It's been a month since Damian has dropped by here. The flyer says Go-Go Boy Stevo is here tonight, but that's not why Damian has come; the fact that the flyer has been saying the same thing for the past four weeks is not why Damian stayed away, either. This was his haunt for half a year before Go-Go Boy Stevo showed up, and if Damian has felt like checking out other clubs lately, well, that has nothing to do with the fact that Steven told Damian he's a straight boy dancing here for the money, which was his explanation for why he wasn't going to let Damian take him home and fuck him again.

That's the past, though, right? The future is now. Damian's eyes narrow with his internal purr, and he grins. The girl about to pass him on the pavement thinks it's for her and she has a nice smile, so he doesn't correct her. Flickering his eyes into focus on her face as they walk by each other, he gives her a smile in return for the one she's given him—a nice start to the evening, a little bit of harmless joy.

There's no room at the bar but that's all right. He didn't want a drink, he just wanted to prop up. Slipping his hands into his pockets, he rocks lightly on the balls of his feet as he surveys the floor, finally letting his eyes drift to the far left cage and glide up onto:

Not Go-Go Boy Stevo.

Damian keeps looking for a moment, just to be sure—but it's definitely not Steven. One hand leaves his pocket to rub his skin exposed below his shirt. Maybe he'll have a drink now.

He turns to the bar, looks down along the inside, and finds:

Steven. Standing there at the bar. Just standing there. Like he's waiting or something.

So Damian goes over, because it's the civil thing to do.

"Hiya!"

Steven's drink sloshes and Damian grins wide inside as Steven says, "Hey," teeth bared. Then he chugs what he didn't spill. "Gotta get going," Steven says.

"You're go-going tonight, yeah? Or are you going going?"

"Go-going."

"Cool," Damian says. His teeth show when he grins, but Damian doesn't really put them into the smile.

Steven doesn't smile back, but he looks long enough to catch Damian's smile before he goes. Damian watches Steven enter the cage, watches Steven get his glitter on, watches Steven stretch into his starting position and hold for the music.

Damian watches as Steven very, very carefully does not watch him.

When Steven finally looks up to cast out a glance, Damian knows the glance is not for him. It is for him, of course—but it doesn't land on him. He follows with his eyes to see where it does land, to see what safety looks like.

Pretty.

Just tall enough, or wearing the right shoes, to be seen in the crowd. Dark hair tumbling down along the curve of neck, over the curve of shoulders. Feminine curves. Safe, yeah.

Damian smiles and starts to trip his way over to her. But maybe that's too obvious. Maybe he won't go direct; maybe he'll linger on over.

There's plenty of pretty, and he dances with it all as he lingers his way to Steven's pretty.

The girl just laughs when he gets to her. Damian can't hear her actual laughter, the soft vibrations subsumed into the heavier thumps of the bass line, but her mouth opens in a smile and there's a small convulsion of her shoulders, an extra bounce to her breasts, and he's pretty sure it's laughter, and he knows for sure he's been caught. He's been caught glancing at the cage, and this girl can see that he isn't bothered about her, or about anything but the go-go cage.

She laughs when she catches him. She doesn't trap him but doesn't let him go. Grooving to his shimmy, she twists them round, slide and step and shimmy and twist—and there's Steven over her shoulder. She grins and it's easy to grin back. He smiles at her, for Steven.

It's easy to smile and move in, to sync up with her. Easy and safe.

Maybe that's the problem. She's safe. Safe for Steven, safe for Damian.

Damian kisses the girl on the cheek as one song bleeds into the next. He turns from the girl, turns from the booth, moves in a new rhythm, looking for a little dangerous. His eyes sweep the room, gathering up the pretty and pushing it into the corner, out of the way. Sweeping smooth, searching for the bump, the pretty that can't be swept.

It's thick going on the dance floor tonight, like walking in water up to your waist. Damian twists and slides instead of pushing, and the crowd is still thick but the going is smoother. He wonders if this is how swimming was invented—someone thought to dance in water. He wonders, too, if this is what Go-Go Boy Stevo sees from the cage every night: a human body of water, flowing and dipping and swelling.

Damian swims. Even when he feels toes on his heel, an elbow in his ribs, hands on his hips, he glides through. No danger of drowning.

He doesn't look at the cage. He wonders if Steven is looking at him not look.

Then his vision thuds up against something—something blond and pretty that doesn't sweep away. He stops swimming and, feet on the ground, goes over.

