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New York – November, 1989
Shiro had politely declined the Holts’ invitation to join them for Thanksgiving dinner this year, but he is decidedly grateful for the several tupperware containers worth of leftovers Matt brought back for him. Cooking has become a chore Shiro rarely feels up to anymore. Money's too tight for take-out and he was a mediocre cook when he had both hands. Now he’s downright useless in the kitchen.
He’s reheating a serving of turkey and mashed potatoes when there’s a knock on the door. Matt left for his evening shift barely five minutes ago and Shiro assumes he forgot his keys again. Instead he opens the door to find a shivering stranger looking at him expectantly.
When he doesn’t introduce himself, Shiro offers an uncertain, “Can I help you?”
“Got a light?” the guy asks, tweaking a cigarette between his fingers.
Shiro got rid of his lighter to discourage himself from smoking. Wasn’t very effective.
“I think I have some matches…” he steps back, beckoning the guy into the flat. On closer inspection, he’s younger than Shiro initially thought, but just as handsome—sharp chin, thick lashes under his oily black fringe. And he’s familiar, but not in the way the building’s other tenants usually are. Shiro wants to ask where they’ve met, but the way the kid’s shoulders shake—also familiar—is a more pressing concern. “Are you okay?”
The shivering halts abruptly. “Just cold.”
Shiro smirks. “It’s not that cold.”
“I’m from Arizona. If it’s snowing, it’s fucking cold.” After a moment he adds, “They turned off my heat.”
There are no lights on in the apartment—no reason to flirt with the electricity bill when the Christmas lights strung across every surface outside provide a decent amount of illumination through curtainless windows. Decent enough, anyway, that Shiro can tell that it’s not just cold. The kid is pale and has dark circles under his eyes. He’s sick.
“What are you staring at?” He asks it with the confidence of someone who knows he’s gorgeous, dark circles and all.
“Nothing,” Shiro shakes his head. “I feel like I’ve seen you around somewhere.”
The kid’s lip twitches, amused. “We live in the same building.”
Shiro picks up a woolen jacket thrown over the back of the sofa and drapes it around the boy’s shoulders. Matt would make fun of him for fussing if he were here, but his neighbor doesn’t react but for a blip of uncertainty. He lets the jacket engulf his smaller frame, doesn’t thank Shiro, but watches him carefully and settles himself on the sofa’s arm while Shiro pads to the kitchenette to get the matches.
“What floor are you on?” Shiro asks.
“Eight.”
Shiro pauses his rummaging through the clutter drawer. This kid came down three flights to get his cigarette lit?
If Shiro didn’t know any better, he’d think he was being flirted with.
Finding his matchbox, he lights a flame and offers it to the boy—
—who leans in with the cigarette between his pursed lips, introducing the tip to Shiro’s match. He looks up at Shiro through his eyelashes the whole time.
God. He is being flirted with.
Shiro clears his throat, averts his eyes. It’s been too long since he’s done this and he needs some time to strategize or something. “Hold onto the jacket. At least until you get your heat back.”
The kid looks conflicted and Shiro thinks he’s going to refuse when he takes his cigarette out of his mouth, but he just says, “Thanks,” and pushes off the couch gracefully. “Good night.”
Shiro doesn’t watch him leave. He’s looking at the baggie on his couch cushion that could have only fallen out of the boy’s pocket—Matt only smokes marijuana and Shiro himself hasn’t used since before he was drafted.
Not sick.
“Good night,” he says belatedly, but the kid’s already shutting the door behind him.
As soon as it clicks shut, Shiro grabs the bag and stuffs it in the front pocket of his flannel.
He’s not surprised when there’s another, more frantic knock mere seconds later.
“Need one for the road?” he asks when he opens the door again.
“Think I dropped something.” This time the kid doesn’t wait for an invitation, pushing past Shiro and making a beeline for the couch. Shiro lets him, but doesn’t offer any assistance, preferring to appreciate the view of the kid bent over the arm of his sofa.
He curses and gives up rifling through Shiro’s couch cushions. When he looks over his shoulder, Shiro doesn’t quite wipe the triumph off his face in time and the kid’s eyes narrow, his mouth quirking knowingly around his cigarette.
“You’re staring again,” he accuses. “See something you like?”
The way his eyes reflect the glow of his cigarette. The way his hair soaks up the moonlight. The way his ass looks in those black jeans.
“I—“ Shiro swivels back towards the kitchen. “Just—you look familiar.”
“So do you.” Unsurprisingly, the kid follows.
“Do I?”
“Kinda remind me of my dad.”
