__________________________in the arms of the angel - by adire___

Los Angeles.

The City of Angels.

How fucking appropriate.

You could pay anyone to be your angel here, if you had the right money. Angels sniffed powder in the back alleys to give them wings, stood along the streets in tight skirts and see-through shirts to display their heavenly bodies for sale. Angels sucked cock for ten dollars, swallowed for twenty.

Brett didn't feel like an angel, right now.

The rain was bleak on the window of the hotel room, pouring in blurring waves, grey encroaching on lamplight as golden as the liquor that still stank on the torn and mussed sheets beneath him. He sprawled on his side, staring blankly at his own curled hand, swallowing to clear the taste from his throat.

I could love you, Brett. And they say money can't buy love.

Money can't buy my love. All it buys is my body.

Then let's make use of that body, shall we?

He nearly retched at the memory, those familiar hands touching him, tracing the long, athletic lines of his body, gripping tightly in the short, caramel hue of his wildly spiked hair and ramming his face into a thrusting groin. You love me so much, don't you, Cameron. Your hard-bodied angel for hire.

Tipping his head, he narrowed grey eyes hazed by the lingering aftereffects of alcohol and focused on the wad of cash on the dresser. Was UCLA worth this? Was medical school worth spending his weekends in anonymous hotel rooms, only waiting for his "benefactor" to arrive and claim what he had bought?

He was starting to wonder.

I need to be drunk. Alcohol was his angel. Alcohol was his solace, what allowed him to engage Cameron without restraint, what allowed him to forget afterwards. He had an Anatomy exam tomorrow, one that he couldn't afford to even try to take with a hangover.

He didn't care.

It hurt to walk, as it always did, and his jeans chafed painfully against abused flesh, but he threw them on anyway, tucked his blouse in, nearly bolted from the room. The girl in the hotel lobby didn't even look up as he dumped the key and ran. Within a few minutes he was in his car, an old tan Neon, and on the street.

It had been in a bar like this that he'd met Cameron. Lonely nights in Los Angeles weren't uncommon, a city of a million with no one to hold you close. It wasn't unlikely to see a dozen college students just like him, hunched over the bar, drowning their solitary sorrows in the bottle, can, glass, it didn't matter. He was just another haggard face, just another sob story.

It had been raining that night, too. Raining, and cold. The bar hadn't been crowded, but it was doing a brisk business, its shady lights turning moving shapes into intimately gilt-edged shadows. Brett had ignored them, stared into his tumbler of vodka. A few voices tried to speak to him, a few hands tried to touch him. He didn't hear them. Didn't feel them. All he knew was one thing.

His life was over.

"Buy your next round?" The voice in his ear slid over him like oil, nearly slid away, and he almost let it go until morbid curiosity, drunken interest, made him catch it. It was different from the others, slicker, smoother, darker. It had the same tone of concealed lust that had brought nearly all of them there, seeking cheap love, easy gratification, liquid bliss, forgetfulness....but it promised something more.

It promised green eyes and neatly trimmed black hair skimming firm shoulders, a sharp, foxlike face, an easy, tooth-filled smile. Nice clothing. Too nice, for this place, if perfectly casual. In the way that Versace was casual.

Brett blinked at him blankly, before looking away, back to his glass. The guy couldn't have been talking to him. He was too clean for a messy, T-shirt wearing soccer player, so sloppily drunk that he could hardly remember his own name. He'd leave in a moment with someone else, some girl or man with the same sharp-toothed smile and coolly avaricious look, the same nice clothes.

"Don't talk much, do you." He heard more than saw a body slide onto the stool next to him. "Looks like you've had a rough night. And your vodka's almost gone." Two fingers flicked, beckoning the bartender with casual imperiousness, the natural expectation to be obeyed without question. "Gin and tonic, if you please. And another vodka for my friend."

Brett's head shot up in surprise, and he stammered a slurred protest. "No, don't, I--"

"Ssshh." That graceful smile calmed him, reassuring. "It's just a drink. That's all. Consider it my good deed for the day." When Brett only stared at him, the stranger grinned. "You look like a deer in headlights. Let's try this from another angle, shall we? My name's Cameron. Cameron Preston. And you are....?"

"Brett Richards."

"Brett." He said his name with cool intimacy. "You need an ear right now, don't you, Brett."

"Direct, aren't you." He'd shot him an annoyed look, wrinkled his nose. He didn't need this right now, some fag buying him drinks and pretending to be his best friend just so he could get laid. He wanted to be alone. "Look, let me get this straight right now--I'm not gay, okay? So try somewhere else."

And Cameron only laughed. "I'm not trying anything here, Brett. I only asked a question....making conversation. I have a philosophy, you see. If anyone here wanted to be alone, they'd have bought their alcohol at the nearest gas station and gone home, drowned their misery just the way they wanted to be: alone. Anyone here, whether they would admit it or not, is looking for something. Drugs. Sex. Friendship. An ear to hear their tales. Perhaps just the feeling that they're not miserable alone." He arched a brow, leaning closer. "So that only leaves the question....Brett. Which are you?"

