Chapter 7: Things That Piss Off England

“Nick, you kinky fucker,” he groused, wrapping his arm around Nick’s neck and running his fingers through his curly... hair? “Oh my god, Athos! Have some shame!”

“He likes you,” Nick muttered from somewhere on the other side of the pillows.

“I thought he liked Aramis,” Spence retorted, immediately biting his lips, even as his mind was flooded with memories of the bizarre conversation from the previous night. “I mean... you know. They’re always... humping each other?”

“They need to be walked,” came Nick’s quiet, resigned reply, and then the bed shifted and Spence suddenly found himself bereft of the furnace that had been keeping him warm all night. Nick did give off quite an extraordinary amount of body heat. Even fully clothed, as they had apparently fallen asleep, after polishing off that bottle of Glenfiddich. “Listen, Spence...” Nick’s voice was uncertain as he loomed over the bed, rubbing the back of his head in a rather sheepish yet adorable fashion. “I may have said some stuff to you last night when we were drinking. About my poodles?” His hand nervously toyed with a leash that sported three leads on it.

“Did you? I admit, I can’t hold my liquor as well as you,” Spence lied. “I cannot recall half of what we spoke of.”

Nick gave him a long look. At first, it appeared cold with disdain at the blatant prevarication, before softening and dissolving as Nick nodded. A smile of half-gratitude curved into the corner of his mouth.

“I’ll stay,” he replied, and burrowed deeper into the pillows. He could not stand the thought of Nick seeing him blushing just at that moment.

Spence didn’t know how long of a walk Nick’s pet musketeers required, but having freshened up and helped himself to some mediocre Holiday Inn coffee, he thought he might see if the Muses were upon him. He twirled a pen between his fingers as he stared at the hotel notepad before him. The blank page taunted him back. Lenore had liked his post-coital pining. Having actually tasted the ambrosia of Nick’s cock on more than one occasion, the pining was at the moment somewhat subdued. However, the task remained. A rock ballad begged to be written.

Things That Piss Off England

Well, that didn’t sound particularly romantic. Or rocktastic, for that matter. He couldn’t very well have Nick sing about the Fourth of July, could he? Could he?

You are fire... You and I are fire... You are my fireworks.

I am the match and you’re the firework,

We can start a revolution,

Scream until the Earth awoke.

Pathetic. Spence shook his head at himself. Still, he might be onto something with this whole fireworks thing. He bet the British hated fireworks. Maybe he could work the French into this too, somehow.

He had been so engrossed, he almost didn’t notice his leg being humped at all.

“Athos, god damn it!” He ran his fingers through the curls on the dog’s head and floppy ears while the canine smiled at him happily, mid-hump. “Can’t you ever say hello like the civilized gentleman your daddy taught you to be?”

“Oh, you’re...” Nick raised his eyebrow and clenched his jaw. “You’re asking for it, Mr. Spencer.”

Nick’s hand was curled in the front of Spence's shirt, pulling him to his feet until they stood chest to chest. “Still gagging for my cock, aren’t you, boy?”

“I ask not for myself, but for Art,” Spence retorted, leaning forward until he could pull Nick’s lower lip between his teeth. “I need to be inspired. Think of the song. Think of the band.” His hand cupped the comforting heaviness of Nick’s sack. “Think of... the Apollo Awards.”

Nick’s eyes lit up. “You want me to fuck you for the Apollo?” he purred against Spence’s ear, a low, dangerous growl.

Nick should have been in a much better mood, all things considered. Spending the morning and much of the afternoon buried balls deep in the delectable ass of one Jordan Spencer had been a glorious undertaking, and normally would have been the best way to prepare for a show. Instead, the melancholy that had driven him to retreat the day before into retrospective thoughts and violin still lingered, compounded by the annoying vulnerability of having told Spence... told Spence about the poodles.

He grabbed someone's half-full plastic bottle of shitty ass rye off the makeup table in the green room as he paced back and forth, uncapping it and taking a generous swig. Then another. Inner confidence, he'd long ago learned, could be easily replicated on stage by copious amounts of liquor.

Seated at the counter, Jake looked up at him in the mirror, halfway through careful application of copious amounts of eyeliner.

“Looking at you,” Jake mused, “one would never know you’ve been getting your dick wet on the regular at all.” He glanced at Guns, over in the hairdresser’s chair. “Is that what they call it? Getting your dick wet? Doesn’t seem right if it’s going in the ass, does it?”