Blond-and-pretty is at the edge, and Damian's almost there himself, prickling with each step. The prickling starts to niggle him, 'cause it's not in his skin or his blood; it's in his brain. Then blond-and-pretty turns in profile and, fuck yeah, the prickle flares and Damian's brain is on fire, and this is definitely danger—

As in, You Fucked That Boy Two Weeks Ago And Never Called Like You Said You Would.

Blond-and-Pretty (Damian can't remember his name, although he knows the boy made a point of telling him as he wrote it on the scrap of paper that Damian couldn't even be bothered to throw out and is probably stuck to some other scrap of paper or maybe to the bottom of a gummed-up sole, maybe trodden through the flat and out into the street) is not turning in profile: he is turning all the way around.

Before Blond-and-Pretty can see him, Damian turns himself, twists and sinks to the floor.

The guy next to Damian goes from amused to concerned, smile fading and brows raised as he says something that is probably, "you okay?" and leans down with hand extended. The guy's hand is damp from his own sweat or condensation from the bottle he's holding. Damian shrugs a thanks to the guy and doesn't turn around to see if he's been seen.

Need a drink, Damian decides. He usually doesn't drink when he needs one, only when he wants one, to keep it fun and pleasure. But this time, just this once, Damian reckons it's all right to give in to need.

He's patiently slouched at the corner of the bar when the mirror flickers. The flickers reflect themselves onto Damian, crawl over his skin and through the pores down into his blood. He turns around—and sees dangerous.

Most favorable dangerous.

Fucking perfect dangerous. Fucking perfect everything. Curls—an insanity of curls. Best not to dwell in madness. Down, then, to the angles and curves of his face, accented by pseudo-tribal inked lines. Normally that's pretentious and irritating, but this boy isn't normal. It's there in the bones of his face and the bones of his body, and the way he knows how to move them. It's there in the illusion of slightness: if you look too quick, you might think you could snap him. But Damian can see that this boy is built to bend, not to break. He knows how to move in his skin, like he's doing right now.

Damian supposes you could call that dancing, if you've no imagination. Damian imagines The Boy is fucking the air around him. The Boy is well into it now, vibing: Come rub up against me, if you dare.

Damian has never been one to turn down a dare.







He keeps his eyes on The Boy as he approaches. Others have approached as well, and The Boy is dancing with all of them and somehow with none of them. They're rubbing up against him, but when Damian slides his eyes back up to The Boy's face, he sees there that none of them are really touching him; they're just molecules vibrating in the air.

Damian's eyes lock with The Boy's. There are other boys and girls between them. Damian doesn't dance with any of them; he dances with the vibrating air, rubbing up against the same pulsations as The Boy.

The Boy smiles—perfect flash of teeth, not a jag or a gap—and comes to Damian with a glide and something like a slither. Damian's belly is exposed in the stretch, but The Boy doesn't touch that flash of skin. He goes for Damian's wrist instead. Reaching up to wind his fingers round, The Boy presses against bone, presses against pulse.

What's your name? Damian wants to ask. I can't keep calling you "The Boy." But even though he can't, he does.

Molecules, Damian thinks as The Boy rubs his thumb over the jutting bone at the side of Damian's wrist, then slides his fingers down Damian's arm. Molecules and atoms and lower down, sub-atomic particles. Quarks. A world where "can't" and "does" are simultaneous, sharing the same space at the same time, opposite and one at once. Damian doesn't really understand physics, but there's a beauty there.

The Boy's fingers trip off his arm, slipping round his back. Damian arches, tilting his chin up. Accepting the invitation, The Boy snugs his thumb against Damian's nape and rubs.

Damian exhales when The Boy lets go. He's sure he was breathing the whole time, but he doesn't specifically remember.

The Boy drops his hands to Damian's hips and moves himself to the rhythm found in Damian’s bones.

His arms still overhead, Damian arches; pull and stretch of muscles through his torso as he bends himself back. His cock vibrates with the beat, thickening with the weight of the bass line. Upside down, Damian can't see anything clearly and his head's heavier with blood than his cock—but he's not going to fall. You can let go, the hands splayed at the small of his back tell him. So he does.

When the hands bring him rightside up, Damian smiles at The Boy. The Boy smiles, too, and it's a gorgeous flash—but it doesn't seep into Damian's skin. Then The Boy's hands fetch Damian to him, close enough to feel The Boy's cock against his own. And there, in The Boy's cock, Damian feels it, The Boy's blood-swollen smile for him.

