything, not that he had a choice - seems like Sam’s always imposing his will on Daniel’s life, one way or another. He pads around in his bare feet and he knows which stair squeaks and that Sam uses all the hot water in the mornings. He knows what Sam likes for breakfast and he knows what his ex-wife looks like; he’s found a box of beautiful pictures of them, perfectly arranged but covered in dust. He knows that Sam never, ever apologizes. He knows that Sam sometimes strokes his hair when he thinks he’s asleep - hair that he pulls during the night. He knows that that old line about hate and love being the same is bullshit, that it’s a cavern - you can just get stuck in the middle if you’re not careful.
He knows Sam brought this on himself.
He doesn’t know anything at all.
*
Sam tells him to take an umbrella, to change out of his wet clothes, not to spill his soup, how to polish his shoes the right way, and it doesn’t even occur to Daniel to say, “You’re not my father,” until much later.
*
At the routine check-up, he chats to the nurses and they all pretend that Daniel’s not lying when he states his age as eighteen. There’s a guy there, Gerard, who examines the canary-yellow bruises fading slowly from Daniel’s shoulder and asks him worried questions. He has a girlish, high voice and a head of hair like a startled goth budgie but he seems sound enough and his eyes are sweet, if nervous.
Some nurse is floating around, listening to them, and when Daniel’s buttoning his shirt and Gerard’s left he starts to ask questions too. About his past, and his family, and it starts off vaguely medical but there’s something odd in the brightness of his eyes, the intense pitch of his voice, like a sinner rescued from a fire. He puts his hand on Daniel’s shoulder and rests it there just a little too long; Daniel shivers, though it’s not cold.
He’s relieved when Gerard comes back and he can leave.
*
He has acid neon dreams where he stands with Sam beneath the sickly electric aureole of a streetlight, a glittering bloom of broken bottles at their feet. Sam is kissing him hard, his face held in place - in his dreams, he closes his eyes, but they’re cobwebbed with turquoise from the light - but he can’t breathe, and even when Sam pulls away he can’t breathe - and he’s choking, Sam with his dirty ocean eyes holding him down, he’s floating away - and Pete is there next to him, his heart throbbing on his ribs like some ancient medal of war - he can’t fucking breathe, his lungs clogging with blood and seafoam and rust, words spiking in his throat like sea-urchins -
And Sam’s shaking him awake, he’s gasping and trembling, sweat-shined and coughing. “Daniel,” he shouts, “Daniel, Daniel, it’s okay, it’s okay, you’re okay.”
He shakes his head wildly, trying to clear imagined water from his ears. The room spins back into focus, familiar and dark and warm. Sam is looking at him with clear, concerned eyes, rubbing his back slowly. Daniel’s heart is beating in his chest like a lunatic locked in a cell. “Oh God, Sam, I had this horrible dream - Pete was in it - I, I…”
“Sshhh, it’s okay,” Sam says softly. “You’re here, you’re safe here.”
“But,” Daniel says.
“Daniel, it’s half-five in the morning. Go back to sleep. It was just a dream.”
Daniel opens his mouth again, but he doesn’t want to argue, or go back to sleep, so he kisses Sam instead, deep, slow, their heads still, just how Sam likes it. He slips his hand through Sam’s hair, pulls his head closer, and Sam’s trailing his hand down Daniel’s bare shoulder to the dip in his back, pulling them closer together so that Daniel has to crane upwards to continue the kiss. The daylight’s whispering in through the windows, washed out and cold like a dirty old watercolour, but oh Sam is russet-warm and gilded golden kisses, alive and vital, and his hand traces the jut of Daniel’s hipbone just so. He pulls back and looks into Sam’s eyes, lake-green, reflecting his face back pale as a drowned man’s. The light is a drippy silvery wash and it smears over Sam’s shoulders, so it looks like he’s bleeding away into thin air - but Daniel pulls him away, back onto the bed, back down into the dark, back to crimson kisses and swallowed words.
*
Being happy just sort of crept up on Daniel. It’s like treading water; he’s not sure how long he can keep it up. It has to end, sooner or later. The gun is sometimes his lifeboat and sometimes an anchor tied to his ankle.