“The fuck are you asking me for?” Chad shot back without any obvious rancor. “Adelle, for fuck’s sakes, don’t make me look like Vanilla Ice!” he begged their hair and makeup artist, who had a penchant for tight bustiers and an overabundance of hair gel.

Nick’s lack of response was evidence enough of his utter obliviousness. They needed Nick either angry or horny for the show, not whatever the fuck emo shit that he was wallowing in currently.

“Perhaps you should get a cat?” Jake continued, undeterred. “I hear they lower blood pressure. But then again, you’d have to be okay with pussy, as a concept.”

"Fuck you, Jake," Nick growled, chugging back another swig of the rye to cover for his inability to produce the usual rancor. He tried to ignore the feeling of Spence's eyes on him from the corner of the room, knowing that if he acknowledged the boy that he'd see the same mix of adoration and sympathy that he very much did not want to have to respond to at the moment.

The door to the green room pushed open, filling the small space with the ridiculous noise of the opening band. Lenore, lips pursed in annoyance, surveyed them. "You ready? Audience is going to eat these talentless hacks alive if we don't get out there soon." Her eyes fell to the bottle in Nick's hand, one brow raising. "You can fucking perform, can't you?"

"Of course I can fucking perform," Nick growled, clinging to the surge of annoyance her words rose in him. He pushed past her and through the door, chucking the bottle of rye at the wall for added effect.

It wasn't a terrible show, in the end. The shitty openers had done him a bit of a favor with their ineptitude. When he had given up his dream of playing Carnegie Hall for good, he never expected his audience would ever be discriminating enough to know any better. He had underestimated his audience. It almost made him question what Spence had said - about his singing ability, or lack thereof. Almost.

By halfway through the set Nick was properly fuming, screaming obscenities at the audience, grabbing his own crotch, ripped t-shirt drenched with sweat under the heat of the stage lights. It was exactly the space that he needed to be in, the reason he kept coming back to this life night after night, beyond the need to stick it to his father. The roar of the crowd and the burn of his anger fed into a kind of euphoria, burning hot through his veins, better than any drug. Part of him wanted to stay there forever, feeding off the audience, ignoring things like musical prizes and beautiful young men with big blue eyes.

As they were nearing the end of the encore he caught sight of Kalani in with the security before the barriers. He was trying to tell him something, but Nick was too caught up in the performance to care. "FUCK ENGLAND!" he screamed into the mic, thrusting his zippo into the kerosene soaked mass of the Union Jack that hung in the middle of the stage, then taking a run at the crowd to dive over the guards and the barrier into the surging, adoring mass of arms that caught him and held him aloft. It didn't last long - it never did - but in the moments before the meaty hand on his ankle hauled him back to safety nothing else existed but the physical, hundreds of voices united, sweaty hands moving him and tearing at his clothes and caring about absolutely nothing but the moment.

"Fuck off!" he yelled back at Kalani as he scrambled back on stage, throwing the remains of his shirt into the audience (take that, Charles Vain!) as Sloane and Jake banged out the final chords of the song, before striding off stage, nerves singing in satisfaction as the final crash of the symbols and screech of guitar distortion faded.

Off stage, and right into the waiting form of the most beloved ghost from his past: one Shani Agarwal.

“Nicky!” the beautiful brunette threw herself into Nick’s embrace, her own long arms, the hue of burnished copper, coming to wrap around his neck like two pythons. What the fuck, Spence frowned and clenched his teeth so hard that his jaw hurt.

“Shani... you’re here...” Nick’s voice was very soft, softer than Spence had ever heard it before.

Who the fuck is Shani? It should have been him with his limbs all over Nick after the show.

“Come on, lad,” Verlaine’s voice pulled Spence from his thoughts. “Let’s give the lovebirds some privacy.” Lovebirds! Poor Spence’s mind screamed in agony.

“I told you I was coming,” the beautiful enchantress was saying. “You do check your email still, don’t you, Nicky?”

“You need a mother and a maid,” the woman laughed, her hand brushing against what Spence now knew with certainty would be the soft fuzz at the nape of Nick’s skull.

Spence’s eyes hurt. Who was this woman? Why was Nick being so nice to her? Letting her touch him like that? Looking at her like that? How dare she call him Nicky? What magic had she used to ensnare him? Come to think of it, Spence’s entire brain hurt.

