Chapter Text
The older man pressed his lips against Trent’s neck, and Trent did his best to ignore the man’s foul cologne.
This guy was new, said he was visiting from the midwest for business. Got in contact with Malm through a friend of a friend, and was looking for a guy “on the slender side, with long hair and pretty eyes”. When Malm showed him “Tom’s” photo, the man knew that he had to have him for a night - even with “Tom’s” clearly uncomfortable expression in the photo.
Trent wrapped his arms around the man’s back, counting the seconds until he got his money. There was the slightest bit of teeth that grazed against his skin, which made Trent’s muscles twitch.
When the client finally broke away from his neck, he grinned excitedly. “Wow…you were great, you know that? Really great, Tommy.”
Trent gave a dishonest smile. “Thanks. Not so bad yourself,” He replied stiffly. Jesus, no wonder his old drama teacher said that acting wasn’t for him. For a moment he thought about adding a wink, but even this guy would see right through the act.
The client nodded, and bent over to pick up his discarded pants from the floor. “Almost forgot-” When Trent saw the wallet, his eyes lit up. “I’ll be back in a few months, maybe I’ll see you around?” He took out “Tom’s” much promised fee, and held it out to him.
“Maybe,” Trent replied meekly as he took the cash. He leaned forward and gave the client a kiss on the cheek. “Goodnight.” He stepped backwards into the hallway, his client (who was clearly disappointed at the lack of any kiss on the mouth) not breaking eye contact until the door slowly shut between them.
And with that, all half-hearted attempts at charm evaporated. Trent sighed, and let his back go into a slouch. He dug his wallet out from his leather jacket’s pocket and (after carefully counting it to make sure everything was correct) shoved his fee in between the folds. Quickly, he took a right towards the elevator, which was mercifully empty at this hour…just past midnight, his internal clock told him.
It was a long night, as always, but at least his client didn’t shortchange him. He couldn’t complain about that, could he?
The walk to his apartment was mercifully uneventful. It was two in the morning by the time he finally got back, but Trent learned to be grateful for the little things. He had to be grateful that no one pulled a knife on him and demanded his money again, or worse.
Stepping into the apartment would have brought some sense of sanctuary, or it would if it had ever felt like a home. For the most part, the shitty studio apartment with cracks on the ceiling and no AC and tap water he couldn’t drink was just a place he kept his stuff. If it wasn’t for Malm’s deal with the landlord for lower rent, he would have moved out a long time ago. And with everything being so goddamn expensive in the City of Angels, he took every chance to save his money that he could get.
Trent breathed a sigh of relief as he kicked off the all-too uncomfortable dress shoes and let his jacket fall to the floor. As he unbuttoned his green satin shirt, he noticed a snag in the sleeve, then threw it into his laundry hamper. Keeping the slacks and undershirt on, he made his way to the fridge for one thing and one thing only - a fucking drink. His client’s room had a minibar, but when Trent asked for a drink, he was met with a resounding ‘no’. The client was convinced that if he opened even a single bottle, the hotel would charge him an arm and a leg.
Trent found himself trying to figure out the logic of being that cheap, yet willing to hire an escort for a night. He knew shouldn’t complain about it, but a single shot would have calmed the night’s nerves - older guys always made him uneasy, no matter how inoffensive. Tonight’s client was too busy wanting to get into his pants to notice his anxiety, but Trent knew he put on a better performance with a drink or two.
Well, and another thing helped too, but Trent could at least say he wasn’t on that anymore. Not for the last year, and hopefully never again.
(Even if a line or two would make him feel so so so much-)
No . Not thinking about that.
He bent over to gaze into his fridge in an attempt to get his mind off of that thought. The sight was a grim reminder - aside from a lonely can of beer (which he took), all he had was a plastic jug with maybe a single glass worth of milk left, two slices of American cheese, and half a package of all too salty lunch meat. What was on top of his fridge wasn’t much better, with only a small bowl’s worth of off-brand Frosted Flakes in a box and a few pieces of stale whitebread. He hadn’t eaten since lunch, but he wasn’t exactly eager to feast on what little he had. Beer counted as a meal, right?
