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The touch startled him out of his stupor, snapped the mesmerised strands in his mind that had left him clutching his drink only half finished, staring off at the stage like his singular favorite dancer upon it might make a sudden reappearance – an encore – an –

And holy ********, were those claws!? He was wearing claws—

“Can I…” He wanted to ask, suddenly dry mouthed, eyes glued on the gentle wag of fingers. No, he needed to ask! To spew up an unhinged barrage of needs —

‘Can I touch them, taste you, get down on my knees and clean your boots, heel n’all, till every stud is shiny …’

His eyes fluttered briefly as he swallowed down the gorging torrent of words surging to leak past his lips, finding something simpler to ask instead. Something more sane, at least, considering the situation. He was in a bar, after all, clutching a glass that seemed more likely to shatter than end up finished off by his own tongue. Looking for an anchor —

In the face of a boy wearing chains. <********. ********. ******** they real claws? They’re so…they’re nice…and..” He marveled as he reached for Ebon’s hand, speaking dumbly, in the stuporous way one might ask a unicorn if they were the real thing. Except this was no unicorn. No. Ebon was raptor, raven, plucked out of his waking nightmares and sheet-rending dreams like some devastating Devil dripped in chains and lacquered blacks. <******** it, the floor looks comfortable enough, and I wouldn’t have to kneel there for a long time— It wouldn’t take me that long—-’

‘Holy s**t, what am I thinking.’

“Your dance was…I..I don’t actually have enough words t’describe it? But, uhm, <********>” Waru had the decency to look briefly embarrassed for no apparent reason, to laugh at himself, snickering softly as he tried to shake webby thoughts loose from his brain. A bunch of sticky bullshit, truly. But he wasn’t here to dump all his nonsense on the poor dancer…stripper?

Ebon. Ebon. Ebon.

“It was good, though. I know that. Think th’audience does too.”

‘He’s not your friend, Waru. You can’t just touch—‘ He held his breath as he watched those fingers flit just out of view, playful in their way. Sassy almost, though they could’ve been otherwise. A signal? A full stop? He’d done this once, hadn’t he? He could ******** remember a time when he’d bounced for clubs while he’d been bouncing between couches, because nineteen and built like a gym junkie was just as good as twenty one and able to drink the liquor they slid him as tips.

Back when he could still be paid with the promise of a good time, a new place to sleep. The shape of Lena’s velveteen sheets strictly made for sleeping after giving her a ride home. How many times had he needed to say ‘don’t touch’ with his eyes as often as his mouth? Enough that he didn’t need to be told that here — couldn’t feign innocence — and so when nothing further came?

Just more of Ebon’s curated smiles, his quick fingers, when Waru found himself cupping the edge of the fist over his mouth just so he could murmur along with what he thought he was seeing…

Blown auburn eyes darting from fingers to lips and back again, it hadn’t been long enough that he’d forgotten, simply long enough that he needed to read along. To double check what made his heart ******** hurt—-

‘It’s nothing like Eions in the slightest—‘

Ebon seemed like he was born to it, whereas Faustite, himself, the whole team? The ways they’d had to learn fast, rough, out of necessity. Forced into it in so many ways, out of love, out of desire to bridge a gap and quickly. The way his boy always looked like he was trying to pin a snake to his plate and slice its head off with just a single fingernail. So many pointed words with complex meanings, and how often had he blundered them in spite of all Faustites trying?

‘Nothing but a shoddy interpreter— a maker of misunderstandings…‘

He didn’t wish to be one now, to miss-see a single stroke of glove-lined symbolism. The way those talons danced, and he sucked a shuddery inhale against another wounding memory.

‘Ebon doesn’t speak anything at all like my boy— I still can’t put a voice to this — I can’t even imagine one — ‘

“Sorry—“ Out of his mouth before he could stop it, forestalled and late. “For touching? Trying to! And —“ What else was there to apologize for? Everything. Nothing. So much!! “I normally don’t stare at anyone’s lips this much, not that yours aren’t stunning? But I swear…” He blinked, was Ebon flirting? Was the pale boy a tease? Did the chains have more meaning than as an improvised weapon…a shiny bit of jangle to wield sexily on stage…

“I’ve never actually done this kinda thing before…not like this. As, ah, a patron? Not that that’s an excuse…” It definitely wasn’t the excuse he was giving himself for being there, how flat would that have fallen in front of the others, to claim he was trying something new for the kicks of it all? Though, quiet suddenly? He was very glad that he hadn’t been drinking anything, not when he knew he would’ve choked stupidly on it, how that would’ve burned. What with the boy he’d only seen half a face of in half as many weeks reading him like he was flayed open and the manuscript of how he worked was written plain all over his innards. “No more than wanting another drink with you is…” He didn’t know the look on his face, if it was a desperate sort of wince, a kicked dog's grin, he knew that he felt guilt deep down somewhere. Right up until he didn’t. And then? All he could think of was what he did want and why it’d led him here!