*
Of course it ends.
Fuck, he knew it was never going to be pretty, knew that people like him never get to choose their death (insofar as one chooses one’s death; insofar as Daniel’s ever gotten to choose anything) but God, not like this, not like this.
It’s some dirty-fingered bastard with wide, manic eyes - Daniel recognises the look in them, the sick knife-sharp madness - who’d come up to him in the shop. A sharp metal gleam, dark and cold like the glimpse of a shark’s fin through the waves, and Daniel felt like he’d swallowed his heart right there. The shop skitters before him and the guy, wide grin and freckles, he says, “Daniel Kessler, you remember me, don’t you?” and shit, it’s that nurse from the clinic, voice high and excited like the squeal of brakes. Daniel swallows and manages to stutter an answer. At his command he follows him out into the street. They turn into an alley and the nurse - Jesus, he’s going to kill him and Daniel can’t even remember his name - trails the gun up Daniel’s thigh, past his arm, till it caresses the crook of his neck, of his expensive, pointless suit. The other thumb hooks into Daniel’s belt and he pulls their bodies together against the cold brick wall. Daniel can smell his breath and the freezing metal sears his neck.
“Look at me, Daniel,” the nurse says, and Daniel opens his eyes because he’s nothing if not obedient. “I’m going to save you, Daniel Kessler, I’m going to make you beautiful again, so beautiful, pure and whole again, I’ll cleanse your soul of sin, Daniel, I can make you fly again,” and as he mutters and smiles his hands snake up Daniel’s chest, up to his neck. The nurse is holding him in place with his body, trapping him, and once again Daniel can’t breathe anymore. He struggles, tries to shout, but the other man is taller and
stronger and his hands drift across his neck smooth as a silk noose.
“Please - please, don’t,” he chokes out, trying to push the nurse off, and a thought flashes through his mind - if he’s going to die, does he get to see his parents? - but it hurts, God, it hurts so fucking much, he can’t breathe, he can’t think, turquoise and magenta threads cobwebbing the edges of his vision, his chest incandescent with pain, and he tries to shout for Sam, but he can’t speak anymore - He can’t die now, not while his parents’ murderer is still alive - not while Sam doesn’t even know who he is.
He can’t breathe.
- and suddenly Sam is there, his hands around the man’s neck, he’s going to kill him, he’s going to kill someone else - he can’t, he can’t, Daniel thinks of his parents with starbursts sawn into their skulls with a shotgun, he can’t kill again, not here, Daniel can’t watch more death. Sam drops him on the floor, unconscious, spits on the limp body. His hands shake when he touches Daniel - feathery strokes, delicate, like Daniel’s bones are antique lace. Sam takes his face in one hand and tilts his head up gently towards the sun. His fingers ghost gently over Daniel’s throat. He presses a kiss to a mark that’s already beginning to show, and holds Daniel’s hand until the asshole blonde cop arrives.
*
When they get back to Sam’s house, he goes to get his gun. It’s in the attic, in a box full of beautiful pictures of a happy couple, the man handsome, with an old-fashioned cigar-suited face, the woman delicate and pale. When he reaches the stairs, he closes his eyes, thinks about dirty rain and oceans, about rust and gold and whiskey-stained skin, scarlet-smeared carpets and death, death everywhere. He thinks about how all water gets back to the sea eventually, no matter how long it takes. He thinks about drowning and the euphoria you’re supposed to feel, right before your last breath leaves you. He doesn’t think he’d mind drowning so much.
He opens his eyes and walks into the room.
summary: the end
rating: still the same
a/n: cheers to mumblemutter for introducing me to baby prostitute daniel!
“Life is a great surprise. I don’t see why death should not be an even greater one.”
-Vladimir Nabokov
*
When he gets back to his flat later, he feels flat and bruised. He’s hyper-critical of everything, from the shitty bed to the shitty carpet to the shitty little cracks spider-webbing their way along the ceiling. He shucks off his suit and puts on a pair of jeans; and then, after glancing left and right (but he’s being stupid, he knows, there’s nobody looking at him now, nobody to see him at all) he picks up his shirt and inhales deeply, just once.
