Fic; Tease

[quixyjie]

Title Tease, for this prompt
Rating R for language and sex and generally shady business.
Summary On a whim, Charles decides to venture out of the Upper East Side and into the much seedier Lower East Side. There, he meets Havok. Stripper!AU
Disclaimer Will never own, boo.


“Havok,” the man on Charles’ left says with a lecherous grin, gesturing with his half-empty bottle to the blonde dancing on the bar-cum-catwalk just out of reach from his hands. “They call him that because with the right tip, he’ll get rough with you backstage. You’ve been watching him.” Then he winks at Charles and finishes his beer in one long pull. The bar is lit like an opium den, like red cloths have been draped over the lampshades, but Charles can see that it’s more because the only lights, really, are the flickering neon signs around the walls and above the bar that advertise things like, “SOLDIERS & SAILORS NIGHT,” and “VACANCY.” It’s not a place that Charles would normally frequent, being of gentlemanly caliber, but he had grown tired of his Upper East Side fellows this night and their game of seducing young men and women for their tally-books and wanted obscurity in a different scene.
He had thrown on a leather jacket that was not quite worn-in and stumbled around Alphabet City before coming across the simply-named “Cave,” a strip-joint that descended into a den-like room from the sidewalk. It smells like cinnamon and beer-not the worst of smells. For not the first time in his life, he wishes he had brought along Erik, whom he felt would have fit into this sort of scene just fine with his devilish grin and ability to guzzle back beer that tasted of piss. Or even Raven, who would have turned it into some huge, blown-out party. Charles nurses his whiskey, neat.
The blonde man looks young enough to be in college, and Charles watches as his hips sway hypnotically to the gritty, thrumming music. His shirt’s been discarded, baring his flat, smooth chest and stomach, glistening with sweat and maybe even a little glitter, and the pants he’s wearing fit like a second skin and hang low. When the dancer rolls to the music Charles finds himself following the line of his back, the back-and-forth figure eight of his hips. He swallows the rest of his whiskey quickly and indicates to the bartender for another of the same.
“What’s the ‘right tip’?” Charles asks.
“I hear fifty bucks gets you through the door. From there, no idea. Then there’s always coke,” he adds with a shrug. “Couldn’t say for sure, man.”
“You mean you never…?”
He looks at Charles sharply, glaring. “Why should I?” he grunts as he throws a couple of bills on the bar and stalks away, disappearing quickly into the darkness of the crowd on the tiny dance-floor.
Charles sighs to himself. He supposes that the man took him to mean that he had to pay for sex, which would imply that Charles thought he was otherwise incompetent in the areas of seduction and fucking, which of course might have been offensive. Well. It’s not like Charles has ever paid for it, either. But now that he’s here, in the Lower East Side, away from anyone who might know him or have heard of him, he thinks, why not? It’s been a while since he’s seen any action, being too busy or too tired as one of the lead researchers in a genetics lab at Columbia University. And he’s curious.
The bartender places another glass of whiskey in front of him and Charles shoots it back expertly, to the bartender’s raised eyebrow. “Another?” the man asks him. Charles shakes his head no and pulls out his wallet. Pulls out a few twenties and lays them fanned out on the table like bait.
It works.
He only has to wait a few moments before Havok is over him on the bar, dipping low and growling in a surprisingly deep voice, “All that for me?”
Up close, Charles can see that he really is young. 23, tops. His skin is as smooth as it seemed at the other end of the bar, and his eyes are an even shade of blue. Glitter dusts his shoulders and the area right above the Y of his pelvic bone.
Charles smiles up at him. “If you’d like,” he says enigmatically. Havok doesn’t wait for him to elaborate and scoops up the money, tucking it into the waistband of his pants neatly. Then he steps off the bar to stand right next to Charles, movements almost feline. He’s a little shorter than Charles, but makes up for it in his stance, hips angled just so. He smirks. “Let me show you the back,” he says.
As they glide across the floor Charles can’t help but notice the stares and almost jealous looks of the other patrons in the bar. Havok takes him behind a curtain he hadn’t noticed before under a sign that flickers, “NO EXIT,” and it leads to a hallway, also dimly lit, but once the curtain is closed the music from the bar dampens considerably. There are only three doors. Havok opens the farthest one on the right and closes it behind them once they’re both inside.
It’s hardly romantic. Just a bed with black sheets and a table in one corner with a few bottles of liquor and wine and glasses on its surface. There’s a dimmer switch for the lights and Havok pushes it down just a hair so that Charles has to blink to adjust to the half-darkness. “Drink?” Havok asks, like a gracious host. The walls groan to the music still playing in the bar, but it’s far-off sounding like they’re underwater.
“No, thank you. Shall I-?” Charles starts to take off the leather jacket and the other man just says, “Sure.” He throws the jacket onto the bed and sits on the mattress, unsure but not wanting to seem so.
“Hands and mouth only,” Havok says abruptly. He reels off the terms with something akin to detachment. “For you, another sixty. No kissing. Anything else goes. Got any diseases?”
“What?” Charles sputters, stunned.
“STDs?” Havok stares at him like he’s talking to a particularly slow child.
“No.”
“Good,” is all he says before striding over to Charles and standing between his legs, nudging them a little farther apart with his thighs. He drops to his knees and looks up at Charles beneath his lashes, licking his lips. “You want me to suck you?” he rumbles, voice like gravel and silk and cigarettes. It sends a shock of electric want through Charles’ spine and straight to his dick.
“Yeah,” he breathes, needy.
x
When it’s done Havok zips him back up and stands, and Charles tips him generously. “Do you need me to…?” he waves in Havok’s crotch’s general direction.
“Thanks for the thought, man,” he says, looking at Charles quizzically, the start of a smile on his lips. “But I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Oh, right.”
“Help yourself to a drink, if you want. I trust you can find your own way out.” And then he leaves, and Charles is left with a strange mixture of satisfaction and emptiness that lingers low in his gut.
On his way out, he grabs a card with the Cave’s information printed on it from the bar, next to a bowl of peanuts, and tucks the card into one of his jeans’ back pockets. He tries to make eye contact with Havoc, but the dancer’s already back on the bar, another patron tucking a roll of bills into his waistband.
He takes the 6 back up to the Upper East Side and goes home to an empty apartment. Raven isn’t back yet.
x
Charles shelves the experience in the dusty corners of his mind. It’s easy because he’s so far away from that world, and his job at the university keeps him busy and on his toes, and Raven drags him out at night with his friends and her friends and oftentimes a combination of both, and it’s exhausting but fun and one day blends into the next and the next and the next.