It was almost too much for his alcohol-hazed mind, and he shook his head, blinking rapidly. "I don't know." He tried to think, then shrugged, repeated himself. "I...I don't know."

"You don't know." A sigh, and then another smile, understanding, patient. "That's probably the most honest answer you could have given. Then tell me....why are you here? What's so terrible that you had to dull the pain with the edge of liquor's knife?" He spoke like a poet, and it didn't fit here. Nothing about him did.

"Why do you ask so many questions?"

"Because I am a student, like you." He'd noticed the UCLA shirt, then. "A student of the human condition, and what causes it." Then his voice and eyes softened, perfectly timed concern. "And because sometimes....I just like to help people lighten their load."

It rang false, all of it. The answers were honest, no doubt true, but there was something unsaid. Something unsettling about the way that Cameron looked at him, almost possessively. It was all too practiced.

Like he'd done it before. Playing the game, step by step. And Brett didn�ft know what game they were playing.

"I don't....look, just bug off, okay?" He was angry all of a sudden, angry and resentful. Here was this well-dressed prettyboy, pretending sympathy, when he'd probably never wanted for anything a day in his life. Slumming, pretending to care for the peasants. At the end of the night he'd walk out satisfied that he'd done a good thing, helped people, by listening to their woes, and they'd still be in trouble, still have their problems burdening them just as heavily as before. "I don't need your fucking ears, your fucking....your fucking.....just.....goddammit, just go away." Humiliation swept over him in waves as he felt frustrated tears building in his eyes, and he spun on the stool, turning his back to Cameron, pounding his fist on the bar to emphasize his point. "Go the fuck away, " he choked out. Dammit, he was never drinking in public again. Crying. In a bar. Fuck.

He flinched as a hand fell on his shoulder. Long. Strong, slender, surprisingly coarse where the pad of one finger barely brushed his neck at the base; an inch higher and it would have been intimacy, instead of friendly, masculine reassurance. Cameron walked the line carefully. "You need something right now, Brett. And I probably can't give it to you. I'm only a stranger, after all. But tell me....tell me anyway. Lighten your heart, if not your load."

And so he told him. Everything--how he'd lost his scholarship to UCLA, because his grades were too low just this one semester, this one difficult semester. How he was being kicked out, when all he'd need is one semester to recover, to make up the bad grades, but he couldn't afford one semester. How his parents turned their backs on him, their failure son, condemned him. How his girlfriend had dumped him for another man, one who'd already succeeded, owned his own doctor's office. How she'd told him that "the doctor" was better in bed anyway, and laughed at Brett when he'd pleaded with her to just hold out until he was out of medical school, told him he'd never make it.

He'd been trying so hard....only to have one failure tear everything apart. He'd been ill for the whole semester, bedridden with a mild case of pneumonia that he couldn't afford to treat without health insurance, which his parents couldn't afford and the university didn't cover. No matter how many pills and syrups he'd swallowed, he hadn't been able to make it, had missed too many classes, too many assignments. His average had slipped below a 3.5...and they'd taken the money away, told him not to come back until he had more. In his third year....he couldn't afford to go somewhere else, not even on financial aid. Couldn't afford to retake all the classes that he couldn't transfer credits for until he paid UCLA off.

His entire college career was dead. In a way, it felt, so was he. He couldn't go home. He couldn't stay here.

He had nothing.

And Cameron had only listened in silence, his expression thoughtful and absorbing, his eyes hooded. Occasionally he sipped from his drink. Often, he refilled Brett's. Not once did he interrupt the bitter whispers, not even during the choked silences when he was forced to pause, to compose himself. "I don�ft know what I'm going to do." He'd ended with that, lifted ravaged, vulnerable eyes to meet Cameron's assessing gaze, almost pleading with him, though he was too drunk to know what he was pleading for. To care that this was a stranger; he only needed someone to offer him a solution, someone to tell him that there was a way to fix this here, now.

"I'm sorry, Brett. That is truly a regretful situation." Cameron glanced away with startling diffidence, swirled a finger in his gin. "Unfortunate that fate has been so fickle with you. Have you considered getting a job?"

"I...I thought about it." He had to pull himself together, calm down. He was making a fool of himself, a drunken fool in a place that produced them. "But I wouldn�ft make enough money, not fast enough. Tuition's too much. They're fuckin' vampires at UCLA."

"Vampires indeed." In an intoxicated fantasy, for a moment Brett thought that Cameron was the vampire, with his white smile, his even teeth, his aloof composure and otherness. The sense of control that he seemed to exude, even now, as he slid his gaze back to Brett. "It's hard to....suck any more....from someone who's already bled dry." There was a pause, thoughtful, careful. "I was wrong, you know."

"Huh?"

"About not being able to give you what you need." One corner of his mouth quirked up, his smile almost self-deprecating, his smooth lips oddly inviting. "Often, I can't. I can't restore lost loves, rewind time so that unfaithful lovers had not performed the incriminating deed, revive the deceased, restore careers ruined by careless mistakes, not even change the failing grades on tests long past. But in simple monetary issues..." He flicked his fingers, dismissively. "There...I can often be of service."