Carlotta calls him in later, asks him how it went.
“It went well. He’s a nice guy,” Daniel says.
“I’m sure his personality is what endeared him to you,” Carlotta says idly, writing some figures, holding the pen delicately, like a paintbrush.
“His wallet, too. But he was a nice guy all the same.”
“Sam is a good tipper, when he’s in the mood. He seemed to like you, anyway. If we were in high school, I’d ask if you like totally thought he was cute. But we’re not, so I don’t really care. Make sure you get that suit cleaned. Richardson asked again for you tomorrow.”
Daniel shudders; Richardson is a greasy, balding man who is without a doubt the sloppiest kisser he’s ever met, who treats Daniel’s face like a particularly wobbly piece of jelly, who didn’t get the hint even when Daniel produced a tissue that one time. He groans and Carlotta says, “Sweetheart, if you weren’t possessed of the cutest little pair of chipmunk cheeks I ever saw then he wouldn’t be so fond of you. You have only yourself to blame.”
*
Eventually Carlotta informs him that he’s got another appointment with Sam, an all-nighter like the last. He spends too long picking out his suit and shirt; making sure that his hair is perfect; wondering if he needs to shave (deciding, with a hint of bitterness, that shaving every three days is doing the job fine). He focuses on trivial things.
It’s a weird sort of anticipation, more specific than before, because Daniel has been anticipating the arrival of Sam Fogarino in his life for the past three years. On one hand, he’s looking forward to seeing him again. On the other, he’s looking forward to seeing him with a bullet in his head. He’s idly wondering whether Sam would bring him into a city again, or whether he’d just be going to a hotel this time, when he realizes just how much he is looking forward to seeing him. When he realizes that he’s looking forward to his date with a murderer. A wave of sickness overwhelms him, pins-and-needles in his lungs, a sick blinding white burn of shame in his throat. He leans against the mirror, the cold glass slick against his forehead, when he pulls back, he doesn’t look at his face.
He doesn’t feel like talking, much; when Sam refuses to give him a glass of wine, he feels like pushing the table over. You’re a fucking hypocrite, Sam Fogarino, he wants to shout, I’m not old enough to drink but I’m old enough for you to fucking maul. He’s jittery and on-edge; he avoids Sam’s eyes. He feels irrationally angry at the fact that they’re in a restaurant; it’s a nice gesture on Sam’s part and it’s the first proper meal he’s had in a week but he’s a fucking whore and he doesn’t belong here, not any more. It feels like Sam’s trying to - to get to know him, and maybe he has Daniel’s body but that’s it.
*
So of course he downs the wine and forgets that he has fuck-all tolerance, particularly. But it helps, it takes the edge off, and Daniel’s balloon-floating outside while Sam pays the bill - he deliberately walked out without thanking Sam. Standing on the rooftop, he watches the city lights flicker softly beneath him. He spreads his arms out and thinks about floating away in a glittering cloud, thinks about death as soft as the halo of light shimmering about him. Whenever he breathes out, the city breathes in, a choking, dying, beautiful monster. He’s standing at the edge now, leaning over the wall, looking through the chainlink diamonds to the gloom below, threading his fingers through the wires.
When he turns around Sam’s eyes are picked out in light, like they’ve been embroidered with comets and cheap neon. He has his hands in his pockets and he’s watching Daniel, his face expressionless, his body almost blending into the sickly orange night sky behind him. As Daniel walks towards him, he realizes he can’t see any stars, not out here above the glitter and the gloom. Sam’s hand is warm on his back as he’s led to the car.
When they get back he wakes up with a sore neck, the lights bright as pistol-cracks in his eyes, and he’s so fucking sick of everything. He hates Sam for being there, but he hates himself more for walking back to him.
*
In the morning he wakes up alone. He jerks up in the bed and looks wildly around him, checks that he’s alone. He feels fuzzy and incoherent; checking his watch he realizes that he’s slept for eight hours, more than the past three days combined. He’s relieved that he can be alone to collect his thoughts. Waking up alone has never bothered him; Daniel considers it a relief, because it means he doesn’t have to have morning sex. Mornings are pure and clean.