Popping the tab open, Trent took a long swig. He left his cramped kitchen, passed over his third- or fourth-hand keyboard with an electrical tape-covered power cord, the TV with the cheap rabbit ear antenna, and plopped down on his unmade twin bed. The stench of cheap cologne still permeated his nostrils.
He took another, longer swig of beer, and his mind drifted to his wallet. Malm would be over in the morning like usual, collecting his ‘fair share’ - and Trent felt sick to his stomach at the thought. He finished the can in almost record time, and dropped it on the floor without thinking. Above him, someone was pounding against the floorboards, followed by loud moans that he could tell were fake. If he wouldn’t get a noise complaint for it, he’d play some Bowie or some Prince or something to help drown it all out. Then again, considering the last few nights he’d been having, maybe being kept up would be a good thing.
Trent moved fully onto the mattress, and went into the fetal position. Deep down, he wondered if this was all there ever would be for him. And if it was, then maybe everyone at his old church was right…maybe God really did hate him after all, and the mess that he was in was his divine punishment. And, briefly, he thought maybe he deserved it. Just a little.
Ring…
Ring…
He tapped his fingers over and over again on his knee. She wasn’t going to pick up, was she? This was a mistake, he knew it, what was he even doing calling her? His cigarette barely stayed in place between his unsteady fingers as he took another drag off of it.
Ri-
Click .
To say the voice on the other line was displeased would be an understatement. “Alright, who the fuck is calling at six in the morning?”
Atticus nearly dropped his cigarette. “Uh- I didn’t realize what time it was.”
“ Oh .” Claudia sighed, long and deep. “…how long have you been up?”
Instead of answering ‘since around five’, he said, “I just woke up.”
Claudia was silent for a moment, then said, somewhat more sympathetically, “Alright, alright, what’s wrong?” She yawned in a way that made it seem like she wasn’t happy about it. “You can’t fool me, I can tell that you’ve been awake for a while. You’re a complete mess, aren’t you?”
“I’m not, honest,” He replied, trying to hide his defense (“a complete mess”, really ?). “I uh, just had a question.”
“...and what is it?”
Honestly, he wasn’t expecting to get that far into the conversation. “I was wondering…for Kaleidoscope ’s premiere next week…” He paused, then took a deep breath. “Would you-”
“I have a date,” She said with firm finality. “If that’s what you’re asking.”
Ashes from Atticus’ cigarette fell to his knee. He was too frozen with embarrassment to brush them off, too frozen with embarrassment to respond to Claudia.
It would have been a bad idea if she said she didn’t have a date anyway. They’d been working together for the better part of two decades - a failed band, production work, and various TV soundtracks. And they did work very well together…if only their romantic relationship had worked out as well as their working relationship had.
“...Att, are you still there?”
He blinked. “Yes.” Then he added, “...who are you taking, by the way?”
“We’re not jealous , are we?” Even through the phone’s fuzzy quality, Claudia’s teasing tone was obvious.
He blushed. “No, I’m not . I’m just curious.”
“Well, he’s a sculptor,” She said. “I went out with him a few days ago, he’s…fine. Everything he makes is pretentious, so I think you’ll like his work.”
“Thanks,” He replied meekly, then put out his cigarette in the ashtray.
Claudia tried, then failed, to stifle her yawn. “If that is all you wanted to know, then I’m going back to sleep for another fifteen minutes. Assuming everything is alright?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” She said. “Oh, and Atticus?”
“Yeah?” He asked.
“If you decide to be curious about my love life again, please ask me after nine AM.”
The line went dead before he could respond. He stared at the wall, and realized once again what a useless and pointless venture that was. Setting the phone on his nightstand, Atticus leaned back on his mattress.
Time to go back to the drawing board.
