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There are, in Kerry’s approximation, roughly fifteen different brands of sparkling water stocked in the green room, and somehow not a single one of them is alcoholic.
“Do people actually drink this shit?” he mutters to himself, inspecting a can of something antioxidant and non-GMO and pamplemousse, whatever the fuck that means. It’s a far cry from the scene that raised him, capping off shows with a line and a shot of tequila, but he figures he’s doing his blood pressure a favor by practicing restraint just this once.
The walls are thrumming with the clamor of the lingering crowd in the auditorium, their faces and bodies swarming together to chant Kerry’s name like some sacred mantra. He can still hear them, their rapt vibrations traveling through the floor to seep into his feet, and it’s addictive, dangerous in a way that no narcotic could ever imitate. This, he’s beginning to remember, is the lodestone of his work—the touring, the performing, the fierce devotion, the rhapsody.
His hands are shaking as he slides the can of sparkling water back into place amongst its brethren. The backboard of the bar is lined by a long mirror, fractured with hairline cracks but otherwise clear as it reflects the span of the green room. Kerry locks eyes with himself, the watery blue of his irises nearly engulfed by their dilated pupils; his hair is a mess, ruffled loose and wild by hours of high-octane stagecraft. A sheen of sweat clings to his throat and the bridge of his nose, smudging his eyeliner into smoky black rings, and there’s a ruddiness to his complexion that he recognizes from his many afternoons spent at V’s, slipping out of his apartment after a thorough midday fuck.
And isn’t that a thought, says the whisper that curls up Kerry’s spine.
And an uncharacteristically prophetic one at that. It’s barely a beat later that the door to the green room whispers open, V sneaking inside as Kerry wrangles his hair back into some semblance of normalcy.
“Not really into the whole groupie thing,” Kerry throws over his shoulder.
In the mirror, V clasps a hand to his heart. “But Mr. Eurodyne, I’m your biggest fan.”
“Oh yeah? Name three of my albums.”
“I think the one that’s almost exclusively about my ass counts as three.”
Kerry laughs. “Shut up, it’s only about your ass metaphorically,” he rebuts, but still lets V spin him away from the bar top by his hip. The kiss that V presses to his mouth is molten, and Kerry purrs into it, running his hands across the taut muscle of V’s chest. “How’d you like the set?”
“Christ, Ker, it was amazing,” V tells him. “I mean, I’ve seen the clips and all, but that was somethin’ else. You really don’t fuck around, do you?”
Kerry’s usually a master at deflecting compliments, having spent most of his adult life fending off his own cult of personality, but this is different. V’s pragmatic, about as spare and spartan as they come, and yet he’d watched as Kerry enthralled an audience of thousands into screaming his songs and decided, unequivocally, that it was amazing. Kerry wishes he could conjure up something cool and self-possessed to say, but all he can manage is a breathless, “Yeah?” as he reaches up to line V’s jaw.
V tilts his head into it, a playful suspicion pulling at the corners of his lips. “C’mon, that can’t be the most smoke you’ve had blown up your ass.”
“Well, no, but…” And how’s he supposed to put it? It’s you? You’re hard to impress and I like that about you and I want you to be impressed by me? I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you but I’m a coward and a masochist so I say it in every indirect way that I can? Kerry lands on a shrug, bumping his nose against V’s. “I dunno.”
Evidently V does know, as he’s chuckling when Kerry kisses him, forging after that uncomplicated affection to coat his own mouth with it, his tongue, his teeth. V licks into him with an unhurried heat, the taste of him heady and singularly captivating, and Kerry’s back arches as his hands begin to wander downward.
He feels his pulse skip as V’s palms find the curve of his ass. “Are you…?” Kerry starts, though he has no clue what he’s trying to ask, too warm and short of breath to finish a thought, let alone a coherent sentence. He skims his fingers into V’s hair, shivering at the contented rumble it earns him as V kisses a path along the length of his neck.
“Mm,” V replies. His teeth nick the thin gold enameling that frames Kerry’s larynx, and it’s only through some herculean feat of resolve that Kerry’s knees don’t buckle from under him. “This much leather should be a crime, y’know. Public indecency.”
“So whatcha gonna do about it, sheriff?”
V hums contemplatively. “I was thinkin’,” he says, lips grazing the shell of Kerry’s ear. One of his hands slips further down to grasp Kerry’s thigh, and then he’s lifting, spreading him open so he can slot himself in the leatherbound space between Kerry’s legs, “that I could suck you off.”
