***
“Daddy, no!” he yells.
It hurts. Aidan can’t really tell whether it hurts more: under his ribs where daddy kicked him or behind his ribs, where the heart is. Anyway, it aches. It burns. It stings. It feels ten times over every word that is used to describe any kind of pain, not that Aidan knows a lot of them, he is, after all, only four.
And he yelps and he babbles “please-no-no-no” through his wet salty lips and he crawls away and he gets caught each time.
“What did I tell you?” Daddy shouts as he grabs Aidan by the scruff of his neck and lifts him effortlessly in the air. “What the fuck did I tell you, Aidan?”
“N-not to run past the TV while the soccer is on,” Aidan manages to sob in reply, the collar of his t-shirt biting into his neck. “I’m so sorry!”
Daddy doesn’t answer anything. He just carries Aidan - heavy footsteps stomp-stomp-stomping up the stairs - into his room and releases his collar, making Aidan land on the floor with a thud. Aidan barely manages to open up his palms enough to stand on all fours.
Aidan doesn’t cry. He wheezes heavily while straightening up to sit on his heels; long hissy breaths escaping his mouth. Breathing is hard after you have nearly been choked with your own t-shirt.
“It’s okay, Aidan,” the voice tells him. “Rub your neck a little to keep the blood flowing. Then lay down.”
The voice comes each time Aidan is hurting, the voice is a friend, and Aidan is happy to hear from a friend right now. The voice is also very smart, it tells Aidan what to do to feel better. It always sounds so wise and knowing and grown-up.
It doesn’t have a name. Aidan had asked before.
***
October this year turns out to be one of the rainiest out of all twenty-three Justin had lived through. Justin lops across the parking lot, two minutes late - his taxi missed the green light earlier - for his first ever day at his first ever job. Well, a first ever seriousone, anyway.
When the double doors slide open for him and he finally steps into a wide, well-lit lobby of the advertisement agency, it’s already five minutes past nine. Hastily folding his umbrella, Justin splashes raindrops all over his perfectly white neatly tucked shirt. He cusses under his breath as he runs into an elevator.
In a few agonizingly annoying dings, he reaches the right floor.
“Oh, hey,” the secretary and the right hand and the I-do-everything-the-boss-has-no-time-for woman swallows her coffee abruptly to smile at Justin. Cynthia, her name is Cynthia and she was the one to interview him and actually accept him at the job. “Let me grab your coat and go, he’s waiting.”
Mr. Kinney. Right. Mr. Aidan Kinney. Justin inhales a lungful of air, straightens his back and makes himself relax into a tiny polite smile before he steps inside his boss’s office.
The room is spacious and full of gray daylight. Against the window outlined a tall, lean figure.
“You’re late, Mr. Taylor,” declares the brunette, looking down at a stack of papers on his desk. “Just what am I to do with you?” he drawls suggestively.
And then he looks up - a soft knowing smile settled on his sensual lips - making Justin’s heart jump immediately into his throat for a brief second. Six (at least) feet tall, strong jawline, huge, long-lashed hazel eyes.
Mr. Aidan Kinney the-Justin’s-boss is a perfect embodiment of a tall dark and handsome trope.
“I’m sure you’ll think of something, Mr. Kinney,” Justin blurts out before he can think and hates himself instantly for being so openly flirtatious. He half expects a glare in return, but that doesn’t happen.
“I’m sure I will,” his boss shrugs, shoves the papers he was studying aside and looks at Justin with a dim spark of something unknown at the bottom of his eyes.
And then he congratulates Justin on the position in the art department. And then they discuss some work while Justin occasionally scolds himself for staring on his boss’s lips, or hands, or crotch.
Later that evening as Justin does a double take on the dusty watch on his newly obtained desk, he realizes that it is, yet again, five minutes past nine. He was mostly carried through the day by a string of introductions and hello’s, but managed to check on some actual work assignments while at it. Pleased with himself, he picks up his coat from a hanger on the wall and walks through the empty corridors without a slight anticipation of meeting anyone at that hour.
A few yellow threads of light spread on the floor, crossing Justin’s path. His eyes trace them to a slightly ajar door which happens to lead into his boss’s office.
“We had an agreement, Brian,” Aidan says behind the door and Justin can’t help but listen. “This is my territory, my work. I provide for us. You can’t just pop up whenever you please. I don’t… I… Brian. No. Stop, alright?”
