Chapter Text
There was nothing that could encompass the pain of the burn, no words to describe the unstoppable, climbing sear of skin that scrambled up his legs, climbing the ladder of his pants, guided by the seams; violating the surface of his permeable form.
The worst of it wasn’t the physical touch of it, being handled by such an element that it was hard to feel anything at all. It was the scent.
The scent of your flesh as it sizzles and burns, melted skin drizzling down the sides of your limbs in a bloody muck.
The skin around the knobby joints turns coarse and blackened.
A familiar scream of desperation tried to shock him out of it, but he couldn’t hear it. His throat loosened, expanding and choking on thick smoke that restricted scalding lungs.
The only sound in his head was the screech of pain as it wrung out his writhing body. He fell to his hands and knees, sifting through the heat with a vision blinded by smoke. He had barely grabbed onto the metal before a set of heavy hands tried to physically drag him out of the flames. Hell was already up on his shoulders, preparing to leap into his hair before his stunned, oozing form was shoved onto the grass outside the circus tent.
Some sort of fabric, the man couldn’t remember now, was beaten out over his already scorched form. His vision was darkened by eyes squeezed shut, body tightened as if that would preserve the remains of devastation. He couldn’t feel the cracking of the skin around his lips, stretched wide to accompany empty sounds. Nor could he feel the sting of his legs, torso, and arms, burnt into unrecognizable mounds of open wounds, gushing fluids out upon the ground.
He couldn’t feel anything but The Grime. The dirt and filth that adhered to the stick of his blood. The taint of his body, to never be put back to the pure, perfect form it once was before. The scent of raw flesh drew forth flies like a dead animal.
The Grime seemed to follow him everywhere he went from then on.
At times, he was sure that the scum was still there, lodged in his veins, from when he was thrown upon the ground in retaliation of the flames that leaped up his sides.
He was sure that from time to time, he could feel the indentations of little pebbles and rocks beneath the surface of his marred skin from where the past’s wounds had closed over remnants of The Grime.
He had turned his now singed back to the ruined circus tent, black and disheveled of all its former glory, and he had physically walked away, moved his open-soared feet until they could fit into regular shoes again. He got as far away from that mountain of ash and decay as possible.
But in reality, the man knew; he went into that performance’s inferno and never left.
-
Mike stood in front of the mirror, taking off the tights and elbow-length gloves that he had thrown over his costume for the dress rehearsal.
He had practiced taking them on and off about four times now, even though the practice performance was long over.
He didn’t usually struggle with costumes, after all. He always worked with a designer, with the help of Edgar, to make his costumes and tailor them to exactly how he deems fit. In other words, making it so that less of his skin was showing.
Maybe it was just because it was Las Vegas. Everyone had their ass hanging out of their clothes; especially performers wearing little to nothing. He guessed that people used the setting to take advantage of vulgarity in public spaces.
It’s not like he didn’t turn his head when he passed by a specifically attractive-in-the-form Chippendales worker, wearing nothing but a pair of skinny jeans and a bow tie, sitting with his legs spread out in front of a booth and an equally alluring woman poised on his lap.
He didn’t mind the overly sexual energy that radiated off the bustling city, but he didn’t like it when it was forced onto him.
He had talked with the costume designer, who had ‘tailored it to him’ and insisted that he needed much more coverage than what he was already given.
She insisted that it would be too difficult to change both the white and black versions of his costumes without them both falling apart during the performance. He asked for at least longer pants and not shorts, but she insisted that the costume was perfect as it was.
She also unhelpfully added that his scars would add to the performance.
They would add to the performance? Mike would never strike a woman, but he thought about standing up from his seat in front of the mirror, grabbing the chair, and hurling it at her.
It wasn’t like he had anything to hide. People who knew of the acrobat’s popularity and fame were aware that he had to take a year off from performing after a circus accident where a prop exploded, he got trapped in a fire, and almost all of his body was burned beside his chest and head.
But the topic quickly disappeared from his name, for when he returned to the scene, he stuck to wearing lengthier leotards, clothes that covered the burns. All of his arms, legs, and torso would stay entirely covered from prying eyes.