It took a minute to sink in. "...what? Are you saying...." What was he saying?

"That I could, perhaps, pay your tuition for the semester required to recover your academic standing."

The words, said so offhandedly, were staggering. Light fell in darkness, and Brett felt himself lifting, rising on the wings of a bright and foolish hope. He was saved, here was his salvation, his solution....

....but why? The heavy shutter of doubt closed off the light once more, and he scooted back on the stool, eyeing Cameron suspiciously. Both of him. Or were there three? "....whuh...wait. Why would you just give me the money? You don't even know me...."

"Because I can." Cameron glanced at him sidelong, before looking away, slipping his gaze down the bar towards a girl who sat sobbing into her beer, and Brett experienced a stab of panic that he might leave, might offer his services to someone else, and...

"No!" he gasped, even though Cameron had made no indication that he might withdraw his offer. Desperate, fumbling, he lurched off of the stool, grasped at Cameron's arm. This was his last chance, his only hope, please, God, let this be one of your angels, sent down to help me...."I'll do anything, " he pleaded; even drunk, he knew that such charity never came without a price. "I'll work for you, just tell me what you want me to do...."

And that was when Cameron smiled, plucked his hand from his arm, gripped it gently in his own, thumb slowly caressing the center of his palm. "That, " he murmured softly, lifting Brett's hand to his lips to ghost them across his knuckles, "we will discuss elsewhere."

And only then, with a sickening sense of revulsion, did Brett realize what he had damned himself to.

That had been three months ago, at the start of the semester. He hardly remembered the first night....but he'd woken alone in the hotel room, sore, bleeding a little, body sticky and streaked....and a check underneath the pillow, the exact amount of his tuition. He'd almost torn it apart.

Instead, he'd staggered into the bathroom and thrown up.

It had taken him a week to work up the courage to cash the check, to pay his tuition. A week of struggling, staring at Cameron's phone number scribbled on a matchbook, ordering himself to return the money and forget the entire experience, deal with the shambles that his life had become and maintain what was left of his pride, his dignity.

Sacrifice his dream.

Which one are you? he'd asked Cameron in the car that night, on the way to the hotel. Demanded, to take his trembling mind off of what was soon to happen.

Hm?

You said you had a philosophy about the kinds of people that come to bars. So which kind are you? Which one?

And Cameron had smiled, and Brett had seen nothing but teeth. I, Brett, he had whispered, sliding across the back seat to press a gin-scented kiss to his throat, gripping his wrist when he flinched, am the one that answers all of their blackened prayers.

Three months. Three months of sordid nights, filthy deeds, to pay off his debt. The extra money that Cameron gave him each time for a living stipend only made him feel like more of a whore.

And to think, it had all begun in a bar like this, over yet another glass of vodka.

The glass tasted like Cameron's lips when he took a sip, and he shuddered, felt the bruised, mouth-shaped marks on his neck throb with the sudden quickening of his pulse. That had been a side effect that he hadn't expected. He'd lain dormant, at first, the wealthy man's doll, his plaything. Touch when told to. Allow him to do as he wished. He reciprocated only when guided by those careful hands, responded only when his body forced him to, the betrayal of manhood, of nerves that did not care who or what stimulated them as long as there was pleasure involved.

And it was the pleasure that shamed him, for it haunted him, left even the weeknights alone in his private dorm room plagued by Cameron. It had begun the second week, the dreams, that woke him gasping, flushed, painfully hard. The fits of humiliated nausea that resulted in vomiting afterwards. But it hadn't stopped there, no. Brett swirled the clear liquid in his glass bitterly as he remembered the long lectures in those great halls, how he found his mind drifting from the lesson, his jeans growing uncomfortably tight, his gut twisting with revulsion.

Oh, god.... Sick realization swamped him as he realized that it was happening again, and he swallowed it back, tossed back the rest of his drink in a single gulp, called for another one. No, medical school wasn't worth this. Nothing was. He was a pathetic shadow of his former self, hollows darkening his pale skin beneath tired, distant eyes; even his friends had noticed, had drifted away from him--no, were driven away by his sudden irrational temper. He could never explain that he wasn't angry at them, he was angry at himself...not without revealing his shameful secret.

He wondered what they would think if they'd known that he'd begged for it tonight. Begged. Cameron's cock had brushed his lips, teasing, coaxing them to open, and then drawn away when they parted to receive him, always staying just out of reach. And he'd begged for it, whispered Cameron, be still, please, grasped at his hips to pull him closer. He'd hated him in that moment, when he swallowed the hot bitterness of his seed, devouring him hungrily, nearly melting in that bliss. Hated him more than he had in all of those secret trysts, when he'd burned with anger, sometimes fought him, called him every name in the book, subsided only when he could no longer deny the inevitability and spread his legs with feigned reluctance, ignoring the deep yearning in his body, the empty ache where that thick shaft belonged.

He hadn't denied it tonight. On his hands and knees, thighs spread, lips still coated, he'd ground against his still-hard cock, the taut curves of his rear teasing him, making him groan Brett...oh, yes, Brett, so beautiful, beautiful whore.... .He was a whore, yes. Cameron's whore. A loveless, joyless sex toy.