He feels a prickling on the back of his neck, and then lips. Not, obviously, The Boy's. And not, of course (quick glance to be sure), Steven's.

The Boy spins him round and Damian looks over The Boy’s shoulder and sees the fucked blond-and-pretty from New Year's. Damian looks at him simply because Blond-and-Pretty is in his line of sight; he wonders if Blond-and-Pretty can feel it, the lack of anything special here.

They keep dancing, him and The Boy, belly to belly, not quite grinding yet. Damian splays his fingers over The Boy's hips for show, and then for support as he shimmies down into a crouch and tongues the button of The Boy's zip.

Smiling against the crotch he's nuzzling, Damian lifts the denim flap with his tongue and licks the metal teeth beneath it. Tiny perfect teeth. Damian's tongue probes, but there's no gap. He wonders what Steven is doing with his teeth right now. Pulling at his lower lip, maybe, or pushing his tongue against the back of them, tip probing the gap in his front teeth. Or maybe he's clenching them, just a little, even when he looks away from Damian and The Boy.

Damian still doesn't look at Steven as he slides back up. He grinds against The Boy, unable to tell which of them is harder. The Boy goes into an arch, exposing his torso, and what light there is glistens on his sweat-damp skin. Damian wants to lick it, but he settles instead for swiping his finger over it, feeling the slick warmth, the tremor beneath it. He licks The Boy's sweat off his fingertip. As The Boy watches him through half-lidded eyes, Damian feels the shiver and smile and scorch of his cock.

Slipping his mouth off his finger, Damian turns to glance, maybe to catch—

Steven. Oh, Steven. What. The. Fuck. What are you doing in that cage with that girl? You know you don't want her, don't you? Do you really not know?

A growl swells at the base of Damian's throat, coming out a frustrated whine. He forgets the pretense of dancing and pushes against The Boy. Maybe he'll push inside later, in the gents—his cock in The Boy's mouth or maybe his arse. But for now, Damian just pushes.

The Boy leans into him, Guinness-warmed breath on Damian's cheek. "You want me to come?"

It's not all hot, breathy sex. There's something weirdly sweet buoying up the words. Turning now, Damian searches The Boy's face silently.

The Boy smiles. "I can come, if you like."

"Can you really?"

"No." The Boy laughs; his eyes flicker invitingly towards the cage. "But I can make him think I did."

He cocks a grin at Damian, sweet and a little rotten, a smile that could hollow you out. Damian thinks this Boy is like a hole in the head—but he's always had a sweet tooth, so he returns the grin. "If you can do that," Damian says, "I'll get you off for serious in the gents."

The Boy smiles again and shakes his head; an elongated curl disentangles from the others and flops into his face, and The Boy lets it. "Want to go back to yours."

Damian looks him up and down, then casts a surreptitious glance at Steven go-going that girl, Steven thinking he's back on safe ground. "Okay then," Damian says to The Boy, reaching up and stroking the stray curl back into place. "Make it good."

With the opening beat of the next song, The Boy bites the side of Damian's thumb. Something coils in Damian's balls. The Boy's teeth are pressing right at the edge of the nail the way Damian sometimes bites his own thumb, and he can't remember if he bit it that way tonight or if this is coincidence.

The coil in his balls tightens convulsively and it's not just the teeth, it's the song. He wonders if Steven remembers fisting his hair to this song as he came down Damian's throat. He wonders how tight Steven's hand is wrapped around the cage bar right now.

Damian knows he shouldn't look, not yet, not fucking yet.

Their eyes meet.

Somehow Damian is the one who feels caught. Steven is touching that girl and letting her touch him and looking at Damian, and Damian's teeth bite down onto nothing but themselves. Steven is touching that girl like, well, Damian doesn't know what—and he's pretty sure Steven doesn't know, either. At least Damian knows what he's doing with The Boy, and at least The Boy is a boy, has a cock and knows how to use it.

What the fuck, Steven? What the fuck are you looking at?

Damian's teeth grind against each other, crushing all the molecules between them into nothing. He wants to grind everything into nothing right now; he thrusts his hips against The Boy. He mashes against The Boy's body as he draws his thumb from The Boy's teeth and brings it to his own mouth. He holds Steven's gaze and bites down on his thumb. The skin tears, yielding a little blood. Tearing his gaze from Steven's, Damian licks the blood. He grinds with The Boy.