‘Your attention, your presence, for five minutes more every time? For thirty if I can get it. Even if it’s just to talk!’

“For me being here, I mean, like this? Even if it’s kinda true. Cause…honestly…y’could’ve had the resident sailor behind the bar come nail-gun me to that stage by my crotch…and I still would’ve come back…” He was finally thirsty enough, or his brain sweating enough, that the drink in his hands seemed delightful, if devoid of taste. The most black and white piece of person in the room held all the flavor in his own hungry eyes; in beads of sweat from gentle exertion, in creases around his mouth.

“S’real hard to torture myself *more* — n’less you’re offering suggestions? M’not th’kind to turn down some creative input from an artist.” Raising his glass to Ebon like he was offering, like he was willing to drink more, copiously, but only in the presence of the man's company. He felt very much in the mood of ‘whatever you’re having I’ll have it double for both of us’, nearly said the words too—

Save for how he realized he’d been doing nothing but talking! The ******** would Ebon get a finger in edgewise if he never shut up!?

His brow furrowed briefly, a slash of consternation crossing it, maring his ardor for the moment. “I couldn’t begin to tell you what this tastes like...” Liquid in hand sloshing as he took another sip just to feel the burn of it. Had the first drink from this place been purple, was this one brown? Were Ebon’s eyes as dark as the intricate obscuring mesh he’d worn before, the headdress laid over them now? Was there secretly pitch in the boy's marrow, ink in his veins?

‘What color would his starseed be if I reached for it now— I never got the privilege of Ei’s between my teeth, across my tongue. I can’t get it now – and having the patience for if’s n’whens aren’t ******** answers enough!’

“It’s not just your skin I’m watching…” His gaze dipped, roved fine breastbone, the jut of hip, the place Kandi’s hand had landed good-naturedly. Refusing to elaborate further, switching tracks as his drink switched hands while he leant up to put in Ebon’s order. The blackberry mojito looked like a beautiful bruise blooming over ice.

He grinned at the surly looking barkeep (Lazlow?), some small appraisal for how professional the man seemed. He was pretty sure that paying the cover charge for ladies night, versus whatever this was? Being a regular. That it was a hell of a different set of numbers mindset-wise. But he wasn’t looking for applause for it. But to dwell on which account those funds were gently seeping from like a slow leak in a gas line would’ve been only compounded the way he wanted to squirm about it.

So he didn’t. Didn’t think those thoughts or say the quiet part out loud. He made sure Ebon got his pretty liquor.

“But I am enjoying myself.”

And I need it to mean something—-

“He should call yours Obscura…” Flash of a thought, the way the gentle creak of Ebons leather made him think of smokier evenings in an entirely different room. “I don’t even remember his name anymore….but there was this guy I used to run with. Late 40s with a penthouse bar….and he used to have his drinks mixed in these really eclectic ways.” He could recall the ingredients, if not the exact amounts, two different types of vermouth, reserve bourbon, the way the peel was flamed. There was something so dangerously beautiful about alcohol and fire — tantalizingly sophisticated about smoke in a glass —

“Not him, specifically. But the girls he’d hire.” Waru snorted because he found it funny, in a ‘man surrounded by water with not a drop to drink’, kinda way. So many beautiful girls — around the least into girls Man he had ever met.

“I hated it at first, bitter over smooth, a hint of charcoal. Not just for color.” The activated kind, he later learned, the kind people used to purge themselves of poisons. It was probably just for color? But Waru swore to himself that the could always tell the difference between when it was in a drink versus, say? Food coloring. “It didn’t hit fast like a shot, it wasn't syrupy sweet. It took patience to enjoy…” a half-shrug, the kindled embers of a genuine grin meant for Ebon only. “But it grew on me.” Waru wasn’t sure he’d ever grown a palate, not for finer things. But he did know when something tasted right.

And that drink did.

“It was the most ‘adult’ drink I’d ever had—- N’tonight? You resemble it…looking the way I bet it still tastes when it’s made right.”

