Archive of Our Own

Sonny had one more year of college standing between him and the rest of his life, and in the meantime, he was perfectly content to stand behind this bar.

St. John's first, then the academy. That was the plan, had always been the plan, neat and linear as a railroad track. 

Well, it had been since he was fifteen and laid eyes on Mary Katherine Sullivan and decided then and there that the priesthood wasn’t in the cards. 

Still, if the tracks happened to run through a dimly lit bar in lower Manhattan five nights a week for the summer, then that was fine by him

Last summer he'd loaded freight at a warehouse in Bayonne, and his back had been ninety years old by shift change. He wouldn't have survived it if it weren't for Effie—sweet, sweet Iphigenia and her masseuse hands. Her masseuse-in-training hands, whatever.  

They found out they didn't have a lot in common when fall came, but man, could she work out a knot. The happy endings weren't too bad either.

It was categorically, empirically, significantly better that the hardest thing he had to do now was unload the kegs every Tuesday and Thursday. 

There was also the matter of the talking.

Sonny was, had always been, constitutionally incapable of silence. Not in an anxious way, not filling space for the sake of it. 

Okay, maybe a little of that, sometimes, maybe. 

But mostly, he was just interested in people. 

He'd heard it before—bartenders are like therapists, free therapy for strangers, blah blah—but the cliché turned out to be true. 

He'd learned more about the interior lives of strangers in a couple of months of bartending than he had in eighteen years growing up on Staten Island, where everyone more or less knew everyone and the stories were all the same stories with the same people in them.

Behind the bar, the world came to him. Investment bankers and off-duty paramedics and women who'd just left their husbands and men who were thinking about it.

A woman who'd moved from Taipei and was taking night classes in set design. An older guy, retired firefighter, who came in every Thursday and always ordered the same thing and always, without fail, mentioned his daughter in a way that made it clear things were complicated and he wasn't ready to say how. A tourist from Belgium who'd been robbed on the subway and was, inexplicably, still in a fantastic mood. 

Sonny liked them. He liked all of them, even the objectively awful ones, because at least they gave him a story to tell later that started with So, this guy came into the bar the other night—

He also, he was willing to admit, liked getting flirted with.

He was twenty-one and he had a face his mother called sweet and his sisters called fine, if you like that sort of thing, and people at bars, it turned out, were inclined to agree with them. It was nice. It was good for the ego, and for the wallet when somebody tipped out twenty percent with a lingering look.

And he liked wiping down the bar.

This was maybe the most embarrassing thing about him, but he'd made his peace with it.

There was something satisfying about wiping down same spot like he was a character in a movie, then tossing the towel over his shoulder with just enough nonchalance to look effortless, like he'd been doing it for decades, like he was a guy who'd seen some things. 

Wednesday nights were slow, which suited the bit perfectly. 

A couple of regulars held down the far end—Manny, who worked nights at the hospital and drank one bourbon slowly and never wanted to talk about anything but baseball, and a woman whose name Sonny didn't know who came in every week to read paperback thrillers and nurse three or four glasses of red wine. 

Lena, one of the waitresses, had just leaned across the bartop and begged him for a pitcher of Blue Moon so she didn’t have to walk all the way back there, which Sonny was happy to do. What else was he doing, wiping down the bar? 

He was in the middle of doing exactly that—back turned, ice, tap, the satisfying hiss of it—when he heard it.

Two notes. A short whistle, descending, the kind someone might use to call a dog or hail a cab in 1987, and then a voice as smooth and dry as vermouth. 

“Barkeep.” 

Sonny stood there for a moment with the pitcher in his hands and ran a quick diagnostic, because… what? 

There was confusion in there, certainly—barkeep, genuinely, who said that?—and something that might have been offense if he could get it to solidify, and underneath both of those things, a third thing adjacent to delight, because whoever had just said barkeep in this century had to be, at minimum, an interesting person.

Sonny handed Lena her pitcher, and she looked at him like she was trying not to laugh, then like your problem, not mine, before she headed back toward her tables.

Sonny turned around, prepared to meet a hundred and fifty year old man in a seersucker suit, or maybe an actor on method, or at least someone who looked like they’d just stepped out of a Tom Waits song.

That was not what he got. 

The man was looking at him with the face of someone who expected the world to orient itself in his direction and had been correct about this so many times that it no longer surprised him—one eyebrow arched, chin tipped up, like he'd already ordered something and saw no reason it should be taking as long as it was to arrive. 

He was early thirties, with dark hair and a beard that Sonny's brain involuntarily supplied the word excellent about, which was a lot to be doing unprompted. His suit fit him in a way that suggested it might have been sewn directly onto him, and Sonny had the sudden, overwhelming conviction that this man smelled like money.

He was tapping two fingers on the bar, lightly, patiently, like he had all night but would prefer not to use it.

Sonny thought, distantly, that it was probably easier to be rude when you looked like that. A built-in excuse. I can get away with it, the mirror confirmed every morning.

Had Sonny hit his head? 

"My name is Sonny, if you wanna give that another go," Sonny said pleasantly. 

The man's mouth curved into a smirk, a quick recalibration seeming to happen behind his eyes as they skated over Sonny, top to bottom, then back. 

Then, instead of anything resembling an apology, “No, I don’t think I will.” 

Sonny had to look down at his own feet to make sure he was still on solid ground. He had, in his short tenure as a purveyor of alcoholic beverages, been called buddy and chief and boss, and once, memorably, governor, in very polite and very real Queen's English. 

He'd never been called barkeep by a man who looked like he'd been poured into a custom-tailored suit by angels.

Then Sonny looked up at the ceiling, which was doing nothing to help him. "He's wearing a nice suit, Sonny,” he said theatrically. “Do it for the tip."

He straightened. He put his hands flat on the bar. He produced, from somewhere in his chest, a tone of such elaborate warmth that it had its own ambient glow. "Good evening, sir. What can I get for you?"

Crinkles appeared at the corners of the man's eyes. He was losing the battle with the smile, and he seemed to find this privately annoying, which Sonny found privately wonderful. 

"Lagavulin 16," he said. "Neat."

"Neat," Sonny repeated, smiling wide and sweet. "What an inspired choice, sir. I never would've pegged you for a room temperature scotch man."

The glass clinked. 

The amber liquid sloshed. 

Sonny slid it across the polished wood of the bar, because he liked to slide things, and it was exactly one of those movie moments. The man caught it with his long, elegant fingers, a signet ring on his pinky flashing in the low light.

Sonny had a weird, fleeting thought about the way those fingers would look peeling an orange or wrapped around a pen or, for that matter, wrapped around—

Well.

Sonny blinked.

He needed to wipe the bar.

"Alright," he said, turning away to grab the towel, a sudden, frantic need for something to do with his hands. He did not toss it over his shoulder. He was not feeling that cool. He was feeling, if he was honest with himself, a little bit warm. "Let me know if you need anything else."

"Drink is on the house, then?"

Sonny stopped. The towel was in his hand, limp as a dead fish. He turned back.

"I was getting there," Sonny lied. "I was just giving you a moment to appreciate the aromas before I hit you with the bill."

The man took a slow sip of the scotch, his eyes locked on Sonny's over the rim of the glass. He set it down with a soft click. "Is that what you were doing?"

"Yep. It's a service we provide. Sensory immersion," Sonny said flatly. "That'll be twenty-three dollars." He gestured with the towel. "And, you know, that tip I talked to God about."

The man reached into an inner pocket of that impossibly perfect suit jacket and pulled out a wallet, black leather that looked like it had been made from a charming and very expensive dinosaur. "That's a little steep for a pour, don't you think?"

"I wouldn't know, sir," Sonny said, leaning against the back bar. "I'm just a humble barkeep. I live by the prices, die by the prices."

The man snorted, but he was already sliding a card across the bar. "And if I told you I'd give you a hundred-dollar tip if you let me call you ‘barkeep’ all night?"

Sonny stared at the credit card. It was black. Just matte, featureless black. It looked like a weapon. He looked from the card to the man's face, which was wearing that same infuriatingly patient expression.

"I'd say," Sonny said slowly, picking up the card. Jesus, it was heavy, "that you have the air of somebody who's gonna do it anyway, and I'm just the guy who's gonna be a hundred dollars richer for it. But let's make it two hundred."

The corner of the man's mouth twitched. "Done." He leaned forward, propping his chin on a hand. "Open a tab. Let's see if we can get you to three."

Sonny stuck the card in the little rack that was used to holding normal people credit cards, feeling like he'd just locked up the Mona Lisa for safekeeping.

"You got a name, or should I just put 'Rich Guy Who Needs Attention' on the receipt?" Sonny asked, starting on one of the most self-indulgent, theatrical wipe-downs the bar had ever seen.

"Brian," the man said.

Brian. 

It was so… normal. So aggressively unspectacular. Brian was a guy who sold life insurance and coached his kid's soccer team. Brian was not a man in a bespoke suit who bought the right to insult people for sport.

"No, it's not," Sonny said.

Brian blinked. "What?"

"Your name isn't Brian. I don't believe you."

A genuine, full-toothed smile finally broke through, and it was like watching the sun come out from behind a cloud. It was disorienting and a little bit blinding. "What would you have my name be, Sonny?"

Sonny felt a weird little zap go through him, like static electricity.

"Sebastian," Sonny said, because that's what a guy like this should be called. "Or maybe… Alistair. Something with a lot of letters."

"My parents were tragically uncreative people," Brian said, taking another sip of his scotch. "They went with Brian."

"Sad story. I'll pour one out for you later," Sonny said. "So, Brian, what brings a man of your… vintage… to my humble establishment? Your usual velvet rope get a little dusty?"

That amused huff again. "I'm in town for a thing."

"A thing," Sonny repeated, nodding sagely. "A big, important, secret thing with other people in suits, where you say things like 'leverage the synergy' and 'circle back' until you're all hoarse?"

"Close," Brian said, swirling the scotch in his glass. "I'm a lawyer."

"A lawyer," Sonny said, leaning both elbows on the bar. "Well, that kills, like, two or three birds with one stone. Explains the suit. Explains the need to be verbally combative for fun. Explains the wallet, for sure. Are you a mob lawyer? Please say you're a mob lawyer. My life would be so much more interesting."

"I am not a mob lawyer," Brian said, sounding almost disappointed.

"Divorces for the rich and famous? Defending people who dump chemicals in rivers? Making sure billionaires don't have to pay taxes?" Sonny leaned in closer. "Tell me your sins, Brian."

Brian watched him, the smile playing on his lips again. "I'm usually a corporate litigator, but... well, let's just say a client of mine acquired a company that had some creative accounting. I'm here to make sure the creative accountants don't end up in a federal prison."

"Wow," Sonny breathed. "Say it again, but slower."

"My client," Brian said, his voice dropping into a purr, "is being investigated by the SEC for securities fraud. I'm here to do almost nothing and charge them a king's ransom for it. Happy?"

"Ecstatic," Sonny said. "That still doesn't explain why you're not in a hotel bar with marble columns and tiny little pretzel rolls, harassing some guy who charges eighteen dollars for a Heineken. This is a neighborhood place. We have sticky floors."

"My thought process started at 'liquor' and ended at 'fast,'" Brian said. "I almost went to some place across from the courthouse, but it was crawling with a few too many cops for my taste. My kind isn't welcome in that particular watering hole."

Sonny hummed. "You got a problem with cops? Or do they have a problem with you?"

"Let's call it a mutual, professional disagreement," Brian said. "They think I'm a shark. I think they're… not the brightest bulbs in the marquee."

Sonny laughed, a real, loud burst of it that made Manny at the end of the bar glance over. "I like you, Brian. You're a terrible person, but I like you."

"Terrible people need a place to drink, too," Brian said, finishing his scotch. He pushed the empty glass forward. "Another."

"A 'please' wouldn't kill you," Sonny said, already moving for the bottle. "They're all the rage these days. You should try it."

"I find it dilutes the message," Brian replied.

The second pour was accompanied by the same strange silence, the same feeling of being studied. Sonny's heartbeat was a little too fast.

This was fine. This was just part of the job. De-escalation through charm. Making the weird guy in the suit feel seen. It was a technique. That's all it was.

"What's your drink?" Brian asked as Sonny slid the glass back. "Besides cheap beer in plastic pitchers for waitresses who don't want to walk."

"That wasn't particularly subtle, but I appreciate the effort," Sonny said, leaning against the back bar again. "But since you asked, I'm a Miller Lite guy, through and through. When it's free. Otherwise, I just drink the bar's profits, one sip at a time." He gestured to a half-finished pint from earlier. "Stout, on the house. The owner's cheap, but he's not stupid."

"A man of the people," Brian said dryly. "But what if you weren't a guy who stands behind a bar with sticky floors? What if you were me?"

Sonny considered it, tapping a finger against his chin. "If I were you, I'd probably be drinking the world's most expensive tequila, straight, while I stared in the mirror and told myself what a good job I was doing keeping felons out of prison. And I'd probably have a complicated relationship with my father. God, I'd be a nightmare." He paused. "So, how's your relationship with your father?"

A slow, dangerous smile spread across Brian's face. "You're a nosy little thing, aren't you?"

"Right, and how tall are you?" Sonny shot back, and then, because he couldn't help himself, "Your hands say six-five, but your wallet says five-eight. I'm leaning toward the wallet."

Brian laughed, short and sharp. "Clever. My father and I are fine, thanks for asking. He thinks I should have been a doctor, and I think he should have been less of a bastard. We meet in the middle at Thanksgiving."

"See? A real story," Sonny said, beaming. "That's the stuff. This is fun. We're having fun."

"We could be having a little more fun," Brian said, tilting his head toward the row of bottles. "What's your top shelf tequila?"

Sonny pointed to a dusty amber bottle. "Don Julio 1942. Legend has it that the guy who owns this place bought one bottle for his wedding ten years ago, got left at the altar, and it's been sitting there ever since. I think he hopes he'll have a reason to open it someday, but he's a miserable asshole, so I'm not holding my breath."

"And how much is a shot of that tragic artifact?"

"That's a great question, Brian, and it had a very simple answer—I have absolutely no idea," Sonny replied. "It's in that 'if you have to ask, you can't afford it' section of the menu. The menu in my head."

Brian's smile was slow and predatory. "Pour two."

Sonny's stomach did a little flip, a tiny, thrilling freefall. This was getting out of hand. This was... Sonny was used to people buying him a beer, or maybe a shot of Jameson at the end of the night if they'd been particularly chatty. There was even a man, once, who'd slipped him a fifty and told him he had a nice smile.

This was not that.

This was a power play. This was a guy who was so used to buying and selling people's futures that he thought nothing of buying Sonny's present for a few hundred dollars.

Sonny liked it.

He liked it a whole, whole lot.

He grabbed the bottle and two of the nice glasses, the ones with the thick, heavy bottoms, and set them on the bar.

"Alright, big shot," Sonny said, low and conspiratorial. "You're about to taste the distilled essence of one man's broken heart. Enjoy."

The pour was a slow, luxurious stream of liquid gold. Brian watched as Sonny filled the two glasses and place them halfway between them.

"The second one is for the nosy little thing," Brian said, sliding one back toward Sonny. "Your cut. For the entertainment."

"Don't mind if I do," Sonny said, a thin veneer of bravado over the pounding beat of his heart. "What are we drinking to?"

Brian raised his glass, his gaze pinning Sonny in place. "To sticky floors, and the interesting things you find standing on them."

The glass met Sonny's lips, and for a split second, he felt like he was betraying Miller Lite. Then the tequila hit his tongue.

It was nothing like the cheap, gasoline-laced stuff he usually shot. This was... smooth. It tasted like vanilla and caramel and something else, something green and earthy.

It burned, but it was a good burn, a clean, warm fire that spread down his chest.

"Wow," Sonny said, setting the glass down. "Okay, that's not bad."

"Not bad?" Brian raised an eyebrow. "You're a hard man to impress, Sonny."

"No, I'm an easy man to impress," Sonny countered, resting his forearms on the bar again. "I'm just trying to play it cool. I don't want you to think you can win me over with a fancy tequila and a three-hundred-dollar tip."

"Am I winning you over?" 

"Ask me after the second glass," Sonny said, and he was horrified, a little, at how true that was.

