Author's Notes: Um. First fanfic. Ever. First chapter. Sequels planned - although I'm not certain whether I should just leave it as a stand alone. But I do have more to come.

Obligatory Disclaimer: I don't own these boys (they ought to be grateful I don't! haha), but I have a wonderful time toying with their personas - and in the safety of my own mind, I weave all manner of dark, smutty, ingenious scenarios designed to make them commit obscene acts upon each other. I am just a poor student in Western Australia with too much time on her hands and not enough to occupy it. In no way am I insinuating that this is genuine, or that the kind of relationship portrayed in this pitiable little fiction bears any resemblance to the real, working, (non-sexual: but a girl can dream!) relationship between the people depicted herein. Hell, in a way, it's purely an aesthetic impulse, and I couldn't resist. Please don't prosecute - this is a purely creative endeavour, and no offense meant.

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It's his inherent fragility that allures - how tautly the muscles of his face stretch over blade-sharp bone in the exquisite misery of boredom. The tension in his stance, the hostility that emanates from him ensures sanctuary in a dark corner, the perfect vantage point: for both of you. Beloved cotton band shirt, old and worn and conforming to his slim torso like silk. Dandyish black leather jacket, tight with subtle flare to accentuate narrow hips. Legs that go for days, long and slim and encased in tight denim.

He is not comfortable here. He feels out of place, an intruder, an alien thing - every awkward gesture belies his unease. This is your scene. And oh, how you delight in watching him squirm! Everytime, everyplace you go - eventually the nights blur together, a dark-lit monotone of motion and furious sound. You, parading your neuroses on the stage, bleeding out in all-revealing vocality, bravado oozing palpably over the delirious crowd. Cold sweat encrusted in the damp hollows between muscles like fissures, trembling-trembling up on that indomitable high with the impossibly salty crystals collected on your skin. They don't smell it. That slow-burning fear, distilling through your system like ephedrine. Oh, no. Just a thousand red, gaping maws, open and waiting just beneath the edge of that vertigo-inducing precipice, razor-shine white like jagged uprights of bleached stone against open pitch, drinking you in. They're always drunk, drunk on you.

And afterwards, descending into this lush, fetid, humid atmosphere, where all the pretty boys look the same kind of pretty - if that's even the right word. You dragged him down, of course, ignoring all protest. He was your first audience. He watches you circle them - and he understands, vaguely, the laws no one officiates. Their skin is damp with perspiration, and you talk a calculated gambit, and they smirk at your technicality, acknowledging the sound and not the content, lizard eyes and lizard bones (you could swear that if they opened their mouths, you'd see dull viscous poison dripping from elongated canines, and a languid, forked tongue flicking absently over yellow-sharp teeth) - and how deceptive the light, reflecting a golden tan identical to the rest of the horde, finished with a dazzling display of assumed innocence. God, that golden refraction could obliterate the sun. It's a dumb animal ploy like a snake playing dead and you want to touch, to stroke along the plane of rippling, warm-curving light, to see if that skin is as smooth as it looks, no matter the fact that when he opens his mouth and his eyes flash sentience the trap is sprung and it's all you can do not to scream in revulsion. It's a homogeny of bodies. And when you catch your breath it's not to breathe, but to scent, and play this predator game the best you can. Because if you breathe, and breathe too deep, they won't be content to absorb what you exude, not so passively attentive. They'll drink the nectar straight out of your mouth, and trace the purged poison back. Strobe lights flicker over you, leaving you half-blind. Bodies contort and writhe in a parody of passion. Their icy, jewel eyes fixate - devoid of truly vital colour. The murmur of their feeding both frightens and exhilarates you. Just a great wave of sound, no meaning. Garbled syllables that were never, ever, conceivably language.

You tumble down the steps, floating high on a cloud of crowd-induced euphoria and chemical clarity, an electric synthetic pulse of melting synapses. It's so dark and the air is thicker, down here, below - where he is, squinting up to track your movements. He knows (you know he knows) you've been watching him (watch you). His face is a flat, thin white circle accentuated by sapient lines of linear shadow-black, fringed with limp caramel strands. He looks... different.

Cutting a swathe through idly blending bodies, you insinuate yourself between him and those gluttonous hulks, momentarily sharing that safe niche he managed to carve out of anonymity - and suddenly the only terrified reflection in the seeing-glass shading his eyes is the image of you, torn between dissonant instincts.

Oh no. He definitely doesn't belong here.

