He almost asked him to come home with him, in
that moment their eyes met. The words were on the tip of his tongue,
flavored sharply with cheap beer and tobacco. Would have been easy
to ask and maybe he'd have even come, this journalist from the
Herald and for once he'd be fucking with the press instead of the
other way around.
But he'd already fucked with this one once, hadn't he. Too fucking
vague of a memory, time and drugs smearing it into a pallet of
pastel images that were more 'maybe' than anything. The only thing
Curt was sure of was it was real, and that was good enough.
It was those eyes, maybe. Hadn't changed that much, still had a
little too much of the glittery tinfoil awe of a fan in them, and
Curt'd gotten tired of that ages ago, hated how much he'd needed
that kind of bitter worship, a more addictive drug than any he'd
shot into his shriveled veins. It always covered the greed and he'd
already poured too much of his own soul into the chipped, unfillable
cups of others, only to have them dump it into the gutter after
barely a taste.
Only the cheap shine of this guy's eyes should have dimmed ages ago,
after one night when he found out his idol was only human after all;
he didn't piss flowers and he didn't come honey, and he'd never had
anything worth sharing but his own pain. That it was still there,
clean and bright as ever, was something he'd never have expected.
He wondered suddenly what would happen if he did invite this guy
home, pulled him into his too-small, too-dark apartment and kissed
him, and maybe he'd taste just as cool and soothing as he looked,
and maybe he could push him down on the tile floor and they could
fumble their pants out of the way, and he could suck him off right
there on the dirty linoleum in his front room. Curt could almost
taste the sharp, clean flavor of come on the back of his tongue, and
maybe he could whisper things in the dark to this guy, things he
might have already said once before and couldn't fucking remember
through the moldering curtain that was his memory. And he might just
listen, and he'd run his hands over Curt's back, hold him gently and
whisper sweet, dark things back.
And then the guy looked away, towards the jukebox and the moment
passed. He brushed it away from his thoughts like the cobweb that it
was and quietly set the pin on top of the guy's beer bottle. He
needed it more than Curt did, something to glitter that other people
would see and recognize, even after the shine in his eyes finally
dimmed.
Everyone needed an image.
-finis-
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