This is what my life has come to.

One more month. Four more weekends, and it was over. The semester would be over, Brett's GPA restored, both ends of the bargain fulfilled. He'd have his scholarship back, and wouldn't need Cameron anymore.....but he would never be the same again. He knew that much. He knew it as concretely as he knew the feeling of cold glass against his fingertips, knew the sounds of people around him, swimming somewhere beyond the muted bubble of his own miserable reality, mixed like gin with the tonic of the radio's static-laced strains.

"Hey." He didn't hear it the first time, or thought he didn't. The second time it penetrated, dry tones, soft, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, just quiet and there, casually worried. "Hey....you okay?"

"Nnh?" Lifting his head, Brett squinted, trying to focus his eyes. There was a tan oval talking to him--no, a face. A person. The bartender, in fact. Funny, how he'd never thought to try to put a face on the 'tender; he was just the anonymous figure that brought drinks in exchange for money, a whore in his own right, and polite people always tried not to look directly at whores when they practiced their trade, to spare them that shame. This whore, however, had dark brown eyes, somewhat kindly, a little jaded. Black hair--like Cameron's, I hate you so much--that fell down his back in a thin, neatly-bound tail, its shade as muted as an onyx statue that had been gathering dust for years. There was a tint to his skin that hinted at a descent other than Caucasian, though Brett didn't know what--Native American? No, East Indian, he decided firmly, from the shape of those large eyes, though not fully. Probably a parent or even a grandparent. Tall, taller than Brett, but a bit thinner, probably no more than two or three years older.

It took him a minute to realize he'd been staring, and he felt like a clumsy oaf, offered an equally clumsy smile. "Ffhine, " he slurred, caught by just how distorted his speech was. How many had he had? And for that matter....how long had he been there? The noise around him had dimmed; the bar was starting to clear out. He'd have to head back to the dorm, soon. Get some sleep, somehow. Pull himself together and pretend that his life was still normal.

"Eleven shots of vodka isn't "fine"." The tender flashed a small, white smile, faintly sympathetic. He had that look, that he'd seen this often, heard it too many times, was used to it, and he gave Brett a long look even as he moved down the bar to retrieve abandoned glasses from the cradling arms of their rings of condensation. "You're sauced, buddy. I'm going to have to ask for your keys."

"Wha--? No..." Brett slumped, shaking his head vehemently--and nearly fell off of the stool before he gripped hard at the edge of the bar to right himself. "Nozzat drunk." He bristled when the dark-skinned man laughed gently.

"You're drunk enough for four of you, and don't think about asking for another, 'cause I'm not giving you another drop. Fork over the keys." Dismayed, utterly depressed with the hopelessness that only the drunk can achieve, Brett complied, dropping his keys into a waiting palm and giving the bartender a woeful hang-dog look that earned him nothing more than a shake of the head. "Is there someone I can call to come pick you up?"

Brett's shake of the head--call Cameron, why don't you? He'd be glad to pick you up, take you home, put you to bed, his bed--forestalled him before he'd even picked up the phone. There really wasn't anyone; Cameron was out of the question, and since his downward spiral, his friends--or former friends--would probably hang up the phone at the sound of his voice. He couldn�ft afford a cab, even with Cameron's money making a lump in his pocket; he needed that for living expenses, food, other necessities, down to the last penny. He'd blown all the excess he could afford on the vodka, without thinking. "No, " he mumbled, a bit belatedly. "...I'll walk 'er somethin'...."

Another laugh, one that didn't offend him quite so much, the suddenly too-loud shush of a rag passing over a glass, and Brett just stared at the bartender's hands, strange things that looked like they belonged to a musician, consigned to washing glasses and doing so quite cheerfully, as though they had a mind of their own to accept the mundane. "Like hell you will. Kind of kills the point of taking your keys away, doesn't it? Since I'm trying not to send you out there to get killed. Mugged and murdered's just as dead as mangled in a car crash." The thoughts were almost appealing, for a moment. "Look, kid.....what's your name?"

"Brett."

"Okay, Brett. I'm Amir, your friendly local boozeboy." He grinned jovially, and Brett almost laughed, stopped when he felt his head spinning, stomach lurching. Not gonna barf....not gonna barf..... ."Here's what we're gonna do. I've got an apartment above the bar; I don�ft normally do this, but you can crash on my couch until morning. Get yourself sobered up, have a cup of coffee, and I give you your keys and you get your ass gone. Sound like a deal?"

"No thanks." No way he was making that mistake again. The kindness of strangers always wore gentle masks hiding the life-sucking leech behind, and in his fume-filled delusions he saw Amir grinning at him with a gaping mouth full of teeth, eyes red and hungry, looking to prey on him, and he shoved himself away with a cry, tottering on unsteady legs, falling.

"Goddammit." Amir swore, shaking his head, and then vaulted his long, lean body neatly over the bar, dropping to one knee at the groaning college boy's side. "All right, that's it, closing time, " he barked to the five or six nosily watching lurkers waiting for the two a.m. last call, lifting his head to sweep them with a sharp look. "Pay your tab with Cecile and get on home." The redhead waitress in question blinked, startled from her cigarette-induced bliss, and cast Amir a rather dirty look before moving to straggle after the grumbling, reluctantly rising customers.