A month passes; the leaves turn and the first snow hits the sidewalks of New York City. Raven starts attending a new seminar series offered through Columbia on genetic counseling, and Erik signs three new clients who bring in six figures each for his company. They celebrate by getting drunk and somehow ending up by the recently installed red staircase in Times Square. Erik falls asleep on the cab ride home and Charles begrudgingly lets him spend the night with him, like they used to in college.
Two more weeks pass, and then it’s Charles’ birthday.
He knows something is amiss the moment he steps through the doorway of his and Raven’s shared apartment, the little hairs on the back of his neck rising. It’s dark and still; he places his briefcase on the table beside the door quietly and calls out, “Raven?”
That’s when something descends upon him, a black shape in his peripheral, hands grab his and yank them behind him, and his vision is suddenly gone, blocked by something smooth and silky before his eyes. He’s about to call out when he hears a distinctly playful female voice in his ear: “Gotcha.” It is joined by Erik’s smooth tenor. “Please struggle. It makes this so much more fun.”
Charles sighs. “You’re abducting me. On my birthday.”
“Got it in one,” Raven laughs.
“And where are we going?” Charles asks, feeling that he won’t receive an answer.
Erik confirms his suspicions. “Why would we tell you that?” Even though he’s been blindfolded, Charles can imagine clearly the look on Erik’s face now. Wide smile with too many teeth, crinkles at the corners of his eyes, hair swept back from his forehead. “But you’ll like it, Charles. Don’t worry.”
“Somehow that does not make me feel any better in the slightest.” He’s guided away from the door and back into the hallway. He hears someone struggling with the keys to the apartment, and then they’re walking to the elevator and out into the night, Charles sightless the whole way. Raven whispers something he can’t quite catch once they’re all crammed into what he assumes is a cab, and then the car lurches forward. Erik still has his hands held tightly behind him, and he’s starting to lose the feeling in his fingers.
“You can let go, you know,” Charles says in his most plaintive voice. “I won’t run or anything.”
Erik lets go. Charles immediately slugs him in the shoulder - not hard, but hard enough to get his point across. As Erik grunts in surprise, Charles’ hands go for the blindfold, only to be captured once again.
“Tsk, tsk,” Raven says. “No peeking.”
The car ride takes forever. He’s sure that wherever they’re going, it’s not in the Upper East Side.
x
“We’re here!” announces Raven, and the blindfold comes off. Erik pays the driver and they climb out, and there it is. The steps leading down to the Cave, the sign announcing its location just above the doorway, barely visible. “Everyone’s already inside,” Raven babbles excitedly. “Charles, I never knew you had it in you, to come to a place like this. If I had known, we would have had so much more fun with each other.”
“What is this?” Charles asks, stunned. “How did you know?” Erik and Raven start to lead him down the steps.
“Found the card while I was doing laundry. Called the place up. Said they preferred gentlemen but ladies were welcome, if it was a birthday thing.” Raven never knows when to stop talking, and so she continues: “Now I see why you and Moira didn’t work out.” Her tone is playful, but it’s a sharp jab regardless.
“They didn’t work out for many reasons,” comes Erik’s blessed voice. Charles smiles at him, thankful.
He and Moira had a thing back in college. They were the brightest of the bright, and passionate about their studies. It was only natural that they would be drawn to each other. Between the time that they first met and the time Charles ended their relationship, somehow they had fallen in and out of love. But Moira pushed where Charles pulled, and she convinced herself that something could be saved. Charles knew nothing could, though. They were alike in so many ways, but the places where they were different could not be ignored; her research could allow parents to modify their offspring, to trim their genes until the parents saw fit, while Charles’ research was all about the beauty of mutation. He hoped that no one had invited her.
But of course, someone had. So Charles spends a great part of the evening getting hammered and avoiding Moira, who looks out of place in her black sheath dress and heels. He keeps the blonde dancer - Havok, was it? - in his sight in what he hopes is a subtle manner, but twice Havok catches him staring and grins.
He loses count of the number of times someone says “Happy Birthday” to him and many times a new glass or bottle is pushed into his hands, and everything is a great, hazy sort of fabulous mess with Raven’s hilarious stories and Erik’s sarcastic commentary until he’s overtaken by the feeling that he needs to piss. Like, immediately. He drunkenly excuses himself from the bar and wades through the dancefloor and crowd of people to the bathroom.
It’s just as dark in the bathroom as it is out in the bar, which is just as well, because Charles would rather not see the state of it, anyway. So he does his business, washes his hands, and leaves considerably less drunk than he had been. It’s a wonder how that works. No sooner has he left the bathroom than Havok is approaching him, the crowd parting around him like the Red Sea, lights dancing off his skin where glitter sticks.
Havok leads him to a rather bare chair near the edge of the bar and pushes him into it gently. “You’re sister said it’s your birthday,” he croons. “Bought you a dance.” And then the music is pounding in time to his blood in Charles’ ears, as the other man trails his fingers teasingly over Charles’ collarbone, his shoulders, into the dip of his shirt. He steps away, just barely in reach, and moves like sex. And then he’s close, body hovering above Charles’, the heat of his arms and legs and breath making him lightheaded. He pushes himself between Charles’ legs.
“Do you remember me?” Charles asks him. Havok runs his hands over Charles’ thighs lightly, the teasing friction making heat coil low in his belly. He grins wickedly.
“I remember how you tip.” He sinks into Charles and grinds slow into the crease where Charles’ thigh meets his hip. It’s tantalizing. His hands move of their own volition, and suddenly he’s running the rough pads of his thumbs up Havok’s sides and tracing his ribs. Havok gasps, surprised, but doesn’t stop.
“Are you here every Saturday night?” he asks, trying a different tactic. Havok frowns, turns in Charles’ lap and slides the curve of his ass into Charles’ hands. Charles has to stop his eyes from rolling back into his head.
“Sure. And every other night you want me to be.” He’s teasing him. He’s suddenly reminded of Raven.
“I’m Charles,” Charles says. No response, save for a mind-meltingly slow roll of the blonde’s hips over his thighs.
“What’s your name?” Charles asks him, relentless.
The dancer quirks a brow. “Havok,” he says. “You sure like to talk.”