After all, he hated how people would react in response to the scars even more than he hated them himself. They would always pay more attention to them than to how astounding his performance was. When he would be pointed out on stage by the audience, it was easier to track him down by the burns on his limbs rather than ‘Mike Morton.’
He had built a facade around being pure, innocent, and almost naive to the horrors of the world and his surroundings. He was to be a guiding light for the stage, to unknowingly lead a performance to a close. Being pure was a state of who he was. It was the only way he could be loved in the eyes of other people. That's what it means to be Mike Morton.
At least if the marks defiled his body, they shouldn’t defile his name.
As soon as he peeled away the gloves, he could see the deep reds and purples of textured skin, webbing over itself in patchy layers, gaps between the coils of the past pulled out the pale porcelain of his unmarred skin.
He stared at his body, disheveled and ugly, wrapped in white silk and lace fit for an angel.
A deep-rooted feeling of disgust rose to restrict his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut and looped his fingers into his hair, holding tightly the golden curls that did not bear the weight of a silver pin.
He leaned forward, breathing in deeply, opening his eyes, and trying not to hate himself as he stared through the mirror at the hideous flesh that seemed to scream back at him.
He raised his head at a knock.
“Mike. Valden and I are heading out for the day. It’s around 1 right now, just in case you don’t know the time. And I don’t know what Aesop and Joseph are doing, but you could probably figure that out.”
Joker spoke through the doorway and lingered there after speaking. Joker could hear Mike’s breathing, and all Mike could picture was Joker’s hand, burnt because of the blonde’s incompetence.
Joker was the one who dragged him out of the fire and got similarly burnt in the process.
“If you want, I could get Edgar to try and make your pants and a new shirt himself. It probably wouldn't be good quality as the one you have-”
“It’s fine.” The acrobat said curtly before quickly straightening his posture, naturally putting a smile on his face even though he was the only one in the dressing room. He turned away from his reflection and cracked open the door to Joker.
Mike’s eyes instantly shot down to the reddish marks on the back of the performer’s hand.
“I’m probably going to get lunch, you can go off with Valden. I might go see what the other two are doing later,” Mike assured, and hated the way his companion looked at him like he wanted to say ‘It’s not your fault.’
Joker just shrugged and grinned, forming a light fist against Mike’s shoulder.
“Well, even if you don’t like those clothes, it’s still a great set. Tomorrow is going to be a great show.” Joker said before turning away.
The acrobat watched him walk away before shutting himself back in the room. He took another deep breath, feeling the space expand in his chest, savoring the cold air that eased his throat.
The set was good, the other acrobats were good, and his performance was good. He shouldn’t let this single thing obstruct his experience. After all, it was likely that after this performance, he could go back to wearing his usual lengthy garments, and people would move on.
Then his mind went back to the previous night.
He was going to get a front-row view of this.
The thoughts plagued his mind, and he instinctively felt gross again. He began to change back into his normal clothes, a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Nice, simple colors that wouldn’t draw any attention to himself.
It wasn’t like Norton could be that much different from him, with burn scars on his arms and the upper half of his face over his eye. But it worked for him. It was almost attractive in the sense that he had a natural, gloomy aura. He was handsome in a dark way with his black hair and tanned skin. He could click with the tarnished look the scars gave him.
Not only was it out of place on someone like Mike, who was built of a pale, sunshine-like complexion, and the blonde was never one to compare, but his scars were also astronomically worse than Norton’s. No questions asked.
Mike hadn’t ever tried to get into hookups or anything remotely romantic, and he claimed it was because of work. He was too busy, and it would affect his reputation too much to interact with people in a manner beyond acquaintances or friends.
In part,this was true, but he also chose to leave out the fact that he hated taking off his clothes and took no actual pleasure in being vulnerable with other people. The last time he slept with someone, he slipped off a beam and almost fractured his collarbone, as Edgar likes to brag. But he and the other party had to get extremely drunk to simply ignore the fact that Mike’s body was just, simply said, unattractive.
He knocked the whole train of thought from his head. It’s not like anything would probably happen with Norton anyway. He hadn’t thought about sleeping with him at all since the shotgunning incident that only occurred a day or so ago. He would never get down and dirty with someone he knew nothing about, was another claim he told himself quite often in the passing days.