"Another round, then," Brian said, pushing his empty glass forward. "And starting now, for every tequila you drink with me, I add another hundred to the pot."

Sonny's brain stuttered for a beat.

That was more than he made in a week, probably more than he made in two weeks, just to sit here and drink tequila with a handsome, arrogant, clearly deeply troubled lawyer named Brian who may or may not have been telling the truth about his own name.

And the worst part, the most damning, most thrilling part, was that Sonny wanted to say yes. He wanted to see what happened next. He wanted to see what would happen if he let this man, this stranger, buy him for the night.

"That's a tad rapey, don't you think?" Sonny said, testing the waters, seeing how far he could push. "Cornering a guy at his job, offering him exorbitant sums of money to get him drunk? I'm pretty sure I saw a PSA about it in high school."

Brian laughed, and it was a real laugh, a deep, rumbling sound that made Sonny's stomach clench. "You're a smartass, you know that?"

"I like to think of myself as a witty conversationalist," Sonny said, trying to ignore the warmth that was spreading through him, warmth that was not, at this point, due to the tequila.

"Then converse with me, witty one," Brian said, gesturing to the bottle of tequila. "Tell me something I don't know."

Sonny thought about it for a moment as he poured the second round. He wanted to say something smart, something that—as loathe as he was to admit it—would keep Brian's interest.

"I know how to pick a lock," Sonny said, sliding the glass back. "My cousin taught me. He's a locksmith. He's also, you know, not a locksmith. But I can get into any door in Staten Island. Probably."

Brian took a sip of his tequila, his eyes never leaving Sonny's. "How often do you get a chance to pull out that little parlor trick?"

"Not as often as I'd like," Sonny said, taking a sip of his own. The second glass was even better than the first. "Mostly I just use it to get into my own apartment when I forget my keys, which is a lot." He paused. "I also know how to tie a cherry stem with my tongue."

Brian's smile widened. "Now that's a skill. Can I see it?"

"What's it worth to you?" Sonny asked, trying to play it cool, but he could feel the blush creeping up his neck. 

"What do you think it's worth?" Brian said, his voice dipping lower.

Sonny swallowed past the sudden dryness in this throat. "You're the one who'll get the credit card statement in the mail."

Brian's smile was a slow, lazy thing. "Some things are worth more than money."

Sonny's mind raced. He was in over his head, and he knew it. He was a kid from Staten Island who was going to be a cop, which this guy hated, and he was currently standing in a bar playing some kind of high-stakes game of chicken with a man who could probably buy and sell the entire building without breaking a sweat.

And Sonny was losing. Or maybe he was winning. He couldn't tell anymore.

"I wouldn't want to cheapen the thrill by giving out freebies," Sonny said finally, trying to wrestle back control of the conversation. "Tell you what. You tell me how tall you are, and I'll see what I can do about your cherry stem."

Brian let out a long, slow breath. "Six-four."

"Try again," Sonny replied.

Brian's smile was a razor's edge. "Six-three and a half."

"Last chance."

Brian leaned forward, their faces barely a foot apart. Sonny could smell his cologne, and it was making him dizzy.

"Come over here and measure me yourself."

Sonny's breath caught in his throat. He was aware of every nerve ending in his body, every point of contact between his skin and the air.

Then he smiled, a wide, reckless, I-do-this-kind-of-thing-all-the-time kind of smile, even though he had never, ever done this kind of thing in his entire life. "Don't go anywhere."

Without waiting for a response, Sonny turned on his heel and made a beeline for the empty office in the back. He pushed open the door and stepped inside, the sudden quiet a welcome relief from the thrumming tension. 

He leaned against the door for a moment, taking a deep breath, trying to calm the frantic beating of his heart.

"Get a grip," he muttered to himself. "He's just a guy. A weird, rich, arrogant guy, but he's still just a guy."

He glanced around the office, a mess of paperwork and empty boxes, and started digging in desk drawers, hoping against hope that he'd find what he was looking for. He finally found it in the bottom drawer, buried under a pile of old pay stubs.

A tape measure.

He walked back out into the bar, holding the little metal case up like a prize.

Brian's eyes lit up with genuine delight. "Well, look at you."

"A bet's a bet," Sonny said, trying to sound casual as he rounded the bar and walked over to Brian. He tried to ignore the fact that they were being stared at by a few of the other patrons, and probably Lena, if Sonny cared to turn around and check. He did not.

He stood in front of Brian, the tape measure in his hand, and for a moment, he wasn't sure what to do. He could just measure him, but that felt too easy. He wanted to make this good.

"Stand up," Sonny said with a little nod. "Shoes off."

To his utter shock, Brian did it. He stood up, toeing off expensive-looking leather loafers without a word of protest. His eyes were level with Sonny's mouth, which was noteworthy insofar as his gaze was locked there.

"So my five-eight guess wasn't so far off, was it? That's a lot of shoe," Sonny said.

"I like a little lift," Brian replied without missing a beat. "Makes me feel closer to God."

Sonny laughed, a little breathlessly. "You'll have to get a running start for that," he said, pulling out the tab of the tape measure and lengthening it until it hit the floor. "Okay, stand up straight. Feet flat on the floor, no cheating."

"You could've just asked to see my driver's license," Brian said, a little breathless himself as Sonny reached up to line up the tape measure with the top of his head.

"That's self-reported, right?" Sonny said, his knuckles brushing against Brian's temple, and for a second, Sonny's mind went completely blank before he remembered he was doing something. "I'm an empiricist."

"That's a ten dollar word for a guy who wears a shirt with a logo on it," Brian replied.

Sonny's eyes flicked down to the bar's logo, small and faded, on the left chest of his black t-shirt. "Yeah, well, this is a ten dollar shirt."

That got him a real laugh, and Sonny's heart soared. He was doing it. He was keeping up.

"Okay, stay still," Sonny said, squinting at the tape measure, his focus entirely on the number he was looking for, ignoring the fact that Brian was looking at him like he wanted to eat him alive.

Sonny marked the spot with his thumb and then pulled it away to read. Five-eight and… call it a quarter. Damn, he was good. 

"Well, well, well," Sonny said. "It seems like you're a man of your word, Brian. Six-three and a half."

Brian's smile was a smug thing that Sonny wanted to kiss right off his face. "What was that about being a smartass?" he said, and Sonny felt a giddy, dangerous feeling shoot through him that was better than the tequila, better than anything.

"I just call it like I see it," Sonny said, letting the tape measure snap back into its case. "Now, about that cherry stem."

"I believe I've held up my end of the bargain," Brian said, his voice a low, seductive rumble that went straight to Sonny's groin. "Now it's your turn."

"And I believe that the deal was for you to tell me how tall you are, which you, as you well know, did not do," Sonny said, circling the bar back to safety. "But I'm a much nicer guy than you are, so I'm gonna let it slide."

Brian found his shoes and slipped them back on, the smile never leaving his face. "You're a hustler, is what you are. You find a mark and you bleed him dry."

"Not all marks are as willing as you are," Sonny said, reaching for the jar of maraschino cherries.

He popped the lid, the sweet, cloying smell of artificial cherry filling the air. He fished one out, slick and sticky with syrup, and placed it on a cocktail napkin between them. 

"Go ahead," Sonny said, gesturing to the cherry. "All I need is the stem."

Brian's eyes were locked on Sonny's as he picked up the cherry and popped it into his mouth. He chewed slowly, deliberately, and Sonny felt a fresh flush creeping up his neck, a hot, prickling heat that he was powerless to stop.

Brian took his sweet, sweet time, savoring the cherry, his tongue darting out to catch a stray drop of juice from his lip. He was doing this on purpose, Sonny knew, dragging this out, making Sonny watch, making him wait. 

And god, was it working.

Finally, Brian swallowed, his throat bobbing, and with a flick of his tongue, he had a perfectly tied cherry stem between his teeth. He held it there for a moment, a smug, triumphant grin on his face, before spitting it out onto the napkin.

It was a perfect knot. A surgeon's knot.

"Your turn," Brian said, and Sonny felt a wave of pure, unadulterated want crash over him.

He was really going to do this.

He was doing this, reaching out to pick up the tied stem instead of another cherry. He untied it with his fingers, the stem slick with Brian's spit, and put it in his own mouth.

He'd done this a million times, in dive bars and at house parties, an easy move to impress girls who were looking for a reason to be impressed.

He'd never done it for a man, and he'd certainly never done it for a man who was looking at him like Brian was looking at him.

Sonny tried to focus, he tried to remember the trick of it, the twist of the tongue, the way to fold the stem in on itself, but all he could think about was how grateful he was that his mouth was busy so he couldn't say something stupid like let's see what else that tongue can do or okay, I don't have a lot of experience with men, but I didn't spend three semesters jerking off with Johnny Silvetti to not take the opportunity when it comes knocking or can I touch your suit, just for a second?

Instead, he just worked, the stem a slippery, clumsy thing in his mouth, a clumsy thing that he was fumbling with, a clumsy thing that was not cooperating, a clumsy thing that was not tying into a neat little knot.

Brian watched him, a knowing look on his face. "Need some help?" he asked, and Sonny nearly choked on the stem.

No. 

He was Sonny, the bartender. 

He was charming and funny and flirty, and, at the end of the day, he was exactly certain that Brian couldn't care less if he could tie a cherry stem with his tongue as long as Sonny kept talking to him. 

The thought was surprisingly liberating. He didn't have to win. He just had to keep showing up.

Sonny pulled the mangled, untied stem out of his mouth, holding it up between two fingers. "And if I said yes?" he said, a little breathless.

Brian's smile was slow and easy, a little condescending, and Sonny found he didn't mind it at all. "I'd say you're a man who knows his limitations."

"And you're a man who's just earned himself another round of tequila," Sonny said, tossing the stem.

"You really are a hustler, aren't you? What's next? A game of darts for my shirt?"

"I'll take a hundred bucks if you can hit the bullseye from here," Sonny said, pouring the third round and gesturing toward the dartboard on the far wall with a tilt of his head. "Two hundred and the shirt if you miss."

Brian looked from the dartboard to the glasses, a thoughtful look on his face. "I don't know," he said. "I'm a terrible shot. It's my one weakness."

Sonny took a sip of the tequila, the third glass was as good as the second, and he was starting to feel a warm, happy buzz. "Promise?"

"Cross my heart."

Sonny had him. He had him, and he was going to get that shirt. He had no idea what he was going to do with it, maybe frame it, maybe sleep with it, maybe just smell it and cry a little, but he was going to get it.

"You're on," Sonny said, pulling a set of darts from a mug under the bar and sliding them across the polished wood, shooting up a quick prayer of thanks that there was no one sitting between them and the board. "Don't embarrass yourself."

Brian chose a dart, weighing it in his hand. "What are the stakes if I get it in the triple twenty?" he asked, and Sonny's heart did a little flip.

"You got something in mind?" Sonny asked.

"I do," Brian replied, casual as anything. "Triple twenty, and you come back to my hotel with me."

Sonny's brain stuttered for a beat, the whole world grinding to a halt.

He was aware of the low hum of the bar, the clink of glasses, the murmur of conversations, but it all felt very far away. All he could see was Brian's face, all he could hear was the offer, an offer that was so absurd, so insane, so completely and utterly out of his league that it was almost funny.

"Triple twenty, and I'll think about it," Sonny said, hoping Brian didn't notice the barely-there tremor in his voice.

"Triple twenty, and I get to watch you think about it," Brian countered, and the want almost knocked Sonny off his feet. "One shot. Deal?"

Sonny took a deep breath, the tequila buzzing in his veins, and found himself hoping that Brian was a crack shot. That he was, in fact, the devil at the dartboard, and he'd been hustling Sonny right back.

"Deal."

Brian spun around on his barstool, propping himself up on one elbow, the picture of lazy confidence.

Sonny watched him make a real meal out of the pre-throw ritual. He sighted down his arm, a little frown of concentration on his face, like he was calculating wind speed and trajectory.

Then he brought the dart back, a fluid, graceful motion, and for a second, Sonny was sure he had it. He was sure this was the beginning of something, the start of a story he'd be telling for the rest of his life.

He let the dart fly.

It was a beautiful, perfect, arc, a line of silver against the dark wood of the bar. Sonny's heart was in his throat. It was going to be a sexy triple twenty. He was going to a hotel with a man who hated cops, and he was going to like it.

And then the dart buried itself into the wall with a dull thud, two feet to the left of the cabinet. Just… clean. Right into the drywall.

Brian spun back around on his stool, a shit-eating grin on his face, waiting for Sonny's reaction. Sonny didn't have one to give. He was too busy cleaning up the disappointment that wanted so badly to show on his face.

Brian was happy to wait him out. He took a long, slow sip of his tequila, his eyes never leaving Sonny's.

"I've got your concrete block of a credit card back here to collect half of my winnings," Sonny said, his own words a buzz in the back of his head. "How do you want to settle up for the other half?"

Brian's grin widened. "Oh, you'll get your shirt before the night's out. Don't you worry about that." He paused, looking at Sonny, his head tilted to the side. "But I have to say, Sonny, I'm disappointed."

"Disappointed about what, your inability to hit the broad side of a barn, or are you already grieving your ex-shirt?" Sonny said, trying for aloof, but mostly he just sounded winded.

"Neither of those are particularly disappointing. The dart was a foregone conclusion, and I have a closet full of shirts," Brian replied. "I was looking forward to watching you think about it."

Sonny's heart was beating so fast he thought it might fly out of his chest. "You really lay it on thick."

"I like to be clear about what I want," Brian said, finishing the last of the tequila. "It's a real time saver."

He slid the empty glass forward, and Sonny wordlessly poured another round. He had to. He was in so deep, he was getting the bends.

"You know, that jacket looks a little restricting," Sonny said, looking down at the tequila pour instead of at Brian's face. "It doesn't seem fair to hold you to the letter of the bet when you didn't even have a fair shot, all trussed up like that."

Sonny had a flash of... well, fear seemed like a strong word, but maybe not a wrong one about the idea of losing Brian's interest by revealing that he was... somewhat of a sure thing. 

Well, he wasn't not a sure thing. He was an 'if this guy isn't just messing with me for fun and is actually, for real, into me' thing.

Sonny didn't like that he couldn't tell, but he could definitely see the version of tonight where Brian realized he had him, lost interest, and took off. That was the worst possible outcome of this whole thing, second only to the one where Brian was a serial killer and Sonny ended up in a ditch.

But what was a little murder, really, compared to the soul-crushing humiliation of being a rejected one-night stand? He'd take the ditch.

"It's sweet that you think it'd make a difference," Brian said, letting his jacket slip off his shoulders anyway, tossing it across the empty barstool next to him. "But I'm going to have to disappoint you again. I'm not trying to impress you with my dart skills, I'm trying to impress you with my wallet."

Sonny watched as Brian loosened his tie and rolled up the sleeves of his crisp, white shirt, revealing muscular forearms dusted with dark hair. 

He looked even more expensive without the jacket.

"And how's that working out for you?" Sonny asked, leaning forward, getting closer, trying to pull him in.

"I'm looking forward to finding out," Brian said, raising the fourth glass of tequila. "To your next big score, hustler. May you always find a mark with a deep-seated need to be fleeced."

Sonny clinked his glass against Brian's, a clear, bright note in the din of the bar. He took a sip, the tequila starting to blur the edges of the room, a warm, happy haze that made everything feel a little more possible.

"So that's your thing, then," Sonny said, the tequila loosening his tongue, making him brave. "You throw money at people, insist that they're the ones taking advantage of you, and then everything that comes after is their idea? That's a neat little trick."

Brian took another long sip, watching Sonny over the rim of the glass. "I'm on vacation, Sonny. A very boring, very expensive vacation. The paperwork is all done. The depositions are over. My client is, for the moment, a free man. I've got nothing to do but sit in a hotel room and wait for a plane to take me back to my life. I'd rather spend my money on interesting company than room service."

"That was a lot of words to not answer my question," Sonny replied. "You want me to make the first move. You want to be able to say 'he came on to me' if you ever need to."

"Christ, that's dismal," Brian said on a laugh. "And, for the record, I don't want to be able to say 'he came on to me.' I want you to actually come on to me."

Sonny's mind was racing, a chaotic jumble of tequila and want and a dose of self-preservation hanging on by a thread. He was being backed into a corner, and he knew it. Brian was laying the trap, and he was daring Sonny to walk right into it.