Charles shakes his head. “No. What’s your real name?” The reaction is immediate but subtle; Havok pulls away slightly, enough for the heat of his body to be lost between them. He looks down, looking so vulnerable for that moment that Charles wants to take it back, tell him it’s all right, he doesn’t have to tell him and it doesn’t matter anyway, but then Havok presses in close again, skin hot against the fabric of Charles’ shirt, and he breathes in a voice that’s barely-there against Charles’ ear: “It’s Alex, birthday boy.”
The song ends and bleeds into another. Alex kisses him on the cheek and stands. “Time’s up,” is all he says, and then he’s hopping back onto the bar to Raven’s whistles. In a daze, Charles looks over at his group of friends - quite a few are enjoying some quality time with the other dancers on their own, but Erik and Raven and Moira have huddled around each other at a small free-standing table between the bar and the dancefloor. Even from where he’s sitting, Charles can make out the waggle of Erik’s eyebrows and the look of slight disapproval from Moira, who has her lips pursed. He manages to stand and weave his way over to them. He may be drunk on hormones.
“Well,” says Erik when he reaches them. “Wasn’t that exciting.”
“You seemed to enjoy that a lot more than I thought you would, Charles,” says Raven, her lips quirked up at one side. Moira, if possible, purses her lips even tighter and doesn’t speak.
x
His respite from drunkenness doesn’t last long. Erik supplies him with glass after glass, and the four of them around the table start to play a ridiculous drinking game that Erik had learned while on business in Hong Kong. Something to do with multiples of 5’s and fingers. It’s loud and beer sloshes from the glasses when their hands crash into them by accident. He doesn’t even mind that Moira is standing next to him, elbows close on the table. She smells nice, like lavender. She smiles at him as they guzzle back the alcohol, and Charles smiles back.
They stay until the music dies down and the lights come up. Last call. The dancers have left long before; the rest of Charles’ friends have disappeared as well, leaving with quick kisses and well wishes and complaints of the hangover certain to plague them the next day. Erik tops off his final glass of beer and belches, uninhibited. Raven groans. “I’m so drunk,” she bemoans. “Bad decisions. Please take me home.” She leans into Erik’s shoulder, and Erik glances over at Charles like he’s asking permission, which is ridiculous. Also, how is Erik still so sober?
Charles waves his hand in a way that he hopes means permission granted, and they say their goodbyes. Erik clasps their hands together tight, and Raven stumbles into Charles’ outstretched arms. “See you in the morning,” he tells her hair. Erik bundles Raven into her jacket and leads her out the entrance, and then it’s just Moira and Charles.
That’s when Charles makes a mistake. They fall into each easily, having been involved for so long, and Charles finds that the way his arm settles around her waist as they leave the Cave is familiar and comfortable and warm. Moira must feel the same way, because she leans into him, sighing. When they’re out in the open night, the last of the revelers walking past them sleepily or else dozing in stairwells and alleys, Moira says, “I’ve missed you,” which is all it takes for Charles to freeze in his tracks, remember that this is Moira whom he loves but could never love like that again - he’s moved on - and if this continues tonight he will have raised her hopes and lied to her, and he can’t do that, drunk as he is.
“I’m sorry, Moira, but I can’t,” is all he can say, words tumbling out of him before he can reconsider.
She glances up at him, sees the truth in his eyes, and slaps him, hard. It stuns them both. After a moment of heavy silence, Moira says in a shaky voice, “Oh, Charles. I’m sorry. I’ve had - I just-“ She pauses for a breath. “I should go.” She leaves him with a brief hug and another apology and flags down the next cab she sees frantically, wanting to escape. He can’t hold it against her.
It’s his birthday. He’s drunk. He’s just been slapped by his ex-girlfriend and left standing alone on a sparingly lit sidewalk somewhere in Alphabet City. He lets himself sit on the curb to think, to take it in, to take deep breaths so he’ll stop being so inebriated. How did the night so quickly take a downward turn?
He must doze off because the next thing he knows a hand is shaking him awake and someone is saying, “Hey. Hey, man. Wake up. You okay?” And he looks up and it’s Alex, dressed now in dark denim and a form-fitting black v-neck, leather jacket - much more worn-in than his own - tight over his shoulders, and he looks worried and a little tired. “Oh, good,” he says when he sees that Charles isn’t dead.
“There’s glitter on your cheek,” Charles observes.
“Is there?” Alex goes to rub some of it off with the back of his hand, but Charles stops him, gripping his wrist.
“ ‘s nice,” he slurs. “Leave it.”
“Hey,” the blonde says softly. “Okay, sure. Charles, right?”
Then there’s darkness, and rustling, leather and the smell of cigarettes, a door closing, Alex whispering, “We’re here; move your feet,” and stumbling, tumbling into a cloud of sheets and pillows. Alex’s lips are hot, and he gags when Charles pushes too hard, too soon, but he swallows around him and then everything falls away.
x
Charles wakes up to a needle-sharp pain on the skin of his right hand. He gasps once, eyes blinking rapidly, and sees Alex looming over him, cigarette dangling between his lips. “Sorry,” Alex says, not sounding very sorry at well. “You’re still here,” he says next.
The events of last night come crashing back to him like someone’s hit fast-forward on his memories. Raven buying him a dance, Erik plying him with alcohol, other members of their party leaving in pairs or singles, always clapping Charles on the back or giving him a quick kiss on the cheek and a “Happy birthday, Xavier!” on their way out. Moira and Erik and Raven staying with him until the Cave was nearly empty, and then they left, too, in pairs. Raven with Erik and he with Moira. Then a slap. Then Alex.
“Oh my god,” Charles groans to himself. The pillow underneath his head is lumpy and flat, but the sheets are soft and the duvet even softer. He realizes he must be in Alex’s room, on Alex’s bed, lying next to Alex. It’s tiny and there’s barely space between the foot of the bed and the door, but still Alex has managed to squeeze in a small table that has on it a desk light, a stack of books and magazines, and a laptop balanced precariously on top of that. A sweater and scarf are draped over the chair. The walls are bare and off-white. So much more personal than that first time at Cave. “Last night. I’m-did we? God, you must think I’m some perverted, horrible-“
Alex blows smoke in his face; Charles quickly withdraws his hand when the ashes fall. “Relax, man. I blew you. That’s all.”
“So, then, what?” Charles asks eloquently.