Besides, he would leave Las Vegas on Monday after the show, and never see him again. Following that note, he got the idea that it was more so a reason to weasel into Norton’s bed. His mind instantly went straight into the details, unforgiving of the fact that he had better things to worry about and wanted to feel bad about the hideous state of his body.
So yeah, then he saw the expression on his face in the mirror, a red equivalent to a high school girl who was stupidly daydreaming about her crush in the middle of a lecture and quickly remembered his place.
To think he was getting so hot and bothered about some real-life Las Vegas gambler NPC in an empty changing room gave him so much second-hand embarrassment he had to put his face in his hand to keep himself from laughing at himself.
He quickly fixed his expression and hung up his costume in a locker, trying not to think about the scratching of his sleeves’ fabric against his textured arms, leaving the dressing room with the intent of going to secure a meal for lunch.
-
Norton didn’t want to be, but it was hard for him not to be in good spirits that day. Sure, he hadn’t slept at all the previous night because he was too busy thinking about that endearing look on a certain blonde’s face as he handed him that front-row ticket; nevertheless, sleep wasn’t something Norton usually got, so he was used to it.
It’s not like he also decided to actually play his usual poker games in the Mirage instead of the Bellagio; there was no reason for that, he just felt like it.
That’s what he told himself, but all he could think about was seeing that acrobat again. He didn’t really know anything about acrobatics in general, or if this guy was even going to stay. He wanted to worry about the potential outcome that the acrobat leaves after the show. Norton was never one to take advantage of the current moment.
There was nothing that Norton hated more than temporary things. The question that came up after that was, ‘Then why do you choose to stay in Las Vegas?’
Well, it was a simple choice. Even if the city was constantly in a state of change, the casinos usually stayed the same; he would see the same people dealing cards, the same people sitting around the same tables. If he were to go into the Mirage in the evenings, he would see Demi behind the counter.
It was a way of life; if you chose to make it yours, it was quite monotonous.
Norton stared across the green felt table at two familiar poker players, practically sitting on each other, no room for God between how they were practically glued together. Naib and Eli were both around the fresh age of 21 and should probably be in college somewhere but were instead wasting their lives in this unproductive, shithole of a city in the middle of some unproductive desert located in an equally unproductive state.
Fuck Nevada and low taxes. Norton wished that the government would take his money away so that he would be forced to do something with his life other than gamble.
Sure, Norton couldn’t blame them considering he was wasting his life and money away here too, but when he was their age he
actually had aspirations
, unlike those two lazy fucks. They weren’t even good at poker, but they were within the better group of usuals that he put up with for the sake of gambling.
He didn’t say anything to the two men, eyeing his chips to avoid looking at the disgusting way they eyed each other. Norton thought he saw Eli lick his lips at Naib, preferring to believe his mind was playing tricks on him.
“Call.”
Norton extended a gloved hand to slide a short stack of pale blue chips across the table. In response, the two players peeled away from each other just to look at him like he had grown a second head.
“What’s gotten you in such a good mood, Campbell?” Eli asked as Naib tried to tilt Eli’s cards off the table, but he only swatted his hand away.
“Yeah, you’ve been smiling at yourself like a lunatic,” Naib said as if he had not been deviously staring at the man he was practically attached to, like he wasn’t thinking about taking off all his clothes at the table.
“Did you manage to bag a baddie with a BBL?” Eli asked, and Norton thought about going up to him and punting him in the face.
Norton glanced over at the dealer, who kept her head down and placed another card in the middle of the table. Almost five. Almost done.
“Nothin’s happenin’ must be yer delusions,” Norton responded as he bet a stack of brown chips, not needing to look at his cards as another royal card was placed in the center of the table.
“Are you fucking kidding me? Why do you gotta go so expensive? Something must be wrong with you,” Naib said as he begrudgingly threw in the chips. Eli raised and told him off for ‘giving away his position.’
In Norton’s mind, he could already guess the state of both their cards but didn’t speak on it.
Naib and Eli began to bicker about how Naib kept “putting his big-ass feet on his legs,” then it advanced into Naib genuinely replying “You know what they say about big feet,” and at that point, the dealer went in to peel them away from each other.