When he remembers last night he buries his head in his pillow and exhales loudly; remembers the surge of utter loathing, the hate that he’s tried so hard to choke, rushing up like seawater from a dead man’s throat.
And God, what is it about Sam? Sam Sam Sam, who makes Daniel look him in the eye when all he wants to do is look away. Sam Fogarino who owns Daniel’s body and has owned his mind for the past three years, all for $300 an hour and two bullets. Sam Fogarino and it’s all Daniel can think about, that name over and over, swelling in his throat, the brassy foghorn syllables rolling on his tongue, black hair and eyes like dirty turquoise stones in a rusted ring. Sam whose hands were all over him, whose hands have already done much more than he can ever truly comprehend; every single thing Daniel has done in the past three years is all because of him, and him alone.
Being with Sam is the most confusing thing that has ever happened to Daniel, in a world that’s never made sense, that consistently fucks him over at every opportunity like an opportunistic junkie.
*
The basic business contract is there; they’re both constantly aware of it. But rather than being a relief, an excuse for treating Daniel more like an animated doll than a human being, it’s this awkward thing between them. It’s always there when they’re together, smirking, like a pervert in the closet with a camera, watching them. Because Sam, Sam doesn’t seem to consider it just sex, but sex with Daniel. With him. Daniel sees him looking, and while he knows that he’s a pretty good-looking guy, on the better end of average, he’s used to considering it in an entirely abstract way. How he looks doesn’t generally have much bearing on how he feels; it’s all about how it makes the other person feel. But Sam looks at him with this expression in his eyes, and Daniel’s beginning to understand what it’s like to be desired as an individual, and not as a necessary accessory to an orgasm.
Of course he’s still a working boy with appointments to keep, but now he’s beginning to notice a difference between Sam’s style and the others. He supposes this is what it must be like to have a boyfriend - a standard of comparison. Not that Sam’s his boyfriend.
He’s taken to imagining what Sam’s wife must look like.
*
Sam’s in a good mood, now; he comes in with his eyes all green glitter like a parade and his hair blowing around his face. He plants an affectionate kiss on Daniel’s face, and if he doesn’t how chaste and, well, domestic it is, Daniel does. Sam grins, fingers the shirt.
“For someone with such beautiful clothes, you sure seem to like mine,” he says, grinning.
Daniel can think of a thousand things to say to him, like, Well excuse me while I run back to the crack-den whorehouse for a clean shirt, or, I’m not your girlfriend and I haven’t actually moved in; but it’s sunny and he’s so sick of being sad, so instead he says, “You’ve got nice clothes. Sort of unexpected, but nice.”
“Unexpected?”
“I really can’t imagine you wearing a stripy tshirt,” Daniel says, plucking at the material draping loosely across his chest.
“I could say the same for you, Daniel,” Sam says, and kisses him again, picks him up and plonks him onto the counter. Daniel loses the novel he was reading, falling to the floor like an ivory fan. They’re eye-to-eye now, a moment of silence; Daniel looks at Sam without being told to. There’s this funny little smile on Sam’s face, sort of shining, like a gold coin in the sand. He opens his mouth to say something, closes it uselessly after a minute; rests his forehead against Daniel’s. Together, in the sunlit, terracotta-tiled kitchen, Sam standing between Daniel’s legs, his hands on his shoulders - oh, and his hands are almost the full width of Daniel’s shoulders, but they’re not holding him down, not this time. Daniel’s hand creeps silently until it’s on Sam’s wrist and they stand together. He presses his face into Sam’s lapels.
It’s only when he pulls away that he realizes a tear has silently fallen down his cheek. He wipes it away hastily, and when Sam looks at him questioningly he reaches for Sam’s belt. Sam looks surprised; it’s the first time he’s ever initiated anything, but Daniel’s grinning at him and if it’s maybe a little empty, well, whoever said mindless sex didn’t help take your mind off things?
*
“What were you like as a child?”
“Small.”
“Very funny, Daniel.”
“… What were you like?”
“My childhood, as it were, was very short. But I’m told I was excessively charming.”
“Of course.”
“But really.”
“I… well, everyone would be surprised at what I turned out to be.”
