Slash warning.
Bent over a sound board, Charles focused on the numerous switches, slides, and dials He muttered to himself as he adjusted the large headphones on his head before pushing his glasses back up again. They were quite a nuisance, always sliding to the end of his nose. But without them, he’d be nearly legally blind. Outside of work that might have been all right, but the labels on the board were tiny and ever so finely printed.
After several minutes the sound check was over, and Charles removed the headphones and set them on the side of the balanced soundboard. He rose to get some more glorious coffee when he was quickly pushed back down into his seat. A pair of long fingered hands had pressed, with reasonable force, on Charles’s shoulders.
“Hey! Stop-,” Charles briefly protested before the hands slid down and began to massage his back. A voice that was, at the same moment, rough and almost purring answered him.
“Thought you’d cease your protests if I pulled that one on you,” Eryk said with a grin (even though Charles couldn’t see his face.) Yes, Eryk Arthur Silver, although at this point in time he known as the nameless bass player in an up-and-coming band. Charles was more forgiving under the touch of Eryk’s fingertips, but he was still wary of him, if even in the slightest way. Eryk had been hitting on him for a while, but that was to be expected with a man like Eryk. Anybody was fair game. Maybe this was part of what made Charles wary, but maybe it was the fact, even though he wasn’t aware of this, that Eryk was a vampire.
While Charles shut his eyes for a moment to enjoy the wonderful massage Eryk was giving him, Eryk spoke again in the same alluring voice. “Now that I have your attention, I wanted to request that I meet-and talk- to you after the show tonight.” Charles opened his mouth and a soft moan escaped his lips before words could get out. He cleared his throat and answered. “Sure. Backstage?” Charles said, internally debating if he should actually show up later or not.
“Sounds fine. Well, sound boy, I’ll see you later,” Eryk added, giving Charles’s shoulders one final squeeze before slipping away to finish getting ready for the show.
The show was like every other show that they had been having- loud and crowd drawing. Charles hung around to make sure that the sound would work smoothly- and to meet with Eryk backstage after the show.
Charles slipped backstage around ten minutes after the last song of the set finished Doubt still tickled the back of his mind as he waited. It was as if Eryk had double magnetic poles to allow for strong attraction as well as an underlying, but very noticeable, repulsion. He didn’t have much longer to think as Eryk placed his hand on the back of Charles’s neck, sending a chill down his spine. He turned to look, but wasn’t given enough time to process that it was that had touched him.
Eryk’s lips quickly found Charles’s slightly open mouth, the question still on his lips. The hand was still on the back of his neck, as the other was slipped around Charles’s waist. Charles was almost baffled, but then realized it was Eryk that had surprised him in such a manner.
Then all doubts were out of Charles’s mind in the moment Eryk’s tongue touched his. He’d let Eryk have a chance even if it was for the moment, for the night. After a heartbeat in a pleasant hour, their lips parted slowly. Silence hung about them while everyone else hurried and buzzed about backstage. Finally, Eryk spoke.
“Come home with me? Just for the night,” he asked. After he spoke, he waited for Charles’s answer, still in his arms.
“All right,” was Charles’s one word submission to the question, and with that, Eryk led Charles on the way to his place.
It was only for the night, as Eryk said. They went their separate ways, only to meet again in the same backdrop years later.
But even as the two men parted the next evening, Charles said one thing that, as stated, would ring true in the future even if neither of them were aware of each other’s true natures yet. “I hope,” he paused, briefly kissing Eryk, “That our paths will cross again. Somehow.”