Someone’s hand was insistently pulling at Spence’s elbow. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s impolite to stare?” Even Verlaine’s hair seemed somehow bitchy to Spence as he looked up.

“Who is that woman?” he asked, reluctantly following the bassist away from whatever horrors were unfolding before his eyes. Nick and a woman! Nick and a woman!!!

“Shani Agarwal,” Nyx purred into Spence’s other ear. “A very old, very dear friend of Nick’s.”

“She’s also very rich and very beautiful and he is very much at her beck and call,” Nyx continued. “Not that I’m complaining. The band has needed a mysterious benefactress on more than one occasion, and I, for one, am not above taking Mrs. Agarwal’s money.”

“Widowed, I hear.” Sloane made a slicing sign across her throat that made Spence’s own clench. “Rumor has it, she killed her husband so she can be unencumbered to pursue a torrid love affair with Nick.”

Finally Jake seemed to take pity on Spence's desperation. "Look. She's not the one riding around in the bus now, is she? If you had anything to worry about, you wouldn't be here to begin with."

Spence tried to tell himself that Jake's words made logical sense. But logic and emotion were rare bedfellows, and though he tried to tell himself to just take an early night, when he returned to the hotel room he found himself restless and irritable. He finally turned on some shitty house hunting reality TV show to keep himself from physically pacing, digging out the remnants of a bottle of shitty vodka from his bag and wishing there was enough of it to get disgustingly shitfaced.

Was she British? She sounded British. “Fuck England!” Spence spat out from the depth of his own despair. For a moment, he wondered if this was the same pit of despair where Nick’s most terrible verses came from. Should he also put pen to paper? He pushed the idea away as soon as it arose. Nothing but disgusting emo drivel would come of that.

He pulled out his phone and thought about texting Hiro. He’d be well on his way home right now, to his Adult Job, in his Adult Car. Spence had been lucky he’d agreed to come with him as far as Chicago in the first place. Besides, what could he possibly tell his best friend that wouldn’t get him mocked at this point?

The last thing he expected was the knock that came at his door sometime later. Angrily, he rose from the bed where he'd thrown himself, tossing the empty bottle in the trash on his way to fling open the door. "What?!"

He wasn't sure who he'd expected, irritated at his bout of self-indulgent bad humor being interrupted by one of the band or a poorly timed housekeeping call. Instead it was Nick, visibly startled. "Sorry - did I wake you? Didn't think you'd have gone to bed yet."

The Spence that had spent the past hour or so fuming at the television had practiced a hundred snappy, snarky lines. Suddenly they all slipped away, Nick's demeanor disarming him completely. "Uh, no. No, I..." he waved one hand towards the TV as if a pair of boomers trying to buy a beach home explained everything.

Nick's eyebrows knit together as he regarded the TV. "Oh. Well, if you want to finish...."

"No! No, it's just - it was on." Spence lunged for the TV remote to turn off the offending media. As he did, Nick slipped into the room, flicking the lock behind him.

"I'm glad you waited up for me," he said, his voice the same kind of soft Spence had heard him use with The Witch, a softness that effectively pushed away the rest of his anger.

Nick gave a fond, soundless laugh. Then he was pulling Spence into his arms, into his kisses, warm and intent and pushing every remaining thought from Spence's head. Nick pulled back, regarding Spence with a strange, soft intensity. His fingers brushed the stray curls away from Spence’s eyes and stroked down to his chin.

Spence opened his mouth. “I could make a few suggestions.” The chuckle spread from Nick’s chest down his arm and vibrated in the palm of his hand that still lay pressed against Spence’s cheek. He turned his head and pressed his lips into the center of Nick’s palm. It tasted of hotel soap. Nick had washed his hands recently. Had he washed his hands because they had been inside her? Spence's lower lip trembled before he could stop it.

"Hey..." This strange, soft Nick caught his mouth in another gentle kiss before he could speak, fingers sliding into Spence's hair to hold him to it. "I can go if you want. But I'd like to stay here with you."

Was he here because she was in his room? Suddenly Spence didn't want to know. He wrapped his arms up around Nick's neck, trembling, pulling him down onto the bed on top of him. Nick was here, Nick had come to him. That was all he should be thinking about.