The lanky bartender hooked an arm beneath Brett's shoulder's, hauling him upward carefully until he got him into a sitting position; Amir leaned forward, searching his face, while Brett rubbed at his head, squeezing his eyes shut against a throbbing pain that felt like a dozen artillery cannons going off at once inside his skull. "....fuck...." he groaned as his fingers ran across a lump on the back of his skull.

"Banged yourself pretty hard there, Grace. C'mon, up with you." Standing himself, Amir gave the other another tug, and Brett rose unsteadily--only to reel to the side, vision swimming, hands clutching at Amir's arms for support and nearly bringing the other man down with him. "Whoa--steady there. Baby steps, we'll worry about running later. C'mon, Mr. Brett. Let's get you upstairs, put some ice on that."

Brett opened his mouth to protest, found that nothing came out but another strangled groan. One moment he realized that somehow he'd cut himself in falling, and blood was trickling into his eye from the shallow gash along his brow; the next moment he was aware of a hard wooden chair beneath his body, and a small apartment around him, rather homey in its simple clutter. How he got from one to the other was a blank, long minutes lost. He should probably be grateful; he doubted he'd enjoyed struggling his way up the stairs.

Amir was sitting opposite him, lower lip and the very tip of his tongue caught between his teeth from concentration as he dabbed carefully at Brett's brow with a bit of cotton-soaked alcohol; the sting made him flinch, but Amir gently held him in place with fingertips gripping lightly at his chin. "Ah, be still now, almost done. Don't pay me any attention, now; just tell me about yourself. You a college boy, Brett?" Dark eyes flicked down to meet grey ones with a polite, distracted smile, before rising to focus on the cleansing again.

"Yeah. UCLA."

Whistling appreciatively, Amir glanced at him again. "Not bad. You must be pretty top-notch to get into there. What's your major?"

"Medicine."

"I'm honored; I'm treating a doctor. Maybe one day you can pay me back when I need a new kidney or something." They both laughed, Brett a little uncertainly. "You from around L.A., Dr. Brett?"

He wasn't sure how long it took Amir to finish cleaning the wound with such delicate care before taping a bandaid over it and making Brett turn so he could dab at the faint hint of sticky crimson leaking from the bump on his skull; although his mind had cleared a bit, making speech easier, the liquor still fuzzed his sense of time. He knew that he told him about being from San Francisco, about a couple of his classes. He learned that Amir was twenty-five and from Chicago, that he'd gone to a community college there, had an associate's degree in business management that hadn't done jack shit for him, barely helped him half-run the bar now. He'd started out just as tender, then moved up to manager when the owner found himself distracted by other investments, and now co-owned the place and made his happy home nesting above it. Not a bad life, in all. Brett almost envied him the simple contentment of it. He doubted there was anyone like Cameron in Amir's life; he probably spent his nights off and his free days relaxing, sleeping, hanging out with his friends, spending time with his girl. Normal.

Brett had almost forgotten what normalcy was like.

If Amir noticed the "love-bites" on Brett's neck during his close scrutiny, he was polite enough not to say anything, and soon enough he was breaking off their conversation to stand, dusting his hands off matter-of-factly. "All right, Doctor; I think the patient's going to be just fine. Think you can handle an ice-pack for a pillow and a lumpy couch after the bruising you just took?"

"If I can handle a dorm bed made of bricks--" if I can handle the way Cameron fucks me and beg him to do it harder "--I can handle anything."

Amir laughed, shaking his head. "We'll see about that, Doctor. Let me find the spare blankets."

He felt like a useless lump, sitting here in this stranger's apartment with his hands curled awkwardly in his lap while Amir bustled about readying the couch, but there was little else he could do; he didn't quite trust his legs to work yet. Besides....he felt comfortable, for once. At ease. A little lighter.....and very tired. "Look....thanks for doing this. I....if I can't go back to the dorm....I didn't have anywhere.....anyone.....else to go to."

"I know." When Brett gave him a startled look, Amir glanced up from tucking clean sheets over the couch cushions, quietly solemn. "Look....in my business, I see your type a lot. Don't have much left. No one to turn to. I don't ask why. I just help out a little when I can."

Maybe Brett was still just a little too drunk. But for some reason, he believed him.

"Yeah, " he said, running a hand through his hair and glancing away, wincing when his fingers brushed the lump. "Yeah."

"Hey." He looked up as he felt Amir's presence near again, watched him sink into the chair opposite once more, leaning forward to try to catch his eyes, friendly concern written on his caramel-hued features. For some reason it struck Brett that it was the same color as his own hair. "You going to be okay? Seriously, kid. Not just tonight. You don't see many successful medical students drinking like that." Funny how he called him kid when he was only four years older.

Brett only shrugged, offered a tired smile. "Sure." No, I'm not going to be okay. I'm never going to be okay again. Not even therapy can make me the way I was again. "You know, just tests and all. Getting me down."