There was a flicker of–

Sip of air, shuddered blink, his lower lip caught in a tug of teeth and swipe of tongue, the motion instinctive for how the arresting thought left him feeling like he was sweating under stage lights gone pinhole thin and piercing. He felt flayed all over again, known in distressing ways. Intimately. Being superstitious as he was? It left him wondering if he’d crossed salt lines without saying his prayers first. The way Ebon always said all of the right things while wearing the wrong skin...

Knew things he couldn’t have…shouldn’t have….unless?

‘I wonder what it would take to get him alone for three hours and a minute — for four hours — for a whole night —- away from here? Back to my place —’

There and gone, a passing stray, the graze was light, would clot on its own without him needing to put pressure on it. He shook off the superstition wound into suspicion and back again. Washed the urge to prod off his tongue with a few slow swallows that left his drink dwindling. He probably didn’t need to state the obvious and add to whatever image Ebon was already building of him with more rotting heaps of evidence.

“Yeh?” Pleased, and he wanted to read what Ebon wrote. Wanted it explained to him in a way he could understand as easily as ketchup packets, effigies of tiny homes scratched out with metallic nibs in a beloved familiars essence. He tilted his head as he peeked at what looked to him like ancient sanskrit carved into cotton with a blade made to cleave the thickest bones in two, femoral, bovine, human?

Didn't matter.

Thick thighs were made for saving lives, but nothing could be saved from the night-stalker perched before him. Least, that was what Waru was deciding as he added an opaque layer specifically labeled ‘Essence of Ebon’ to the narrative he was weaving for the kind of man that would have a drink like Obscura become their debut sauce, the kind of thing served to clients who requested that boy specifically...

“Can I –” Reaching for the pen, telling himself he could remember the rules. That he wouldn’t ‘touch’, just look at how good he was at not touching! His writing wasn’t neat, his memory was missing parts – because Amaro (while it reminded him of his amant) wasn’t actually a vermouth, was it? But there was also a vermouth in the drink – and none of the ingredients were overly expensive on their own, and the name of the bitters reminded him of the kind of churches he never walked except to make out with other men, women, and everything in between depending on the weather. The thrill of imagining he was pissing in one gods eye while paying worship to another of his own making.

“I’ve never liked cedar? No more n’I like sage…not even with fish n’chicken…but?” He drew a tiny glass, the shape he could remember, the whorls of smoke, crude little outlines of the tools they’d used. He thought that was where all the flash n’flare was, in the presentation, the lingering effects.

A performance meant to entertain, even if the entertainment was entirely self-indulgent. Because what did a bunch of eighteen, or nineteen, or twentysomethings *care* about where the wood was cut? Or the history behind the italian make of a liquor? The difference between whiskey and bourbon. ‘All bourbon is whiskey but not all whiskey is bourbon’, and Waru had simply wanted to get drunk at the expense of the kind of man who was afraid of heights, and yet still chose to live in penthouses with rooftop access. A fool having parties seven stories up, with guests that he treated like lesser beings; flecks of gold-leaf on his posh horderves, rings on his thick fingers.

‘Everyone looks the same dashed across the pavement, cops, robbers, kings.’

“If you’re going to use cedar.” A suggestive tone, turning the napkin this way and that to make sure he’d gotten it just right enough for his own liking. “Make it Western Red Cedar." He made sure to underline it once, the pen steadier than his recall, or the way he inhaled his next breath. "S’probably gonna be the most expensive thing on the list, honestly. But..hell.... you know what you’re about? N’should tweak it to your liking.” He was careful with how he set the pen back down, wanting for some lingering trace of heat to remain while he tried to divine the fingerprints and subtle oils from the one who’d touched it before. In spite of all reality, and with Ebon wearing the most stunning gloves. But he liked to imagine being allowed even a chastely shared touch, more indirect than any he’d had before.

“Or change it completely, even. Squid ink instead of activated charcoal – maybe absinthe and champagne as the liquors?”

The hint of praise was arresting, and Waru couldn’t help the way he smiled genuinely, huffed a laugh like it was nothing at all, like he wasn’t gulping from the well of Ebon’s rare, good graces, and what he took as candid praise like a man wandered into an oasis from a long trek.

“Thank you—”

Because there were people who had it bad? And then there was whatever he was; an unclassified species of desperation, some simpering version of shameless that he couldn’t remember ever being before. He’d learned to love one-sided, to rain feelings down over sex like a tarp over a puddle–

Made his bed with it, bled for it, bred it like it’d return future dividends if he only tried hard enough. Even for the fleeing singularities? The one night stands that only lasted a few minutes in a bathroom stall–

‘I’ve never had to pay for someone else's time…they want me…or I work for it…it’s always so mutual, and even when it’s one-sided? Jeezus….the ******** do I call this with him….’