"So you're the kind of guy who flashes cash at the strip club and thinks Destiny is giving you a private dance because she really digs your personality," Sonny said, taking another sip of the tequila, trying to buy himself a second to think. "Tell me, does it hurt your feelings when you see her at the grocery store a week later and she doesn't recognize you?"

"I imagine that would sting a little," Brian said, a glint of amusement in his eye. "But I'm not particularly interested in paying a girl with clear heels and a meth-slinging boyfriend to grind on my lap and call me 'daddy,' so I guess we'll never know."

"You want her to seem really into it, I get that," Sonny continued. "It's not about the transaction, it's about the validation. You need to think that the guy who's been working his way through a bottle of tequila with you is doing it because he finds you fascinating, not because you're flashing a black Amex." He finished his glass. "It's okay, Brian. We're all just trying to get by."

"So I'm a lonely, insecure man who's using my vast, ill-gotten fortune to purchase the fleeting illusion of affection," Brian said, not even pretending to be offended. "Is that about the size of it?"

"I wouldn't presume to guess the inner workings of a guy who thought a class ring was a good investment," Sonny said, gesturing with an empty glass to the ring on Brian's pinky. "I'm just here to serve drinks and provide color commentary."

"If I could give you a 'you don't know anything about me' look, Sonny, I assure you, I would be giving it to you right now. But this is, in fact, a class ring. University of Chicago Law, class of '94. They make a big deal about how it's part of your identity, how it's a symbol of your commitment to the law, a brotherhood that will last a lifetime. Mostly, it's just a convenient way for people from far less impressive schools to know that I'm smarter than them."

"And humble, too," Sonny said, nodding along. "That's a great story, Brian. It really speaks to your commitment to being the most insufferable person in any given room. But it's still a class ring. And you still wear it. And you still want me to believe you're not a guy who needs to be validated."

"And you think a twenty-something bartender in a city that I hope to god I never have to set foot in again is the person worth paying top dollar to be validated by?"

"No, I think I'm the guy who happened to be behind the bar when you walked in, the guy willing to play along because he's got rent to pay and you're buying him mid-range tequila that we're both pretending is more expensive than it is. Don't kid yourself, Brian. If I wasn't here, you'd be at the airport bar, charming the pants off some divorced flight attendant from Cleveland who makes you feel like you're the second coming. I'm just the convenient local flavor."

"You have a very low opinion of me," Brian said, leaning back on his stool, a thoughtful look on his face. "And, I have to say, a surprisingly low opinion of yourself."

"I wouldn't say that," Sonny said, but the tequila was making it hard to hold onto the sharp edges of the conversation. "I think I'm great. I'm just saying I'm not an idiot, a detour is a detour. Even a scenic one."

"A scenic one, indeed," Brian said, a little smile on his face. "Alright, then, Mr. Street Smarts. Let's cut the shit. What do you want?"

Sonny's mind flashed to a ditch, and then to a hotel room with a view of the river, and then back to a ditch.

"I want you to pay your tab, and I want to go home," Sonny said, trying to be flippant, but the tequila was making it hard to remember the rules of the game. "And I want a tip. A huge one."

"That can be arranged," Brian said, and for a second, Sonny felt a pang of regret, scared that he'd gone too far in the other direction. "But I don't think that's what you really want. I think you're having as much fun as I am."

Sonny was, which was the whole problem.

He was having more fun than he ever had, or at least a new kind of fun, a fun that was a little scary and a lot thrilling, a fun that was making him forget that he'd seen documentaries and knew how this story ended.

"I always have fun at work," Sonny said, trying to salvage what little control he had left. "Last week, a guy tried to pay for a beer with a winning lottery ticket. The week before that, I got to break up a fight over who was the better lead singer for Van Halen. It's a nonstop rollercoaster."

"I'm not going to get a straight answer out of you, am I?" Brian said, shaking his head.

"'Straight' is an interesting word. You think we'll be running up on any other relevant uses of that word before the night is out?"

Brian's smile widened. "You can be straight as an arrow for all I care. That's between you and the man in the mirror. I'm more interested in what's between you and me. So let me be a little more direct—I'm not asking you to come back to my hotel. I'm telling you that I'm going to have one more glass of this tequila, and then I'm going back to my hotel. If you're in the elevator with me when the doors close, I'll consider this to have been a successful detour. If you're not, I'll consider it to have been a scenic one. Either way, I'm good for every penny."

Sonny stood there, the silence stretching between them, a taut, humming wire. He could feel Lena's eyes on him from the other end of the bar. He could feel the weight of the night, the weight of the tequila, the weight of Brian's gaze, heavy and expectant.

He was at a crossroads, a real one.

One path led to his apartment, to a lumpy mattress and a half-eaten bag of chips and the slow, steady drip of a leaky faucet. The other path led to a hotel room, to a stranger, to a world of crisp white sheets and expensive cologne and a thousand different ditches.

"And the shirt?" Sonny asked coyly, as he poured the last round. He was a master of his craft, after all.

"I'll walk out of here in my undershirt if that's how the cards fall, but I'd rather not," Brian said, taking the glass from Sonny, their fingers brushing. "It's a bit nippy out."

And just like that, Sonny's last flimsy little crutch, that thin veneer of a game he thought he was playing, was gone. The bet was over. The cherry stem was a distant memory. 

And he was toast. Burnt to a crisp.

He was going. He was absolutely, one-hundred-percent, no-doubt-about-it going. 

He'd already bought the ticket, punched it, and was on the platform waiting for the train. The only question left was how much of his dignity he could manage to cram into his pocket for the ride.

"And what was your wife's name?" Sonny asked, the words slipping out before he could stop them, a final, desperate grab for the wheel.

Brian hummed. "I'll list a few different answers, and you can tell me which one you'd like to be true. Option A—" he said, counting off on his fingers. "I'm married to a lovely woman named Jessica. We have two kids, a boy and a girl, and a golden retriever named Buddy. She doesn't know I've ever even looked at another man, and you get to be party to a deep and profound betrayal of a life that I'm mostly very happy with. Option B—her name was Margaret, and she died, tragically and beautifully. I'm a broken, grieving widower who uses casual sex to feel something, anything, other than the gaping void in my chest. You get to be a warm body, a temporary poultice on a wound that will never truly heal. Or, option C—her name was Carol. She left me for her tennis instructor, a six-four man named Trent, and took me for half of everything I was worth. I'm a bitter, resentful divorcee who throws money around to spite a woman who hasn't thought about me in years. You get to be a pawn in a one-sided war that I'm still losing." He took a sip of the tequila. "Pick a tragedy.”

Sonny stared at him, this beautiful, silver-tongued, bespoke-suited monster who had just laid out three perfectly crafted fictions, spinning prize-winning skeins of wool from nothing. 

And Sonny... well, Sonny was a cat. 

He was a dumb, curious cat who had been presented with three equally fascinating balls of yarn, and he wanted to play with all of them.

"Brian," Sonny murmured. "Brian and Jessica. Brian and Margaret. Brian and Carol. Brian and... god, they all sound like couples from a Land's End catalogue. There's no story where your wife's name was, like, Crystal or Raven, and she sold pot out of your garage until she ran off with the drummer from a Def Leppard tribute band?"

Brian grinned. "That's option D. Celeste was my manic pixie dream girl with a tattoo of a butterfly on her ankle and a trust fund that was bigger than mine. She taught me how to live and love and feel the sun on my face, and then she took off to go find herself in Bali, leaving me with a broken heart and a lingering appreciation for artisanal kombucha. You get to be a sad, safe substitute for the wild, untamable spirit of the one who got away."

Sonny had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. He was losing it. He was losing the game, he was losing the night, he was losing his mind, and it was the best he'd ever felt.

"Wait, I want to do one," Sonny said, the tequila a warm, happy hum in his veins. "Her name was... Beatrice. But everyone called her Trixie. She was a showgirl, and you met her in Vegas. You thought you could save her, but she didn't want to be saved. She had a heart of gold and a pocket full of your cash, and one day she just up and vanished, taking your grandmother's ring and every last shred of your self-respect. You still go back to Vegas every September, just in case you see her on a billboard somewhere."

"I think you just want to do the Destiny bit again, but you're too chicken-shit to reuse the same material," Brian said, finishing the last of the tequila. "Still, Trixie had legs for days. I miss her when the wind blows in from the west."

Sonny stood there for a long moment, the empty glasses between them like a period at the end of a sentence. The game was over. The stories had been told. There was nothing left to do but make a choice.

"Is this the part where I'm supposed to start singing Closing Time? Because I'm not doing that," Sonny said as he started clearing the empty glasses.

He was stalling. He knew he was stalling. More time wasn't going to make the choice any less of what it was, but sue a guy for needing a minute to get his head right before he pounded the final nail in the coffin of not having touched a dick that wasn't his.

He had a long, storied history of not touching dicks that didn't belong to him, and he was about to put a real end to that. He was going to take a sledgehammer to it. A sledgehammer named Brian.

"This is the part where you tell me what kind of damage we're looking at on my credit card, and I tell you whether or not it's going to mean I have to sell my class ring to be able to afford Jessica's Botox," Brian said with a lazy smile.

He was just so… calm. So sure of himself. So certain that Sonny was going to fold.

And Sonny was, there was no question about that. But he was going to fold on his own terms.

"Alright, let's see," Sonny said as he tallied the bill on a napkin, the numbers swimming in front of him. "That's twenty-three for the scotch, and it just gets more depressing from there." He took a deep breath. "We landed at two-hundred for the 'barkeep' thing, which you objectively didn't get your money's worth on. Let's call the Don Julio—" He eyed up the half-empty bottle. "—let's call that three-fifty since I have to figure out how to sell the rest of this shit to some other schmuck now." He tapped the napkin with a pen. "If I'm not mistaken, you started the hundred-per on the second glass, so that's four more there. Two hundred for the dart in the wall, plus the shirt." He looked at the way it stretched across Brian's shoulders. "I imagine it's expensive, but that's immaterial, so I'll just write 'shirt' here, just to make it official." He scribbled on the napkin. "Grand total, you are looking at... one thousand, one hundred and seventy-three dollars. Plus the shirt." He picked up the napkin, squinting at the number. "Shit, maybe I am taking you for a ride."

Brian held out a hand. "Let me see that."

Sonny passed over the napkin, and Brian looked at it, a little smile on his face.

"Add your twenty percent, run it, and I get to keep the napkin," Brian said, folding the napkin and pocketing it. "I'm going to frame it. Put it on the wall of my office next to my degree. A reminder of the night that... and then you fill in the blank."

Sonny didn't have to fill in the blank. The blank was already filled in. The blank was 'the night I dropped a grand-point-five trying to get into a bartender's pants, and then I did.'

"The night that you convinced some random bartender in a city you hate that you're a real life Richard Gere, but halfway back to your hotel, you saw Trixie on a bus shelter ad for a casino in Atlantic City and your heart just wasn't in it anymore," Sonny said, as dug out Brian's card and ran it through the machine, twenty percent and all.

He was playing for keeps now. He was all in.

"That's a good one," Brian said as he took back the card and the receipt, scrawling a signature on the line. "You've set up a Billy Flynn joke so perfectly that I can't pick just one, I'll tell you that much."

Sonny had to look that one up later. Or not. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. His brain was already in the elevator.

"Well, it's been real, Brian," Sonny said, trying very hard not to sound like a guy who was about to follow a man to a hotel room. "As much as I'd like to follow you back to your hotel room, you've made it pretty clear that this is a now-or-never kind of deal, and I—" He gestured around the bar, empty except for a couple of stragglers in the corner, the glasses at the opposite end that needed to be washed, and Lena hiding somewhere in the back, "—well, I've got a lot of bar stuff to do."

Brian smiled, pulling off his tie clip and tucking it in his pocket. "I know how to take a hint, Sonny," he said, undoing the knot and pulling it through his collar. He folded it neatly, placed it on the bar next to the receipt, and then started to unbutton his shirt. "I think you're a liar, but I'm not—as you so eloquently put it—rapey. You've been a delightful detour, and I'll cherish this napkin for the rest of my days."

One button. Two.

Sonny's brain went offline. He couldn't do this. He couldn't not do this. He was a deer in the headlights of a very expensive, very fast-moving car.

Button three.

Brian's undershirt was just as bright a white as the button-up he was peeling out of, and Sonny, for reasons he could not begin to explain, wanted to press his face against it. He was an animal, a dumb, base, stupid animal.

Button four.

Sonny felt like a bystander in his own life, watching this scene unfold from a great distance. He should say something. He should stop him, or he should tell him to hurry up, or he should do... something.

Button five.

"Alright, alright," Sonny said, his hands coming up in a gesture of surrender. "You've made your point."

Brian's fingers paused. "Have I? I wasn't aware I was making one."

"You're taking your shirt off in the middle of a bar, Brian. Is that not 'I'm so confident that you're going to come with me that I'm willing to walk out of here in my undershirt, because I know you're not going to make me do that?'"

"Call my bluff," Brian said, a challenge in his eye. "You can do it. You can stand there and watch me walk out of here, and you can tell yourself that you won. You got the shirt. You got a grand. You got a story to tell." He pulled the shirt off and tossed it on the bar next to the tie. "Or you can stop trying to be too cool for school for the five seconds it'll take you to tell me you're coming with me. Your call, hustler."

And that was that. The line was crossed. The Rubicon was forded. The die was cast.

"Either two minutes, or twenty, depending on how much of your money I want to give Lena to close up for me," Sonny said, turning on his heel, a fresh wave of terror and exhilaration washing over him.

He found her in the small, cluttered office, counting out the till that he'd somehow entirely missed her taking.

"Don't," she said, not even looking up at him. "I don't want to know. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to see it. I don't want to think about it. A hundred and I'll pretend you're not about to end up in a shallow grave. One-fifty and I'll tell your mother you loved her at the funeral." She finally looked at him, a deadpan, unimpressed look on her face. "Don't be stupid, Sonny. Wear a condom. Don't tell him where you live. And for the love of god, don't let him tie you to anything."

"You're a class act, Lena. You really are," Sonny said. "Take the one-fifty out of my fat stack of cash, of which I'll square the rest tomorrow. And you can tell my mom I love her anytime you want."

"Sonny," she said, expression softening a little bit around the edges. "If you get a weird feeling, if he says something that doesn't sit right, if he looks at you wrong, leave. Don't worry about being polite. Don't worry about the money. Just leave. Okay?"

"I'll be fine," Sonny said, but he was touched, and a little sad that she had that all lined up and ready to go. "He's just a guy."

"Robert Durst was just a guy," Lena replied. "Ted Bundy was just a guy. The guy who sold you that shitty stereo that caught on fire was just a guy. They're all just guys until they're on the news. And even then, they're still just guys."

"I will be the very picture of caution," Sonny said, appropriately contrite. "A model of self-preservation. I will not, I repeat, will not, end up as a human skin suit in some rich guy's walk-in freezer. I promise."

"Great, because what I don't want to do is say 'I did' when a cop asks me if I thought it was strange that you left with a dude from Chicago who paid for the privilege," she said, waving him off. "Now get out of here. I've got a crime scene to sanitize."

Sonny slipped out of the office and back into the bar, a feeling of unreality washing over him. He was moving through the world, but he wasn't quite a part of it anymore. He was an actor in a play who'd forgotten his lines, and he was counting on the other actors to carry him through.

Brian was sitting on the same stool, still in just his undershirt, looking completely and utterly unconcerned. He hadn't even put his jacket back on. He just sat there, a king holding court in his own quiet, empty kingdom, waiting for his fool to return.

Sonny walked over to him, the bar a mile long and a hundred feet wide. He could feel the eyes of two guys in the corner on him, a pair of local fossils who were always the last to leave, their gazes a mix of judgment and morbid curiosity.

"Put your jacket on, you look like you're about to get in a knife fight," Sonny said, grabbing his keys from a hook under the bar and Brian's shirt from the polished wood. The fabric was cool and soft, impossibly soft, a different species from his own life of cheap poly-blend.

"Are you always this much of a nag?" Brian asked, obediently shrugging into the jacket, shoving the tie into his pocket without a care in the world. 

God, he looked good.