Now sitting in their actually assigned seats, they were openly talking about how they missed ‘touching’ each other. Saying ‘Norton fucking hated playing games with these losers’ was beyond an understatement. There was only one reason he was in the Mirage and not the Bellagio.
That reason was why his mind wandered from the game. He would occasionally call or raise, not paying attention to the game anymore, searching for something else. Someone else.
His eyes explored the distant slot machines, the restaurants, and the people who floated aimlessly around. His black irises traced over the tables over by the indoor steakhouse, passing over many strangers before his vision quickly shot back to a certain head that he had looked over.
The ambient, orangish lighting caught in the flaxen curls of his hair. He was sitting by himself, staring down at a plate of food that even from a distance looked more fit for a group of 6 people than a single man alone.
He looked almost upset, and Norton was quickly knocked out of his thoughts when Eli called his name for likely the third time over.
“What?” Norton almost snapped, and Eli raised a brow. Naib was looking back, trying to see who Norton had been looking at.
“It’s showdown. You're not gonna show your cards?”
Norton blinked a few times, looking at all the hands that were already placed on the table.
“Oh, right.”
He put down a king and a jack, while the cards in the middle matched a flush. Naib threw up his hands and called Norton a witch, and then Eli threw in an “I can be your witch, let us touch magic wands-”
In any other situation, Norton would have grimaced and taken all his winnings just for them to feel the pain of empty pockets, but he was already getting up from the table.
“Y'all can split the winnings, I’ve gotta go.”
“What- you’re not even staying for blinds?” Naib exclaimed, but Norton was already up and walking over to the acrobat. He didn’t care if anyone was watching. It was kind of stupid that he was so infatuated with this stranger, which practically goes against every ideal he has set up for himself.
The strong lighting by his table caught on the softened planes of his face, and more of Mike’s freckles were made apparent as he neared closer.
Norton was too blinded by the fact that the blonde was sitting right in front of him to see how his shoulders were wired tight, or how his jaw was visibly clenched to a point where the muscles showed in his face. He saw how upset Mike was in all the ways he couldn’t see them.
Gloved fingers tapped the blonde on his shoulder, and his head jerked up.
Norton was surprised at how the blonde’s expression was almost rageful, with widened eyes and flared brows. What further intrigued him was how quickly he went from that expression to a bright smile, a little uncomfortable. He had shifted his expression like that a few times now, and Norton was curious as to why he was so quick to mask it.
The gambler studied him for a few moments, wondering if he should call it out before he moved to the chair across from him. Norton chuckled, shaking his head as he looked at the almost sheepish expression on Mike’s face.
“Easy there, tiger, jus’ wanted to ask if this seat’s taken.” He placed an open hand on the shoulder of the chair, looking down into those sparkling, troubled eyes with a grin.
Mike quickly shook his head no and smiled, “Go ahead,” he said, and he still looked a little nervous, but now, instead of the anxiety from before, Norton could see a light redness to Mike’s pale cheeks.
The sight brought a warmth to Norton that he couldn’t even deny he liked. Mike pushed the food on his plate around with his fork, his gaze naturally flitting down to hide his flustered expression.
“Heard you had rehearsal, didn’t go well?” Norton asked, reading into his troubled expression as he slowly took a piece of steak into his mouth.
The gambler didn’t look at his lips as this happened, no, that would be an exaggeration; he just had a habit of studying especially pretty people’s faces as they interacted with him. Yeah, that must be it. Not that he couldn’t get his mind off the fact that this guy was likely into him.
Then again, it might all be in his head. Mike Morton is famous and
so
beautiful that he probably had many women and men lined up for him. Norton Campbell was in the back of that line and likely had no chance.
Honestly, he wasn’t sure how making a move would go across either. He had never been one to go out of his way for other people and wasn’t sure if he could now. Norton was just content with his front-row seat and didn’t care too much if nothing happened, if he just got a chance to look at that sweet face.
Mike shook his head and swallowed, feeling Norton’s dark eyes on his face.
“No, it went alright, perhaps too well,” the blonde said with a sigh, setting down his fork. He stared down at the plate of Japanese Wagyu beef that he ordered and didn’t even check the price. Mike honestly wasn’t even hungry; he was just sad and wanted to spend money.