"Tests don't leave marks like that." Soft, smooth fingertips brushed the side of his throat, and Brett flinched, leaning away.

"Don't."

"It's all right." Amir dropped his hand back into his lap, studying him intently. "Look...I'm not trying to pry or anything. Just look at it as part of my job....a bartender has to be good at a lot of other things than just making drinks. Lotta times we save people a shitload on therapy bills, and I'm just trying to help. You don't have to tell me....all I'm saying is that I think it might do you some good." His smile lightened his tone somewhat, as did his shrug. "Not like you have to see me after tomorrow. And who'm I gonna tell?"

"I don�ft know. Him." Like Amir knew who Cameron was. Like there was any danger. Cameron had never threatened anything if Brett told, or if he backed out on their deal. He didn't have to. Everything about him made it quite apparent what could and would happen. If he told Amir...what could happen to him?

"Whoa. A guy did that to you?"

Brett flushed deeply with shame, grimacing and lowering his eyes to stare at his hands, knotting them together until his knuckles were white. ".....no, " he mumbled lamely, shrugging. It was already too late for the lie, but he didn't want Amir to kick him out from sheer disgust.

"Yeah. Right." Amir smiled, and then outright grinned at Brett's startled expression as he caught the curvature from the corner of his eye. "Hey, relax. I don't care. Straight, bi, gay, it's all your thing, y'know?"

"I'm not gay!" Harder, harder Cameron, fuck me.....oh god, fuck me, it hurts..... ".....at least...I...I hope I'm not....I'm...." He swallowed hard, fixed frank, hopeless eyes on his host. "I'm...afraid that I am....I don't know...."

There was an uncomfortable silence, and then a warm hand gripping his shoulder reassuringly. It was like Cameron's, only.... real. "Let me guess....it wasn't by choice. You're doing things you never thought you'd do, telling yourself that hate them, afraid to admit that you like them. And now you're dreading telling your parents, your friends. Ashamed of yourself. You think there's something wrong with you."

"I...I....yeah." Relief washed over him, and he closed his eyes, just slumping forward, burying his face in his hands. "God....how did you know...."

"Because I've been there." Amir's voice was gentle as he slid forward in his chair, closer, his fingers tightening to work carefully at the knots of muscle in Brett's shoulder, trying to relax him. It almost worked. "Not exactly the same...it never is. But there's nothing to be ashamed of, okay, Doc?"

"My parents..." He gulped back a sob, shoulders shuddering. "....I can't be....it's okay for someone else, the whole fuckin' world can be gay, but not me.....not me..."

"Sshhh." He was shocked to feel arms sliding around him, long, lean. He didn't fight it. It was hard to fight anything anymore, and he let his body fall against Amir's, face pressed to his shirt. "You are who you are, Brett. It's not your fault. You shouldn't feel this way. And the fucker that made you feel like this....he needs to be shot."

"...probably shoot you first...." A bitter laugh escaped his lips, as harshly as the tears escaped his eyes. Another night in the arms of a stranger.....but it felt all right, this time. Just this once, seeking comfort.....and he let his arms creep around Amir's lithe waist, hands gripping at his shirt with a clawed grasp. "....it's almost over...almost....almost over....."

"Mm. Tell me about it?"

He shouldn't have. He should have pushed him away, said it was nothing, made his apologies and excuses of exhaustion, and taken the kindness of his couch. But instead he found himself spilling his guts as quickly and painfully as he had that first night, with Cameron.....he told Amir of the tuition problem, and how his preying "angel" had appeared to save him. He told him of the desperation that made him agree before he even knew what he was agreeing to, the horror when he realized what he had condemned himself to. The things that Cameron made him do. The things that he'd done voluntarily. How the end was almost in sight; once the semester was over, his grades recorded, his scholarship reinstated, he wouldn't need Cameron or his money anymore.

After that catharsis, he should have felt better. That was the purpose of Catholic confessionals, wasn't it? But Amir was no priest, and Brett wasn't religious; they were only two more broken-winged angels alone in a city full of them, with no God to mend their wounds. Everyone was a stranger here....so what did it matter if you took comfort in the arms of one?

He didn't know what time it was when he stopped talking, fell silent, just sat there with Amir standing over him, holding him close while he cried. He didn't know when he stopped crying, when full silence fell without the punctuation of his sobs. But some time later, he became aware of light seeping through the dimly-curtained window, heralding the coming of the dawn, and its painfully worshipful light. It was with some embarrassment that he pushed away from Amir, rubbing at his aching, red-rimmed eyes, finally breaking the sacred stillness with a murmur of "....sorry."

It took Amir a moment to move, to open his eyes; he'd almost dozed off, holding the strange boy, bowed over him. It had been comfortable. It hadn't been the first night that he'd spent like that.....he hadn't been lying, when he told Brett that he tried to help where he could. And sometimes all people needed was a pair of understanding arms, a non-judgmental ear. It was all Amir had to give, and he gave it freely, even if sometimes--like now--he wanted to do more, wanted to beat the shit out of fucks like Cameron. And he expected no thanks, nor would brook any apologies. "Don't." He smiled slightly, touched his fingertips beneath Brett's chin, tipped his face upwards to meet his shamed and haunted eyes. "Look....do you feel any better?" Brett nodded mutely; he did, oddly enough. Soothed. Quieted. Drained. "Good. Now...I'll bet you've got classes, soon. Why don't you get some sleep?"