Justin presses his chest tight against the doorframe so that his left eye fit right into the gap. Mr. Kinney seems quite distressed, a frown spread on his forehead, his fingers buried deep into his hair.
“You know this was irresponsible,” he continues. Justin still thinks he is speaking on the phone, yet no phone can be found in his line of sight. “He is just a boy, he is twenty-three. He is new, and you have probably scared him,” he is talking about Justin, isn’t he? “Don’t do it again. What? Bri- Jesus, Brian. Alright, yes. I find him handsome. Happy? I just figured I don’t want to go after your type, to not to… you know. Tempt you or anything. Now cut it out. Please.”
The last coherent thing Justin has time to think about before he hears the words “I find him handsome” is: there is definitely no other phone in the room other than one on the desk that has its handset pressed soundly into the receiver.
And then his mind is flooded with a familiar and always welcomed shimmer of he-finds-me-handsome, that usually sweeps you at the moment you find out your attraction is possibly mutual.
Is it too early? Justin doesn’t know. Was the whole talking-on-the-phone-with-no-phone scene just a tat bit strange? Probably. But all Justin cares about is that his absolutely gorgeous boss finds him handsome.
***
The next out of ordinary thing happens when Cynthia cuts her finger with one of the letter opener knives. Justin paces through the office corridor with a bunch of boards tucked under his arm when he hears a sharp shriek pierce the casual hum of Monday-morning muttering.
The cut is, Justin would say, somewhere around seven out of ten on the scale of nastiness. As soon as a string of blood twirls around Cynthia’s wrist, soaking her crispy-white sleeve, it definitely becomes a solid eight.
“Jesus, fuck,” Cynthia hisses as Justin, having already tossed the boards aside, hurries to help. “Could you get me a napkin or something? Quick, I can’t drip on these papers!”
Her privileged position of a CEO’s personal assistant does not play in her favor this time: her table is set in a very private corner, separated by a few stylishly carved wooden partitions, right next to Aidan’s office. All of which ensures that Justin is in fact the only person who is able to hear her fussing around and approach in time. It also ensures that the closest place potentially containing napkins in it is Aidan’s office.
“Calm down, alright?” Justin asks her, already standing in front of the door. Before he even has the time to contemplate knocking, the door swings open by itself.
“Justin?” Aidan asks softly and rises a confused eyebrow at him. “I thought I heard…”
“Do you have a napkin?” Justin blurts out, not allowing himself to get distracted by how stunning his boss looks in one of his usual insert-a-big-brand-name suits. Today he’s also wearing a pair of stylish glasses Justin didn’t notice earlier. “Cynthia just hurt herself.”
Aidan steps aside to give way as Justin gestures at Cynthia to follow. Muttering something about messing up the Italian rugs, the assistant finally crosses the doorway into the office. As soon as all three of them are safe behind the closed door, the out of ordinary thing happens.
Aidan grits his teeth at the sight of trickling blood, getting noticeably paler by the second. His eyes dart around the room in confusion for a brief moment, then he takes his glasses off and pinches the bridge of his nose.
And as soon as Aidan lifts his head back up, he looks like a whole other person. His lean figure relaxes confidently when he eyes Cynthia’s injury like it’s no big deal.
Which it probably isn’t. Except Aidan didn’t seem to think that a second ago.
“Is that all you girls were fussing about?” he asks casually, jerking a handkerchief out of his jacket’s chest pocket all the while swiftly reaching for his desk to eventually retrieve a half-finished scotch bottle from the bottom drawer.
His normal speaking voice drops at least a pitch down. He also tosses his glasses away on the desk as if he doesn’t need them.
After splashing some scotch on - dammit, Aidan, could you have warned me? - yelping Cynthia’s finger and slapping the silken handkerchief on top of the wound, Aidan tosses a pack of napkins at her and sends the assistant away. Justin awkwardly tags along after her, thinking that he is unnoticed, but his movements are not lost on Aidan.
“Taylor,” he says, his voice low and sultry. “Stay.”
And Justin does. He watches quietly as Aidan calls the cleaning lady for the blood and scotch stains on his Italian rugs, watches as he puts the phone down, watches as he makes a step around the desk, and then hesitates, and then stares at his feet for at least half a minute.
Yet again, he lifts his head up looking different. His facial features soften, and he… squints. Then squints some more. Then reaches for the desk to slap his opened palm blindly on top of it and eventually find his glasses.