“You looked like you needed a pick me up.” Alex grins the way he grins to the patrons at Cave, and suddenly Charles can remember those pink lips around his cock, the picture Alex made when he had swallowed him down, obscene. He blushes. “I was going to get Hank to help me leave you on a park bench or something.” Alex takes a long drag on his cigarette and breathes the smoke out of his nose. “But then you woke up.”
“Why?”
“Now you know where I live. And my name. And where I work. You’re not going to start stalking me, are you?” He says it lightly, but even confused and hungover Charles can detect the slightest trepidation in Alex’s voice, a shiver at the end that betrays him.
“Of course I won’t do that,” he replies, serious.
“Hm.” He smashes the end of the cigarette into a tray on the low table by his bed and starts to sit up, stretching like a cat and pulling the blankets with him. Charles shakes when the cold air hits his chest and legs. And Charles is naked. Great. When Alex stands, he’s still in a pair of black briefs, and when he turns, Charles can make out the beginnings of a bruise against his hipbone. He reaches out with cold fingers, brushing them against the bruise. Alex hisses. “Jesus, man. Your fingers are like ice.”
“Was that from me?”
Alex rummages around on the floor for a shirt, bending over and exposing the backs of his thighs. Charles’ lips go dry. “No,” he says when he’s found a shirt, clean enough, and black. He slips it on over his head. “You have to leave, soon. I have to get to work.”
Charles rolls over, groaning. “What time is it?” They couldn’t have gotten back to Alex’s place before 4am.
“Eleven in the morning.”
“Cave opens that early?”
“No,” Alex says again.
“Then where are you-?”
“Look, man, I’m not gonna give you my daily schedule,” he bites out. “So, can you, like, get your clothes on? I’m going downstairs to hail you a cab.” And then he shimmies on some dark jeans and leaves through the door. A moment later Charles hears another door open and shut, and then the sound of footsteps pounding on stairs.
That could have gone better, he thinks as he picks his way through his discarded clothing, shrugging on his shirt and locating his own briefs at the foot of the bed. When he’s dressed, he finds Alex, shivering in the chill morning after neglecting to grab his jacket on the way out, waiting by a stalling cab by the sidewalk. All attempts at a graceful leaving fall flat, and finally Charles gives up, climbing into the backseat of the yellow car. Alex shuts the door and gives a half-hearted wave, like he’s trying to make amends. Charles smiles back. He watches until the cab rounds the corner and Alex is out of sight.
x
It’s not stalking, really. Charles just becomes a regular on Saturday night at Cave, and after the first few Saturdays of Alex warily avoiding him, he seems to decide finally that Charles is harmless, and a great tipper besides. For his part, Charles doesn’t ask him to take him behind the curtain again, just buys a few dances and sometimes a few drinks, though Alex never does drink them. Logan, the bartender, even starts to give Charles a complimentary first drink on the nights he’s feeling particularly charitable, which actually means that one Saturday his Canadian hockey team soundly beats their long-standing and higher-bracketed rival. He’s got rather intimidating sideburns and wears lumberjack-flannel a lot so Charles doesn’t want to try his luck to ask for another.
The things he learns about Alex are as follows: he only works at Cave on the weekends, and he’s still taking classes, though he won’t say where. There are other things he’d rather be doing, but Cave - the job - pays well, better than anything else he could be doing. He has an older brother in California who’s a stoic nutcase and who doesn’t know anything about what Alex gets up to in New York, and he’d like to keep it that way, thanks. His roommate Hank homebrews in the bathtub, and his other roommate Sean rolls the tightest joints. He likes dogs but could never keep a pet. Once, he climbed out over the railing of the Brooklyn Bridge in broad daylight, and no one stopped him.
“Why on earth would you want to do that?” Charles asks, worry making his forehead crease. It’s difficult to make the worry come across, though, when Alex is smoldering hot and grinding circles in his lap.
“Because people are shit,” is Alex’s answer.
Then Charles has to stop asking questions because Alex does this thing with his shoulders and hips and he’s touching Charles everywhere, it seems like. And he can barely breathe much less form a coherent thought. So he slips a twenty into Alex’s hand when he slides away and tries not to think about what he would have done if he had seen the blonde on the bridge. Would he have stopped him? Climbed up after him? Or would he have walked on, pretending not to see, like everyone else had?
x
The following Saturday night will have him sitting on a panel on stage with some of his other research colleagues for eager graduate and doctoral students to attempt to poke holes in his theories on mutation. What will undoubtedly follow is a ‘reception’ in which those same students come forward, simpering and with hands outstretched, telling him that they admire his work and would love an opportunity to learn from him. It’s an amusing part of the job description, if he’s being honest.
So, he decides to hit up Cave the Friday before. He’s saved from making excuses for his usual crowd, since Erik is in Boston meeting a client and Raven is finally succumbing to a pile of articles and journals that need to be read for her classes on Monday. And everyone else is becoming rather superfluous these days. Raven sits at the kitchen table, hunched over her reading material, as Charles pulls on his peacoat, navy, and a thick, knit scarf in gray. “Have fun,” she mumbles, sounding betrayed. When she looks up there is definitely a pout on her face.
“Won’t be too fun without you,” he appeases.
“Yeah, right.” She scoffs, then shrinks back into her work with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Go. Leave.”
Cave is much more crowded on a Friday night. For the first time since his regular comings, Charles has to shoulder his way through the bottleneck entrance and squeeze into a seat at the bar. It’s fancier, too, or maybe everyone just looks fancier in winter clothes. But no, there are definitely more cuff links and silver watches glimmering in the mass of bodies on the dancefloor. More slicked-back hair and gentlemen. More people who remind him of Erik. Even the lighting is a little different. Not tinted with red like it usually is, but faintly gold.
Logan nods to him when he sees Charles wedged between two suits at the bar. “Friday, huh?” he asks, voice gruff.
“Am I in the same place?” Charles smiles, happy to see that, despite the change in atmosphere, Logan is still his sour self. The bartender grunts in response, but prepares Charles’ usual - whiskey, neat. “Cheers,” he says when the glass is placed in front of him. “Ah,” he starts, a finger tracing the rim of the glass, “Is Alex working tonight?”
“You mean Havok.”
“Yes, of course. Havok.”