Nick gave a pleased noise against his mouth, body solid and strong over him. "I'm really glad you waited up," he murmured again, fingers sliding up inside Spence's shirt.

Spence closed his eyes, tried to tell himself to let it go. Nick was here, and it wasn't Spence's place to make demands. But as Nick's fingers trailed over his ribcage he couldn't help but wonder, picture Nick lifting the woman's shirt, kissing her full breasts reverently, taking her to his bed....

"Who is she?" The words were pathetically small as they slipped from his mouth, but it was enough to freeze Nick in place. His lips tightened against Spence's, and when he finally spoke his voice was gruff.

With a groan, Nick rolled off of him, glaring up at the ceiling. “Please... Jordan?” Nick’s head rolled over and his eyes smoldered in the darkness of the room. “Can we please just... Can we please just be this right now?” Uncertainly, Nick’s hand pressed against Spence’s bare chest and his heart gave a powerful beat of rebellion against that soft touch.

“This?” Spence bit his lip. “I very much get that I am nothing but this to you.” He moved Nick’s hand off his chest. “Unlike her. Whoever the fuck she is to you.”

“What? Feelings?” Nick sat up. “Have I ever asked you to pretend anything at all? Have I ever asked anything of you that you weren’t willing to give?”

“And to think, I just spent hours speaking with Shani about you, when we could have been speaking of a million other things. I told her that when I was with you, I finally felt something like being at peace again...” Nick began to laugh, an ugly laughter that appeared to cut his face in half.

Spence felt his heart crack at the sight of it. He pressed close desperately, catching Nick's face in his hands. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I said anything, please - please forget it. I didn't mean - "

He half expected Nick to pull away in anger, but instead he kissed him, letting out a sound against his lips halfway between desperation and desolation. "You devil," he breathed, fingers tightening in Spence's hair. "Beglamouring me so. When I say you have nothing to worry about from her, I mean it. Will you afford me that much trust?"

“I’m sorry,” Spence whispered again, feeling as if his eyes were about to fill with unmanly moisture. “I was jealous and I know I have no right to feel that way.” His lips chased Nick’s in a desperate attempt to keep him close. “It’s just... she called you Nicky... And I... All I’ve ever called you is...”

“What?” Nick smiled, his warm hands smoothing down Spence’s neck as if stroking a horse that was about to bolt.

“Sir.” Spence wrinkled his nose in consternation. “Don’t laugh at me,” he pouted when it looked as if Nick was about to do just that.

Nick’s fingers tightened in Spence’s hair and he buried his face in the crook of Spence’s neck, hot air coming in telltale puffs that informed Spence his wishes were not being honored.

“But it feels so good to laugh,” Nick muttered, his words caressing Spence’s earlobe. “You have no idea how good it feels. You make me feel so good, Jordan. You adorable, precious minx.”

“I want to make you feel good,” Spence confessed, beginning to relax a bit into the weight of Nick’s body. With the looming question of Shani now, if not completely solved, at least no longer worrying, his libido was quickly reminding him of the lovely things Nick had been trying to do to him a few minutes prior. He tilted his head back as Nick's teeth started to worry a path down his neck, the sensation a shiver that ran right to his cock. "It's all I've ever wanted," he breathed, closing his eyes in pleasure at Nick's low, approving hum.

Again Nick's fingers pressed under the hem of his shirt, warm and sure, smoothing up over his ribs. "Then who am I to argue with such a thing, if it gives you pleasure?" His teeth pressed into the roll of muscle at the crook of Spence’s neck, biting down briefly with a low groan. Like a brand, Spence thought with a rush of pleasure, imagining the imprints of Nick's teeth tattooing his skin in bruises for the world to see.

"Adorable and incorrigible," Nick growled, pulling away from his neck long enough to pull Spence's shirt up over his head, sending his curls tumbling down wildly over Spence's bare shoulders. Nick's mouth was at his neck again, clamping down in a brief lick of pain, then lessening, sucking at the abused skin and lathing with his tongue. The intensity of Nick's mouth was enough to drive every thought from his head, leaving Spence panting for breath, writhing and grinding his cock into Nick's stomach as Nick's teeth worried his skin again and again.

"Mine," Nick growled against his skin finally, giving up his claim on Spence's neck only to claim his mouth, sucking and biting at his lips. His fingers dug into Spence's ass through his jeans, pulling him closer, until Spence felt he might go off untouched, just grinding his cock into the heat of Nick's body.