He looked even better now, a little rumpled, a little less perfect. He was a walking ad for a life that Sonny couldn't even imagine.

"Only with guys I'm about to let see me naked," Sonny said, the words coming lighter, easier. He was over the hump. The decision was made. The rest was just logistics. "I have standards. They're low, and they're flexible, but they exist."

"I'm glad to hear it," Brian said, sliding off his stool. "I'd hate to think I'd sunk to the bottom of the barrel. I may be on a detour, but I'm not aiming to end up in the gutter."

"I was just thinking the same thing about a ditch," Sonny said, shrugging on his own jacket. "About me, I mean. I figure if I'm meta about the possibility that I might get turned into a lampshade, it'll make me less of a target. It's like how they say you shouldn't show fear to a dog."

Brian paused, a genuine look of confusion crossing his face. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You. Me. Ditches. Skin-harvesting. Dateline," Sonny said, gesturing between them as he led the way to the door. "I'm trying to establish a baseline of my own self-awareness so that if you are, in fact, a serial killer, you'll at least be impressed with my psychological fortitude as you're sawing off my legs."

"You have a very strange way of flirting," Brian said, falling into step beside him.

The air outside was damp and unseasonably cold, a shock after the warm, boozy fug of the bar. It smelled like wet pavement and garbage, the real world rushing back in.

Sonny felt a pang of something, a weird, misplaced sense of nostalgia for the life he was leaving behind for a few hours, for the quiet, predictable misery of his empty apartment.

"What would you have me say?" Sonny asked, tucking the shirt under his arm and zipping his jacket up to his chin. "Gosh, Brian, you're so dreamy. I just can't wait to find out what it feels like to have an imprint of your class ring on my ass. Please don't remove my spine with a letter opener in the penthouse suite of the Marriott." Sonny shivered, shoving his hands in his pockets. "That's not really my style. That's not anyone's style."

"Should I say ‘I promise I'm not going to dismember you and leave your remains in a dozen separate dumpsters across the tristate area?’ Or is that exactly what a serial killer would say?" Brian asked, gesturing for them down the sidewalk, which Sonny was choosing to believe meant my hotel is close by, and not I'm luring you to my death van. "It is, isn't it? It’s a catch-22."

"I mean… I guess if I had a choice, I'd rather you said it and then didn't do it than didn't say it and did," Sonny said. "It’s the little things, you know?” He looked at Brian, who was still smiling. "If you’re a serial killer, you have to tell me. It’s like cops going undercover to buy drugs. If you ask ‘are you a cop,’ they have to tell you, or it’s entrapment, I’m pretty sure."

“I’m going to ask you a question, Sonny, and I want you to be honest with me, because I’m trying to help you,” Brian said, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Do you genuinely believe that?”

“Do serial killers have to identify themselves if you ask? Yeah," Sonny said, bumping him with his shoulder. "It’s not, like, legally binding obviously, but it’s a code of ethics thing, I’ve heard. Honor among thieves, right?”

“I don’t think ‘honor among thieves’ means what you think it means,” Brian said, shaking his head. "That said, trying to convince someone that serial killers have disclose that they’re serial killers sounds like something a serial killer would do, so the ball is in your court there.”

Sonny scoffed. “Are you implying that I might serial kill you?”

“Not necessarily serial kill. I could be your first, if you’re looking to get into the game. Everyone has to start somewhere,” Brian said, with a completely straight face.

Sonny ducked his head, hoping the chill was enough to account for the flush on his cheeks.

“I’m a pretty driven person, so if I wanted to get into the field, I think I’d put up better numbers than you’d think,” Sonny said, kicking a loose piece of gravel down the sidewalk. “The temperament’s just not there, you know?”

“Now, if that were the case, then it would be honor among thieves,” Brian said, bumping Sonny back. "It only applies if we’re both murderers. So we should probably establish our baseline.”

“On three?” Sonny asked.

“On three,” Brian agreed. "One… two… three—“

Dead silence.

A car drove past, the tires loud on the wet pavement.

“I’m just as convinced you’re going to murder me as I was two minutes ago, and I think you’re even more convinced I’m going to murder you,” Sonny said. “So it looks like we’ve learned a valuable lesson about the limits of the honor system.”

“A valuable lesson, indeed,” Brian said. “But if it makes you feel any better, I’m not a murderer.”

“And who was it that last saw Trixie before she ‘up and left?’ Huh, Brian?” Sonny asked, then paused. “I feel like we’ve gotten a little off track.”

“I didn’t want to stop you, you’re having such a good time,” Brian said.

“You know what, Brian? I really am,” Sonny replied, and he was, a dizzying, wonderful cocktail of wrong and right. “Can I ask a question?”

“You can ask me anything you want,” Brian said. "Ask me if I have a gun. Ask me if I have a criminal record. Ask me if I have a bizarre fetish that I'm going to expect you to indulge. Go nuts."

“I would like to circle back to that last thing, but it is a little related to my real question,” Sonny said, forming a loose thought into a coherent sentence in his head, and changing his mind. “Actually, never mind.”

“No. No, Sonny, I’m not doing that,” Brian said. “You don’t get to start down that road and then pull back. It’s either something funny or it’s something serious, and it's important I know which it is.”

Sonny tipped his head back on a groan. “I guess I’m never gonna see you again, so embarrassing myself wouldn't be that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.”

“The suspense is agonizing.”

Sonny took a deep breath, held it, and let it out in a rush. “Did you go to a bar with the express purpose of finding a guy to sleep with, or was I just such a loveable scamp that you decided to throw caution and your previously-heterosexual-nature to the wind?”

Brian’s smile was slow and wide and wicked. “That is adorable. You know that, right?”

“If you are a serial killer, I’m rooting for you right now. If you’re not, I’ll excuse myself to walk into traffic, thank you for your time, this has been lovely, and goodnight,” Sonny said, veering toward the street to make good on his promise.

Brian’s hand shot out, pulling him back onto the sidewalk by the arm and closer to him than he’d been all night, and Sonny couldn't help but laugh at his laugh. 

“Alright, I’m going to answer your question, because I’ve decided you’re too special to be left to your own paranoid devices,” Brian said as they started walking again, his hand still on Sonny’s arm, which was… a lot.

“Before you answer, I just want you to know I was being hyperbolic about the heterosexual part. Also, all of it,” Sonny said. “The question, the traffic, everything.” He paused. “Unless you are otherwise heterosexual, in which case, please correct me. Or don’t. I’m gonna have a seizure in a minute.”

“Is it the cold that’s making you this twitchy? Did you do a line while you were saying goodbye to your friend?”

“No, I’m just like this,” Sonny said. “I was a little less like this earlier, I think, but that tequila you so generously insisted on purchasing for me really packs a punch. Plus the adrenaline. I’m thinking I could probably punch clean through a wall. You should ask me to, I bet I could do it.”

“You should maybe hold off on that until we get to the hotel. I’d rather pay for a drywall patch than a trip to the emergency room when you break your hand punching brick,” Brian said. “Now, to answer your question, the notion of which I find very sweet—I walked into the bar thinking ‘if a man of my particular tastes happens to be here, I will make a moderate effort to secure his companionship for the evening.’ And then I saw you, and I thought, ‘well, that was easy.’ Then you opened your mouth, and I adjusted my effort accordingly. So a little of column A, a little of column B.”

Sonny nearly tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, a full-body jolt of what the fuck running through him.

Brian found him attractive, or at least attractive enough to have sex with. Or murder. That was an underpinning fact of the whole night, but hearing it said so plainly was like touching a live wire.

Sonny was… hot. To Brian. For some reason.

Sonny wasn’t not hot, but the people who usually found him hot were college girls who like guys who looked like they listened to The Smiths, and women in their late forties who said things like “you’re too young for me, but if you weren’t—”

Guys like Brian didn’t exist in Sonny’s world, let alone look at him like they wanted to see him with his clothes off.

And Brian had done it. He’d said the quiet part out loud.

Well, he’d implied the quiet part out loud.

“Am I talking out loud?” Sonny asked.

“No, but your face is having a very loud, very interesting conversation with itself. Do you need a minute?”

“No. Yes. No. I’m good. I’m great,” Sonny said, taking a deep, shaky breath. “Are you, uh… good?”

“I’m wonderful, Sonny,” Brian said, squeezing Sonny’s arm a little, a very kind gesture that was comforting and terrifying. “I’ve had a truly excellent evening, and I’m feeling very optimistic about the rest of it.”

That’s something a serial killer would say.

“That’s something a serial killer would say,” Sonny said.

“Or—“ Brian leaned, a low murmur of a secret, “—it’s something a guy who just spent a fifteen-hundred dollars on a napkin says to the bartender he’s about to fuck.”

Sonny was going to die. Not from murder, but from a fucking headrush. His ears were ringing.

“Yeah, it could be that,” Sonny managed. He was walking and talking and breathing, but it all felt like it was happening to someone else, and Sonny was just watching through a hole in a paper bag.

“Here’s a thought,” Brian said as they turned a corner. Surely they had to be close. They’d already been walking for either three or thirty minutes. “Let’s stop talking about me being a serial killer. We’ve milked that one for all it’s worth, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, that's… fair. It’s a little played out.”

“So what else you got? What’s on your mind, Sonny?”

“You, apparently,” Sonny said, because the tequila had melted the filter between his brain and his mouth, and there was no getting it back now. “Your dick, my dick, Trixie, whether or not I’m a hooker now, your dick again. Your beard, actually. That’s a big one, your beard. Your dick a third and final time, the ditches, and if you knew I was into guys somehow or just sat down and hoped for the best. I've got a real cavalcade of shit up there. What’s on your mind, Brian?”

He was getting loud, a little. That happened sometimes. A little too much to drink, a little too much feeling, and the volume knob on Sonny’s mouth got stuck at ten.

“A real cavalcade of shit,” Brian repeated, sounding very pleased. “A veritable Mardi Gras. Let’s see if we can’t toss a few beads to the crowd, then. My beard. What about it?”

“I don’t know. It’s very… very…” Sonny looked at it closely. “It’s making me kind of hard, if you want the god’s honest truth.”

Sonny wasn’t sure if he’d wanted to say that or not, but he had. And it was out there now, like a stray dog. Brian could either pet it or kick it.

Brian, to Sonny's profound relief, petted it with a slow, wolfish smile. “Happy to hear it’s pulling its weight.” He paused. “And what was that about being a hooker? Because we should establish that you are, in fact, not.”

“See, there are different schools of thought there,” Sonny said, warming to the topic immediately. “Part of me thinks that it doesn’t count if the person paying you for sex is also the person you would have sex with for free—“

“Which is the case here,” Brian interjected.

“We’re getting to that, buddy, calm down,” Sonny said, waving him off. “But another part of me is like, well, the bread is free with the meal, but the cost of the bread is still factored into the price of the steak, you know? So, am I a hooker? Maybe not on paper. But in spirit? In the hearts and minds of the people? There’s a strong case to be made.”

“You do understand that you can go home now, right? I’ve paid my tab. You have my money. You're free to go.”

“No, I know,” Sonny said. “I do want to sleep with you. A lot, actually. It’s just, like… what if you’re a cop, right? And this is a sting. And the second we get our dicks out, you’re all, ‘you’re under arrest for prostitution,’ and I’m like, ‘but I would’ve done it without the money,’ and you’re like, ‘tell it to the judge, you hussy.’”

Christ, the tequila was really doing a number on him.

“First I was a serial killer, now I’m a cop? Do I just have a face that screams ‘man of questionable intentions?’” Brian asked, letting go of Sonny’s arm as they stopped at a crosswalk.

“It’s not the face,” Sonny said, studying him again. “The face is great. The face is perfect. It’s the behavior. The behavior is extremely questionable. Very suspect.”

“My turn,” Brian said, as the walk signal blinked. “Would you let a man spend fifty dollars at your bar?”

“I mean, yeah,” Sonny said slowly, suspicious of the direction this was heading. “It’s a bar.”

“Alright, and say after the fact, you learned that he makes ten dollars an hour. Five hours of work for a single visit. Do you think he’s crazy?”

“I think people probably do that every day, so I wanna say no. But I feel like that’s a trap, so… I don’t know?”

“It’s not a trap, it’s an illustration,” Brian said, as they crossed the street. “Ten dollars an hour, guy spends fifty. He does everything we just did, you’re going home with him, but the tally was fifty. Is that an amount of money that makes you a hooker?”

“Probably not,” Sonny admitted, hating where this was going. “I guess fifty dollars is hooker money, but I don’t think it’s like, hooker hooker money.”

“Great. Now let’s say that guy’s fifty is my fifteen hundred. Does that put it into perspective for you at all?”

Sonny paused, trying to force his brain to follow the thread forward. He could not.

“No, it does not,” Sonny said. “In fact, it has done the opposite of that. Now all I can think about is how much the things cost in terms of the time it took to earn them. That’s kind of a scary approach to life.”

Brain huffed a laugh. “I’m trying to tell you in the least gauche way possible that I spent the same amount of time working for my fifteen hundred as that guy did for his fifty. You can do the math on that later, if you want. My point is—“

“You’re telling me you make a fuck-ton of money,” Sonny finished for him.

“I’m telling you that fifteen hundred is a rounding error on a Tuesday,” Brian said. “I’m not saying that to brag, I’m saying that so you stop thinking you’ve sold your soul for a handful of silver, you fucking drama queen.”

Sonny’s head was swimming. “You realize that telling me you make so much money that a thousand dollars is just walking around money to you is bragging, right?”

“I know,” Brian said, stopping in front of a building so sleek and anonymous it could have been anything, a bank, a law firm, the headquarters of a company that specialized in making buildings that looked exactly like this one.

They were there. Oh god, they were there.

“It’s just that this will be a significantly more pleasurable experience for me if you’re not quietly composing a think piece in your head about the commodification of the self while I’m trying to make you see god,” Brian said, pushing open a heavy glass door, and holding it for Sonny. “And so will you, for that matter.”

Sonny walked past him into a lobby that was too quiet and too clean, the air smelling like it’d never touched a speck of dust in its life. His sneakers, which had seemed perfectly fine on the sidewalk, were suddenly loud and shameful on the polished marble floor.

He felt a surge of panic, a wild, animal instinct to run back out onto the street, back to the familiar grime and noise, back to the life he understood.

He was a hooker. He was a joke. He was a feral raccoon who’d followed the smell of a fancy picnic basket into a trap, and now he was about to get a net thrown over him.

“I get the logic, even if the conclusion is wrong,” Sonny said, looking at the rows of closed elevators. “Either way, you can trust me when I say I won't be composing shit while you're doing whatever it is you're about to do. I imagine I’ll be lucky if I can remember my own name.”

Brian smiled, pressing the button for the elevator. “I'm a big fan of a little aphasia. It's a sign of a job well done."

Sonny would look that one up later too. Or not.

The elevator arrived with a soft, expensive ding, the doors sliding open to reveal a car with wood paneling and mirrors that made it feel like they were stepping into a jewelry box. Brian followed him in, hitting a button for a floor so high it felt fake, and the doors closed, sealing them in.

“l just need to say one more thing, and then I will shut up about the money, I swear,” Sonny said. “Is it overcompensation?”

Brian looked positively delighted. “Are you asking if I have a small penis?”

“lf that’s the first place your mind went, that’s a ‘yes,'” Sonny said, leaning against the wall. “If it is, you can just tell me. I’m about to find out anyway. It won’t change my opinion of you.”

“That’s another catch 22, is it not? If I say yes, you’ll think I’m lying to be modest. If I say no, it’s just more bragging,” Brian said. “There’s no winning with you.” He looked Sonny up and down, a slow, deliberate sweep of his eyes. “You're right about one thing—you’re about to find out. So why don't you hold that thought?”

Sonny’s mouth went dry. He felt pinned in place, like a butterfly on a board, but in a good way, a way that made him want to squirm and preen all at once.

The elevator opened into a hallway that was just as anonymous and sterile as the lobby, a long, carpeted tunnel of muted colors and indirect lighting.

Brian led the way to a door, sliding a key card into the lock with a soft click. He pushed it open and stepped aside, gesturing for Sonny to go in first.

Sonny hesitated for a fraction of a second, a final, pathetic flicker of self-preservation, before he walked into the room.