His distress is your distress, but the aesthete in you exults over the loveliness of his discomfort. Watching his face contort with something that can only be described as the agony of banality delighted you. And now? This breath-taking spectacle of confused terror? You feel as if you molded the expression onto his features. Perfect model. Muse. You wonder, secretly, if this makes you a masochist, or a sadist. You can't decide which. And then he shifts, redistributing the shadows Ð and you find your pain is secondary to your joy, and all that matters is sight. The world is muted. You are greedy for the sight of him.

You want to ask, What are you thinking? but the words are immolated before they even reach your vocal cords, sizzling fiercely somewhere between your neural pathways and your palate. You taste their bitter ash and nearly choke. One apparently innocuous, rough hand canvasses the distance between his lithe shoulderblade and nape; tenderly your fingers trace the rise of his sternum. He shivers, wary but still so trusting. This isn't a matter of trust. This game is one-sided. For now - and your mouth stretches cruelly thin at the prospect of evening the score (or not). It's all about how much you both can endure.

Him - below/above, un/restrained, astride you (in you) gleaming in the dim memory of sunlight.

What a picture you'd make.

It's that perfect contrast that the artist in you craves, him against you; it's the aberrant desire to break down that beauty into its raw components and remold it anew even finer. It's the compulsion to dully impress your thumbs in mottled purple and black into the hollows underneath hipbones like the indentations of butterfly wings, mark the column of that long, white neck with brutal red and watch him come trembling apart.

Sometimes you believe he does it to torment you. Other times, washed-out hours that fade gently with the after-scent of stale alcohol, you acknowledge his utter innocence Ð and you know down to the marrow of your deepest and darkest he is too beautiful and pure to ever make you a dupe. That naivete. You want to mar it, ruin it, watch it warp until he is... well, not you. Never let him be reforged into a being like you. It's part of his charm. Ever blemishless - waiting to be defiled. The seduced to your depraved seducer. Deer in the fucking headlights. And don't you just want to hear the brittle grinding of frail bone as you run right over him? See the wide-eyed disbelief in those beautiful hazel eyes?

It occurs to you that you're power hungry, that you're no better than the rapacious savages you're fleeing from. It occurs to you that you don't care.

He leans against you, bracing, as you flop your exploring hand uselessly to your side, falling heavily against him. Old hat. You wind your arms around him by curling them underneath his shoulders, clutching at the small of his back. You envision curving your fingertips into claws, scraping them down the tender skin of his back, leaving long, bloody furrows. You press your flushed face, burrowing closer against the cool white skin of his neck and gently lip the pulse echoing in your ears. Undoubtedly he can feel your smile impressed into his skin. Quick, sharp inhale.

What do you want, Gerard? He sounds resigned.

To be with you in hell. you reply, smirk audible. You can't help it; the timbre of your voice slips deeper, drawling, a dulcet baritone that has more to do with alcohol and less to do with any native talent of yours, surely. The sudden change sobers him up almost immediately.

We can go. He says, and you could almost take that as an offer, if it weren't for the tremor you can feel running through him. If it weren't for the guarded tone of his voice. We can go back to the bus. Gerard..!

Just a little nip, just the merest edge of your teeth against the flesh, slicing over that maddening pulse. Just enough to be able to discern when the blood wells up, enough to gauge the difference between beats as it spurts over. And then to soothe the negligible wound, brush over it gently with your lips and tongue. That induces an involuntary sigh - for a brief moment it's as if he's unsure whether he wants to incline his neck forward and encourage your ministrations, or pull abruptly away. As is, he pushes himself further against the wall - neck exposed, but mainly in hopes of extricating himself, as if he's trying to push himself backwards through the wall.

The words falter, colliding violently with each other in one bitter exhale. I never know how to deal with you when you're like this. He averts his face. And it strikes you that he's never more beautiful than when he's defeated - even though you've never had the chance to savour the image of him in his soft-hued desperation. In defiance his lips are puckered and red as he bites them agitatedly, and the frigid pallor of his face is dispelled by the dusky flush high on those cheekbones.

Feebly, he tries to push you away, but your weight pins him against the other wall. You align your hips with his, pivoting forward as he attempts to draw back, pinioning his wrists to the wall either side of his head, fingers splayed delicately over his. Propelling your weight forward, hips describing tiny circles against his crotch, you watch as his eyes dilate and turn glassy, trying to deny the stimulus. You practically live on a bus with him and three other men - all too horny and hopelessly frustrated by being distanced from alternative sources of relief. Sometimes you feel like you could cut the sexual tension of the air in that shuttled compartment with a knife, it's so dense. You're regularly roused from sleep by the bitter, forced noises of automatic, cursory pleasure. Waking up to a long, low, tremulous whine, half-hard at the sound, listening to the restless friction of cotton and skin. Just like he is now - you can see that whine pressing ferociously behind his clenched teeth. You almost want to let him rationalize it away. Almost.