*
One of the things that Daniel likes about Sam - yes, we’re at that stage now, and Daniel’s trying not to think about it, really - is how powerful he is. He knows there’s a power imbalance built into the relationship (and when did it become a relationship, exactly?) which is par for the course when one person in the relationship is at least twice the age of the other. But the thing is, as well as that, Daniel has to do whatever Sam wants him to do if he wants to stay. Which he does, because he intends to see Sam dead by the end of it. Of course. He hated it at first; hated having to look at Sam, hated having his wrists held down; hated that he couldn’t run; hated the way that Sam was clearly getting off on it. He hated being forced to look into those dirty green eyes, flecks of brown like rust in a stagnant puddle.
He doesn’t hate it so much anymore.
*
And then one evening Daniel is sitting nursing a throbbing headache on Sam’s couch with the TV muted and a book in his hand when Sam staggers in with his eyes bleary and fractured in his whiskey-coloured face. He stands in front of Daniel, watching him. Daniel can see what an effort it is to for him to focus, for him to even stand; eventually he collapses on the sofa, crushing Daniel’s left arm. He moves it irritably, continues to read - on screen, Robert DeNiro has just collapsed on the sofa, covered in blood, while Jodie Foster cries in the corner - and when Sam pulls him closer, he struggles away again without thinking.
“Daniel - ”
“Just… wait, I’m almost done with this,” he says. Sam narrows his eyes and focuses on the cover of the book; when Daniel doesn’t look up again he knocks it out of his hands. Anger flashes across his face, uncontrolled, like the flash of a cop car’s siren, before he restrains himself and gives that wide, toothy Sicilian smile, empty as a drunk’s philosophy.
“I was reading that.”
“Trying to make a fucking point, are you? Tough shit. Now you’re not,” and with that Sam pulls him forward, his grip tight enough to hurt. He kisses him with unpleasant, drunken abandon, sloppy and wet; when Daniel doesn’t respond, his fingers tightens around his arm.
“S - Jesus, Sam, that hurts,” Daniel snaps, trying to wrench his arm away; but he’s not strong enough, and Sam’s grip loosens and travels to his back, pulling him in. “Don’t-” Daniel tries to say, and is silenced again; and now Sam’s hand is hurting his shoulder and his head hurts worse than ever. Sam pulls back and slurs, “Now Daniel, I think you’re forgetting that word’s not in your vocabulary, not for such an expensive toy.”
His hand on Daniel’s shoulder is going to leave a bruise in the morning; his breath is sour with cigarettes and whiskey; he smells - God, he smells like a thousand backalleys Daniel has run though. It’s not fucking fair. He might be expensive but he’s nobody’s fucking toy, least of all a murdering arrogant prick like Fogarino. So Daniel lets his hand travel along Sam’s thigh and detaches himself from the kiss. He can feel Sam’s hot breath against his face, and leaning into Sam’s ear, he whispers, “Dying, dying, Lolita Haze; of hate and remorse I’m dying. And again my hairy fist I raise, and again I he- ”
The blow catches him square across the cheekbone and the force of it knocks him to the floor, pain snare-drumming along his elbow. He feels something wet trickle down his cheek, and dizzily he thinks there must be a leak in the roof, for the rain to have got him in here. Sam stands over him, holding the book. He’s trying to rip it up but the chunks of pages he’s grabbing are too thick so instead he flings it at Daniel, catching him on the shoulder. He moves closer, casting Daniel in shadow and for a tilting kaleidoscope second he thinks that he’s finally going to die - and maybe it’s better off this way. He's lived in Sam Fogarino's shadow all his life so he might as well die there too. The dirty indigo thrum of rain above and just another scarlet starshape left of him on the carpet for Sam to clean up.
But when he opens his eyes, he’s alone.
*
The next time Sam strips off his shirt, he stops to examine the florid bruises garlanding Daniel’s shoulder like so many withered roses, brows furrowed and concerned. Neither of them say anything, but it’s Daniel who resumes the kiss.