Now, it might be the genuine shock that wrenches a moan out of Kerry’s throat, or it might be the sudden roll of V’s hips, grinding hard and honey-slow against the thickening swell of Kerry’s cock. “What, here? Really?” he wheezes, bracing his weight against the bar to maintain his balance.
“Really.” The hot swipe of V’s tongue is in perfect synchrony with the circle of his hips as he captures Kerry’s mouth again, insistent and dirty. Kerry clutches at him, breath stuttering in his chest with each new starburst of friction. “Unless you got somewhere else to be?”
Well, it’s not as if they’re in a fucking convent, are they? A hazy, phosphorescent green room in a chrome-rock hall in San Francisco—Kerry’s hard-pressed to believe he’ll be the first or last person to get head here. “Fuck yes,” he groans. “Or, uh. I meant—like, I don’t—ugh, Jesus, just put me out of my misery.”
V brushes an amused kiss to his temple. “With pleasure,” he replies, and just like that, Kerry’s boots are leaving the floor.
Fuck, is that trick ever gonna get old? Probably not. V hefts him up onto the bar like it’s nothing, like Kerry’s body is just some plaything for him to toss around at will. His hands are scorching and deliciously textured as they drive under the hem of Kerry’s tank top, rolling it up to reveal his abdomen, his chest, his pebbled nipples. V crowds ever closer, like the very particles of air that separate them are a grievous affront to his senses, sucking a dark, livid mark against Kerry’s pulse point as the fore- and middle fingers of both his hands work at his chest.
Kerry’s head hits the backboard mirror on a long whine. “Fuck,” he breathes. He hooks his ankles behind V’s knees to haul him closer still. “The hell’s in the water around here?”
“Ain’t no way all that shit’s just for show.” V bites a trail of reddening bruises down the column of Kerry’s throat, starting up high beneath his earlobe and the metallic ridge of his jawline. They’ll be a bitch to cover later, which Kerry suspects is largely the point. “You know damn well how you look on that stage. You tryin’ to tell me somethin’?” His mouth continues southward, jumping the barrier of bunched-up cloth at Kerry’s collarbone so he can lave his tongue over an abused nipple. “Tryin’ to drive me crazy?”
And sure, fine, maybe Kerry had imagined it once or twice or ten times, had fantasized about stripping a house to its studs so convincingly that V, implacable and even-tempered as he is, would be overcome by an appetite to fuck him stupid over the nearest flat surface. That said, it would have only sounded silly if it hadn’t worked. “Caught me red-handed,” Kerry responds, and is rewarded (or perhaps punished) with the scrape of teeth against his tender skin.
His composure is swiftly waning, the muscles in his abdomen trembling lightly as V leaves a shiny path of kisses in his wake. A flick of tongue here, a nip to Kerry’s hipbone there, and suddenly V’s popping the button of his pants with his teeth, cleverer and cleverer with that mouth of his every day. His patience must be thinning, too, if the tremors in his hands are any indication, tugging at Kerry’s waistband just enough to expose his cock to the cigarette staleness of the green room.
Kerry’s hard, so hard that he’s aching with it, rendered dumb and lightheaded by V’s tongue and his teasing and the resonant baritone of his voice. Every fiber in him, synthetic and organic alike, coils tight with anticipation as V takes him in hand, pumping him twice from root to tip with the dark-eyed wonder of a man possessed.
“Pretty everywhere, ain’tcha?” he mumbles, more to himself than to anyone in particular, then ducks his head to drag the flat of his tongue up the underside in one smooth stroke.
Holy shit, supplies Kerry’s lust-addled brain, holy shit holy shit holy shit. The back of his head slams into the mirror, eyes screwing shut as that silky, wet heat envelops him. His ribs collapse on a needy groan, knees hiked up and held wide by the broad bow of V’s shoulders. He’s helpless, helpless to do anything but submit to V’s hunger—the curl of his tongue as he fits his lips around the weeping head of Kerry’s cock, the hollow of his cheeks as he sucks on the upstroke, echoing the motion with the twist of his hand.
Kerry wants to match his pace so badly, to thrust up into the clutch of his throat, but his suspension on the bar top leaves him with virtually no leverage, so he draws his own fingers into his mouth instead, moaning as he mimics V’s technique to the best of his ability. His nipples are still throbbing from V’s attentions, and he reaches down to play with them, smearing saliva around the puffy flesh; they’ve always been sensitive, though he’s only considered piercing them recently, spun hot and desperate by the thought of how V would react. Would his face fall slack at the realization, his palms skimming over skin-warmed barbells? Would he pinch at them, pull at them, roll them over and over between his teeth? Could he make Kerry come like that? How many times?