For some reason, the grey-eyed boy couldn't bring himself to speak, only nodded again, pushed himself wearily from the chair. Amir watched with that same faint, enigmatic smile as he fell onto the couch, such a limp and broken doll, and only whispered a "sleep tight" to his grateful look as Amir drew the thin brown blanket up over him, doing what his limp and curling hands could not.

For the first time since he had met Cameron, Brett slept easily, free of nightmares.

He woke near panic.

The sun streamed hot through the window, leaving his face uncomfortably warm; he was surprised it hadn't woken him sooner, and he damned sure wished that it had. His watch showed that it was nearly three in the afternoon; his Anatomy exam had been two hours ago. He'd missed it. It was only fifteen percent of the grade, and he could make it up on the final and the extra-credit study project, but still....still.....

....fuck.

Way to go, Richards. Even when you buy yourself a second chance, you fuck up. He almost wanted to yell at Amir for not waking him sooner, for letting him be late, but....it wasn't the bartender's fault. His memory of the night before was a little hazy, but he knew that he hadn't told him about the test, hadn't asked him to wake him at a certain time.

Though he'd told him so many other things....

He should have felt sick, ashamed. Humiliated that he'd had to be helped thus by a stranger, that he'd dumped everything on those lean shoulders.

Instead, he only wondered where the dark-skinned man was.

It was utterly silent in the living room, a bit dusty; shafts of soft, warm, lemon-hued light fell through translucent white curtains, falling over old furniture that could have come from Goodwill or Amir's grandmother's attic; nice, but old. A few magazines littered the coffee table, and the dining room table set below a window in the open space that branched off as an arm of the living room, next to the open kitchen that was separated only by a bar-style countertop. Several packed bookshelves leaned precariously against the walls, and the TV opposite the couch looked like it hadn't been turned on in ages; Brett wondered if it even worked.

He also wondered where the hell the bathroom was, 'cause he had to piss like a motherfuck.

Swaying unsteadily to his feet, he pressed a palm to a throbbing skull, paused when his fingers brushed across the band-aid on his brow, smiled slightly without knowing why. Then the pressure in his bladder spurred him forward, and he picked his way carefully over a stack of books on the floor, eyeing the two closed doors to either side of the main exit speculatively. One of them had to be the bathroom; he'd just pick one and hope it was the right one.

Good thing I'm not a gambling man, 'cause with my luck lately, I'd be even more broke. I suck at this. The door that he'd nudged so carefully open led not into the bathroom, but into a small, dusky-lit bedroom; a few knit rugs scattered across the floor, outnumbered by the various articles of clothing draped across them, over the two chairs spaced in the corners, hanging from the posts of the queen-sized bed with a headboard made of segments of bamboo pieced together in interlocking square patterns, exotic, fragile but durable.

Kind of like Amir, perhaps.

The man in question lay sprawled beneath the covers; from the way the sheets and blankets were twisted and wound about his form, he was obviously a restless sleeper, although one would never guess that from his current near-blissful stillness. The tail of his hair had been loosed, and the long strands wound about his outflung arms, spilled over a bare chest that just barely gleamed in the faint hints of illumination that managed to seep past the blinds. Brett watched him breathe for a few moments, thinking without thinking at all. Then he pushed away from the doorframe, tugging the heavy wooden slab carefully back in place, wary of waking his host.

The second door yielded more success, and he relieved himself with a sigh, took a few moments to stare at his haggard reflection in the mirror, making an ineffectual attempt to straighten his wrinkled and mussed clothing, settle his wild hair with faucet-wetted fingers. You look like shit, Brett. Then again, you've looked like shit for a long time. He wondered how long those dark circles had been under his eyes, and realized that he couldn't remember a time when they hadn't been.

Despite his care, the sound of the flushing toilet must have woken Amir--because when Brett trudged out of the bathroom, the dark-skinned man was just stumbling out of the bedroom, rubbing at his eyes, hair swirling around him; he must have slept in his jeans, because they hung from his narrow hips, unbuttoned and unzipped, ready to fall off. Brett caught himself eyeing the triangle of visible flesh, jerked his gaze away with a mental snort of self-disgust. Next step, he supposed. First complying with Cameron willingly. Next looking other men over. Soon he'd be hanging out in all-gay bars and buying hard, vibrating little sex toys and inviting men back to his dorm for a little "fun". The idea didn't seem that preposterous, in this awkward, uncertain morning after. Or that repulsive.

God damn you, Cameron. What the hell have you done to me?

"Mornin', Doc." Amir gave him a sleepy, boyish grin as he caught sight of him, yawning, stretching. "You up for that coffee I promised you?"

"Sure."