*
It seems like all the words in the world rocket past him backwards. When he touches people he only feels layers of dead skin; he counts the hours until he can go back to Sam’s house. Sam’s Town means Las Vegas, he thinks, and he wonders why he didn’t go there instead. It occurs to him sometimes that he doesn’t have to do this - he doesn’t have to do anything - but he knows that’s not true.
At night he knows the creaks of the house; in the mornings he’s always cold, but Sam pulls him close; he has the most body heat of anyone Daniel’s ever known. He draws the cosmos on Sam’s bare shoulder and wonders that it doesn’t taste like whiskey; wonders if maybe all the nicotine has stained his skin this colour. He submits to being fondled and fucked and it’s the first time he’s ever submitted to anything, not that he had a choice - seems like Sam’s always imposing his will on Daniel’s life, one way or another. He pads around in his bare feet and he knows which stair squeaks and that Sam uses all the hot water in the mornings. He knows what Sam likes for breakfast and he knows what his ex-wife looks like; he’s found a box of beautiful pictures of them, perfectly arranged but covered in dust. He knows that Sam never, ever apologizes. He knows that Sam sometimes strokes his hair when he thinks he’s asleep - hair that he pulls during the night. He knows that that old line about hate and love being the same is bullshit, that it’s a cavern - you can just get stuck in the middle if you’re not careful.
He knows Sam brought this on himself.
He doesn’t know anything at all.
*
Sam tells him to take an umbrella, to change out of his wet clothes, not to spill his soup, how to polish his shoes the right way, and it doesn’t even occur to Daniel to say, “You’re not my father,” until much later.
*
At the routine check-up, he chats to the nurses and they all pretend that Daniel’s not lying when he states his age as eighteen. There’s a guy there, Gerard, who examines the canary-yellow bruises fading slowly from Daniel’s shoulder and asks him worried questions. He has a girlish, high voice and a head of hair like a startled goth budgie but he seems sound enough and his eyes are sweet, if nervous.
Some nurse is floating around, listening to them, and when Daniel’s buttoning his shirt and Gerard’s left he starts to ask questions too. About his past, and his family, and it starts off vaguely medical but there’s something odd in the brightness of his eyes, the intense pitch of his voice, like a sinner rescued from a fire. He puts his hand on Daniel’s shoulder and rests it there just a little too long; Daniel shivers, though it’s not cold.
He’s relieved when Gerard comes back and he can leave.
*
He has acid neon dreams where he stands with Sam beneath the sickly electric aureole of a streetlight, a glittering bloom of broken bottles at their feet. Sam is kissing him hard, his face held in place - in his dreams, he closes his eyes, but they’re cobwebbed with turquoise from the light - but he can’t breathe, and even when Sam pulls away he can’t breathe - and he’s choking, Sam with his dirty ocean eyes holding him down, he’s floating away - and Pete is there next to him, his heart throbbing on his ribs like some ancient medal of war - he can’t fucking breathe, his lungs clogging with blood and seafoam and rust, words spiking in his throat like sea-urchins -
And Sam’s shaking him awake, he’s gasping and trembling, sweat-shined and coughing. “Daniel,” he shouts, “Daniel, Daniel, it’s okay, it’s okay, you’re okay.”
He shakes his head wildly, trying to clear imagined water from his ears. The room spins back into focus, familiar and dark and warm. Sam is looking at him with clear, concerned eyes, rubbing his back slowly. Daniel’s heart is beating in his chest like a lunatic locked in a cell. “Oh God, Sam, I had this horrible dream - Pete was in it - I, I…”
“Sshhh, it’s okay,” Sam says softly. “You’re here, you’re safe here.”
“But,” Daniel says.
“Daniel, it’s half-five in the morning. Go back to sleep. It was just a dream.”
Daniel opens his mouth again, but he doesn’t want to argue, or go back to sleep, so he kisses Sam instead, deep, slow, their heads still, just how Sam likes it. He slips his hand through Sam’s hair, pulls his head closer, and Sam’s trailing his hand down Daniel’s bare shoulder to the dip in his back, pulling them closer together so that Daniel has to crane upwards to continue the kiss. The daylight’s whispering in through the windows, washed out and cold like a dirty old watercolour, but oh Sam is russet-warm and gilded golden kisses, alive and vital, and his hand traces the jut of Daniel’s hipbone just so. He pulls back and looks into Sam’s eyes, lake-green, reflecting his face back pale as a drowned man’s. The light is a drippy silvery wash and it smears over Sam’s shoulders, so it looks like he’s bleeding away into thin air - but Daniel pulls him away, back onto the bed, back down into the dark, back to crimson kisses and swallowed words.