Justin just stands there. The whole thing seems way too strange to absorb and digest.
“Justin,” he clears his throat. His voice is back to normal. “Would you have dinner with me?”
***
“Mom?” Aidan calls gently into the shadowy living room as he steps down the stairs, one at a time. “Mommy?”
He is five already, way too old to call his mom “mommy”. Or at least his dad says so. But Aidan is so worried, he heard mom and dad having an argument, there were angry voices and loud noises, and now it’s so quiet.
All he really wants is to see mom and a cup of milk, and maybe a warm hug. The house is way too scary at this time of evening, when twilight had just begun, but the lights aren’t lit yet. So, he proceeds towards the kitchen, hoping that mom is there.
And she is.
The first thing Aidan sees is her hand in the doorway, only he doesn’t recognize it right away. It looks like a big white spider, laying lifeless on its back. Or maybe a beach crab, like in all of those nature documentaries Aidan sometimes gets to see on TV while daddy falls asleep during a soccer match and is way too drunk to notice Aidan sneaking the remote from him.
But in a second or two Aidan’s mind is ready to absorb and register the full picture. He steps quietly closer, and the doorframe doesn’t block his view anymore. Mom is laying on the floor with her eyes wide open, something syrupy and gooey and dark red spilled all around her.
Blood? Is it blood, like in the movies?
“Aidan!” he hears his dad shout. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted a-”
He doesn’t get to finish. A swift heavy hand lands on the back of his head. And he himself lands on the floor from the impact, and gets all covered in sticky wet blood. It feels cold on his skin when his pajamas get soaked through. A jolt of horror pierces his body. He doesn’t like blood. He doesn’t like movies anymore.
That is the last thing he remembers before his consciousness is scooped away by something warm and caring and protective. It feels like he is embraced, guided, and put carefully into a bundle of fluffy blankets.
“It’s alright, Aidan,” the voice says. “I’ve got this.”
Only now the voice is not inside his dead. The voice is now him, using his mouth and throat to speak and his eyes to see and his arms to lean upon as he gets himself up on his feet. While Aidan himself is only watching from aside, no more in control.
“Stay put!” he hears his dad shout.
He also hears a loud smacking sound, but the pain doesn’t come. Nothing comes, only silence. When Aidan closes his eyes shut, he floats away to some place where nothing ever happens. The voice is now out there for him, feeling everything. And Aidan is safe, Aidan is warm, Aidan is not hurting.
“Hey,” the voice calls him after some time, still using his mouth and his throat. “You can come out now.”
Aidan opens his eyes once again, finding himself in the warm far away place. He doesn’t want to leave just yet.
“Can I stay like this for a while?” he asks.
“Sure,” is the reply. “By the way, you wanted to know my name, remember? I thought of a good one.”
Aidan is interested, he lets himself peak a little bit and finds out that he is now in his room, sitting on the floor hugging his knees to his chest. Or the voice is, anyway. Aidan is just watching from aside.
“Which one is that?” Aidan prompts the voice impatiently.
“Brian,” the voice chuckles slightly at his eagerness. “My name is Brian.”
***
Justin knows his worth, at least when it comes to looks. His face is youthful and smooth, with bright blue eyes and pouty doll-like lips. His blond locks are a shade of shimmery silky gold, longish, but not too long. He is practically hairless, skin creamy and soft to the touch.
Sure, he’s short, but he has a pretty round ass and no gag reflex to make up for that.
All of that said, the reflection he catches in the mirror before walking out makes him less nervous. At least Aidan will have something pretty to look at, even if Justin turns out to be unfunny or awkward to have around during the dinner.
Not that he is. But it’s good to have a backup plan.
While Justin sits in a dark cab watching orange lamppost lights flash-flash-flash by behind the window, thoughts of possibly bailing on Aidan cross his mind. Yes, his boss is absolutely, utterly gorgeous, but that doesn’t stop him from being the strangest man Justin had ever encountered. Maybe, Justin should be scared or something.
Or something. When Justin’s eyes land on Aidan waiting patiently by the restaurant door, all doubts melt away into one thought. The thought is: “I want him”. Aidan seems to be his usual self this evening, dressed in a knee-long black overcoat and a pair of casual slacks, but the whole outfit still screams “money”. He is holding an umbrella above his head while checking his watch (did Justin mention they also scream “money”?).