Logan points. Havok is very much working tonight. Charles sees no trace of Alex in the blonde at the other end of the bar. He can’t pinpoint the difference until a man clambers up onto the bar in the next moment and pulls Havok flush against his front, so they’re pressed chest to chest, and he holds him there until the dancer moves. The Alex that Charles knows would never let someone do that, contain him like that. So different from the way Alex crowds him when he’s dancing for him, the way it feels like he could shake Charles apart with just one breath. Alex’s vulnerable tonight, or maybe just playing so, but it makes Charles resent the circumstances regardless.
He watches the dancers for a while, soaking it in - the lights, the men, Havok. Such a subtle change, but it really is like he’s in a different club, where power is currency and the patrons leer at the employees like predators. He doesn’t like it.
It’s relatively early in the night - just past midnight - when he notices a newcomer, tall and smug-looking in a dark tailored suit and flanked by two other men, strut through the door and waste no time in pinpointing Alex. He strides right to him, his - Lackeys? Bodyguards? - pushing other customers out of the way. Then he’s standing right in front of Alex and crooking a finger towards him, beckoning, and Alex goes, to the quickly dying protests of the man he had just been dancing for. Charles is close enough to see Alex smile, sickly sweet, while the man’s returning smile puts him on edge. He hops down from the bar, and the newcomer curls his fingers tight around Alex’s bicep. When he steers him away, Charles places his glass on the bar, leaving a wet ring, and when he moves to follow, he sees Logan giving him a stern brow. “Bathroom,” he mouths to him. Logan shrugs.
He can’t tell for sure if something is wrong. The way Alex doesn’t struggle as he’s being led back, back, and back. How the other two men follow them at an even pace, always just an arm’s length away. No one gives them a second glance. When they reach the curtain, Alex pauses for just a second, just enough for the man holding him to grimace and push, and that’s enough for Charles. He steels his nerves, takes a breath, and moves with purpose toward the black fabric-
Only to come up short, nose almost slamming into the chest in front of him. It’s one of the lackeys, Charles surmises, and then confirms, when he looks up and finds an olive-skinned man with the most striking eyebrows he has ever seen blocking his path. His suit is more silver than gray, and he wears it well. There’s definitely a lot of muscle beneath that suit. Charles feigns ignorance. “Excuse me,” he murmurs, trying to duck around the roadblock. But he sidesteps him. Keeping up with his act, Charles looks him in the eye and says, “Oh, sorry, was this the line for the gentlemen’s?”
He hears someone chuckle beside him. The other lackey - this one is much more jovial-looking and pale in the strange light of the bar, but his smile glints like a knife. “Restrooms are that way,” he tells Charles, a hint of an accent in his voice, and he points to a spot near the entrance.
“Oh, I’ll just…” and he backs away, mind working. Something is definitely wrong. Why else would that man need his cronies to guard the entrance? He waits another minute by the dancefloor, then thinks, well, damn. Turning to the nearest dancing body - and he doesn’t even look like he works here, to be completely honest - Charles says, “I’ll give you fifty dollars if you go distract those two gentlemen by the ‘No Exit’ sign.”
The guy’s young and waif-like, with huge eyes and pouty lips. Charles couldn’t have chosen a better distraction. His face screws up. “Seriously? Fifty bucks?”
“Yes,” Charles says emphatically.
“Just distract them? No funny business?” He’s still swaying to the music.
“No funny business,” Charles lies with assurance.
He seems to consider it. Then he nods once. “All right,” and holds out his hand for the money. Charles fishes out his wallet from his back pocket and counts out two twenties and a ten. “Cool, man,” the guy says, smiling. Charles counts to thirty when his unwitting accomplice walks away. When he turns back to the ‘No Exit’ sign, he finds the two men who had been guarding the entrance gripping the waif by the back of his shirt and pushing him away. It gives Charles just enough time and space to slip around and behind them, stealing past the curtain with barely a rustle. He prays that his accomplice knows when enough is enough, and will stop aggravating them soon. Then he prays that Alex is all right, as a dozen scenes flit through his mind like a barrage, all of them worse than the last. The short hallway is empty and unoffending. Charles pads to the last door - not that anyone would be able to hear him, anyway.
He presses his ear up against the door and thinks, this is stupid. What can he do, anyway? Raven can overpower him in an arm-wrestling match, all that time spent in a research lab has done nothing for his complexion or his cardiovascular fitness. But then, he hears something on the other side - a whimper.
The door is open before he even realizes he’s reached for the knob. Alex is naked in front of him, and on his knees before the man, who is sitting, Charles realizes, right where he had been sitting on the bed, that first time. He’s still fully clothed, just his tie loosened and his jacket unbuttoned around him. Alex’s hands are bound before him tightly, and he’s been blindfolded, and when the man reaches into Alex’s hair and tugs, Charles knows why he heard that whimper. His balance is precarious at best, being blindfolded and with hands bound, which means Alex can’t push away when he’s getting his throat fucked. He takes it, choking.
“What the fuck?” the man hisses when he sees Charles in the doorway. He pushes Alex away from him quickly, too quickly, and Alex pulls off with a gag and a ragged breath, falling to his hands and knees and panting when the man keeps pushing. He stands and fixes up his pants just as Alex manages to work himself free of the blindfold, yanking it down so that it hangs around his neck like a sick bandana.
“Charles?” says Alex, voice small and raspy.
“You know this shit?” the man demands, smoothing out the lapels of his suit jacket. “How did you get in?”
“He’s just,” Alex hesitates. “A friend,” he finishes. He twists his wrists together and the binding there falls away.
“How did he know I was here?” he says at the same time Charles finds his voice again and asks, “Are you all right?”
“I didn’t tell him about you, Shaw, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Alex answers the man’s - Shaw’s - question first. Then he glares at Charles, who feels that, really, he should not be on the receiving end of any glares from Alex right about now.
“We’re done here.” Shaw tosses a crumpled bill at Alex, who flinches when it pegs his thigh and lands on the floor beside him. Then Shaw shoulders his way past Charles, giving him a quick, intentional shove that rattles him against the doorway. There are many things that Charles could have done right then. He could have turned Shaw around and punched him square in the face, for instance. He could have threatened to press charges. He could have kicked him right in his fucking testicles. He doesn’t, however, do any of these things, because Shaw leaves and then there’s Alex, getting dressed slowly and staring at Charles all the while. The expression on his face is one mixed with gratitude and confusion and resentment. It’s a warring face.
“Are you all right?” Charles repeats, realizing that he had never heard the answer to his question. He chances a step forward, then another, then another, until he’s face to face with Alex and only another half-step away.