He glances downward, which he promptly realizes is a rookie mistake. V’s still there, still big and handsome and still very much swallowing Kerry’s dick, his optics lidded and fathomless as if this is just as nerve-searing for him. His gaze flits up, and without so much as a pause, he fucking winks, somehow managing to look smug and self-satisfied with the shape of a cock distending his cheek.
Snorting, Kerry bats at his head. “Shut the fuck up,” he mutters, though his hand finds purchase in V’s hair, clumsily tugging before he can think better of it. It elicits a groan from V, his eyes pitching back as he sinks his mouth around Kerry’s hilt, and the reverberations fry Kerry straight down to his synapses, rattling the bone and titanium that build him.
He’s whimpering now—he can hear himself whimpering—which he’d have the presence of mind to be embarrassed about if he wasn’t this close to losing his shit. It’s so overwhelming that he barely registers the polite triplet of knocks at the green room’s door, a quick tap-tap-tap like maybe it’s an accident, maybe they’re just looking for somebody else. Kerry digs his nails into V’s scalp again, shuddering at the answering hum he receives.
Another triplet. Tap-tap-tap.
“Mr. Eurodyne?” calls the latest and greatest of Kerry’s sworn nemeses, and for Christ’s sake, even V’s turning to look over his shoulder.
Engage with empathy, is what his therapist would suggest, but fuck his therapist, this ain’t about him. “Fuck off!” Kerry roars, loud enough that his own ears ring with it. “Come back in thirty!”
He’s expecting some kind of refutation, another triplet and a cheery Sorry, no can do! Much to his relief, though, it never comes, and it occurs to Kerry that, at some point, V’s nose had landed in the slick crease of his thigh, the bend of his back rippling with poorly suppressed laughter.
“Such a fuckin’ prima donna,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief.
Kerry most certainly does not pout. “Hey, I resent that. Far as rockerboys go, I’m a goddamn saint.”
“Mm, and a humble one, too.” V’s already back to kissing him, sweeping his lips in a tantalizing course across Kerry’s hips, his stomach, practically everywhere but his throbbing dick. “Really think you can last that long?”
Kerry probably can’t last another thirty seconds, to be frank, but he shrugs and says, “Tick tock.”
Challenging V, as it happens, is also a rookie mistake. There’s a fervor that falls over him, something dark and charged and heavy; Kerry’s throat dries out at the sight of it, a reedy exhale shivering out of him as V’s hand returns to his cock. He works Kerry slowly, angling him up so he can suck at the soft skin of his sac underneath, and fucking hell, this’ll kill him, this’ll finally put Kerry Eurodyne in the grave. He knows he won’t stand a chance if he watches, and yet he watches anyway, too mesmerized by the sheen of V’s mouth, the pink of his tongue as he laps at Kerry’s slit.
It’s no time at all before he’s cresting that peak again, reduced to rhythmic strains of ah, ah, ah and Vince, please, Vince with every disappearance of his cock into V’s mouth, the tunnel of his fist. Kerry’s strung-out, overwarm, tense as a snare drum and sizzling just the same, so it’s no wonder that he misses V’s free hand sneaking behind his balls to brush a calloused finger over his hole.
Kerry shouts, his hips jerking fruitlessly by way of more, of yes, of fuck me right this fucking second. The rub of it is dry, the pressure not nearly enough, but it kicks Kerry’s heartbeat into overdrive regardless, his ribcage hammering as V pulses his rim. There would be nothing stopping Kerry, really, from shoving V off of him and hopping down to the floor, from turning and spreading himself for V to split with his cock, rough and messy. It would burn, and Kerry would love it, bent over the bar and panting as V pounded into him in the mirror. V could come like that, buried deep inside of him, and Kerry would have to limp for the rest of the night, sore and used and so utterly wrecked.
He doesn’t have a chance to warn V before his orgasm rams into him, head thrown back on a low, ragged moan. V’s surprise is only betrayed by a quick little grunt before he takes him down to the base, relaxing his throat as Kerry spills and spills and spills. His hands are everywhere, cradling Kerry’s balls and massaging his hips and skating up his sides, and Kerry gracelessly grasps onto one, mind blunted and buzzing by the onslaught of stimuli.
He’s still twitching with phantom aftershocks as V tucks his cock back into his briefs. Kerry fumbles his thumb over the chiseled architecture of V’s cheekbone, pleasantly loose, and V presses a kiss to it, rising to his feet. He licks into Kerry languidly, his mouth filthy with the thick, telltale bitterness of Kerry’s come, and Kerry moans as he chases after it, plunging his hand down between them to knead at the neglected bulge in V’s jeans.