Justin - he is not sure completely why - feels relieved to see him have his glasses on.
“I hope I’m not late this time,” Justin graces his boss with a dimmed down (adorable, but just enough) version of the usual in-case-I-messed-up grin. “Hello, Mr. Kinney.”
“Oh,” Aidan looks caught off guard, but only for a moment. His long-lashed eyes focus on Justin, quickly move around his face and body. “Just by a minute. It’s nothing, Justin. And please, do call me Aidan when we’re alone.”
He seems pleased with the sight. Justin is usually pretty good at reading people, and Aidan is one interesting person to read, so Justin pays a lot of attention. Although, paying attention proves to be really, really hard when your handsome boss is playing a perfect gentleman with you the whole evening.
Aidan is well-educated, mild-mannered, soft-spoken, and everything else that comes along with being a perfect package. He darts his huge eyes across the table - now, under the artificial indoor yellow lights they seem a deep, rich chocolatey shade of brown - and the look in them is so warm it washes over Justin and burns somewhere inside his chest, as if he had just swallowed a mouthful of sweet liquor.
At one point he shows Justin how to fold an origami frog out of a napkin. He rolls up his sleeves, and Justin scoots up along with his chair, so that they sit beside one another instead of across from each other - Aidan smells amazing, a blend of expensive cologne and freshly ironed clothes - and they have quite a laugh making their paper frog jump while the waiters just look patiently at them. After all, Justin did mention several times that everything in Aidan’s look screams “money”, so they really have no choice.
Later it turns out Aidan is able to tell Louis Schanker and Stuart Davis apart on sight, which alone already wins Justin’s heart.
And everything is absolutely as far from being any kind of weird as it can possibly be, which lulls Justin’s suspicions a great deal. By the time they walk outside, heated by all the sneaky looks and knee bumping under the table, Justin forgets he even doubted anything.
But not for long.
On their way back Aidan insists walking Justin right to the doorstep, so they take a cab since both of them had some wine earlier and Justin doesn’t even drive. It rains. As orange lamppost lights flash-flash-flash by again, they hold hands.
Aidan has long, delicate fingers and just overall beautiful hands, so it’s a joy for Justin to put one flat on his lap and study it intently, running his own fingertips against the smooth skin. Aidan lets him.
“You wanna stay the night?” Justin asks bluntly as they stand beneath his apartment windows.
He darts an upward glance at Aidan and receives a soft smile of clear restraint in return. Of course, a perfect gentleman. Justin scolds himself for seeming so easy. He just really, really wants him.
The sounds of a waiting taxi engine trickle through the blur in Justin’s mind as he tip-toes to connect their lips in a soft brief kiss that tastes slightly like the truffle cake they shared for dessert. Aidan doesn’t seem to approve, yet catches Justin’s waist and pulls him closer anyway.
“You don’t owe me anything, Justin,” he says, his eyes serious behind the glistening raindrops on his glasses. He is still holding Justin. “We can take it slow, alright?”
“Yeah,” Justin breathes out reluctantly as he bites his lower lip and darts his eyes away. “Alright.”
With a slight heartwarming chuckle Aidan leans in and kisses him again, smelling so intoxicating that Justin has to hold on to his shoulders for dear life. And that’s when they hear it.
“Hey, faggots!”
Justin did warn Aidan about the neighborhood he lives in, which, Aidan insisted, was all the more reason to walk him right to the doorstep. Now Justin breaks off their embrace and spins around to see two bulky men in denim jackets. Both of them are sneering, one of them is dragging a baseball bat on the pavement. A menacing scraping sound ricochets in between the building walls as it is carried above the street.
“Yeah, you two!”
It takes them less than half a minute to approach. Justin and Aidan just stand there, not having any time to escape anymore. A possible route to escape is also gone at the very moment the bat swishes through the midnight air and lands on one of the cab headlamps. As it pops with a loud crack, the car takes off, since the driver probably cannot be bothered to deal with whatever is going on.
It leaves them with pieces of red glistening plastic on the asphalt beneath their feet, a sharp echo of the whistling tiles, and two angry men glaring at them.
“Listen, gentlemen“” Aidan begins softly, raising both his opened palms in the air to calm them down.
He also cuts in front of Justin as if to protect him. The glint of neon light is caught by the watch on his wrist, and that entices the men even more.
“We got ourselves a rich one, huh?” the one with the bat drawls. “A rich fag?”