It was a hotel room, but it was like a hotel room from a different dimension. A different tax bracket. The living area was bigger than Sonny’s entire apartment, a wall of windows looking out at a city glittering with a million lights he didn't recognize. The furniture was sleek and modern, a thousand shades of gray that probably had names like "flint" and "slate." Even moreso than the lobby, he wasn’t sure he’d ever breathed air that smelled so little like anything.

Brian was right behind him, a warm presence at his back, and Sonny flinched when he felt a hand on his shoulder, turning him around.

“Alright, hustler,” Brian said, his voice a low purr. “Let’s see what I got for my money.”

Sonny’s breath hitched. He’d been expecting this, but hearing it said out loud, here, in this place, was a different animal. It was real.

“And after we just sorted out the hooker thing,” Sonny said, a little breathless. “We were making such good progress.”

“A turn of phrase. A little verbal garnish,” Brian said, his hands sliding down Sonny’s arms, a slow, possessive path. His fingers found the hem of Sonny’s t-shirt, and he toyed with the worn, soft cotton as he leaned in closer. “You can call it whatever you want, but in this room, for the next little while? You’re mine, Sonny.”

Sonny was a kite whose string had just been cut, soaring up into the sky, free and terrified and he could feel the storm rolling in. He opened his mouth to say something, to fire back, to keep the game going, but what came out was a soft, helpless sound.

All that was left was the fall, and the hope that someone would be there to catch him.

Brian took the sound for what it was, an invitation. He closed the distance between them, and Sonny’s world narrowed down to the press of Brian’s lips against his, the scratch of his beard against Sonny’s jaw that pulled him back down to earth just as he was about to float away.

Sonny dropped Brian's shirt on the floor, freeing his hands to grip Brian’s jacket, fisting in the expensive wool. He kissed back, clumsy and desperate, a lifetime of wanting and not having all packed into a single, hungry moment.

It was a perfect kiss, teeth clashing and noses bumping, maybe the best kiss of Sonny’s entire life.

Was Sonny gay?

This was a good argument for it.

Bisexual was the next contender, but that required acknowledging the existence of women, and Sonny’s brain was currently a very binary place. Brian, and not Brian.

Brian’s hands were on his ass now, pulling him flush against him, and Sonny could feel the hard line of him, an echo of his own aching want. He ground against him, a shameless, needy motion, and Brian’s groan vibrated straight through Sonny’s bones.

Brian slid his hands into Sonny's hair, fingers tangling in the loose strands, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. He was in control, he was the one steering this ship, and Sonny was a very, very willing passenger.

Sonny felt the cool shock of the wall against his back as Brian walked them backward, pinning him there. The kiss broke, and Sonny was panting, his lips tingling.

“Take your shirt off,” Brian said, dropping to his knees before he’d even taken his next breath. He shrugged his jacket off his arms, dropping it the the floor, and reached for the button of Sonny’s jeans.

Sonny fumbled with the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head and tossing it... somewhere. He looked down at Brian, at the long, competent fingers working at his zipper, at the hunger on his face.

“You—“ Sonny gasped as Brian palmed him through the denim of his jeans. “You don’t seem like you’d suck dick. A little submissive for a guy like you, I’d have thought.”

“Not the way I do it,” Brian said, with a confidence that should have been off-putting. It fucking wasn't. 

He popped the button of Sonny’s jeans, and dragged the denim down all the way to his ankles, taking his boxers with them. Sonny had a brief, mortifying moment of self-consciousness before Brian leaned in and swallowed him whole.

Sonny’s head thumped back against the wall, a strangled sound tearing from his throat. He buried his fingers in Brian’s hair, the strands stiff with product but soft at the scalp. Brian’s mouth was hot and wet, a perfect, obscene suction that had Sonny’s hips jerking forward, chasing the feeling.

“I think you’re just stalling so you don’t have to take your pants off and confirm the small dick theory,” Sonny managed, ragged and breathless.

Brian pulled off him, looking up with dark, blown pupils and a wicked grin. "I think you're trying to piss me off so I'll be rough with you."

"Is that what I'm doing?" Sonny challenged, his chest heaving. "I thought we were just chatting."

Instead of replying, Brian held his hand up, fingers splayed. He worked the class ring off his pinky with his thumb and forefinger, and didn't even hesitate before pitching it backwards over his shoulder, sending it skittering across the floor with a metallic clatter.

"How am I going to know you're smarter than me now? The ring was my only clue."

Brian rolled his eyes, then went right back to it, his ring-free hand wrapping around the base of Sonny’s cock while the other came up to roll his balls.

Fuck. 

Sonny was being honest when he said Brian didn’t seem like the type to give head. He seemed like a selfish lay at best, the kind of guy who’d lay back and let you do all the work while he critiqued your technique.

Sonny’s second guess would’ve—with the knowledge that Brian would, in fact, be giving him head—involved words like clean. Tidy. Perfunctory. Something he could check off a list, maybe in service of the overcompensation thing.

Sonny was so wrong, so stupidly wrong, that it was laughable.

So wrong that it had him wondering how he was passing any of his classes, or maybe how he could be trusted to dress himself in the mornings.

Brian’s mouth was a fucking revelation.

He was messy and enthusiastic, like he’d been waiting his whole life for this specific dick, and Sonny was the lucky bastard who got to be on the receiving end.

Greedy.

That was the word for it. He was swallowing him down to the root, and he was moaning about it, a low, guttural sound so resonant that Sonny could feel it in his teeth, in the tips of his toes, a constant, vibrating buzz of pure pleasure.

Sonny couldn’t help the sounds he was making, helpless little gasps and whimpers. He tried to hold them back, to maintain some semblance of cool, but it was a losing battle.

Brian pulled back, his lips red and swollen, a string of spit connecting him to Sonny’s cock for a long moment for a snapped.

“Don’t be quiet,” he said, and went right back down with a flick of his tongue against the underside of the head that made Sonny’s vision go white.

“Fuck,” Sonny breathed, his head lolling to the side. “Okay. Okay, heard.”

He gave up trying to hold anything back, letting the sounds spill out of him, a continuous stream of needy, broken noises. He could feel the heat pooling in his belly, the familiar tell-tale tingle at the base of his spine, and he knew he wasn't going to last. Not like this. Not with a guy on his knees in a penthouse suite who sucked dick like he was getting paid by the orgasm.

He couldn't come. He couldn't. Not yet. It was too fast, too embarrassing. He was supposed to be a challenge, a mysterious hustler, not a two-pump chump who couldn't handle a little enthusiasm.

He tried to think of something else. His tax return. The periodic table. That scene in Old Yeller. Anything to stave off the inevitable, but it was no use. Brian’s mouth was a force of nature, and Sonny was just a flimsy little shack in its path.

Sonny dug his shoulder blades into the wall, trying to anchor himself, to find some way to ride this out, and then he felt a finger, slick with spit, press against his hole.

He yelped, a high, undignified sound, and his hips jerked forward involuntarily, pushing his dick deeper into Brian’s throat.

Brian moaned like… well, exactly the way Sonny imagined a really, really good hooker would moan. The kind of moan that made you feel like a god, like you were the best thing that had ever happened to anyone, ever.

Brian didn’t push the finger in, just circled the tight ring of muscle, a slow, teasing pressure that was more overwhelming than his mouth. He was playing Sonny like an instrument, pulling notes out of him he didn't know he had.

There was a new binary in Sonny’s brain. No, stop, that’s not the kind of thing I do and I guess this is the kind of thing I do now, preferably without any breaks until I’m dead in the ground.

Sonny was somewhat certain that the first one was more correct, but the second one was just so, so loud. It was a megaphone pressed to his ear, a feedback loop of pure, uncut want.

Sonny’s legs started to shake, an uncontrollable tremor that started in his thighs and worked its way up his knees. He was going to collapse. He was going to slide down the wall in a heap of used-up, cheap-shame bliss and have to be scooped up and disposed of by hotel staff.

"I'm gonna come," Sonny gasped, wrenching at Brian's hair, trying to pull him off. “Brian, for real, I'm gonna—"

Brian’s response was to suck harder, to press that finger in just to the first knuckle, to hollow his cheeks and hum.

The world went sideways.

Sonny's vision was a starburst of staticky white noise behind his eyes, and he was coming, a full-body shudder that ripped through him, stealing his breath and leaving him a limp, shivering mess against the wall.

Brian didn’t stop, drinking him down until Sonny was twitching and over-sensitive, pulling weakly at his hair again. "Okay, okay, I'm done, I'm—aah.”

Brian let him go with one last hard, painful suck, and looked up at him with a smug grin. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and Sonny watched with a kind of dazed reverence.

If he hadn’t been about to melt into a puddle on the floor before, he was now. Brian looked… god, he looked wrecked.

His hair was a mess, his lips swollen, spit-slick, and red, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes, and Sonny had done that. He had taken this perfect, put-together man and made him look debauched mess.

God, he looked ten billion times more attractive like this than he had in the bar, which was really, really fucking saying something.

Brian wiped at the tears with the back of his wrist. "Christ, you’re fucking loud."

Was he? Maybe he was. The ringing in Sonny’s ears suggested it.

"I’m not, usually," Sonny said, and had to try again when the words came out as a dry croak. He cleared his throat. “Just kidding, yes I am. That was pretty regular. Regular noise levels for a regular blowjob. You should hear me when I'm really enjoying myself."

“Save it,” Brian said, pushing himself to his feet, and Sonny felt a flash of annoyance that he was the only one mostly naked, like an idiot. He kicked away the denim tangled around his ankles, feeling a little more in control of the situation, and then not that at all because now he was completely naked.

Sonny fisted his hands in the hem of Brian’s undershirt. “Maybe the overcompensation isn’t dick-related. Let me see what the rest of your deal is before I’m too distracted to be objective.”

Brian laughed, helping Sonny along until the shirt was over his head and tossed aside.

Well… if there was overcompensation involved, it wasn’t for the parts of him that Sonny had just unearthed.

Sonny couldn’t have definitively said he’d had a type before tonight, but sure as fuck did now, Brian’s torso of all things rewiring the inner workings of Sonny’s sexuality in real time.

He wasn’t a gym rat, no. He was a man who had a gym, who maybe, if he was feeling particularly decadent, also had a personal trainer who came to that gym and told him what to do. His shoulders were broad, his chest and stomach dusted with dark hair that was less neat than his beard, a little wilder.

His stomach was… maybe five percent on the way to soft, in the best possible way, a happy medium of 'I work out when I feel like it' and 'I enjoy the finer things, like cheese and wine and lobster that I don’t even ask the price of, probably.’ Not too much. Not too little.

Framing all of that were steep v-lines that could cut fucking glass, a happy trail disappearing into the waistband of his pants, a neon sign pointing the way to the promised land.

Brian was, from the waist up, so far out of Sonny's league he was playing a different sport. Sonny didn’t know the rules to that sport. He didn’t know the name of it. All he knew was that he wanted to lick it.

There were also the nipples. Obviously. Sonny didn't have a kink he was aware of for nipples, but Brian’s looked—for reasons unknown—exactly like the type Sonny wanted to put his mouth on. They were hard from the cool air or the blowjob or whatever, and all Sonny knew is that they were the most interesting nipples he’d ever seen.

“I’m going to take your silence as a compliment,” Brian said, appropriately smug. He reached out, hooking a finger under Sonny’s chin and tilting his head up from where Sonny’s gaze was still locked on his chest. “So, what’s the verdict, amateur anthropologist? Anything you’d like to study more closely?”

Sonny hummed. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re attractive? Because I’m getting the impression that might be a thing people say to you.”

“It’s been mentioned in passing,” Brian said, and then he did something that made Sonny’s entire nervous system light up like a fucking Christmas tree. He popped the button on his own pants.

He didn’t take them off, just popped the button. He popped the button and he was looking at Sonny like he knew exactly what that was doing to him. He did know. The bastard knew everything.

Sonny, against his better judgment, reached out and ran a finger down that happy trail, from his navel to the waistband of his pants, the hair there coarse and wiry under his touch. “I’m not gonna lie to you, Brian, I think the money exchange might've gone down the wrong way. I’m starting to feel like I’m the one who’s getting the bargain here.”

“Bargains are for people who worry about the cost,” Brian said, his breath catching as Sonny’s finger dipped below the waistband, brushing against the base of his cock.

The bulge in his pants was obscene, a clear and present danger to Sonny’s sanity. He was definitely not overcompensating. If anything, he was under-advertising.

Sonny took a shaky breath, then another. He was standing naked in a billion trillion dollar suite with a man who looked like a Greek god and sucked dick like a fallen angel. He’d come so hard he’d seen the face of the other God, the Abrahamic God, and now he was being invited to explore this mortal coil in ways he’d only ever dreamed of.

He had two choices. He could either have a full-blown, grade-A, top-shelf panic attack, or he could get on his knees.

"I'm gonna take these off now," Sonny said, his hands moving to Brian's waistband. "And I'm going to put your dick in my mouth. If that's not on the agenda, you have about three seconds to veto."

Brian laughed, gripping Sonny's wrists and pulling him backwards, toward the huge, sprawling bed. “That’s on the agenda. But that’s not what’s happening next.”

He sat on the edge of the bed, pulling Sonny down with him. Sonny landed in his lap with an undignified oof, Brian’s pants a rough, unwelcome friction against his oversensitive skin.

He didn't want to be in Brian's lap. He wanted to be on his knees, worshipping at the altar of whatever the fuck this was. He wanted to be a good boy, which was a concept he'd always found deeply unsettling until right about now.

Brian’s hands were on him again, one on the small of his back, the other tangled in his hair, holding him in place. He kissed him, a slow, deep kiss that tasted kind of cummy, which was fine. A little gross, sure, but kind of hot. Or a lot hot. A lot hot, Sonny was learning, was kind of the whole jam tonight.

Sonny could feel the hard line of Brian’s dick pressing against him, a promise of what was to come, and he squirmed, restless, wanting.

“Patience, hustler,” Brian murmured against his lips. “All in good time.”

“‘Patience’ is not in my vocabulary,” Sonny said, trying to grind against him, but Brian’s grip on him was too firm, so he rocked instead, which was a little more effective. “And I'm pretty sure 'hustler' is played out.”

“I like the way it feels in my mouth,” Brian said, nipping at Sonny’s bottom lip, a sharp, little sting that made him shiver. “I think I’ll keep it.”

Before Sonny could even begin to cobble together a response, Brian dipped his head, trailing a line of hot, open-mouthed kisses down Sonny’s neck, across his collarbone. His nails came up to scratch lightly across Sonny's nipples, and Sonny’s entire body jerked, a bolt of pleasure shooting straight to his cock, which was starting to show some interest in the proceedings again.

"Sensitive?" Brian murmured, a smug little smile in his voice.

As evident as it was, Sonny had to think about it for a second.

Was he? Not really. Not that he'd ever noticed. Girls had messed with them before, and it was fine. And Sonny himself tended to be more goal-oriented when he was doing his own thing.

"I'm gonna hit you with a yes," Sonny managed as Brian took one of his nipples into his mouth, sucking hard. He laved it with his tongue, then bit down, a sharp little nip that made Sonny gasp.

Brian’s free hand was stroking his thigh, slow, lazy circles that were driving him insane. The other was still in his hair, holding him hostage. Sonny was a prisoner of this man's hands, this man's mouth, this hotel room that hopefully locked from the inside.

He was also a little bit hard. On the way to lot hard. A surprising amount of hard, considering the sheer violence of the orgasm he’d just had.

Sonny’s brain was still trying to catch up, still stuck on the 'oh god, a man is sucking my nipple' part of the program, when Brian shifted his attention to the other one, giving it the same thorough, devoted attention.

Sonny should do something. What was he even doing? Where were his hands? They were on Brian’s shoulders, which was boring. He could be doing more. He should be doing more.

He slid one hand up the back of Brian's neck, into the soft, short hair at his nape, holding him in place. With the other, he did the thing he'd wanted to do since the shirt came off, exploring the solid expanse of his chest, the coarse hair, the warm skin.

Brian hummed against him, a low, pleased sound. "There you go," he said, his voice rough. "I was wondering when you were going to join the party."

"Sorry," Sonny said. "I was busy having an out-of-body experience. Did I miss anything good?"