*
Being happy just sort of crept up on Daniel. It’s like treading water; he’s not sure how long he can keep it up. It has to end, sooner or later. The gun is sometimes his lifeboat and sometimes an anchor tied to his ankle.
*
Of course it ends.
Fuck, he knew it was never going to be pretty, knew that people like him never get to choose their death (insofar as one chooses one’s death; insofar as Daniel’s ever gotten to choose anything) but God, not like this, not like this.
It’s some dirty-fingered bastard with wide, manic eyes - Daniel recognises the look in them, the sick knife-sharp madness - who’d come up to him in the shop. A sharp metal gleam, dark and cold like the glimpse of a shark’s fin through the waves, and Daniel felt like he’d swallowed his heart right there. The shop skitters before him and the guy, wide grin and freckles, he says, “Daniel Kessler, you remember me, don’t you?” and shit, it’s that nurse from the clinic, voice high and excited like the squeal of brakes. Daniel swallows and manages to stutter an answer. At his command he follows him out into the street. They turn into an alley and the nurse - Jesus, he’s going to kill him and Daniel can’t even remember his name - trails the gun up Daniel’s thigh, past his arm, till it caresses the crook of his neck, of his expensive, pointless suit. The other thumb hooks into Daniel’s belt and he pulls their bodies together against the cold brick wall. Daniel can smell his breath and the freezing metal sears his neck.
“Look at me, Daniel,” the nurse says, and Daniel opens his eyes because he’s nothing if not obedient. “I’m going to save you, Daniel Kessler, I’m going to make you beautiful again, so beautiful, pure and whole again, I’ll cleanse your soul of sin, Daniel, I can make you fly again,” and as he mutters and smiles his hands snake up Daniel’s chest, up to his neck. The nurse is holding him in place with his body, trapping him, and once again Daniel can’t breathe anymore. He struggles, tries to shout, but the other man is taller and
stronger and his hands drift across his neck smooth as a silk noose.
“Please - please, don’t,” he chokes out, trying to push the nurse off, and a thought flashes through his mind - if he’s going to die, does he get to see his parents? - but it hurts, God, it hurts so fucking much, he can’t breathe, he can’t think, turquoise and magenta threads cobwebbing the edges of his vision, his chest incandescent with pain, and he tries to shout for Sam, but he can’t speak anymore - He can’t die now, not while his parents’ murderer is still alive - not while Sam doesn’t even know who he is.
He can’t breathe.
- and suddenly Sam is there, his hands around the man’s neck, he’s going to kill him, he’s going to kill someone else - he can’t, he can’t, Daniel thinks of his parents with starbursts sawn into their skulls with a shotgun, he can’t kill again, not here, Daniel can’t watch more death. Sam drops him on the floor, unconscious, spits on the limp body. His hands shake when he touches Daniel - feathery strokes, delicate, like Daniel’s bones are antique lace. Sam takes his face in one hand and tilts his head up gently towards the sun. His fingers ghost gently over Daniel’s throat. He presses a kiss to a mark that’s already beginning to show, and holds Daniel’s hand until the asshole blonde cop arrives.
*
When they get back to Sam’s house, he goes to get his gun. It’s in the attic, in a box full of beautiful pictures of a happy couple, the man handsome, with an old-fashioned cigar-suited face, the woman delicate and pale. When he reaches the stairs, he closes his eyes, thinks about dirty rain and oceans, about rust and gold and whiskey-stained skin, scarlet-smeared carpets and death, death everywhere. He thinks about how all water gets back to the sea eventually, no matter how long it takes. He thinks about drowning and the euphoria you’re supposed to feel, right before your last breath leaves you. He doesn’t think he’d mind drowning so much.
He opens his eyes and walks into the room.