With the way the gambler looked at him, the acrobat felt like he was being examined on an operating table. On top of that, he was trying his best not to be awkward, but it was hard when Norton was speaking to him with that gravelly, 20-too-many-packs-of-cigarettes voice, and the buttons on his shirt were open, and with one downward glance, Mike could probably get an eyeful of muscular cleavage.
“Yer not gonna eat that, are ya’?”
Norton’s voice shocked Mike from his daze, and he looked down at the mounds of probably a thousand-dollar steak that he was going to forsake. He looked up as Norton began to take off his gloves. Long, thick, roughened fingers, pulling at leather. His eyes caught on the scar slithering up the man’s wrist and onto the back of his palm, and felt something churn in his gut.
“No, probably not,” Mike spoke slowly and was immediately silenced when he watched the fork transfer from his napkin, into a tanned, scarred hand, and suddenly a piece of steak was in Norton’s mouth. That action alone completely moved Mike’s attention to the burn to Norton’s lips.
He didn’t seem to care that it was the same fork the blonde had used.
“Are ya’ busy fer the rest of the day?” Norton asked even though he wasn’t quite done with chewing. Acrobat hoped to God that at this moment his face was not as red as it felt.
He wasn’t thinking about the way their lips had indirectly touched, and in no way did that send his brain into the memory of the tall, dark-haired man breathing smoke into his mouth with half-lidded eyes and a knowing grin.
“...No, I don’t think so,” Mike said after a prolonged moment of staring at the man’s handsomely rugged face.
“Ya’ been to any of the tourist spots ‘round here?” The past prospector asked, waving around the fork with a piece of steak on the end, cocking his head at Mike, angling his head to look up at the blonde through the tops of his lashes.
‘No, but you can tour me to your bed’
is what Mike wanted to say, but he opted for something more suitable for the situation.
“Not really, I haven’t gotten the chance,” the blonde said, clearing his throat as he tried not to look too hard into how wisps of Norton’s dark bangs fell into his equally dark eyes.
“Ya’ should go out with me. I’ll take you to Caesar’s Palace and the Venetian. Fake Italy crap. I think the air is a little too thick with marijuana inside for m’ preference, but it’s kinda pretty if ya’ like takin’ photos. Or if ya’ haven’t been to Europe.”
Mike didn’t have an affinity for taking photos and has even been to Italy for a few performances. Mike smiled anyway, this time with his teeth, temporarily forgetting his belief that he looked better with a close-lipped smile.
“Has anyone told you that you’re smooth with your words? It’s almost barbaric.” Mike said. Norton’s face visibly dropped. The blonde fought back a laugh as Norton frowned in response.
The dark-haired man was about to refute the blonde’s statement through a mouthful of meat when Mike interrupted.
“Yeah, Campbell. You can take me out.”
-
Caesar’s Palace was a large building that was a prime example of Las Vegas ‘stealing’ culture from another place and claiming it as its own. The Rome dupe of the city was primed in such a manner by being stuffed into a tiny plot. At the same time, tourists claim it isn’t entirely appropriation because the copies of old Roman statues and other aspects of culture pulled straight from Italy were all ‘cited’ in the copies.
In Norton’s mind, he believed the brain-dead tourists should just admit they are poor and can’t afford a flight to Rome, but he would never say that out loud as he took Mike through the building.
The ceilings were painted blue with hand-painted clouds, replicating a sky despite the air being thick with the smell of weed, and sweat. In addition to that, the air likely hadn’t been circulated properly since the years the building was established.
Every new step paved the way to another replica of some famous statue that Norton had seen one too many times by now.
The gambler never really had an interest in art or understood the artistic process, especially in sculpting, but he knew more than enough about art history.
He was raised in a family of one-percenters as his father was the owner of a mining deposit. While growing up it was considered of utmost importance to be posh and have a stick up your ass, so both of his parents invested in many material things. Material things include special edition art which they would hang up on every wall and make Norton memorize details about to potentially host guests.
Of course, if you want to prove that you are dignified, what is better than buying real Roman statues to put in your courtyard, or hiring Michelangelo restoration painters to work on a mural in your lobby, and then having your son memorize whole essays about all the works so that you can show your other one-percenter friends that you have ‘raised him right.’