"Nothing you won't see again," Brian said, and then he was moving, flipping them over, pushing Sonny down onto the bed. He landed with a soft thud, the duvet cool and smooth against his bare skin.

Brian braced himself on his elbows, a cage of muscle and bone and expensive, still-on pants.

Sonny wrapped a leg around his waist, trying to pull him down, trying to get some friction, some relief, but Brian was immovable. He was a dam, and Sonny was the water, crashing against him, desperate to break through.

“What’s your endgame here, Brian?” Sonny asked, his voice a little shakier than he would have liked. “You gonna make me beg? Because I will. I’m not too proud to beg.”

Brian’s smile was slow, predatory. “I’m not going to make you beg, Sonny,” he said, leaning down to kiss him, a quick, hard press of lips. “I’m going to make you forget how to beg.”

He finally let Sonny take some of his weight as his mouth found Sonny's neck again.

It wasn't a kiss this time. It was a bite. A hard, possessive, unmistakably intentional bite, right where his neck met his shoulder.

Sonny cried out, a sharp, shocked sound that was half pain, half pleasure. He dug his fingers into Brian's back, a ragged gasp tearing from his throat as he arched up into it.

Brian soothed the sting with his tongue, a hot, wet swipe that made Sonny shudder. “Now that,” Brian murmured against his skin. “That’s a noise I like.”

"Then do it again," Sonny snapped. "Do it harder."

He wasn’t thinking. He was just a body, a collection of nerve endings, all firing at once.

God, he needed to participate. The sexiest thing Sonny had ever seen in his life was currently happening to him, and he was being so passive. So… receptive. That wasn't him. He was a doer. A talker. An active participant.

Sonny wrapped his legs around Brian's hips tightly this time, dragging him down, rolling his hips in a slow circle that he hoped said 'I'm not a virgin who just discovered nipples.'

The muscles in Brian's back tensed under Sonny’s hands, and he dug his teeth into Sonny's neck, sucking hard, sure to leave a mark. He was claiming him, marking his territory, and Sonny, to his own profound surprise, was letting him.

Was loving it.

Wanted everyone to see it, which he wouldn't stand by tomorrow, but he was a big fan of right now.

"Get these fucking pants off," Sonny growled, yanking at the waistband. "I'm over it. They've had their fun. Let 'em go."

He wanted to see. He wanted to see the whole picture, not just the teaser trailer, wanted to see if it was possible for a human being to be this attractive from head to toe, or if the bottom half of him was some sort of weird, lumpy nightmare to balance things out.

Okay, no. That was mean to lumpy people. Sonny got mean when he was horny, and he should really work on that, but it was not the priority right now.

Brian pulled back, pushing himself up so he was kneeling between Sonny's legs. He looked down at him, a smirk playing on his lips as he slowly undid the zipper of his pants, the sound of the teeth pulling apart impossibly loud in the quiet room.

"You sure you're ready for the big leagues?" Brian asked, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his underwear, pulling them down just enough to give Sonny a glimpse of dark, trimmed hair.

"Are you going to keep asking rhetorical questions to pad your self-esteem, or are you going to let me at it?" Sonny retorted, reaching down to wrap a hand around his own dick, giving it a lazy stroke. "Because I'm getting a little bored."

He wasn't bored. He was about to vibrate out of his own skin. He was so turned on it was physically painful, a low, throbbing ache that radiated from the pit of his stomach.

Brian's smirk widened. "Come and get it."

Sonny shot up to sitting, his legs awkwardly bracketing Brian's knees. He made a frustrated sound, batting Brian's hands away from the waistband, taking over. He tugged them down, the fabric catching on Brian's—

Oh.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Well, the overcompensation theory was officially dead. Buried. Risen from the dead and killed again, just to be sure.

Brian was hung like a fucking… like something that was very, very hung. A redwood tree in a forest of regular-sized trees. A skyscraper in the middle of suburban sprawl.

Sonny had a fleeting, terrifying thought of that thing inside him. Which wasn't on the table. Except it totally fucking was. Maybe.

Sonny’s brain was a mess of warring factions, a civil war of wants and should-not-wants. He wanted to be brave. He wanted to be adventurous. He wanted to be the kind of guy who could take on a redwood and ask for more. He also wanted to be able to walk tomorrow.

It was another explanatory factor for why Brian was... Brian. The money. The face. The body. The dick. It was a classic case of too much of a good thing, an embarrassment of riches, a cosmic imbalance that Sonny felt uniquely unqualified to rectify.

"What's the matter, hustler? Cat got your tongue?" Brian asked, and Sonny realized he’d been staring, his mouth slightly agape. A very cool, very suave look on his part.

Sonny tore his gaze away from Brian's cock and met his eyes, a spark of defiance reigniting in him. "Just admiring the view. It's a lot of view." He leaned in, running a single finger up the length of him. "It's a lot of penis, is what I'm saying."

"It is," Brian agreed, not even a little bit modestly, a shiver going through him at Sonny's touch. "And I think it's high time you got better acquainted."

Sonny scoffed but didn't bother with a verbal comeback, instead leaning down to press a wet, open-mouthed kiss to the head of Brian's cock.

Mm. Salty.

He didn't want to be bad at this. He didn't want Brian to think he was some fumbling straight boy who was in over his head. He was, but he didn't want to be perceived that way. Perception was nine-tenths of the law, or something.

Sonny took him into his mouth, as far as he could, which wasn't nearly far enough. It was like trying to swallow a water bottle. A very big, very hard water bottle.

He used his hand on the rest, a loose, easy rhythm that he hoped looked more experienced than it felt. He focused on the head, swirling his tongue around the ridge, flicking it against the slit, trying to remember the things that had always felt good to him, trying to translate the experience from one side of the equation to the other.

Brian’s hand was in Sonny's hair again, and he was making these noises, these quiet, choked-off sounds that were doing a better job of turning Sonny on than any of the porn he’d ever half-watched.

Sonny was also a little pissed, a little annoyed that this was the first cock in his mouth.

This was not a starter dick.

This was a dick you worked your way up to, a dick you earned through years of dedicated practice on lesser, more forgiving dicks. To have this one be his first felt like a cosmic prank, like being handed the keys to a rocket ship on your first day of driver's ed.

The man, for that matter, felt the same. He wasn't an entry-level human being.

Would it have killed Sonny to buck up and try this out with a perfectly nice, moderately-dicked guy from his biology class? Probably.

Sonny pulled off, gasping for air, a line of spit connecting his lips to Brian’s cock. "I'm gonna have TMJ by the morning. I hope you're happy," he said, and went right back down, a little deeper this time, trying to find the angle that would make it work.

He felt Brian’s hips twitch, a helpless little thrust, and Sonny’s brain lit up with a surge of triumph. He was doing it. He was making this perfect, controlled man lose his cool. He maybe wasn't in the driver's seat, but he at least had radio privileges for a second.

"Relax your throat," Brian murmured, low and strained. "Breathe through your nose."

Sonny shot him a look that he hoped said 'I know how to give a blowjob, you condescending prick,' even though he very clearly did not. Still, fuck off.

He tried it anyway, taking a deep breath through his nose and trying to relax, to let him in deeper. He gagged, a horrible, unsexy reflex, and pulled back, coughing.

So much for experienced. He was a rank amateur, and Brian knew it.

"Sorry," Sonny said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'm a little rusty. It's been a while. Since... my last blowjob. As a giver. Obviously."

He was digging a hole. A deep, gay hole, and he had no idea how to stop digging.

"A while, as in...?" Brian prompted, a disgustingly knowing look on his face.

"A while, as in a while," Sonny snapped, feeling a hot flush of embarrassment creep up his neck. "None of your business how long a while. What are you, a census taker?"

Brian, bless his black, dead heart, just hummed a laugh. "Are you going to make me say it?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sonny said, but he did, so he tightened his grip, twisting his wrist on the upstroke, trying to distract him with a little bit of basic, grade-A handjob technique.

Sonny had never been so close to walking out on sex in his entire life.

He could do it. He could grab his jeans and his dignity—or what was left of it—and make a break for it. He could be out the door and on the elevator before Brian could even pull his pants up.

He’d walk home, the shame a hot, itchy blanket around his shoulders. He’d get back to his tiny, grubby apartment, and he’d scrub himself raw in the shower, then jerk off thinking about Brian’s stupid beard and his stupid dick and the way he’d looked on his knees.

"No idea what I'm talking about, huh?" Brian asked flippantly. He was looking at Sonny, amused sure, but Sonny was pretty sure he also saw… pity.

God. Pity.

"No clue. Just gonna keep doing this until something gives," Sonny said, and then immediately went back down on him with a renewed sense of purpose. He was going to suck the memory of that conversation right out of Brian's dick.

It was better this time, or maybe he was just too determined to care.

He found a rhythm, a messy, sloppy rhythm that was probably a little bad but was enthusiastic as all hell. He used his tongue and his hand in tandem, a clumsy concert of motion that he hoped was getting the job done.

It was. It was.

Brian’s hips were moving now, a slow, shallow thrust that met Sonny’s movements, a silent encouragement that made Sonny’s chest feel tight and hot. Brian’s breath was coming in ragged pants, and the sounds he was making were getting louder, less controlled.

Sonny was a mess. Spit was dripping down his chin, his jaw was aching, and he was hard again, so hard it hurt, trapped against the fabric of Brian’s pants that were still tangled around his thighs.

He wanted to touch himself. He wanted to fuck. He wanted to get fucked. Maybe. He wanted to come again. He wanted to go back in time and call in sick to work. He wanted to do this until his jaw locked and he had to explain to a doctor how he’d managed to give himself a repetitive stress injury to the face.

"Fuck, Sonny," Brian breathed, his hand tightening in Sonny's hair, holding him in place. "There it is, there it fucking is. Just like that."

Sonny wasn't sure what "it" was, other than a general continuation of what he was already doing, but he wasn't about to argue. He was a monkey with a typewriter, and he was somehow hammering out Romeo and Juliet.

He didn't know how, he didn't know why, but he wasn't going to question the magic.

He looked up, meeting Brian’s eyes. The look on his face, a mix of shock and pleasure and lust, was almost enough to make Sonny come right there, untouched.

Sonny was also going to throw up if he kept this up for much longer.

The gag reflex was a fickle, traitorous bitch, and it was starting to get restless. He had a choice to make. He could either see this through to the bitter, sticky end, or he could tap out and risk the shame of being a quitter.

"God, Sonny, I'm—" Brian started, but then he stopped himself, pulling Sonny off him with a painful jerk on his hair.

Sonny gasped, spit and precome dripping down his chin. "What? No, I was—I was in the zone. We had a groove going. I was nailing it." He was indignant. He was offended. He'd been on the verge of a goddamn miracle.

"I know," Brian said, his chest heaving. "I know you were. And that's why we're stopping."

That made no sense. None. It was a logical fallacy wrapped in a paradox and sprinkled with bullshit. "I'm gonna need a little more than that, bud. You don't stop a race when you're about to win."

"Because I'm not done with you yet," Brian said, pushing Sonny back onto the bed, a rough, insistent motion that left Sonny breathless. "And I'm not coming down that pretty throat when I could come in your ass instead."

There were, like, fifty different alarms going off in Sonny’s head at that moment. Loud, clanging, nuclear-siren-grade alarms. But one thing was louder than all of them.

"Are you fucking fifty?" Sonny complained, scrambling backwards to make more room for Brian, who was finally, finally kicking his pants the rest of the way off. "Just come and we'll go again. That's the circle of life."

Brian stilled, just for a moment, but Sonny caught... whatever that was.

"What? What was that?" Sonny's brain took a left turn at Albuquerque. "No, wait, don't tell me. Are you a one-and-done kind of guy? Is that the deal? You're a Ferrari with a one-gallon tank. That's the overcompensation. All show, no go. A quick trigger and then it's naptime."

Brian huffed a laugh, pulling at Sonny's hair again. "It's not all show, you little shit."

"So what, some pretentious bullshit about delayed gratification making the final product more worthwhile?" Sonny was good at this. He could talk about anything. He could talk about a movie he’d never seen or a book he’d never read for a full hour, if he had to. "Because I have some news for you about the destination. It's pretty fucking good. I've seen it. I was just there."

Brian rolled his eyes so thoroughly Sonny was afraid they might get stuck. "I have no doubt."

"So what's the play, then?" Sonny pushed, trailing a hand down Brian's chest, over his stomach, wrapping it around his dick, slick and hard. "Is it a kink thing? Like... edging? Because I'm not gonna lie to you, I think it's stupid. It's a dumb kink for people with too much free time on their hands."

Sonny was stroking him, a slow, steady rhythm, and Brian was letting him, his head tilted back, a muscle jumping in his jaw. He was trying to hold onto the reins, but Sonny was pulling them, hard.

"It's not a kink, you brat," Brian said, his voice strained.

"Then what is it?" Sonny insisted. He couldn't make himself stop, he was a dog with a bone, he had to know, had to have the last word, had to poke the bear until it took a swipe at him. "A power thing? You want to prove you're in charge? Message received. You are. You're the captain of this sinking ship." He leaned in, whispering in Brian's ear, "Just let the iceberg hit. I promise it's a good one."

Brian grabbed his wrist, jerking his hand away. "If you don't shut your mouth—" he started, and then he just... gave up. He leaned down and kissed him, a hard, punishing kiss that was all teeth and tongue and frustration.

Sonny opened up for him, letting him in, letting him take, a strange, dizzying wave of submission washing over him.

He wasn't a submissive person.

He was argumentative and stubborn and he liked to be right. But this... this was different. This was a surrender that felt like winning, a giving in that felt like taking control.

Brian pulled back, his breathing ragged. "I assumed we'd go, and you'd—" He made a vague gesture toward the door, "—go."

Sonny froze, the haze of lust in his head clearing just enough for the words to land, a bucket of ice water on a fire. 

Sonny was such a fucking idiot. A moron. A grade-A, certified fool.

How in the fuck, with everything running through his hamster-on-a-wheel brain, had it not crossed his mind that Brian wouldn't want him to stick around for a round two, a round three, a round... whatever?

It was so obvious, now that he said it. An hour in the sack was a different beast than an all-night sex marathon, or worse, an all-night sex and conversation marathon. 

Shit.

"I mean, I can... yeah," Sonny managed, trying to sound like he hadn't just come to the sudden, horrifying realization that grown ups on business trips liked to sleep and had to be at things in the morning, and that was the generous interpretation. The less-generous, but more likely one, was that he was just a novelty that was wearing off.

He'd made the catastrophic error in thinking that the money was proportionate to the desired amount of Sonny. Not in a stay-for-breakfast-then-I'll-write-you-into-my-will way, but maybe an until-three-then-I'll-call-a-car kind.

But Brian had told him outright that it had been his fifty bucks. God, Sonny was a moron.

Brian saw the shift. Sonny knew he did. He saw the deflation, the flicker of hurt in his eyes that he tried to stamp out. Sonny was, for better or worse, a terrible liar and an even worse actor. He was a book with a clear plastic cover.

"Christ, Sonny, don't look like a kicked puppy," Brian said, tugging at Sonny's hair again, harder this time. "For fucks sake, I'm not kicking you out. I'm just asking. Because the kid at the bar didn't exactly seem like he was looking for a sleepover."

Sonny's brain, which had been on a one-way track to Humiliationville, came to a screeching halt. 

The kid at the bar. 

Sonny had almost forgotten about him, the guy who didn't give a shit, who played it cool, who told a guy to give him his nice shirt like it was something he did. Sonny had murdered him in an alley on the walk over.

"Fuck that guy," Sonny said, and he meant it. The kid at the bar was an amateur. "He wasn't fully, uh... appraised of the situation. The... various amenities offered." Sonny's fingers skimmed up the inside of Brian's thigh, because grabbing his cock to make a point seemed a little needy for an awkward moment.

"The amenities are impressive," Brian agreed, and the smugness was back, a whole lot better than the pity. He threaded his fingers more firmly through Sonny's hair, tugging him closer this time instead of away. "If you're sticking around, make yourself useful."

And just like that, the weird, tense little bubble around them popped, and they were back, their dance of insults and desire.

"I'm a swiss army knife of useful," Sonny said, not wasting a second. He took Brian's cock in his mouth again, determined to make him forget he'd ever even asked the question, determined to erase that moment of uncertainty, to replace it with the memory of the best goddamn blowjob of his life, even if he had to choke on it.