Tripping over himself for nothing, not even the promise of fake love, or feigned security. Because this cage wasn’t even gilded, and he knew it; it was brittle black and lined with downy desiccation. His own confidences didn’t taint the bars like barbed wire laced with something toxic, a measure of constraint, nonexistent in this little exchange–

‘The door’s unlocked and I can leave any time….I can choose t’keep it here…I can tell him ******** off..’

But Kandi’s playlist didn’t move him to clinging to the wet bar and overwarm seat, he craved motion, nodded even as his thoughts collided in a spectacular array of chaos behind his eyelids. He was ‘yes’ on automatic, a puppet yanked to standing by swift fingers pulling invisible strings. It wasn’t until he was reaching for the card to pay his tab with that he realized—

“Where?”

“Yes–” He croaked, not asking after the size of his tab, or looking at blurry numbers that would end up crumpled and tossed if ever they were given to him in the form of a receipt. He never asked for one, not even now, knew the tally and toll would show in some digital warehouse full of his ill-placed footprints if ever he dared to check.

He didn’t— was candid in his newfound cowardice, reveled in it like a dog rolling in filth. He left his tip in cash folded neatly beneath the drink with only a sliver of a drop left in it.

“Hah…should I meet you out front…or...” Searching eyes that he still couldn’t see, and fingers that couldn’t inflect upon a lie with any sort of ******** tone even if they told one. His own belated realization that he didn’t actually know what the boy looked like beneath all the fanfare, feathers, and lace. That he didn’t care if…And no…no…he did care…if he was being ******** with like this? And maybe it’d be better if he was! A clean cut to a cord he’d woven round his own neck. He could get stood up, deservedly, hang his desires, go home and not keep coming back!

He almost hoped Ebon the Hellion was, indeed, ******** with him. Yet still he asked, with hope clawing up his insides, scratching his throat raw with the wiry legs of a thousand bitching spiders wanting to hatch out, out, out! Out of his mouth, and head, and into the light! Where they could spin their own webs, and eat him like the caring, nurturing, type of being he’d always claimed himself to be.

Strickenized

There were kinder tortures to endure, or so Waru decided in the moments that lingered in Ebon's passing. A thousand red, narrow eyed seconds that lingered. Silently stripping him down, weighing him out by the pound. All crammed into what couldn't've been more than a few minutes tops. But it felt like an eternity.

An eternity of watching hips sway to the clink of chain, pale swaths vanishing into a deeper darkness, leather cinching like an enticement – like a noose – far worse a thing to bear was how he suddenly regretted having nothing to swallow down anymore, and no masked eyes to meet. Only the barkeeps; which he quickly darted his own from. He didn’t want to know what Laszlo thought of him, if anything at ******** all. He could’ve gone to his own ends far more happily that way…

Hand in hand with draped darkness on parade—

‘I’ve never brought a stripper home’ – a lie – ‘I’ve never brought a stripper home to sleep with’ – another – but Lena didn’t count anywhere in this, had never been with him ‘like that’. Not Eros, either. But something about all of this? About Ebon, this place, the way he took the boy's hand like fervent servant and middle school crush felt — wrong, right, different in ways he couldn’t pay any therapist enough to bend his sloshing, malleable head around.

‘I’ve never met someone who I’ve only called by their stage name…who I didn’t know the first, second, third thing about…’

Ah, there, that was the truth. The strange, sharp, pebble in shoe, digging bloody into his soft sole. The part where he couldn’t tell if he was somehow a part of Ebon's Job, if the workers here made marks of their patrons; during, after, beyond this place. Or if Ebon was actually this boy's real name? Was he taking the boy home only to be robbed blind by him…with his eyes wide open the whole way…Or was he enjoying a fling? A fling undiscussed with the others – a fling he was paying to see without any expectations for more – with a poor man's monthly membership. And why was Ebon asking to go home with him tonight instead of all the clamoring others that likely existed? Better people, with more money, and more talent, and…

“Is Ebon really what you want me to call you?” Incredulous, because he still couldn’t believe it was the boy’s real name. Even as he tucked his gaze respectfully, guiding Ebon’s personage from one door, to another, to a car that was far too expensive for him to ever have purchased. Like any good bodyguard. Opening the door with a hisst to let Ebon in. Because he still had manners…and what kind of scornful lover would he have been if he didn’t use the gifts given to him with all the appreciation that was their due?

Even if only for actions of pure sacrilege…