He watched uncertainly as Amir half-tripped into the kitchen, still yawning; he wasn't sure what to do, and so he busied himself folding the blanket that he had slept under, the sheets that he'd slept on; the silence should have been companionable, perhaps was on Amir's part, but Brett only felt uncomfortable....an unwanted intrusion. He'd overstayed his welcome; he was sober now, perfectly capable of driving. So he should just get his keys back and walk out of this stranger's apartment, never looking back. He didn't know why he wasn't doing it already.

"Slept kind of late, didn't you, Brett? What about your classes?" Molasses, that's it. That's what his voice reminded him of.

Sighing, Brett shrugged. "Missed 'em. Missed a test....I'll have to talk to the instructor about making it up." He plunked himself down heavily next to the stack of folded bedsheets. "No big deal."

"Mm. Sounds like a big deal to me." A few minutes later Amir emerged from the kitchen with two steaming mugs, sauntering like a lazy, bored cat towards the coffee table to set one down before Brett. "Hope you like it black; haven't been to the grocery lately. Out of milk and sugar." His self-deprecating grin was infectious, and Brett found himself smiling tentatively, a little shakily, back.

"Black's fine, " he murmured, taking a sip and then hissing as it scalded his tongue. Over the rim of his mug, he watched Amir carefully, a bit warily, as the bartender settled his bony, denim-clad bottom on the arm of the couch farthest from his guest.

"Look, you can stop watching me like I'm going to jump you, okay?" Amir flashed another calming smile touched with a hint of laughter. "I'm not....him. Yeah, I'm gay. You think you may be. That doesn't mean that you smell like fresh meat, and I'm not going to take advantage of you. If I was, I'd have tried something last night, when you were drunk. Instead you're waking up safe and sound on my couch, untouched, with your possessions and body still intact. Okay? Relax."

"Uh. Wow." Blinking, flushing a little, Brett glanced to the side, clearing his throat. "....you're...um....yeah. Blunt. But...right. Gotcha. I...sorry."

"Oh, stop it." He nearly dropped his coffee with a whuffing sound as a thin hand slapped him on the back with companionable force. "You apologize too much, though it's not really your fault, I guess."

Recovering himself, Brett blinked at him again, completely caught off-guard. "Sor--er...right. I guess." He wasn't sure what to make of Amir, or the curve balls that he kept throwing him, but the surprise alone almost made him smile again before he remembered his coffee and took another gulp. It helped his headache a bit, his fogged and hurting brain. "Look....I should probably get going....could I have my keys back?"

"No prob." Amir fished in his pocket, then dumped them in a clatter on the coffee table. "You going to be okay?"

"I think so, yeah."

"I almost believe you." The startled look earned him a laugh and a warding wave of the hand. "Joking, joking. I know this isn't the best time to tell you to lighten up, but really....you'll be all right. You're an okay guy, Brett. You'll turn out okay in the end."

Somehow, it made him feel better that Amir believed that.

"Thanks." In the silence that followed, he finished his coffee, kept his eyes on the cup instead of on his host. The clink of the mug on the table was a little too loud, and he scrubbed his palms to his thighs nervously, before forcing himself to stand, keys in hand. "...well...guess....I'll go now. Thanks for...y'know.....looking out for a drunken idiot last night. And...everything else."

Amir only shrugged, raised his mug in salute. "Don't mention it. Any time. Ciao, man."

"....later." Why'd he say that? It's not like he'd ever see him again. He'd probably never have the guts to show his face in Amir's bar again. For a few seconds he fidgeted, before turning and moving jerkily, awkwardly towards the door, aware of the bartender's eyes on his back with every step.

"Hey. Doc."

He paused with his hand on the doorknob, caught a breath in his throat. Why was he afraid, all of a sudden? "Yeah?" he murmured, half-turning to force a hint of a questioning smile.

Amir was still watching him, thoughtfully, his lips just barely curved, his eyes fixed so intently on Brett's face. He couldn't help but wonder what he was thinking, and he was surprised to suddenly realize.....that the darker man was just as nervous as he was. "Look...I know....you're in a bit of a bind right now. You don't need any unnecessary complications. But later....y'know...." He glanced away, laughed sheepishly. "You probably don't want to hear this. I guess it makes me just as bad as that other guy, but....there's no harm in asking, I guess. There....well......you're an okay guy, Brett. And....when you get yourself figured out, if you want....I'd like to take you out sometime. Nothing big....just a movie, or something to eat. No strings attached. No expectations." A flush of rose touched that dusky skin as he gave him a rather shy look, dark eyes glittering. "Though I'll admit that one day I'd like to kiss you. The right way....not like.....y'know....him."

Stunned, Brett could only stare at him. He'd....just been asked out.....by a man. Not just any man.....one who knew what he'd done, what he was still doing. One who knew his shame. One who knew what he'd been going through, who understood that maybe he couldn't deal with this, with this gay thing, with any of his life right now.

One who didn't seem to care.

It was a strange feeling, to suddenly know that he was wanted, by someone like that. Male or female. And he found himself smiling, feeling a bit lighter than he had in a long, long time. "Yeah, " he murmured, and then grinned wider at the sight of Amir's relief.

"Yeah.....I think I'd like that."

Sometimes.....he thought there might be angels in this city, after all.
 

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