Norton honestly hated talking about art, he did it so much when he was younger that even mentioning the names of famous sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini or renowned painter Sandro Botticelli brought a certain bitterness to his soul that almost nothing, besides the state of his life in this fuckass city, could bring upon him in the same manner.
But every single time he stopped talking, even for a breath of air, Mike’s eyes flitted away from the statues and to the floor.
Norton had no idea what could have possibly happened at rehearsal, or something else, to make the pretty acrobat so troubled. The only thing he knew for sure was that he would not stop talking no matter what.
On the subject of Bernini, they stopped in the center of the plaza, studying a copy of The Fountain of Gods, while Norton, having potentially gotten a smaller replica of this done in his family house’s rose garden, began to talk through the individual stories of the gods around the fountain.
He didn’t even need to look at the statue, keeping his eyes to the blonde curls that looked like coils of soft hay, glowing iridescently under the room’s violet lighting. It was more than a miracle to think that the broken-down gambler was currently on a date with such a gorgeous man after only interacting with him over the course of two days. The black-haired man didn’t know when but in the process of stopping to look at the statue, the blonde had somehow ventured closer to his side. Norton glanced down at him, his words slowing before catching in his raspy throat.
Mike was looking up at him with a head craned back from the sheer height difference alone. Yeah, Norton’s mind might have immediately gone to other things due to the proximity between them, but looking down into his eyes, split between crystal-blue and burnt-sienna, Norton saw the saddest expression he might have seen, save for his own whenever he looks in the mirror, in his entire existence.
For a moment, he paused and really took that face in, but the gambler could only go so far as he was instantly distracted by a smooth-lipped smile. The acrobat, on the other hand, found it enticing that he could easily fool such a seemingly closed-off man.
“You talk a lot for someone who seems so gloomy,” Mike said, expression light in a manner that did not reach his eyes, nor the rest of his tightly wired body.
“M’ just tryna make sure ya’ aren’t-” Norton started, and every last syllable immediately died on his lips as he felt smaller fingers first reach for the back of his fingers, before lacing their hands between their sides.
It brought a smile to Mike’s face to watch that angular face freeze up, eyes darting down to a pale thumb that glided softly over the tops of his burnt knuckles.
Mike wanted to be bitter, looking at the burns. He knew that such a familiar sight stirred something ugly within him. The acrobat’s crystal irises traced around his hand and wrist, watching the scars trace up beneath the gambler's sleeve.
But there was something else that stirred within him; something so profound that he couldn’t even tell if it was worse or better than ugly. Whatever it was, it likely wasn’t good news for him. He couldn’t get wrapped up in something that was only to last one more day after this one.
Sunday was the show, and after that, everything would come to a close. It was selfish that he didn’t want it to end. It was stupid that he held the man’s hand tighter than he had before.
“I’m alright, Norton. I’m glad to be here with you.” Mike stated as a final thought to push away the other.
It was obvious that the gambler didn’t understand a thing about the acrobat. It was obvious from the glow in his eye and the flush in his cheek that he simply thought the blonde was pretty. Why should Mike blame him? That was how he portrayed himself. That’s how he wanted to be seen because he knew he could never see himself in such a light.
But it felt wrong. Even as he stood there quietly, holding Norton’s hand, wishing that he could touch more than just his palms, he felt like he was standing far away. Standing outside and looking into some distant lie which some formless version of himself partook in.
“Well- there’s not much more in this shitty place, but if ya’ wouldn’t mind walking, we could go to the Venetian. They got-” Mike could feel the sweat developing off Norton’s palm.
“They got Gondolas- and a tour probably ‘round this time,” Norton’s voice was shaky, punctuated by a constant clearing of his throat.
If the gambler didn’t feel stupid before, talking as much as possible just so that the head of flaxen curls wouldn’t angle towards the ground, he definitely felt stupid now.
Just two days ago, he had effectively almost kissed this guy and poured smoke, with his own mouth, into this guy's mouth, with no hesitation and no problem at all. Now he could barely think or speak straight, just because this guy was holding his hand.
“We’d have to walk there- I don’t wanna keep ya’ out too late cause ya’ got a big day tomorrow-”
“We can go, I don’t mind. We have the time.” Mike answered for Norton. When he looked into dark eyes and watched a curled lip open up to flash shining teeth, he for a moment forgot about The Grime.