“Yes,” Alex says finally with a pinched expression. “Yes, I’m all right.”
Charles breathes a sigh of relief. “Is that man - Shaw? Did he force you?”
Alex blinks back at him, bewildered. “What? No. Look, that’s just how he is.” His expression softens. “He’s got a mean streak but he plays by the rules.”
“His rules?" Charles has to ask. "Or yours?”
The glare comes back, full force. For a moment, they are both silent. Then: “I know what you think, Charles. I don’t need saving, all right? I can take care of myself.”
“I’m sure you can,” Charles shoots back, patient. “You’ve been taking care of yourself, by yourself, for a very long time, I gather. I’m not trying to save you, even though you may think that. You just deserve better than that, than what you think. I know it. You should know it.”
Silence again, although this time at least the animosity isn’t there. Charles reaches out a tentative hand, placing it gently on Alex’s shoulder. He shrugs him off, and the silence breaks. “Okay, all right. I have to get back out there.” And then Alex is leaving, too. Charles wants to rip out his hair in the wave of frustration that comes over him, suddenly. When he turns toward the door he sees Alex paused there, facing him, frowning. “And…thanks,” he says, sounding hesitant, his eyes finding Charles’, searching.
“Any time,” Charles answers, genuinely. Alex scowls again and turns on his heel.
The night feels like it’s over, then; Charles spends the next half hour or so staring into his drink at the bar until Logan finally snaps a rag at him and growls, “Something wrong with my drink?”
Charles glances up, grim. “Not at all.” He pauses for a second, considering. “Just. Keep an eye on Alex, will you?”
Logan doesn’t correct the name, only looks quickly at where Alex is dancing, far from them, before catching and locking eyes again with Charles. His eyes are a deep, unforgiving brown. “I do,” he says, voice rough. Charles bobs his head, nodding and finishing his drink at last.
“Good, good.”
He leaves with a twisted feeling, like a knot is unraveling somewhere and he should have done more to stop it.
x

“Take me out for lunch.” Raven plops her handbag into one of the leather chairs facing Charles’ desk and lands into the adjacent one, limbs sprawled, hardly lady-like. Luckily, she’s wearing jeans so it doesn’t matter too much. “Please,” she adds, unnecessarily.
“I’m busy,” is Charles’ automatic response. He’s peer-reviewing a write up of a study conducted by one of his colleagues and it was supposed to be finished yesterday. And there are so many flaws in the study. It’s like his colleague doesn’t know what a double-blind experiment is. It’s giving Charles a headache. “I thought you hated the lab, anyway. Why are you here?”
The lab is located on the third floor of one of Columbia’s most ancient buildings and, for some reason, always smells like bleach. Charles’ office is perhaps its only visually and olfactory appealing structure, large enough to fit in some bookshelves that border the door that has a nice, shiny plaque on the other side that reads, “Charles Xavier, PhD.” Plus, he’s got a window beside his desk. It even opens, too, for when the air turns stale and oppressive in the hot city summers. Raven says, “I need a break from all this reading. I thought you might need one, too. Plus, there’s this Thai place that I’ve been dying to try.” She smiles pleasantly, which is completely unfair, because right then Charles’ stomach grumbles, and he loves Thai food.
He sighs and makes a great show of capping his pen and putting the papers in front of him into a neatly arranged pile. “Very well,” he says, sounding very put-upon, although he knows that Raven knows it’s an act. “Thai it is.”
They walk into the crisp wintery air. The sky is a flat, bright blue. He pulls up the collar of his peacoat when the wind blows suddenly and sends Raven’s hair flying. The restaurant she wants to go to is just around the corner, a few blocks north of campus, and they reach it within minutes. The inside is futuristic - stainless steel and glass, accented with bright reds and some lanterns, for an ‘Asian-flare,’ Charles assumes, but it smells heavenly and just like Charles imagines a street market in Bangkok would smell - basil and coconut and lemongrass with just a hint of diesel and exhaust from the blustering city. They’re seated quickly, to Raven’s delight.
They settle into the buzz of lunch hour. Raven orders the Pad Kee Mao and Charles the Penang Curry; when they’re orders arrive, Raven spends the first five minutes picking out all the peas. “Why don’t you just tell them you don’t want peas?” Charles asks, trying to keep his voice from sounding condescending.
“Because,” says Raven mid-pluck. “The peas aren’t thrown in separately, you know? It would take them forever to remove them and then we’d all have to wait longer for our food.”
“Not so much longer that I’d be upset about it, I’m sure.”
“It’s a nicety, Charles. You wouldn’t understand; I’ve worked in the food industry.”
Charles raises an eyebrow but doesn’t argue. Raven offers him all of her peas. He shakes his head no with a small smile.
“No?” Raven continues, uninterrupted. “So what have you been getting yourself up to these past few weekends while I’ve been under house-arrest trying to impress my professors? I’ve hardly seen you!” Her cheerful tone belies the look that she’s giving him over her noodles. It’s smug. She drops casually, “You haven’t been going that bar we went to on your birthday, have you?”
Charles just barely keeps his spoon from clattering to his plate. Of course, Raven latches onto this small misstep. “You have, haven’t you? Jeez, do you go every Saturday? But of course you have that panel last weekend, so…Is it that same guy? Do you get him to give you a lap dance every time? Charles, really. You are just full of surprises.”
The more she speaks, the hotter Charles’ cheeks become. “Yes,” Charles says primly. “Yes, and yes. Then no, to all your questions. Are we done with this interrogation?”
“Absolutely not.”
She puts her silverware down and folds her hands together under her chin.
Charles sits back, defeated. “Very well. Ask away.”
“What’s his name?”
“Alex.”
“Does he know your name?”
“Yes.”
“Does he, like, save time for you on Saturdays, now? Are you a preferred customer?”
“That, I could not answer.”
“So, yes, then.” Raven’s grin is positively triumphant. “Do you like him?” she asks slyly.
“Yes.”
His quick answer stuns them both, but only for a tiny moment. “No,” Raven clarifies. “What I meant was: do you like him like him?”
Charles answers carefully. “Yes,” he says slowly. “I suppose I do.”
Raven ducks her head, hiding her face. Apprehension gnaws at his insides. The knot feeling comes back. But when she looks up, she’s still smiling. “About time,” is what she says. “I thought you would never move on, after Moira. Erik told me that you could hold your own but I didn’t believe him. Maybe this is what you need. A nice pick-me-up.”