Well... he'd do his best. He'd do a lot of choking.

Sonny put all of his focus, all of his energy, into the task at hand, into the taste and feel of him, the salty, bitter tang of his precome, the velvety skin over the hard steel of him. He used his hand, twisting and stroking in a rhythm that was becoming more familiar, more confident.

He tried to relax his throat again, to take him deeper, and this time, when the gag reflex hit, he pushed through it, a small, stubborn victory that had tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

"Fuck," Brian breathed, his hips snapping forward, a sharp thrust that hit the back of Sonny's throat.

Sonny choked and pulled back, gasping for air. He didn't stop, though, just wrapped his lips around the head and sucked hard, his hand working furiously over the rest. 

Brian's thigh tensed under Sonny's free hand, which made Sonny suddenly aware that he had a free hand. He slid it up, over the sharp line of his hip, the plane of his stomach, up to his chest, finding one of those interesting nipples and rolling it between his fingers.

Brian's response was immediate, a deep, guttural groan that vibrated through his entire body, a shudder that Sonny felt all the way down to his own aching dick. He did it again, a little harder this time, a little pinch that earned him another one of those sounds.

Sonny pulled back with a gasp. "Sensitive?" It was supposed to come out mocking, triumphant, a little 'gotcha, bitch,' but it mostly just sounded like he'd been gargling glass.

"Shut up," Brian gritted out, but it was a weak protest, a thin veil over the naked want in his eyes.

It was a cliché, but it was a cliché for a reason—"Make me."

And Brian did.

He grabbed Sonny's hair with both hands, dragging him back onto his cock, and Sonny met him with equal force, taking him in with a desperate intensity.

Brian rocked into him, setting the pace, and Sonny let him, let go of all the pretense, all the performance, all the anxiety, and just felt it. Felt the slide of him in his mouth, the ache in his jaw, the burn in his lungs, the thrum of pleasure that was building, building, building inside him.

Brian’s movements became erratic, his thrusts jerkier, clearly trying not to kill Sonny with his dick. That was sweet of him. Sonny appreciated the thought.

Sonny also kind of wanted to see what would happen if he just let go, just let Brian fuck his mouth in earnest. But that was a thought for another day, another lifetime where it wouldn't actually end in a trip to the emergency room.

"Sonny, I'm—" Brian gasped, a warning. "I'm close."

And then there it was, the thing Sonny had forgotten about in all the fuss. The logistics of it. The endgame.

Where was it supposed to go?

He could swallow. He was pretty sure he could swallow. None of the girls he'd been with had, but he'd seen it in porn. It seemed… manageable. A protein shot. A little bitter, maybe, but nothing he couldn't handle. It was the kind of thing that would make a lasting impression.

It was going to last for Sonny anyway, the thought of Brian swallowing his come, the memory of the taste of it on his tongue. A fair exchange. A tit for tat.

He could also pull away, and end up wearing it. A more artistic option. A Jackson Pollock painting on his face, a modern masterpiece of shame and depravity. Brian might like that.

"Fuck, Sonny, take it. Swallow it," Brian growled, and that settled it. No contest. The man knew what he wanted, and Sonny was feeling generous.

What's the worst that could happen? 

Famous last words, maybe. 

Sonny braced himself, one hand gripping Brian's thigh, the other coming up to cup Brian's balls, a last-ditch effort to make it good.

"Sonny, I swear to god," Brian warned, his voice a low, desperate growl, his body tensing under Sonny's hands, a dam about to break.

And then it did.

Sonny’s first thought was 'hot.' Which... duh. But it was hotter than he expected, a sudden, surprising pulse of heat against the back of his throat.

The second thought was 'oh god, there's a lot of it,' a torrent, a flood, and he was suddenly, terrifyingly aware of his own gag reflex. He was drowning.

He swallowed frantically, trying to keep up, trying to get it all down, and he couldn't, he just couldn't, and it was spilling out of the corners of his mouth, dripping down his chin, onto his chest, onto the duvet.

A Jackson Pollock painting after all.

Sonny held on, a life raft in a storm, until he felt Brian’s muscles go lax, a slow, bone-deep relaxation under Sonny's hands that was as satisfying as the climax itself.

Sonny pulled off and looked up at Brian, a triumphant, stupid grin on his face.

He'd done it. He'd faced the dragon and he'd won. Mostly.

Brian looked down at him, his chest heaving, a slow, lazy smile spreading across his face. "Well, look at you," he said, reaching out to thumb at a smear of come on Sonny's chin. "You're a natural."

Sonny preened, a stupid, useless puff of pride in his chest. "I try," he said, and then coughed, a wet, sticky sound. Yep. He was going to be tasting this for a week. He swiped at his chin with the back of his hand, then licked it clean, just to see the look on Brian's face.

He wasn't disappointed. Brian's eyes darkened with flicker of that predatory hunger, even in the afterglow.

It manifested in Brian collapsing sideways onto the bed, taking Sonny with him in a tangle of limbs. He didn't let go of Sonny's hair, just used the grip to pull him into a kiss, slow, and deep, and messy. It was a taste of himself, of them, and Sonny moaned into it.

"Disgusting," Sonny murmured against his lips, when they finally broke for air.

Brian huffed a laugh, changing the angle just barely to lick away a drop from the corner of Sonny’s mouth, more from his chin. 

"You asked for it." 

Brian rolled, and Sonny went with him, ending up on his back with Brian looming over him. He was still hard, a fact that was not going unnoticed by the interested party.

"Feeling left out?" Brian asked, reaching down, wrapping a hand around Sonny's cock.

"A misfit toy, not even invited to the island," Sonny gasped, his hips moving in a frantic rhythm, chasing the friction. "I'm the one in the bottom of the box with the sharpie stains and the wonky eye."

"That's a boner killer if I've ever heard one," Brian grunted, but he kept stroking, his thumb swiping over the head, spreading the precome that was leaking from the tip.

"Sorry," Sonny panted. "I'll try to keep the existential dread to myself."

He was already so close, the pleasure coiling tight, a second orgasm building on the ashes of the first.

It was over embarrassingly fast.

A few more strokes, a twist of Brian's wrist, and Sonny was coming again, a weak, shuddering climax that left him breathless and boneless. He collapsed back against the pillows, a used-up, satisfied mess.

Brian leaned down and kissed him again. "Good?"

Sonny had to take a second, to get the old girl back in her dock before he could answer. He was sticky. His jaw ached. His throat was sore. He felt… amazing.

"Yeah," Sonny breathed, an understatement of the highest order. "Yeah, good."

Brian rolled off him, landing on his back with a soft thud, and the sudden space between them felt cold and vast. Sonny turned his head, looking at him. He was just… there. All that perfect skin and muscle, completely relaxed.

"What?" Brian asked, his eyes closed.

"What? What do you mean what? I'm not allowed to look at you?" Sonny shot back, a little defensively. "It's a very view-heavy situation. It's not my fault you're built like a Roman statue."

Brian cracked one eye open. "You're a lot, you know that?"

"News to me," Sonny said, feeling a weird, unfamiliar pang of… something. He wasn't sure what. He wanted to touch him again, to trace the lines of his muscles, to feel the warmth of his skin. He wanted to… cuddle.

Oh god, he wanted to cuddle. He was a cliché. He was a walking, talking, post-orgasm cliché. He was a hallmark movie waiting to happen.

He fought the urge, squashing it down, burying it under a layer of sarcasm and disdain. "So, is this the part where you fall asleep and I rob you blind? Because I have to be honest, I'm not sure I have the energy. I might just take your wallet and call it a day."

"Go ahead. There's fifty bucks in it for you if you make it out the door."

"Very funny," Sonny said, but he was looking around, taking in the room for real this time. 

It was huge, a sterile, impersonal space that screamed 'I'm here for two nights and then I'm never coming back, and also I'm rich.' The only sign of life was their clothes, Brian's luggage presumably stashed away somewhere out of sight, a perfect, tidy little life that Sonny was currently soiling with his poor person presence.

"What?" Brian asked again, looking over at Sonny now. 

"Just trying to figure out where the good stuff is. The jewels. The bearer bonds. Do people even have bearer bonds anymore? I feel like I read that in a book once."

"If you find any, you can have them," Brian said, and then he was shifting, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and standing up.

And he was naked.

Completely, unapologetically naked, and god was the view good from this angle too. He stretched, a luxurious movement that did things to Sonny's insides, and his outsides.

The outsides were starting to get interested again, which was a physiological impossibility. He was twenty-one, he could probably get it up for a strong breeze, but he'd already come twice, like... pretty quickly. 

"Are you going to just stand there and be hot? Because I'm going to need you to stop. My dick can't take it."

Brian just smirked and walked toward the bathroom. He didn't close the door. Of course he didn't. Because he was an exhibitionist, and Sonny was a voyeur, and they were a match made in some weird, sweaty heaven.

He listened as Brian took a piss. He listened as he turned on the sink. He was in bed with a man he'd known for three hours, and he was listening to him pee.

It should have been weird. It should have been gross. It was... no, yeah, it was weird and a little gross, but in a way Sonny liked for some reason he couldn't look at too closely.

Brian came back with a damp washcloth in his hand. He didn't say anything, just tossed it at Sonny, hitting him in the chest.

"Clean up your mess," Brian said.

Sonny took stock of himself. Yeah, his stomach was sticky, and his chin was a little crusty. He was a walking biohazard.

"Classy," he replied, but he cleaned himself up, the rough texture of the washcloth a very necessary grounding sensation.

"Class is my middle name," Brian said, opening the door to a closet, where there was a row of dark suits hanging in pristine dry cleaning bags. Of course he wouldn't live out of his suitcase like a normal person.

Sonny watched Brian bend over—Christ—digging through a smaller bag, coming out with an even smaller bag, then unzipping that bag to pull out a travel-sized bottle of lube and a strip of condoms.

He pitched those at Sonny too, and landed on the bed next to him.

"So, what's the plan, Colonel?" Sonny asked, leaning back on his elbows. "Are we storming the beaches at dawn?"

"We..." Brian said slowly, continuing to dig through the bag, then coming up with a small metal vial with a black lid, "...are going to do a little maintenance."

Sonny’s brain, which had been happily humming along on a single track of dick dick dick, skidded to a halt.

"It's a terrible, clichéd habit, I know," Brian said, as if he were discussing a fondness for bad reality television. "But it's very effective when you're on your eighteenth hour of reading a deposition about a shell corporation in the Cayman Islands. Keeps the edges crisp."

And Sonny… Sonny was fascinated.

He was repulsed. He was intrigued. He wanted to try it. He wanted to run screaming. He wanted to see what would happen if someone were to snort a line of coke off Brian's perfect, expensive cock. That was a thought. A terrible, dangerous, deeply appealing thought.

"So you're a high-functioning cokehead," Sonny replied. "Do you go to meetings, or is it totally, definitely not a problem, and you can quit anytime you want?"

Brian tossed the bag in the closet and came back to bed, sitting on the edge. "I do it when I need to for work, and when I want to for fun. Nothing in between." He unscrewed the lid carefully, tossing it on the duvet. "And look—" He said, tapping a tiny amount out onto the back of his hand. "Nothing so gauche as a razor blade and a rolled up hundred. We're not in a Scorsese film."

He looked at the little white pile on his skin, then at Sonny. "Well? You're supposed to say something clever now."

Sonny was a mess of warring impulses. 

The angel on one shoulder was screaming about addiction and expensive rehab facilities and the kind of future where you steal your mom's television to pawn for a fix.

The devil on the other shoulder, who was wearing a much nicer suit and had a much better haircut, was whispering about experiences and stories and the fact that this was a one-time-only offer to see behind the curtain of a lifestyle he'd probably never encounter again.

Sonny couldn't help but crawl across the bed, drawn to it like a moth to a very, very white flame.

It's not like Brian had even offered him any.

Sonny could watch. Watching wasn't a crime. It was educational for a guy who, in a few years, would be busting people for exactly this kind of thing. A little field research.

Brian leaned down, blocking Sonny's view, and inhaled, one clean, sharp tilt of his head. He didn't even flinch. He just sat back up, and wiped the residue from his hand with a thumb, then licked it. He rolled his neck, a soft, satisfied sigh escaping him.

"What? Nothing to say?" Brian asked, tapping out another small pile, then holding his hand out to Sonny. "The tour continues."

Sonny's brain was a maelstrom of caution and curiosity. Every D.A.R.E. officer he'd ever met was flashing before his eyes, a grim, neon-lit slideshow of ruined lives and lost potential. But then there was Brian, looking at him like he was the most interesting thing in the room, offering him a piece of his world.

"You took that on a plane?" Sonny deflected, because he was a coward.

"It was waiting for me," Brian said simply. "Part of the welcome basket."

Sonny was going to be a cop, and this would probably show up on his drug screening in two years and he'd be flipping burgers and explaining to his dad why the academy hadn't worked out. He could see the conversation now.

Well, Dad, I had a chance to try some high-grade cocaine off the back of a stranger's hand in a five-star hotel, and I thought, 'you know what? When in Rome.' The gay sex went fine, in case you were wondering.

He also had a sinking feeling that if he said no, Brian might actually be disappointed. That he might see Sonny as boring. A hustler with limits. A curiosity that had lost its shine.

And Sonny, for reasons he couldn't begin to untangle, didn't want to be boring to this man.

Peer pressure was real, except no it wasn't, because Brian was offering and the rest of it was happening in Sonny's head. Brian didn't give a shit if he did it or not. He had a client being investigated by the SEC and a dick that could kill a man. Sonny was a passing amusement. A distraction. A human-shaped canapé.

So Sonny had nothing left to lose except for his entire future.

But, okay... Sonny knew it was cliché as all hell, but Brian was clearly fine. He was successful and coherent and he just did it. And then he sat there, looking at Sonny like Sonny was the thing he wanted to do next.

Brian would be in rehab eventually, Sonny was sure of it. A nice one, with horses. He'd probably still come out on top.

Sonny was going to get addicted and end up on a park bench.

His whole life, he’d been told he was smart, smart enough to know better. And he was. And he was going to do it anyway. Once. A story for the grandkids he’d never have because he was going to have a heart attack in a back alley after snorting up his life savings.

"Alright, Nancy Reagan, you can get off my back," Sonny said to the imaginary D.A.R.E. officer. He leaned forward, bracing a hand on Brian's thigh to steady himself.

Brian barked a sharp laugh. "What?" And Sonny realized he’d said that out loud.

"Nothing. Just my childhood telling me to just say no," Sonny said, and then, before he could overthink it again, he leaned down.

He had no idea what he was doing. He'd seen it in movies. He just saw Brian do it, sort of. He pressed a finger against one nostril, closed his eyes, and inhaled sharply.

It was brutal.

It was like being hit in the face with a chemical ice pick. A searing, electric pain shot through his sinus cavity, an immediate, overwhelming burn that made his eyes water and his throat go raw. He coughed, a dry, hacking sound that felt like he was trying to exhale a piece of gravel.

He sat back, blinking, his nose running, a metallic, bitter taste flooding the back of his throat.

"Jesus Christ," he rasped, wiping at his nose with the back of his hand. "You people do this for fun?"

"Give it a second," Brian said, watching him with an unnerving intensity. His own pupils had blown out, wide and black in the dim light of the room. "It's just a bump, it won't be much."

"Yeah, I know what a bump is, I've seen Oz," Sonny snapped, feeling defensive and self-conscious. He was failing at doing drugs. He was bad at getting high. What kind of loser was bad at getting high?

Nothing was happening.

He just had a sore nose and a sore throat and he felt like an idiot. A gullible, easily-led idiot who had just snorted a mystery powder off a guy he'd met a few hours ago. A guy who was now looking at him with a smirk.

"Okay, so that was a bust," Sonny said, rubbing at the side of his nose. "Is there a customer service line I can call? I'm not feeling the reason people do hard drugs. I'm mostly just feeling like I inhaled a sidewalk." He sniffled, then sniffled again, a persistent, annoying drip.

"You will," Brian said, a note of certainty in his voice that was starting to piss Sonny off.

And then he did.