He let himself be led forward, he let himself laugh and smile, leaning his weight to rest on the taller, sturdy body next to him when looking at some knock-off painting in some over-decorated hallway.
He thought about leaning in, going for more, but the anxiety of tomorrow's performance would return to him. It was hard to ignore the fact that the man he was enjoying so much would see how horrible his state of being truly was. No smile or dismissive statement could cover up the devastation that mapped his fragile body.
They booked a tour and, after exploring through corridors and shops that smelled way too strongly of a multitude of illegal substances, they made their way to the Gondola, sitting in an indoor river which was likely a mix of tap water and fecal matter.
It was a long black boat with a poorly done paint job, where scratches unveiled a distasteful yellow hue underneath. At the end of the boat stood a freakishly dressed mime with tattered clothes and a black eye that was poorly covered by smudged white face paint.
He was smoking a thick cigar that had a putrid scent, smelling equally of an unwashed dog and gasoline. Both Mike and Norton wondered for a brief moment how this man was able to hold down his job. The dark-haired man was going to ask the poorly dressed mime why he was wearing an ankle monitor, but the two had been staring too long, and the worker instantly shot them down.
“Get in zi boat. One at zay time. Don’t fall in za wata. Noboty knowz who took zay leak in tere.” The mime punctuated each sentence with an incredibly heavy and forced Italian accent that millennial women like using to narrate their Facebook posts with the intention of being quirky and different, when it really just makes them look idiotic.
Norton got in first and turned around, offering a hand to Mike,
“Nuh zuh! Zit down. Like I zaid before” The mime barked and the gambler quickly complied even though the tour guide had not specified so earlier. Norton sat on the second bench in front of the mime, and Mike joined him shortly after.
Norton could feel the full length of Mike’s thigh resting against the side of his leg, and when they were fully seated, he could even see the hint of muscles through the thick fabric of the blonde’s jeans.
Norton looked away, his hand resting over his knee, thinking about crossing over towards the man next to him, just a little. His pinky finger made it off his pants when a booming voice filled the air.
“No buzzinez all day til you two come inz and wreckz my day! I don’t getz paid enough aftar I went to prison for za firzt time. Uzeless touriztz. I hate ziz job.”
The mime’s complaints faded into low grumbling, but even then Norton held still, his hand glued right back to its original place on his knee.
The gambler was sure that the tour guide was not even watching the direction of the boat, given that he almost crashed multiple times and almost fell off on the fourth. He was entirely sure that every single time he tried to remotely put his arm around Mike, or even threatened to look in his direction, the mime flipped out about his experiences in jail and how bad his job was.
Without all the noise and water being splashed in both Norton and Mike’s faces from a very bad paddling job, it was pretty. Although clearly fake, going under arches and looking at couples and families dining at the restaurants over the water was pretty. Ambient lighting, low chatter, and ‘river’ water meant to look turquoise, glowing beneath the boat's hull.
The only good thing about the 5-minute loop around the tap water river among awkward silence and a prisoner dressed as a mime directing a boat he barely knew how to paddle was that every single time the tour guide almost crashed the boat, it would further push the gambler and the acrobat together.
They had stopped holding hands at the start due to avoiding the mime’s predictably crashouts, but by the end were back to it. Norton seemed less nervous now, and because Mike was usually looking away or back towards the mime, he took all the chances to admire his face.
He assumed that the acrobat did not notice all the glances he would blatantly steal at the curve of his cheek and the upturned slope of his nose, but he did. Even when the blonde didn’t look, he could feel it. Sometimes it made him smile, while other times he looked down at his arms.
Even through his sleeves, he could see every burn, and in mental protest, he pulled the fabric further above his wrists, even though there was nothing to be seen.
Mike noticed most things about Norton that the gambler simply assumed he wouldn’t. There was one thing that Mike didn’t pay enough attention to see clearly.
A dark brow would furrow upon every subtle microexpression the blonde would make. Dark eyes silently watching how, in disregard of being so fit, Mike had an evident slouch when he sat. He would constantly pull at his sleeves and collar.