It was pathetic, he was all too aware of that. He felt like a teenager again, terrified of asking someone out, only to get rejected once he got the courage. But he wasn’t a teenager anymore - he was thirty-nine years old, damn it. And who asks their ex out (good working relationship or not) when they’re almost forty?
He wasn’t sure why he was dreading the idea of attending the premiere by himself. Hollywood as a whole wouldn’t blacklist him for the crime of coming alone. No one was going to laugh at him for not having a girlfriend. And on a personal level, being single only ever bothered him when his mother asked him when he was getting married. Otherwise he was content to focus more on his work than relationships. In fact, he could count all of the serious relationships he’d been in on one hand, and the last one was…
Was…
Atticus sat back up, looked at the pack of cigarettes on the nightstand, and thought about lighting up another one. He shook his head - his anxiety was going to give him lung cancer at this rate.
Pathetic and lonely, a brilliant combination he was.
Then his gaze shifted to his phone, and he wondered if he should just give Liberty a call. His sister had to know someone who’d be willing to tolerate him for a night. Yes, it was embarrassing to ask one’s sister to set them up with someone, but as much as he hated to admit it, he was desperate for something .
Atticus sat back up, reached for the phone, and stopped. His alarm clock showed “6:10”. Instead, he stood up, stretched, and wondered what the hell he was going to do to pass the morning. He already made the mistake of calling Claudia early, and he didn’t want to incite his sister’s wrath as well.
At three o’clock, Trent had given up on a decent night’s sleep. It was yet another night full of tossing and turning, of trying to ignore his thoughts and hoping that he wouldn’t dream if he managed to drift off. Still, he found himself frozen under his blanket, weighed down by the fight to keep his own thoughts at bay.
At around six-thirty, he finally found enough semblance of willpower to turn the TV on. To his relief, he caught the middle of Star Trek - just what he needed this morning. By the time the credits ended and the morning news started, he was able to force himself out of bed and into the bathroom.
Trent wanted to stay in the shower, under the hot water until he was soaked. He wanted to let the water flood the room, flood the apartment until he was completely submerged. And he would have let the water take him completely, until every fiber of his being was in a strange, silent tranquility.
In reality, he knew if the shower ran for too long, his water bill would go through the roof. With that in mind, he rinsed himself and got out of the stall.
As he dried himself off, he wiped the steam off of the mirror. Then Trent took notice of the bags around his eyes, and how at this point they were probably permanent. He combed his wet, shoulder-length red-brown hair and tried to think of a way to avoid Malm this morning. Like death and taxes, avoiding Malm completely was impossible. Still, delaying the inevitable was better than confronting it head on. As if to give him more ideas, his stomach growled; he figured a trip to the grocery store was overdue, and it would give him an excuse to be away from his apartment for an hour or two.
Throwing on a t-shirt, jeans, and boots, Trent exited his apartment. He turned in the direction of the stairwell (he couldn’t remember the last time the elevator worked), only for something to bump up against him and throw him flat on his ass.
“Fuck…” He muttered. A hand reached down for him, and Trent looked up at the familiar lanky figure above. “Hey, Robin.”
Grabbing Trent’s hand, Robin pulled him back up on his feet. “Jeez, in a hurry, man?”
Trent shrugged. “Kinda.”
Robin nodded and started to turn towards his own apartment (which was next to Trent’s), then stopped. “Hey, I keep forgetting to ask, but you play keys, right? Or am I just imagining weird noises coming from your place?”
“Yeah, I play. Why?”
“Our keyboardist just fucking quit on us last minute a couple nights ago,” Said Robin. “Like, literally just before our show.”
“Dick,” Said Trent.
“That’s what we said! Anyway, if you’re interested-”
“Sorry,” Trent interrupted. “But, uh, I’m not interested.”
Robin smirked. “Why? Not man enough to wear a skirt?”