V catches his wrist, hissing, “Behave, Mr. Eurodyne.”
A white-hot flash of arousal shoots into Kerry’s groin. “Soon as we’re back at the hotel,” he growls, pausing to whine around the sloppy delve of V’s tongue, “gonna ride you so hard you forget your fucking name.”
He doesn’t miss the subtle hitch in V’s breath. He never does. “That a promise?”
“It’s a threat.”
“It’s one letter, Ker.”
Kerry blinks. Somewhere, deep within the chasmic confines of his chest, there’s a sober rapping of knuckles, Kerry’s heart extending its condolences—you are, regrettably, in love. “Don’t get smart with me right now,” he huffs, dropping his head to the crook of V’s shoulder. “I can’t keep up.”
V helps him down with only a token amount of chuckling at his expense, and God Almighty, the lip on this kid. Kerry’s kneecaps might have been vaporized for how woozy he is, but he has half a mind to give him a taste of his own medicine, sink to the floor and swallow V’s dick so good he forgets why he’d objected in the first place. He settles, though, for simply kissing him, looping his arms around V’s neck and sliding a hand into his hair as he hums in kind, leading him toward the door.
They make it eventually, although Kerry finds himself summarily pinned against the doorjamb as V sucks another bruise to the seam of his cyberware. “Okay,” he tries, trilling when V kisses him, again and again. “Okay, okay, fuck, you need to go.”
V leans their foreheads together, the thump of his heartbeat wild and true under Kerry’s fingers. “See you soon?” he asks.
“Soon as I can bail,” Kerry laughs, then allows him one last kiss, then another, then another, because shit, who is he to complain? He musters the willpower to hit the access panel for the door, and then V is withdrawing from his orbit, pecking him once more for good measure before ducking out into the grungy hallway beyond, melting back into the darkness from which he emerged.
The door glides shut, and Kerry sighs like a fucking high schooler.
If the concert had left him debauched, then an actual blowjob has done him no favors. His hair’s a lost cause, his cheeks flushed and lips swollen, and he can only pray that the lighting outside is low enough to shadow the marks that litter his throat. Kerry straightens his clothes in the mirror along the wall, fiddling with his belt and his wrinkled tank top, and all the while has to remind himself that world-renowned musicians don’t usually grin without due reason.
He thinks about V, about their hotel room and their thousand thread count sheets and this cottony something that’s taken root in in the well of his soul, and figures a couple loose ends to tie up with MSM doesn’t sound all that tough, in the scheme of things.
It’s not much later that he’s slinking out of the green room, armed with his sunglasses and a foolproof getaway strategy, only to discover that that hallway is much less deserted than he was expecting. Over in the corner, seated on a stack of polyethylene equipment crates, is a mousy girl wearing a crew headset. She’s boring holes through the concrete floor below her, leg jiggling so hard it’s liable to snap off, and it dawns on Kerry, with no small amount of guilt, that this must be Ms. Polite Triplet of Knocks.
I’m a goddamn saint, is what he’d said to V. He can practically hear his own cosmic retribution laughing at him.
“Uh,” Kerry hazards, resisting the urge to wince when she startles at his approach. “Lauren, right? From Rancho Coronado?”
The hallway is about as dim as a Watson backstreet, but it wouldn’t take a floodlight to see her blanch. “You know my… ?” she mutters, then seems to remember herself with a vicious jolt. “Um, y-yes, sir, that’s me! Lauren Eastmere, I work the—you know, the… the schedules, and stuff.”
She’s a lower rung of the tour management team, if Kerry recalls correctly, a few years out of her undergrad degree. It’s a whole lot more than just schedules and stuff, but he’s never been fond of hair-splitters himself. “Listen,” he says, “I’m sorry for hollerin’ at you back there. You need somethin’?”
She’s gaping at him now, stock-still and frozen. After a beat, she manages to point in the vague direction of the main house, croaking, “The… the contracts. Datashards? Yeah.”
Contracts. Always more fucking contracts. That’s not her fault, though, Ms. Lauren Eastmere from Rancho Coronado, so Kerry just sighs. “Fuck, alright. Thanks.” Turning to regard her, he adds, “By the way, who’s your boss?”