At first, Norton didn’t think anything of it, but as they got up and out of the boat, Norton could see a glimpse of dusty pink barely peeking out from between the bottom of Mike’s hairline and the top of his turtleneck. He had craned his neck to step out, but as soon as he was up straight and smiling at Norton, there was nothing unusual about the guy at all.
His eyes were right on Norton. He smiled, and nothing was different. But his eyes, with all their depth in color and webs, were completely flat.
Despite this, he held out his hand to Norton above the sounds of shouted complaints from the prisoner mime and waited.
Norton just stood there, thinking and looking like a fumbling fool, until Mike finally laughed.
“You can’t keep me out here all night, Campbell.” The blonde was about to turn away when the dark-haired man came up to his side and took his hand quickly.
“I’ll walk ya’ back to the Astoria. I’m gonna’ go to the Mirage for a drink.”
They walked back with their hands tied together. When they stood outside the Waldorf Astoria’s tall glass windows, a bellhop came towards the door to greet them. Norton glared at him with every ounce of intimidation he had in his entire body, and it must have worked because the man turned around without stepping a foot outside.
Norton’s attention returned to the shorter man, who now stood fully in front of him and had taken each of his hands in his corresponding own.
Mike wanted to invite him inside. There was a drink menu that could be delivered with room service in his suite. He had his room to himself for the most part, and it wasn’t even that late.
They stood beneath the hotel's entrance, shielded from the open, but the sound of strangers rushing past in their journey to nowhere was still evident in the chatter and honking of cars that lifted through the air, humming some distant melody.
The emotion that filled his gut and head hurt more than any weight the scars on his body could give.
Norton looked back into the hotel's entrance at the traditional clock on the back wall and squinted, before looking back down at Mike with a toothy grin.
He knew that this wasn’t going to work.
Even then, Norton stood there waiting for Mike to say whatever he obviously had on his mind. Of course Norton had no idea all the different possibilities of speech that scoured Mikes brain like ‘I’m not who you think I am,’ ‘My body is hideous,’ ‘There’s no point in seeing each other, we’ll forget who we are after tomorrow,” or the most unrealistic option which would be ‘My bed is empty and awaiting your brooding, dark presence.’
The acrobat ended up with nothing good to say. The gambler was speaking to him, probably a ‘Goodnight’ or something about the show tomorrow. He didn’t hear him, for his mind went on to think other things, led on by Mike’s hand coming up to cup Norton’s cheek.
Every last word died in his mouth as Mike leaned up towards him, guiding his face to angle down a bit. Norton just stood there with eyes blown wide as the shorter man kissed his cheek, but it was much closer to the corner of his mouth than anywhere else.
All Norton could think of was how much softer Mike’s lips were than they already looked.
“Sorry, I was out of it today. I really like being with you, Norton. You know a lot about this place. I was really skeptical about my stay here. I’ve been to Las Vegas before, but the city has always been dead. You’ve really brought it to life for me, Norton.” Mike said with a wry smile that broke out into a laugh as Norton was still frozen like a board. Even his hands were stiff, like his mind had deliberately shut off.
Norton left his trance at the sound of Mike’s laughter, and instinctively the first thing he wanted to do was stand over him, put him up against the hotel's side wall (where there were no security cameras but Norton never tried to break into the building after he was evicted at one point in his gambling career so he wouldn’t know) and start kissing him again. But he knew he shouldn’t embarrass himself any further.
After all, he was already flustered away from his mind, worse than any middle school girl had likely ever experienced. Norton’s head was so hot and immediately flooded with so many thoughts that he was sure his whole body was gonna explode.
He was sure he was red, because Mike just laughed more at him, and although Norton mentally cursed himself for being a creep and liking the sound so much, he really did.
“I did enjoy m’ time with ya’ Mike. I would invite ya’ to stay out with m,’ but I know ya’ got a show…Get yerself some good rest, ‘kay Morton?” Norton asked and brushed his thumb along the side of Mike’s pink-dusted cheek.
“Front Row tomorrow, I’ll be waiting for you. Goodnight Norton.”
“‘Night,” was all he could force out between his lips with the fear that his beating heart would hike up into his throat and seize his words.
Mike was smiling as he turned away, and Norton was too stuck in his own thoughts and delusions to see that the slouch in the blonde’s back was gone.