Justin tries his hardest to think, but he can’t. A rush of fear swallows him whole and no coherent thought can be formed in his head, so he keeps staring at the fabric of Aidan’s overcoat. Absolutely numb.
“Wacha hiding back there, fag?” the one with no bat reaches Aidan in two steps. “Your damsel?”
He pushes Aidan’s shoulder causing him to stumble slightly backwards, but Aidan manages to balance and stays firmly on his feet. And then the out of ordinary things start happening once again.
Just like the other day back at the office, Aidan looks completely confused for a second or two, but this time everything escalates way faster. He lets out a groan through the gritted teeth, hisses “stay back” over the shoulder at Justin and jerks his glasses off his face, tossing them down to the ground.
“So,” he growls with that unusually low voice Justin heard at the office before. “Who wants to go first?”
The men seem taken aback, but only for so long. They both sneer and the bat swings once again, only this time at Aidan. Justin holds his breath the whole time Aidan flings his upper body back and away from the bat, straightens up swiftly to launch at the attacker and lands a well-aimed punch right at his jaw. A wet crunch follows just before the sharp cry and a moan of pain.
The bat drops with a distinct knocking sound and Aidan is quick to pick it up, but as soon as he does it the other guy has a chance to throw a sucker punch. A cheap jab lands somewhere around the side of Aidan’s mouth and that seems to enrage Aidan completely, because right after the guy receives a clean calculated hit beneath his knees, causing him to yelp and collide on the ground right near his unfortunate friend.
“You. Should’ve. Stayed. Home!” each word is aligned with a swing and followed by a blow. The blows don’t seem that severe, if anything, Aidan looks like he is toying with the guys at this point. “Watch Netflix or something,” the bat is thrown aside once again, rolling down the pavement. “Now crawl the fuck back to your mothers.”
And they do. They moan and sob and wail and utter curses under their breaths as they slowly collect themselves enough to stand and limp in the opposite direction. This whole time Justin wonders if he had ever heard Aidan as much as whisper a curse word before.
He doesn’t manage to recall a single time. This man in front of him doesn’t seem like Aidan he just spent the evening with. He doesn’t seem like anyone Justin knows even remotely, because Justin sure as hell doesn’t know anyone who is able to knock down two guys single-handedly with half of the grace and swiftness Aidan just did.
“Well, princess,” he turns to Justin and spreads his arms wide. “How did you like me?”
He is breathing heavily, forming a cloud over cloud of thick hot air that immediately melts away in the darkness.
“You’re bleeding,” Justin comments quietly, not knowing what else to say.
“Great skills, Sherlock,” is the reply, and Aid- this man that looks like Aidan spits blood on the ground before casually wiping his lips with his overcoat sleeve. “You alright?”
“They didn’t even touch me,” Justin shrugs, looking anywhere but at Aidan.
He is scared, and the man picks up on that very quickly. In one, two, three rapid steps he reaches Justin to loom over him - right now for some reason appearing even taller than usual - and smiles as he runs his scraped knuckles against Justin’s soft cheek.
“I won’t hurt you, blondie,” he rasps. Justin feels his hot breath and instinctively leans a little closer, driven by a sudden jolt of desire. His cock hardens. “Not unless you beg me to.”
Justin swallows hard, not able to come up with anything coherent. The danger of the situation they were just in overwhelms him, but the menace and the strength the man in front of him radiates is inflaming. Even considering the fact that Justin understands close to zero percent of what is going on.
“Damn, are you a sweet piece of ass or what? Aidan is one lucky motherfucker,” suddenly a heavy, hot (even through the fabric of his jeans) palm lands with a smack right on Justin’s ass and next thing he knows he is groped and jerked towards the man, stumbling right into his arms. “Woops, sorry. Lucky I caught you, right?”
He enjoys that, Justin thinks. A slight irritation stirs up inside of him, but it’s quickly swallowed by a rush of hot, boiling desire, as soon as Justin inhales the scent of the man. He smells like Aidan, looks like Aidan, talks like Aidan (except for his slightly lower voice), but the aggression and dominance in him sets Justin completely over the edge. He would have kissed him.
Really, he would. Right on his wet hot bloody mouth.
But the man smirks at him and lets go, warm encircling embrace breaks out, leaving Justin slightly chilly, squirming at the autumn wind.
“Later,” the man whispers before turning around and striding away down the glistening rainy street.