Charles grimaces sharply. A pick-me-up. It reminds him of his birthday night.
“Or,” Raven hedges, catching the look on her brother’s face. “Maybe not just a quick fling. You know. Whatever you like.”
He picks up his silverware and resumes eating, not trusting himself to speak. The curry is cold, now, and it makes it difficult to swallow. “I don’t know if it will work out,” he says after a mouthfuls.
“I wouldn’t mind, you know, if you tried to make it work. I always thought you and Erik would be a thing, anyway. But then.”
“Erik’s straighter than a balance beam.”
“Yeah.”
They finish the rest of the meal in peaceful silence. Charles pays, and when they part ways, Raven puts a hand on his arm, firm but loving. “Hey, you’re my big brother and I love you,” she says. “Even though you’re shorter than me.”
“You’ve barely got an inch!” Charles protests.
“Still.” Raven pauses. “Go for it, okay?”
“Hm.” It’s all Charles can commit to.
x
Next Saturday, Charles goes, and Alex isn’t there.
“Is he sick?” he asks Logan across the counter of the bar.
Logan grunts at him, unamused and unconcerned. It’s a busier night than usual. “Something like that.” He slides a tall class of frothy beer down the length of the bar and it stops just short of someone’s outstretched hand. “Thanks!” yells the guy who’s hand it is.
“So he’s sick.” Charles is aware he’s prying. He doesn’t care; something is off in his usual routine and he demands to know why. “Was he out yesterday as well?” he yells when a particularly loud song picks up over the sound system.
“What?” Logan roars back.
“Was he out yesterday as well?” Charles bellows.
Logan shakes his head. “No. He left after-“ He stops, catching himself.
“He left after what?” but Logan has clammed up. He very intently fills another glass of beer from the tap. “He left after what?” Charles repeats, thoughts racing. Yesterday was Friday. Last Friday, that Shaw character had made himself known. Charles’ stomach twists itself in knots when he remembers how Alex had looked with his hands bound in front of him, completely at the mercy of the other man, though it didn’t seem like Alex himself had realized it. If Alex had been here last night, but left prematurely…
He stands abruptly. “He left after Shaw?”
Logan frees his hands and places them firmly on the bar, seemingly resigning himself to answering Charles’ questions. “Yeah,” he admits. “Called in sick today. I said okay. Where are you going?”
But before the question is over Charles is already out of earshot. The sudden onslaught of panic that washes over him pushes him toward the entrance of Cave and out into the night. Shaw was mad after Charles had interrupted last week. What if he had taken out his anger on Alex this week? What if Alex wasn’t really sick, but recovering from a violent meeting with Shaw? The man, according to Alex, had been playing within the confines of his rules, but outside of the bar, and without any potential interruptions, what was a man like Shaw capable of? Charles recognized the cockiness of his shoulders, the unfeeling stare of his eyes. He is the kind of man who can snap his fingers to order an execution and then casually have his assistant look up a place to hide the body on Google Maps, Charles thinks. And those two other men, too. It’s a combination of factors that equals disaster, in Charles’ quick mind.
He is in a cab and calling out Alex’s apartment’s block within seconds. He had remembered the intersection, if not the exact building. The ride is excruciating; every stop light is another possible bruise, every pot-hole a broken bone. By the time they reach the block and Charles throws a couple of bills through the cabbie’s divider, Alex is up to a few broken ribs, a twisted ankle, a broken arm, and a mild concussion. Charles grits his teeth as he climbs the short steps to the front door, seeking out the appropriate doorbell to ring to get Alex’s apartment specifically. The columns of buttons to the side of the front entrance are useless. The labels next to the buttons only contain first initials and last names, and it seems like everyone has a name that starts with the letter ‘A’ in this complex. Belatedly, he remembers the name ‘Hank’ in their brief conversations. “I was going to get Hank to help me leave you on a park bench or something,” Alex had said. He starts to look for a label that has the initials of ‘A’ and ‘H.’ Finally, he finds it. He jams the doorbell, hard.
Long seconds past. He finds himself pressing the doorbell again and again. Finally, a tinny voice emerges from the grate. “Jesus, that you, Alex? Forget your key again?”
“No, no. It’s not Alex,” Charles says, trying to keep his voice level. “It’s, well. It’s Charles and I was just wondering if Alex is home?”
Footsteps from inside, and then a young man is opening the door, keeping himself wedged between the gap. He’s striking, tall with pale skin and dark hair and electric-blue eyes. A spike of jealousy courses through Charles. “Can I help you, Charles?” he asks, tone friendly but clipped. He leans against the doorframe.
“You must be Hank.”
Hank’s eyes grow wide. “Um, yeah?”
“Listen, proper introductions will be made later, but I’m just worried about Alex? Is he home?” His sincerity must show through, because Hank presses his lips together in a firm line, considering.
“No, he’s not home,” he says evenly. “He said something about needing air and going to Brooklyn.”
“Brooklyn?”
“I don’t know. That’s all I got.”
“Could you call him?” Charles mentally kicks himself for not thinking of this earlier; Logan could have called him, easily, and all of this worry would have been for naught. Maybe.
Hank huffs, exasperated, and narrows his eyes, but he ultimately slips a slim hand into the back pocket of his jeans and withdraws a similarly slim cell phone. He presses a few buttons and holds the phone up to his ear. A few moments later, he and Charles both hear a song playing in the distance - Alex’s ringtone. “No luck. Looks like he left without it.” Hank shrugs.
“Okay,” Charles says more to himself than to Hank. “Thanks. Brooklyn, you said?”
Hank cocks his head to the side, eyes serious. “Do you think Alex is in trouble, or something?”
“I…don’t know,” Charles admits. “But thanks for your help.”
“I’ll call some of his friends,” Hank says. “See if he’s with any of them.”
Charles gets the idea that Hank will do that more to reassure him than anything else, but he still is grateful for the gesture. “Thanks, again.” He turns to leave. Behind him, he hears the door click shut quietly.