Even though The Boy’s eyes are closed, Damian can feel his gaze. He feels The Boy's blind cock, too, hard against him. Damian's pretty sure he's harder than The Boy, but it's difficult to tell, cock-to-cock and all this denim between them, denim and whatever material The Boy is wearing beneath his jeans, if anything.

Suddenly Damian has to know how many molecules there are between his cock and The Boy's, so he slides his middle finger down The Boy's back and The Boy shivers, undulating for show—yeah, show him. But Damian doesn't look to see if Steven sees what he's being shown. He slides his finger down and he doesn't stop when he bumps into the denim waistband; he goes beneath it, along skin warmer and damper, sliding sweat-slick along The Boy's crack. Nothing but The Boy here.

Curving his finger, Damian pushes the tip in—and it's not for show, this jerk and undulation. The Boy's mouth opens wider, and Damian skims his glance from The Boy's teeth to The Boy's eyes. Their gazes connect; The Boy doesn't blink. He flickers into a smile and licks his upper lip, slow and smooth, lingering at the corner.

It's sexy. It's what Damian had thought he wanted. But now that he's seeing it, it's torment, and it's tormenting him, not Steven.

Damian can't spare Steven a glance now to see whether he's agonized or not. He pushes his thrilled cock against this dangerous boy. Fingers curled in The Boy's belt loops, he tugs to control The Boy's movements, bringing him face to face.

As he goes with the pushing and pulling, The Boy winks at Damian. Damian shivers, not in control.

Damian is his own danger tonight. He holds The Boy where he wants him, not kneeling, not yet, because when The Boy kneels—and he will—it will not be for show. It will be for Damian.

He twists to glance dangerously over his own shoulder. His gaze hits Steven low, striking his belly. That girl's hand is on Steven's belly; her other hand is lower, just inside—

Damian snaps away.

Eyes closed, he leans into The Boy. "Now. Need it now,"—fuck, oh fuck, fuck you, Steven.

The Boy tips his head back in assent. As he rises his neck arches, throat exposed, and it's almost like obedience—but Damian knows it's only part of the show; he knows in his head. But his cock, believing the show, arches and curves hard, trapped. Damian's moan is caught in his throat.

The Boy slides his fingers along his own body, occasionally touching Damian, before his hands meet overhead, cross at the wrists and hold there for a heartbeat…and another. Then The Boy drops his hands. Undulations ripple his torso. Curls fall back, exposing his face as his brow knits smooth serenity into something else, hooking vibrations out of the air, weaving rapture onto his face.

A vein throbs along the arched side of The Boy's throat and Damian wishes Steven were close enough to see it—but Steven is far away, too far away for this, so Damian takes the vein for himself. He presses his finger hard to the pulse, which throbs beneath him. The Boy and his blood thrum.

The Boy goes out of rhythm with the bass line in favor of obeying the pulse in Damian's fingertip. The Boy's orgasm is at the tip of Damian's finger, and Damian slides along it, caressing and scraping. Damian licks the thrum, mouths The Boy's pulsation, bites down. He feels The Boy spasming, out of rhythm, beyond control.

Leaning back, Damian watches The Boy twist and shudder to completion.

Complete illusion: The Boy is still hard when he brushes in against Damian, like his cock needs to tell Damian's a secret.

Then The Boy twists down, slow and smooth, until he's on his knees, gazing up at Damian, lips curling into a smile only Damian will ever see. Damian shudders, feeling those teeth.

He reaches down and twists into the curls, pulling The Boy up by them. Letting his fingers drip down The Boy's back, Damian slips beneath denim, over skin and the ridge of hip bone. He digs into the bone. His other hand brushes over his own cock, and he thinks his blood is harder than marrow, his cock is harder than bone. "Gents," he whispers, leaning up to The Boy.

The Boy shakes his head. "Yours."

Damian starts to growl—but The Boy's arm has snaked round him when he wasn't looking. He goes under the denim to pinch Damian's bone. Damian whines. "Yours," The Boy says.

Damian looks at The Boy. Even when his eyes flicker, they stay on The Boy.

Only when they're outside does Damian look back, just once. The Boy laughs. Damian thinks, fuck you. He doesn't know whether he means it for The Boy or Steven or himself. Fuck you, he thinks again, and smiles anyhow.

 

---

He's patiently slouched at the corner of the bar when the mirror flickers. The flickers reflect themselves onto Damian, crawl over his skin and through the pores down into his blood. He turns around—and sees dangerous.

Most favorable dangerous.

Fucking perfect dangerous.