"Let me ride you," he panted, trying to think whether or not he had lube - god, did he even have condoms? Thankfully Nick appeared to have brought both, shoving a hand into his pocket to retrieve them. Spence pushed Nick down onto his back across the bed, climbing off his lap just long enough to kick off his own jeans and underwear, then pulling Nick’s jeans off and tossing them to the floor. Nick’s cock sprang forth, flushed and proud. Spence felt pretty self-satisfied that he had managed to work Nick into such as state, notwithstanding all the arguing, or - who knew? - perhaps even because of it!

“See this?” Nick’s own eyes traveled to his engorged cock and his hand soon followed, stroking his own length up and down as his eyes locked with Spence’s. “This is all for you.”

“Jesus...fuck,” Spence shook his head to focus in the sea of the overwhelming lust. “I wish you had two of them, so I wouldn’t feel like I’m constantly making impossible choices.”

“God, I love the shit that comes out of your mouth sometimes,” Nick growled, his own fist pumping faster over his cock as his other hand reached for the condom. “What’ll it be, boy? Are you riding or drooling?”

"Saddle up," Spence responded, grinning as he tore the condom open with his teeth.

Once he was astride Nick and sinking down onto that glorious cock, Spence couldn't imagine how there'd ever been a question. He closed his eyes with a groan, grinding down onto him, the pleasure of being stretched open and filled shuddering through him, hot and intoxicating. His fingers dug into Nick's shoulders, needing to feel like he was anchored somehow in the midst of all that sensation. "Oh god, yes...."

“Fuck... how are you still so tight?” Nick squeezed out, bucking up into Spence, hands clutching feverishly at his hips.

“Youthful.... exuberance...” Spence panted out, working his lower back muscles to grind down in an increasing rhythm against Nick’s lap, till he could feel Nick’s hipbones slamming against the backs of his thighs. “Keep up, old man!”

"Devil," Nick hissed again, though there was a fondness in his eyes that betrayed his words. The next thing Spence knew he was being pulled into Nick's arms, into a kiss that was all heat and teeth and tongue, as if set on stealing Spence's very breath just as he controlled his pleasure. One hand dug into the small of Spence's back, pulling him in as his hips thrust up to meet the bucks of Spence's hips.

"Harder?" The next thing Spence knew he was pressed back into the pillows with his calves against Nick's shoulders, bent nearly in two as Nick bucked into him hard and fast. "I'll give you harder, you little incubus," he growled, panting, eyes dark and wild as he looked down at him. "Give you everything you want... show you just who your hot little ass belongs to - !"

The thought was too much for Spence to handle. In moments he was crying out, pleasure overwhelming him completely as he arched up into the punishing pounding of Nick's cock. He heard Nick curse as Spence clenched down around him, hips stuttering deeper, and the pleasure of Spence's orgasm pulsed bright with the satisfaction of knowing that Nick Marlowe had come inside him, hard and deep.

I love you, he wanted to say, and only managed to keep his words back because he had no breath to say them. Instead he pulled Nick down on top of him, pressing breathless, trembling kisses to his lips and face, heart aching with unspoken joy. He felt far drunker on it than he ever could have gotten from the cheap vodka, and happily let Nick manhandle him into bed and curl around him, turning out the bedside lamp.

Just as he was drifting off to sleep, Nick mumbled something against his neck. Spence blinked to alertness. "Sorry?"

"She's your..." Spence started, then quickly stopped as it all came clear. "... oh. Then... uh, Aramis...."

Nick let out a long breath, and for a moment Spence thought he wasn't going to respond. When he finally did, his voice was weary. "It turned out, Aramis couldn’t live with what had occurred and so one night he wrote Athos' father a check for the full amount. We assume he intended to give it to him as a grand romantic gesture. To try and make things right with... Athos."

"You... assume?" Spence asked tentatively, mind moving wildly over the possibilities. Was there still a poodle out there who loved Nick as much as he did?

"The bloody prat got wasted and went for a swim in the ocean. Left nothing behind for Shani but a ridiculous fucking life insurance policy. So we've had to come to terms with that question remaining unanswered."

From the tone of Nick's voice, it sounded like he'd done anything but. Still, Spence couldn't help but feel the deepest sorrow for him, for everything he'd been through. Even for Shani.