The pain receded, replaced by a jarring clarity. The world snapped into focus. The texture of the duvet under his hands, the pattern of the wood grain on the dresser, the individual strands of hair on Brian's arm—it was all hyper-real. Loud. The low hum of the minibar was a roar. His own heartbeat was a drum solo in his ears.

He was also suddenly and overwhelmingly horny.

Not just, 'oh, that's a nice boner' horny. It was a deep, primal, cellular-level horniness. A need so profound it was a spiritual calling. He wanted to fuck. He wanted to be fucked. He wanted to crawl inside Brian's skin and live there. He wanted to fuck the room. He wanted to fuck the suits in the closet. He wanted to find the CEO of the hotel and fuck him until he gave Sonny the deed to the place.

"Well, hello," Sonny said, a slow, wolfish grin spreading across his face.

He looked at Brian, really looked at him, and it was like seeing him for the first time. He was even more perfect than Sonny had thought, every line of him a masterpiece of evolution and good fortune.

How was that possible?

Oh, right, the crime Sonny had just committed. 

"Having fun?" Brian asked.

Sonny's brain was a pinball machine of thoughts, lights flashing, bells ringing, a cacophony of ideas and impulses and observations. He wanted to talk about everything, about the best way to get come out of Egyptian cotton, how he had a great idea for a sitcom about two rival funeral home directors, how he wanted to meet the guy who invented CornNuts, not for any particular reason, he just wanted to shake his hand and ask him what kind of childhood he had.

He also wanted to get fucked. Right now. Immediately.

He wanted to do it all at once.

"You're very talkative," Brian observed, and Sonny realized he'd been thinking out loud again.

Right, right, right, right, right.

"Sorry," Sonny said, but he wasn't. "My brain is a multi-lane superhighway, and all the cars are going a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction. You should see the pileup." He paused, a thought cutting through the noise. "We should do that. The thing we talked about. The thing with my ass."

He was a maestro of seduction. A poet of the flesh.

Instead of replying, Brian tapped out another tiny bump on the back of his hand, a little reward for a job well done.

Sonny watched, mesmerized by the casual way he destroyed his nasal lining like it was nothing. Brian leaned in, snorted it, and then he was looking at Sonny again, and Sonny felt like he was looking at the fucking sun. A very, very hot sun that he wanted to get a severe burn from.

"So, the ass thing," Sonny said again, because he wasn't sure Brian had heard him the first time. He might have said it in his head. He was saying so many things in his head right now.

"Yes, I heard you the first time," Brian said, screwing the cap back on the little vial, tossing it in the center of the bed. It made a soft thud, Sonny knew it did because he could hear it. He could hear everything. He could probably hear the dust on the furniture. He'd be able to hear the color red if he focused real hard.

"Good," Sonny said. "Good, good, good. Because I'm very… I'd like to do that. I think I'm ready for that. I'm prepped. Mentally. Not physically." He patted the little strip of condoms and the bottle of lube on the bed. "We're going to need these. These are the tools for the job. The ass job."

Brian laughed a laugh that made Sonny's chest feel warm and fizzy. He wanted to make him laugh again. He wanted to be the funniest, most interesting person in the world. He wanted to tell Brian a joke so good that he would forget all about the SEC and just sit here and listen to Sonny talk forever.

Suddenly, Sonny was being manhandled. Not in a bad way, in a very, very good way. Brian was flipping him, rolling him over onto his stomach like he was a pillow he was fluffing.

"Hold on, hold on, I'm a person," Sonny complained, but he wasn't really complaining. He was helping. He was an active participant in his own repositioning. He ended up on his stomach, a pillow wedged under his hips, and oh, oh, that was nice. The pressure on his dick was… yeah.

"Let's just take inventory for a second," Sonny said, his face smushed into the duvet, which smelled incredible, like soap and money and Brian. "So we've got the cock, we've got the ass, we've got the lube, we've got the condoms. We've got, you know, the will and the way. And we've got… what else do we have? We have… we have the drugs. The drugs are in my brain. And your brain. Are they in your brain?"

"A little less than they're in yours," Brian said, and Sonny felt a shift in the bed as Brian moved. He heard the lube bottle cap click open, and the sound was so loud, so crisp, so clear. "Now, are you going to be quiet, or am I going to have to find a way to make you be quiet?"

"You wouldn't dare," Sonny gasped, already planning what he was going to say next, something so shocking, so brilliant, that Brian would be left speechless.

"You're right, I wouldn't," Brian said, and then a slick, cold finger was tracing the cleft of Sonny's ass. All the clever words, all the witty observations, they all just fizzled out, replaced by a single, overwhelming thought—more. "I like you running your mouth. It's entertaining."

That was a compliment. Sonny was ninety percent sure that was a compliment.

Brian's finger circled his hole, a maddening, exquisite pressure. Sonny pushed back against it, an involuntary, greedy movement.

"Easy, tiger," Brian murmured, but he pushed back, letting the very tip of his finger breach the rim. Sonny felt himself clench, a reflex, a nervous spasm. It felt weird. Not bad, but weird. Intrusive. A trespass.

"You're a tight-ass, hustler," Brian said, a little laugh in his voice.

"First class all the way, baby," Sonny managed, his voice muffled by the pillow. "No coach seats with Virgin Atlantic."

Brian laughed again, and the sound of it made Sonny's toes curl. "Well, that answers that question."

"What question?" Sonny asked, and then he gasped as Brian pushed his finger in deeper, a slow, steady burn that made his eyes water. He was being stretched open, invaded, and he wanted it to stop and he wanted it to never, ever end.

"How much of 'a while' it's been," Brian said, and oh, that. A Freudian slip on Sonny's part and a lay-up on Brian's. Sonny should've been embarrassed, but he was mostly just impressed by the callback.

"Still not your business," Sonny gritted out, but it was a weak protest, a lie he was telling to himself more than to Brian. The truth was, it was everybody's business now. It was on the front page of the New York Times. LOCAL MAN HAS NEVER BEEN PENETRATED, DEVELOPMENTS AT 11.

Brian worked him open slowly, adding a second finger when Sonny started to move against him, needing more. It was a stretch, a burn, a dull ache that was slowly, surely being overtaken by something else, something deeper, more pleasurable.

"Have you thought about it?" Brian asked, his voice a low rumble. "Doing this."

"All the fucking time," Sonny confessed, the words torn from him before he could stop them. "The… the mechanics of it are a little… daunting. From this end. The logistics. The, uh, the potential for… mess."

"We'll manage," Brian said, and then he crooked his fingers, hitting a spot inside Sonny that made him see stars, a literal fireworks display behind his eyes.

"Holy fucking shit," Sonny cried out, burying his face in the pillow to muffle the sound. He was not a screamer. He was not a screamer. "Do that again. Do it a million times."

Brian did it again, and again, a merciless assault on Sonny's nervous system, stretching him more, filling him up. Sonny was a mess of moans and whimpers, pushing back against Brian's hand, demanding more, harder, faster, a greedy, insatiable thing he barely recognized as himself.

He felt the bed shift as Brian moved, and then he heard the rip of a foil packet, the crinkle of the wrapper loud and clear in the buzzing silence of the room. He was going to do it. He was really going to do it. He was going to get fucked by a cokehead with a death-by-cock dick, and it was the best night of his life.

Sonny scrambled up onto his hands and knees, turning to look at Brian over his shoulder. He was rolling the condom down his length, his movements fluid and confident, and Sonny's mouth went dry. He was going to be split in two. He was going to be ruined for all other men. He was going to be a statistic.

"I want to see," Sonny said, a sudden, desperate need. "I want to see you."

Brian looked at him with a flicker of surprise in his eyes, and then he was flipping Sonny over again, this time onto his back. He hooked his hands under Sonny's knees, pushing them up and apart, leaving him completely, terrifyingly exposed.

"Better?" Brian asked, smug, smug, smug.

"I have no idea," Sonny said, his heart pounding against his ribs. He was about to be penetrated. He was about to be… impaled. "This is like a nature documentary. I'm watching the lion take down the gazelle, except I'm the gazelle and the lion has a condom on."

"God, you're delightful," Brian breathed, and then he was lining himself up, the blunt head of his cock pressing against Sonny's hole.

Sonny braced himself, expecting the worst, a searing, tearing pain, but Brian was slow, giving him just a little bit at a time.

It was a deep, aching fullness that was so much, too much, and then Brian was fully inside him, buried to the hilt, and Sonny felt like he could feel him in his throat. He was full. So full.

And it was… okay. It was okay.

"Alright, gazelle?" Brian asked, his voice strained. He was holding back, Sonny could feel it, the coiled tension in his muscles, the way his hands were gripping Sonny's thighs so, so tight.

"I think so," Sonny managed. "I think I'm... still alive. I think my organs have been redistributed, but I think I'm still alive."

Brian huffed a laugh, and then he started to move.

It was a slow, shallow rhythm at first, a gentle rocking that let Sonny adjust, let him get used to the strange, overwhelming sensation of being filled. The burn was fading, replaced by a throbbing pleasure that was growing, building with every thrust.

Brian found that spot again, and Sonny cried out, his back arching off the bed.

"There we go," Brian growled, the lion digging his teeth into the gazelle's neck, and he started to move faster, harder, a deep, punishing rhythm that was pushing Sonny to the edge of his sanity.

He was making sounds he didn't know he could make, a litany of whimpers and gasps and curses, a constant stream of filth and nonsense that he couldn't seem to stop. He was a babbling, incoherent mess, and he didn't care. He just wanted more. More of this, more of him, more of the pleasure that was threatening to consume him whole.

"Look at you," Brian breathed, and Sonny forced his eyes open, meeting Brian's gaze. His pupils were still blown out, a hungry, predatory gleam in them that made Sonny's stomach clench. "You're a fucking mess."

Sonny was. He was a mess. He was a masterpiece of a mess, and Brian was the one who'd made him filthy, and who was admiring him for it, one brutal, delicious thrust at a time.

Sonny reached down, wrapping a hand around his own dick, starting to stroke himself in time with Brian's thrusts.

Brian grabbed his wrist, jerking his hand away. "You come when I say you come," he snarled, and oh, oh, oh, that was… yeah.

Sonny let his hand fall to the side, a willing sacrifice at the altar of Brian's pleasure. He was a supplicant, a devotee, and he understood how people could get caught up in sex cults now.

He would totally join a sex cult for Brian. He'd move to a compound in Belize and wear robes and do chores, as long as he got this at the end of the day.

And the coke, the coke was still buzzing in his brain, a constant, crackling energy that was amplifying everything, making every sensation more intense. He could feel every ridge, every vein of Brian's cock inside him, every shift of the muscles in Brian's thighs, the heat of his skin, the sweat under Sonny's palms when he pressed them flat against Brian's chest.

"You're so fucking tight," Brian gritted out, his rhythm faltering, his thrusts becoming erratic. "Sonny, I'm—"

"Come on," Sonny gasped, digging his nails into Brian's shoulders, holding on for dear life. "Come on, come on, come on."

Brian slammed into him, one last, stinging thrust, and then he was shuddering, a long, low moan tearing from his throat as he came. Sonny felt him pulse inside the condom, a final, overwhelming wave of pleasure that pushed him over the edge.

"Fuck, Sonny, let go," Brian commanded, strained, before he'd even stopped shaking. "Come for me."

Unfortunately for Brian's control issues, Sonny was already there, coming without a hand on him, an unexpected, explosive climax ripping through him, and for a moment, he was certain he was dying.

It was a seizure, an aneurysm, a full-system shutdown. The world went white, a blinding, deafening flash of pure sensation, and then he was floating, drifting in a warm, hazy sea of soon-to-be-afterglow.

Sonny came back to himself slowly, the world fading back in, piece by piece. The feel of the duvet under his back. The sound of Brian's ragged breathing. The weight of him on top of him, still inside him.

Brian pulled out, a slow, careful movement, and Sonny felt an immediate, aching sense of loss. He was empty. He was a hollowed-out shell of a person.

Brian flopped down beside him again, and Sonny turned his head to look at him. He was a mess, too. His hair was a wreck, and his face was flushed, and he was breathing hard.

They were a matched set.

"God, that was good," Brian panted, and then he was laughing, tired and satisfied. "I needed that."

"I'm glad I could be of service," Sonny said, his voice a hoarse, unfamiliar rasp.

He felt like he'd been screaming for hours. He also felt like he could run a marathon. Or maybe just write a novel. Or solve world hunger. His brain was still a hive of hyperactive bees.

"Don't sell yourself short, hustler," Brian said, weakly pulling off the condom with his eyes closed. He tied a neat knot in the end without looking and dropped it over the side of the bed. A litterbug. A high-end litterbug. "You're a fucking phenomenal lay. Loud as shit. The whole floor probably knows my name."

Sonny felt a weird, misplaced surge of pride. He wanted to get a gold star. A plaque. Sonny Carisi, Fucked So Good He Got a Noise Complaint.

"I've never come without my dick being touched," Sonny said, the words just tumbling out. "I thought that was, like, an urban legend. Something that happened in porn to make guys feel bad about themselves. Like Bluetooth. Hands-free orgasms for the modern man."

"Don't get used to it," Brian murmured. "That was a fluke. A perfect storm of my immense talent and you being a tight-assed coke virgin."

"You say the sweetest things," Sonny sighed. He was sticky again. He was always sticky. He was going to need a shower. A power wash. He was going to have to be sandblasted.

They lay there in silence for a while, the only sounds their slowing breaths and the distant hum of the city. Sonny started to feel it then, the inevitable comedown. The energy was starting to fade, leaving behind a jittery, hollowed-out feeling.

The horniness had been sated, replaced by a creeping, analytical anxiety.

He started thinking about the awkwardness of getting dressed. About the walk of shame. About the fact that he was in a hotel room with a strange man, a man who had paid him for sex, probably, a man who had just given him illegal drugs, definitely, and the only thing he had to show for it was a sore ass and a lingering taste of his own shame in the back of his throat.

He needed to leave. He needed to go home and take a long, hot shower and write it all down in a journal that he would then burn. Or keep, so he could remember all the details he'd want to jerk off to later.

He was about to say something, to make a joke about the minibar or early check-out, when Brian sat up halfway, patting the duvet until he found the little metal vial.

"So, what's the plan?" Brian asked, his eyes flicking to Sonny's and back down as he tapped out a small, perfect line this time. He didn't offer any to Sonny. It wasn't a shared experience anymore. It was maintenance.

And Sonny, to his own surprise, was disappointed. He wanted that buzz back, that feeling of infinite possibility and focus. He wanted the superhighway in his brain to be open for business again.

"Figured you'd want me out of your hair by now," Sonny said, trying for a nonchalant tone and missing by a mile. He was feeling raw and exposed, the high receding and leaving him defenseless. "Let you get back to your, uh... whatever you do after you've been serviced by the local talent."

Brian snorted the line with the same clean efficiency as before. He wiped the back of his hand on the duvet and looked at Sonny, and a slow, lazy grin spread across his face. "What, you got big plans for the morning? A hot date with a bowl of dry cereal and Judge Judy at noon?"

"A run along the river. Maybe a croissant if I'm feeling decadent," Sonny shot back. "I have a routine. I'm a man of discipline."

That was a lie. His routine was hitting snooze until it was an emergency and then shoveling whatever sugary garbage was closest into his mouth on his way out the door.

Brian leaned back against the headboard, pulling the sheet up to his waist. He was still magnificent. Sonny hated him a little for it.

"Or you could order whatever bullshit croissant you want from room service. Or not. I don't particularly care, as long as it ends with your dick rubbing up against the shower wall before checkout."

Sonny’s brain skidded to a halt. Again.

Another round.

In the shower.

A vision, crystal clear, bloomed in his mind. Water streaming down their bodies, steam fogging up the glass, the slick slide of skin against skin. His cock, which he'd been sure had retreated permanently, gave a weak, interested twitch. A Lazarus boner.

He was exhausted. He was chafed in places he didn't know he had. His jaw was an arthritic ruin. And he was one-hundred-percent in.

"I like the ones with almonds," Sonny said, because it was the only thing he could think of to say that wasn't oh god please fuck me in the shower and then up against the window and then maybe one more time for good measure. "And I'm gonna need some orange juice, if you're buying. Not from concentrate. That shit's for animals."

Brian's grin widened as he stretched his arms over his head, his back arching, then settled back against the pillows with a lazy sigh. "God, you're easy."