He can’t get to the Brooklyn Bridge fast enough.
x
The thing about the Bridge is, it’s fucking long, the cars passing below the slats of the walkway make it seem like the bridge will break apart at any moment, and no one thought to seal off the empty spaces between the suspension wires that dangle vertically and give the bridge its real shape. Just about anyone can climb up over the railing of the pedestrian walk, onto the steel beams that extend to the bridge’s outer edges. The steel beams are worse than the peek-a-boo holes in the walkway, because each beam is at least a few feet apart from the next, and a fall from the steel would mean a death like roadkill down below. Charles has just about given up finding Alex on the Bridge - maybe he’s not even there at all - when he makes out a lone, black shape out past the beams, where the bridge just drops away into the dark sky and water churns below. He pauses on the walkway and waits for an ambling couple to pass him. When their backs are to him, he hoists himself over the railing and has a brief bout of vertigo. Cars zip by below him; he tries not to look down as he balances himself on the beam, arms stretched out to either side of him. This is crazy. A huge gust of wind whistles between the wires of the structure and makes him teeter.
Okay, so he’s crawling, then.
Throwing out any dignity, he gets on all fours and inches his way to the edge of the bridge on the lone steel beam. In what seems like years, frankly, he finally meets the spot where the beam reconnects to its outer skeleton. Alex is just to his left, hunched against the wind and sitting calmly at the edge, legs dangling off the side. Hundreds of feet below them, East River moves sluggishly. He moves to sit next to him, keeping a tight grip on the support underneath his knees.
The Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges stretch out before them, and the city skyline twinkles against the black, starless sky. It’s kind of beautiful. Now that Charles has found Alex and the panic has dissipated, he isn’t sure what his next move is. A cigarette burns between Alex’s fingers. He brings it to his mouth and inhales, slowly, staring not at the scenery, but at Charles. A car blares its horn but it sounds very far away.
“You’re here,” says Alex, quietly. His breath comes out in a puff of white. He flicks the cigarette into the river below. Charles watches the orange-amber tip until it winks out in the water.
“I was worried,” he says honestly, answering Alex’s unasked question.
Alex scoffs, a disbelieving noise. “That’s bull. You hardly know me.” He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, eyes narrowing before he turns his head away, face hidden behind his blonde hair.
Charles moves closer to him, until they are sitting side by side, hips touching lightly, surprised and maybe a little relieved that Alex doesn’t deck him on the spot. From here Charles can feel how tightly wound Alex is, can imagine that his hands in his pockets have clenched into fists. “It doesn’t matter,” he tries in a soothing voice. “I still worried. Logan said you might be sick. I went to your apartment and your roommate was there. He said you might have gone to Brooklyn.” He pauses. “Then I remembered what you had said about the bridge.”
The silence stretches until Charles figures that Alex won’t be responding, but the tension drains out of the younger man visibly, his shoulders slumping just a little. “Congratulations,” is the mumbled reply.
“You weren’t thinking of jumping, were you?” Charles says lightly, encouraged and trying to engage him. “Don’t try it. Despite my height I’ve got quite a handle on physics and will definitely think of a way to wrestle you back from the edge.”
But Alex’s tone cuts across the lightness and sobers him immediately. “I’ve never thought about jumping.” He brings his hands out of his pockets and curls his fingers around the edge of his seat. “Sometimes I come here to think. No one bothers me, here.”
“What are you thinking about that needs to be so far away from everyone else?” He asks the question and realizes, in that instant, how screwed he is. Because he wants to know what Alex is thinking about, all the time, wants to know why he thinks that way, wants to be what Alex thinks about. He’s past interested, curious. Here, sitting with him on the edge of New York City, he’s committed.
Alex’s voice is deep, smooth, silky. Charles tries to grasp onto it when he answers. “Well, if you have to know: I’m thinking about you.” He forgets to breathe; Alex tumbles on. “How you said I deserve better. Last night I told Shaw to fuck off. He split my lip and called me a cock-sucking cunt who would spend my life cleaning spunk off my filthy mouth. Logan kicked him out and gave me the rest of the night off. I didn’t feel like going in today, either.” The grip Alex has on the steel below him has turned his knuckles white.
Charles gently pries his fingers away from the metal, warms Alex’s cold hand between his. “Oh, Alex. I’m so sorry,” he says, knowing that it’s not enough.
“Whatever,” he says automatically, defensively, but he doesn’t pull his hand away. “Let me see,” Charles breathes, his breath ghosting Alex’s hair. He tugs on his hand and Alex’s eyes follow. “Are you all right?”
The cut on Alex’s lip is swollen and very, very red. A bruise is forming on his jaw, and Charles lays a hand there, warming the skin instantly. Alex’s eyes are dark, almost gray, and their faces are so close that their white clouds of breath mingle. The blonde’s gaze flicks down quickly to Charles’ lips, then back up again. That’s all the invitation he needs. He leans forward slowly, giving Alex time to push him away, if that’s what he really wants, but Alex doesn’t, and when he brushes his lips against the other man’s, it tingles and it’s rough and warm. Charles leans forward a little more, intent, applying pressure, but then Alex does gasp and pull up sharply, a finger at the cut on his lip. When he lowers his hand a small bead of blood has risen to the cut. Alex licks it away.
“I’m sorry,” Charles breathes, worried.
“It’s…okay,” he says, voice strange. It takes a moment for Charles to place the strangeness - it’s trust in Alex’s voice, the first time he’s ever heard it.
Emboldened, Charles presses. “Let me take you out sometime. Dinner, drinks. Coffee?” He watches as Alex’s face goes from shock to confusion to apprehension, until something that can only be called a smirk graces his swollen lips.
“Like, a date?”
Charles’ lips twist up involuntarily. “Yes, exactly like a date. You could even call it a date.”
A hand curls around his own, warm now against the steel. He glances down, surprised, but then Alex is leaning into him, close. “Yeah, all right,” Alex whispers. “Pick me up tomorrow at one. We’ll get coffee. Lunch.” He squeezes Charles’ hand once and then rises up steadily on his feet. “Don’t be late,” he says with a grin. He’s walking across the abyss of the bridge already when Charles turns and stands. Alex doesn’t stumble or waver at all over the single beam. He bounds off when he reaches the end, graceful. “See you tomorrow!” he yells across at Charles.
Charles wonders if this is what it will always feel like with Alex, like he’s always chasing him, looking for him, following him over treacherous roads and waters. Then he decides that he doesn’t care, that it will be worth it. He waves. “Hope you like Thai food!” he’s yelling back. Alex retreats, smiling.
Charles’ own escape from the edge of the bridge isn’t nearly as smooth, but he touches down on the pedestrian walkway and finds a half-full carton of cigarettes on the ground. He picks it up, grinning like a fool. On one side are nine numbers written in angular, stiff ink. On another side are the words, “You better call.”
Fin.