Ultimate Fantasy Chapter Five

[butterflyslinky]

Title: Ultimate Fantasy
Fandom: TGWTG
Characters (this chapter): Linkara, Spoony, Harvey, Critic, Joe, OCs
Rating: R
Warning(s): Discussion of non-con
Summary: Stripper AU. They are the ultimate fantasy for many people. And one of those people can turn a fantasy into a nightmare.
Note: Thanks to lady_sci_fi for inspiration, consultation, and beta-ing. For reference, see her arts “Magic Gun” and “Mystic Blade.”

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four

Dancing helped. Even if it was to the worst music ever written, it helped clear Spoony’s head. Sometimes it didn’t work, but tonight it did. He was smiling for real this time, and the audience knew it. Even though it was a Thursday and not very crowded, Spoony and Linkara earned more than enough money to keep Critic happy. Or maybe he was trying to be nice to them. Either way, they left the club in fairly high spirits.

“You coming back to mine?” Linkara asked as they headed out.

Spoony shook his head. “I’ll be okay now, I think. Anyway, I’m sure I need to clean my apartment a little.”

“Okay,” Linkara said, spotting Harvey’s car and heading over to it. “We’ll take you home.”

They had barely made it halfway when they heard shouting from the front of the club. Spoony’s eyes widened, and Linkara uttered a quiet oath. They both knew that voice, and from the sounds of things, he wasn’t happy.

“The club opened six hours ago,” Linkara muttered as he and Spoony ducked around a corner to watch. “Has he been standing out here shouting all this time?”

“Probably not,” Spoony whispered back. “But they switched bouncers around nine, so he probably came back to see if the second one didn’t know or something.”

They listened for a few minutes to the man screaming about his rights and his money and all that shit. Linkara felt a hand on his shoulder and he jumped, but it was only Harvey. “That the guy, Kid?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Linkara muttered back.

“Want me to take him out?” Linkara glanced down and saw the pistol in Harvey’s hand. “I think I can hit him from here.”

“No,” Spoony answered. “It’s dark, you could hit Joe.” He straightened up. “Let’s get out of here before he comes around here looking for us.”

They hurried to the car. Linkara and Spoony jumped in the backseat as Harvey started the engine. As soon as the door was closed, Harvey drove off, quickly enough to put distance between them and the club, but not so fast as to be noticeable.

“You sure you’re ready to go home?” Linkara asked as soon as they were several streets away.

Spoony nodded. “He’s going to be preoccupied for a while and he doesn’t know where I live and I have to go back sometime.”

“Okay,” Linkara said. “Because you can come back with me…”

“I’ll be fine.”

Linkara studied Spoony carefully, but he sighed and allowed Harvey to take them to Spoony’s building. “If you need anything, call me,” he said as Spoony got out of the car. “We’ll pick you up tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Spoony said. “See you then.”

Linkara and Harvey drove off as Spoony headed upstairs. He wasn’t lying, he’d be fine. Maybe a little shaky, but fine.

After he had finally gotten enough money to live somewhere nicer than a roach-infested basement, Spoony had moved alone into a third-floor walk-up that was only marginally better than where he had been. Linkara had offered him a place with him and Harvey, but Spoony had refused. He liked Linkara and they had shared worse quarters, but sharing a bed with him, even a bigger, more comfortable one, wasn’t something they were eager to repeat, or if they were, they weren’t going to admit it. There simply wasn’t space for Spoony in that apartment, so he had gone somewhere alone.

He still had all of their old furniture, though god knew there wasn’t much of it. A card table, shaky and stained from god-knows-what. Two kitchen chairs, stiff and wooden and uncomfortable that they had stolen from the basement of their college dorm. A dresser they had gotten from Linkara’s parents their sophomore year. A bookshelf and two armchairs they had dug out of the dumpsters just after graduation when they had decided to stay here after every prospective employer in their chosen professional fields had turned them down, all of which were falling apart. A mini fridge, coffee maker, and hot plate they had managed to scrounge the money for by selling off almost everything else they had. And of course, the twin bed they had bought used that was too old and rickety to hold one person, but had somehow managed to hold them both at once. The mattress on it had bad springs and way too many lumps, and finding sheets for it had been a hilarious experience, once Spoony could afford sheets again.

And yet Spoony couldn’t bring himself to replace any of it. His apartment had come with a microwave and stove, and he had found a couch that wasn’t too ugly, and he had acquired several other things since taking a job at the Many Pleasures Lounge, but he still had all the crappy furniture from that time with Linkara. Maybe it was because it was the first furniture they had really owned. Maybe it was because it wasn’t Spoony’s to throw out, not really. It still partially belonged to Linkara, even if he had moved on to better things.

Or maybe it was because that bed was still the most comfortable Spoony had ever slept on. Not because it was nice, no, that wasn’t it at all, but because of the memories. Because of how good it had felt, even in the worst of times, to curl up in it with Linkara, their arms wrapped around each other, their legs tangled as they tried to find space and keep warm, their heads fighting for the single pillow (left from when Spoony was a kid), breath warm on each other’s cheeks. Even now, with Linkara gone and not likely to want to share it with him, Spoony could still imagine him there, could still almost feel the heat from the left side of the bed, which he left open purely out of habit.