Trent rolled his eyes. The Impotent Sea Snakes (he wasn’t sure if that was a terrible band name or an amazing band name) was an all drag band, and Trent had indeed been to one of their shows and witnessed Robin shredding on his guitar in full drag regalia on stage. That wasn’t why Trent turned the offer down though - clients had more than once asked him to come over in things like dresses, lipstick, and panties. At some point, he grew to feel pretty neutral about the whole thing. It helped that it wasn’t even in his top fifty list of humiliating shit he’d been paid to do.
No, it was because he was already in a band. Sort of. But he didn’t need to tell Robin that.
Robin shrugged. “Suit yourself. If you get over your irrational fear, let me know.”
Trent held up his middle finger as he walked away, and Robin laughed and unlocked his apartment.
As he made his way down the stairwell, Trent found himself remembering when Robin moved in the previous year. It was a repeated source of embarrassment for him - when they bumped into each other, they made light conversation, and for some reason Trent decided to scope out if he was one of “Malm’s boys”. When Robin kept reacting to Trent’s allusions to his line of work with nothing but confusion, Trent realized his mistake and felt like an idiot.
It wasn’t like the whole apartment was teeming with people like him. In his ten years of living there, he’d known exactly one other person there that worked the trade. But Trent didn’t like thinking about Kevin. Not when no one had heard from him in two years. Not when the worst case scenarios were on the list of things that kept Trent up at night.
Any hopes Trent had of avoiding Malm any longer were dashed the second he entered the first floor lobby. There he was, sitting in one of the worn-out vinyl armchairs by the front door, reading some magazine. Any hopes that he would miraculously not notice Trent were also dashed when he looked up, and smiled in a way that Trent had grown to despise.
“Morning, Trent,” He said with forced casualness, putting the magazine down on the armrest. “Looking a little tired there, did you have a good night?”
Trent was silent for a moment. “Um…I guess it was fine.”
Malm stood up, walked over to Trent and put his hand on his shoulder in a manner that was neither supportive nor comforting. “Good, great. And did you get the…?”
“Yeah, I’ll grab it, it’s upstairs,” Trent said, trying not to glare at his ‘boss’.
Malm kept his hand on Trent’s shoulder. “Why don’t I come up with you?”
Feeling the color leave his face, Trent nodded weakly. “Um, sure.”
The two of them trudged up the stairs, reaching the apartment after what felt like half an eternity. Trent fumbled with the key as he tried to unlock the door, Malm’s gaze on him feeling like needles in his skin. When the door was finally unlocked, he slipped through it and shut the door before Malm could have a chance to follow. He found his jacket still lying on the floor, plucked out his wallet and counted out Malm’s share of last night’s fee. Then he counted it again - he couldn’t let Malm think he wasn’t getting his ‘fair share’, not again.
When Trent got out of his apartment, Malm was staring straight into the doorway, an impatient look on his face. He laid his eyes on the wad of cash in Trent’s hand, and grabbed it without hesitation. “Trent, Trent, Trent, where would I be without you?”
Trent held his tongue. He learned the hard way that talking back to Malm was never a good idea.
“Don’t forget about tonight’s job, alright?” Malm said, sliding the money into his pants pocket. “See you tomorrow morning, kid.”
Standing still until Malm had completely disappeared from his sight, Trent slinked back into his apartment. He shut the door quietly and pressed his hand to the wall. For almost thirty seconds, he closed his eyes and held his breath tightly, trying not to think about anything - least of all, Malm. Then he let his breath out slowly and steadily. Nothing but sweet, calm serenity…
It didn’t work.
Trent balled his fist and slammed it into the wall, over and over again until his hand was red with pain and his eyes stung with tears. He would have slammed it until his skin bled, but he didn’t want anyone asking questions if they saw his hand. No, he’d just have to fucking bottle it up, bury it until he could sit himself down with his journal, or play his feelings out on a few chords until it resembled something of a song.
Or maybe he’d revisit that idea of flooding the apartment…
His stomach growled again before he could entertain the thought too much. There were still groceries to be bought, and starvation was decidedly a less romantic way of dying. He could at least get something to drink so he could think about everything less than he already had to. Yeah, that sounded like a plan.