He’d been aiming for offhand or flippant or I swear this isn’t an ultimatum, but yeah, in retrospect, there’s probably no casual way to ask that. Her shoulders begin bunching up around her ears as her shock morphs in panic, the crates beneath her violently rocking with the force of her leg. “Mr. de la Rosa, sir?”
“Right, with the tongue tattoo,” Kerry mumbles. Then, with a clap to her arm that just about catapults her soul from her tiny body, he says, “Preem. Keep up the good work, Lauren.”
He doesn’t stick around long enough for her to respond, already pivoting on his heel to hunt down whatever dumbfuck MSM bootlicker needs his undivided attention so fucking much, but he’s pretty sure the nervous echo of Th-thank you, Mr. Eurodyne! follows him down the corridor, bouncing and dying amid the soundproofed walls.
“And it turns out he was the one who recommended me for that performance bonus.”
Across the sticky laminate of the diner booth, Zoe’s eyes widen. “Wow, no kidding! He sounds a lot nicer than I would have guessed.”
“Yeah, but still, did he have to scream at you?” counters Nadia beside her, poking at the greasy wrapper that swaddled her burger mere minutes ago. “I don’t get celebrity types, man. That shit’s gotta mess with your head.”
Lauren Eastmere from Rancho Coronado shrugs one shoulder. “Well, he did apologize. I didn’t take it personally.” She stirs the melting remnants of her milkshake with a straw, tries to break up the ice that’s accumulated at the bottom. “Besides, I’m pretty sure I interrupted a business meeting or something. There was this guy that bolted out of his room.”
The tour gig wrapped up a month or two ago, circling back to Night City like an old, spurned lover. The better part of it was predictably stressful, and Lauren can’t quite say she was sad to bid it farewell, but her encounter with the Kerry Eurodyne had undoubtedly been notable, if not necessarily a highlight. She’s used to a certain degree of talent abuse by now, but what had thrown her about Eurodyne had been his unexpected humility, not to mention the sizable tip that had somehow snuck into her bank account.
Lauren resigned herself a long time ago to drowning in loan repayments well into her forties, so it’s not like she means to question it, no sir. She’s laser-focused on recovering the last of her milkshake from its soupy repose when she looks up to find Zoe and Nadia openly gawking at her from the other side of the table.
She chokes on an ice chip. “What did I say?” she asks, horrified.
“A guy,” Zoe parrots.
Lauren swallows. “Yeah, you know, like… like a guy.”
“Lauren,” says Nadia, suspiciously calm as she leans across the table, “are you trying to tell us that you saw the guy?”
“What guy? What are we talking about?”
“The guy the album’s about! I’m dark energy, baby, and you’re dark matter?”
Zoe nods enthusiastically. “You and I, we’re unfathomable, and nobody can sink to our depths?”
“You spent six straight months listening to that record,” Nadia says. “Don’t those sound like love songs to you?”
Well, sure, maybe, but in the same way that anything could be a love song nowadays—love songs about money, love songs about fame, love songs about every strip joint in Westbrook. The Kerry Eurodyne/Us Cracks tour had been Lauren’s sixth contract out of college; she’s heard her fair share of indistinguishable love songs. “I thought they were supposed to be metaphorical,” she whispers.
Nadia kicks her under the table. “You just saw him! By accident! Kerry Eurodyne hooks up with some new mystery input and cranks out the album of the year, and you just saw him!”
“I don’t know what I saw!” Lauren insists. “He might have just been, like—like a roadie, or something!”
Zoe wiggles eagerly in her seat. “Do you remember what he looked like? Hair, tattoos, piercings, anything?”
“I don’t know, it was really—”
Grabbing her hand, Nadia implores, “Think, Lauren, think!”
Does she remember anything? She's not really in the habit of painstakingly memorizing the features of random passersby, but maybe there was something kind of… intriguing about The Guy™, something suggestive of excitement and danger. A plainclothes corpo? An undercover cop? Maybe a solo working on Eurodyne’s dime, blurring the lines between detached professionalism and an undeniable physical attraction? Damn, maybe she should have gone into BD production.
Lauren replays the split-second memory of The Guy™ slipping down the dark hallway on loop. “I guess he was… cute?” she starts, hesitant. “Like… rugged. Edgerunner type. And he was built, y’know, but not too much. And, um…” She squints at the Formica under her palms. “Oh! If I had to guess, I’d say he’s probably a little taller than Eurodyne. Handful of inches, give or take.”
Across the booth, Zoe and Nadia are staring. Again.
“That’s it?” Nadia asks.
Lauren opens her mouth, then closes it. “He was wearing a jacket?”
“Jesus fucking—”
“Lauren!”