It was odd that this bed held so many memories. After all, nothing had ever really happened between them. They had never kissed, not when drunk, not when performing, not even as a joke. Spoony knew Linkara’s body as well as his own, they had touched each other more intimately than anyone else had in a very long time, but they had never actually had sex, never even discussed doing so. The most they shared outside of working was some mild cuddling and a light peck on the forehead when one was down.

And that wasn’t going to change. Not now, not ever. They were friends, and they were comfortable as friends. One day, things would get better, they’d leave this city, they’d find jobs that actually mattered and paid better, they’d have a big house and everything, and they’d settle down together with separate beds and different rooms and nothing more than a hug good night. For all that they’d shared, there was more that they hadn’t.

As he lay down in that bed—their bed—Spoony wondered if it could ever change. If he’d ever feel better. If things would get better.

If Linkara would want to share a bed again when they did.

*

Linkara missed that bed.

Sure, he was physically more comfortable now, in a queen-sized bed that he didn’t have to curl up in and a mattress that didn’t leave him aching all day, but there was something missing from it. Maybe it was too warm, with all the blankets he had been able to get—the sheets and blankets from their college days had been sold or given away when they moved into the basement to afford other things—or maybe it was too big, giving Linkara way too much space to stretch out in.

Or, most probably, it was too lonely. Linkara still mostly kept himself to the left side of the bed facing inward, arms outstretched as if to wind around another person, even though it had been more than two years since he and Spoony had lain like that. But no, even the last few nights when Spoony had laid beside him, on the right where he belonged, the bed hadn’t felt as good. There had been too much space between them, separate pillows to rest on, blankets to warm them and keep them apart. They hadn’t slept in each other’s arms, hadn’t tangled together and kicked for space. Spoony hadn’t laid his head on Linkara’s shoulder while they slept, and Linkara’s arms hadn’t wrapped around Spoony so tight it was impossible for them to separate. In fact, beyond a few hugs when Spoony had panicked and cried and screamed, there had been no physical contact between them at all in that bed.

In fact, if he was honest with himself, Linkara kind of wished they could go back to that, to being curled up together, even if it was uncomfortable. Even if they curled up in his new bed, he would like that. He wanted that back in his life, someone loving him, even if it was completely innocent. He wondered if they would go back to that now that the club was in danger of being shut down, now that they could very well find themselves back on the streets looking for ten dollar rooms and auditioning at higher-class and much pickier strip clubs.

And that was provided they weren’t arrested. Linkara didn’t know who their adversary was, exactly, but he was rich and presumably affluent, and he could very well take revenge by having Linkara and Spoony arrested for prostitution. If that happened, they could very well end up sharing a cell, living side by side, but unable to share a bed, unable to touch each other at all.

Hope for the best, Linkara told himself. Hope that the club isn’t shut down, that you keep this job, that you and Spoony can both be comfortable. Separate, but comfortable.

Yes, that would be nice.

*

If either had bothered to do any digging, they would have easily found out who their assailant was. It wasn’t like his face wasn’t in the papers once in a while, usually connected to tabloid gossip. But Spoony and Linkara didn’t read the papers and didn’t care about tabloid gossip—they were too busy trying to survive. So the name of Christian Mercer meant absolutely nothing to either of them.

But to many other people in the city, it meant a great deal, and the fact that Mercer was standing in the office of his brother—who happened to be the mayor—and whining about a strip club was both very worrying and very, very interesting.

Fortunately for Mayor Mercer, there was no press around when his brother had staggered in drunk and started babbling about some “stupid whore” and a “two-bit club.” It had taken a while to sort out the details, but after several drunken slurs and muffled curse words, the mayor had figured out what was going on.

“So let me get this straight,” Mayor Mercer said as his brother finally fell silent. “Some girl at a titty bar refuses to go home with you. She complains to her boss about harassment. You get banned. And now you want me to get the place shut down?”

“Somethin’ like that,” Christian muttered.

The mayor rolled his eyes. “Chris, can’t you just let it go? Find another den of debauchery to hang out in and leave the poor girl alone. She’s probably there because she has six kids she needs to support and has no other skills.”

“Ain’t got no kids,” Christian answered. “And he ain’t the only one.”

“Oh,” the mayor muttered. “I see.”

“And if they don’t get shut down, they might say somethin’ bad ‘bout me,” Christian continued. “And then there’d be a big scandal. And then your re-‘lection wouldn’t go so well.”

“I definitely see,” the mayor said.

“You want that, Gabe? You wanna have a huge scandal on your hands?”

“So you want the club shut down?” the mayor asked, already dialing his phone.

“Yeah,” Christian said. “I want ‘em shut down. And I want the Ultimate Fantasy to never work again.”