The full-body cringe that results in must be conspicuous because the kid laughs as he inserts himself into Shiro’s personal space. It’s a short raspy laugh that has no business quickening Shiro’s heartbeat like it does.
“Not into that, huh?” His smile is devilish now, and he’s so close Shiro can smell the tobacco on his breath. “Sorry, didn’t mean anything weird by it. Just—“ he transfers his cig to his other hand so he can tap the edge of Shiro’s face with one long finger, doing nothing to subdue the flush warming Shiro’s cheeks. “Same jawline.”
“Not helping.” Shiro smacks the hand away gently, but not before shamelessly noting how small it is in comparison to his own. “Seriously, where have I seen you before?”
The kid shrugs and hesitates before admitting, “I work at a club. On 14th street.”
Fuck. That place.
He works at a male strip joint. If this kid hasn’t already intuited Shiro’s gay, he’s just confirmed it.
It shouldn’t set off alarms in his head--the guy came to flirt, didn’t he? Probably. But Shiro’s not exactly out to anyone who’s still alive. Not even Matt, to whom he’d regularly entrusted his life when they were deployed together, knows about the gay bars or the magazines hidden in his closet. And the shame is a reflex. The few occasions he’d visited that club he was feeling at his most depraved, and those feelings had haunted him for days afterwards.
He swallows it. “I know the one.” And Shiro still can’t place the kid exactly, but he’d put money on him not being old enough to tend the bar, so. “You, uh. Dance?”
The boy shrugs. He’s shivering again, just barely, and Shiro can’t tell whether it’s nerves or withdrawal now. “Pays the bills,” he says.
Shiro lifts an eyebrow.
“Mostly.”
“Unless you—say, for example—spend it all on smack,” Shiro offers.
His guest says nothing, but his eyes narrow dangerously. God, Shiro can’t not goad him.
“Why are you working in a place like that, anyway? What are you? Sixteen?” He’s mostly teasing, though the boy could almost pass for it with his height and the poor lighting.
“Nineteen,” the kid retorts. “But I’m old for my age.”
Shiro can’t help but scoff, and he knows it must come off as infuriatingly condescending. But he’s thinking, yeah, he knows the feeling all too well.
“Guess we have a lot in common.”
The kid circles Shiro like a predator, giving him a long once-over that’s somehow equal parts appreciative and scathing. “I really doubt that.”
Shiro can only imagine what he must look like to the teenage stripper standing in his tiny kitchen. Even before the army, before the empty shirt sleeve and the buzzed hair that give him away as ex-military, people had pegged him as a straight-laced, disciplined, boring bootlicker. It was annoying, although he’d been able to play the persona to his advantage sometimes, back in his wilder days.
“Would you believe me if I told you I used to shiver like that—“
“It’s freezing—“ the kid argues.
“Shivering, sweating, blowing my paycheck on dope—“
“I get it, okay?”
“I’ve been there,” Shiro says, all sympathy and no judgement. “So you can cut the bullshit.”
“Mind your business,” the boy spits. “I’m not in the mood for a lecture, dad.” He shoves lightly at Shiro’s chest and his hand lands directly over Shiro’s breast pocket. He must feel the lump there because his eyes narrow and he doesn’t withdraw his hand, but instead feels up the pocket. This time there’s a distinct crunch.
“I think you’re moving a little fast,” Shiro says, wrenching the hand off his chest.
“What? I’m already wearing your jacket--that’s practically second base, right?” the kid argues, struggling against Shiro’s attempts to put distance between them.
“Is that so?” Shiro says, seizing one skinny wrist. “Guess I’m just old-fashioned.”
It’s no good. His opponent has two hands, and he’s fished his stash out of Shiro’s shirt before Shiro can do anything about it.
“You can buy me dinner next time, then.” The boy pockets his baggie triumphantly and turns on his heel.
Next time. Shiro isn’t even sure what this time constitutes, but he doesn’t get enough human interaction these days to get hung up on trivialities. Besides, he has a feeling he’ll find out sooner rather than later. This guy doesn’t strike him as patient.
“Okay,” he says lamely.
“I’m Keith, by the way,” says the kid, walking backwards towards the door.
Shiro commits it to memory. “My friends call me Shiro.”
“See you around, Shiro.” Keith gives a final wave before disappearing into the shadows of the hall. After the glow of his cigarette disappears around the corner, Shiro moves to shut the door behind him. He lets his forehead thud against it as he listens to the clatter of Keith’s boots on the stairs.
He’s not sure how, but he seems to have gotten a date.