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Kerry just about wrangles the tight fabric over his head and down his chest when the door flies open via one, well aimed kick to the handle. There's Johnny, then. All legs as he swaggers in, eyeing the dressing room door like he did it a favor, eying Kerry with the same look. Buzzing with pre-show adrenaline and probably synth-coke.
"You better have liquor in here, Ker," he says, already halfway swaggering into the space, sunglasses on, doing that weird little gait that has an equal chance of being alcohol as it does adjusting his junk in those egregious leather pants. "I ain't doin' tonight sober. You-you hear that? Fans are fuckin' screaming my ear off already. "
"Jesus Christ, can you knock?"
Johnny ignores him. Doesn't even look up from rifling through Kerry's makeup table, then under the couch cushions. Finally digging up his trophy in the form of an admittedly sexy looking, half-cracked bottle of vodka Kerry was saving for the after party. Kerry blinks at Johnny as he unscrews the cap, takes a neat swig and then shakes his head like he's been doused with ice-cold holy water.
"Woah," Johnny sounds all refreshed, like's he's having a piña colada on the beach and not a stolen vodka in the dressing room. Looking at the bottle like it's a birthday cake, or a real fat rack, something that won't be savored, a treat for the senses.
He gestures to Kerry with the bottle, "that hit the fuckin' spot-"
Pauses.
Squints.
"The hell you wearin'?"
Kerry smooths his hands over his chest, the flat slate, feeling the stretchy fabric over calloused palms. Jaw all tight. "It's a binder, man."
"A what."
"Just-," Kerry sighs through his nose, halfway tempted to start a fist fight because it's easier than the conversation at hand, "it helps," he gestures to his chest, "things sit right. Flat, or whatever."
Johnny blinks at him for several seconds. And whatever is going through his intoxicated mind is between him and God, so Kerry doesn't even attempt to decipher it. That's the thing with Johnny, with Kerry, with the knowledge they share but never acknowledge.
Then, Johnny laughs, hard, straight from the belly. "What? Like you had tits in the first place? Kerry, baby, you're built like a fucking coat hanger."
Kerry scrubs a hand down his face, "Johnny-"
"I'm just sayin' like, I ain't gonna change my tires if they don't need changing-"
"Don't compare me to your car!" Kerry tries to snap it, but there's an ugly laugh clawing its way up his throat, "get out!"
"Ay, relax!" Johnny steals another swig, "y'look fine, you always look fine! You're always adding all this extra shit on-"
"Out, Johnny. Ain't got no decency."
"You ain't got no tits, ha! What's the argument about?"
Outside, the crowd roars.
Kerry tugs his shirt straight, muttering about idiots, and Johnny steals another drink
Johnny Silverhand can be cruel in a thousand creative ways. He's a real artisan that way. Johnny is loud, dismissive, selfish, volatile, a junkie, a hypocrite, a real big dick. He's mean for sport, he'd spit that himself. And Johnny won't pull punches when he tears Kerry apart. His clothes, his voice, the way he stands, the way he breathes, the way he exists in a room. Nothing is sacred. It's all fair game.
Except that one thing.
Kerry is weak, sure. A poser. A diva. A big, fat sellout. A heartbreak on legs. A man with a gun in his mouth. Johnny calls him fragile, calls him vain, calls him sensitive, high maintenance. Hell, he doesn't skip on the gendered insults. Silverhand? Nah, not ever.
But never the wrong one.
Ain't that just it?
The funny thing about it? The thing that really messes Kerry up? Is that he'd bet fat cash that it never even crosses Johnny's mind. It's a trip, a mind break. It's not even because Johnny's respectful, or careful. Those are the opposite of everything he is.
No, it's because Johnny's brain doesn't categorize Kerry as something conditional.
There's not 'but', no 'technically'. Johnny doesn't think 'man with an asterisk'. He thinks man, full stop. Not because he's morally above the language. It simply doesn't exist to him as a concept in Kerry's case. Kerry isn't different in Johnny's head, no, not in that way.
He's just Kerry.
Annoying. Talented. Gorgeous. A pain in the ass. A mess. A car crash. A real good fuck. A rockstar. A man.
And Johnny treats him the way he treats every man, everyone, he cares about: with insults, violence, reckless affection, and ugly love.
Sure, sometimes it hurts. And Kerry finds himself craving that softness. Foolishly craving it. Wanting that language, maybe, because at least it's validation that something existed, something happened in this space, like a crater after an asteroid strike, the rubble after a bomb. To be seen deliberately, maybe, rather than accidentally. Something other than this feral, broken version of, what? Acceptance?
But then Johnny won't question, won't reclassify. On black days, it's easier. And Kerry realizes it's probably Johnny's closest form of respect, if not love. It's louder than any song could scream. Kerry is reminded that part of him is invisible. Not erases, but resolved. Settled and decided and never up for debate.
There's an honesty in that, Kerry thinks.
"Lotta talk for a guy with a plastic cock-"
"Oh yeah?" Kerry hums, low, deep in his chest as he presses his muscled weight into Johnny's back, pushing him deeper into the dirty mattress, pressing a hand on the back of his head, a barely there pressure, before ripping and ripping his head up at the last moment. Close, mouth to his ear, breath all in johnny's face. Shared booze.
Johnny plays. Fights. Doesn't submit until that last push, that last moment, that last aching second when Kerry's king of the hill. Aching and bleeding and snot soaked and teary, the only way Kerry eats his meals.
Kerry reaches down into the sweaty space between them, grips the shaft of the strap and smooths it between Johnny's cheeks in several strokes, lubed with spit, it catches.
It's big. Maybe a little bigger than strictly necessary because Kerry has ego issues. Sue him.
"Yeah, I do got a plastic cock, don't I?"
Kerry presses, and it's tight. Johnny arches up, pulls his own hair in Kerry's grip, mouth wide open. Ah, ah, ah. Then, Kerry stops, just inside. Johnny feels the ridges and lets out this broken little noise that might be a whine and might be a moan. Wriggling his hips like he didn't have an attitude five seconds ago.
"And you're gonna take every inch, Silverhand. Every. Fuckin'. Inch."
Johnny cries. Sings so sweet. But Kerry waits. Waits for him to nod, before he cracks him in two.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Johnny sniffs, and there are sprinkles of white in his mustache, itchy and twitchy and sweating under stage lights.
"You ever get that thing where ya balls stick to your leg when the lights get too hot?"
Kerry blinks, "I ain't got no balls, Johnny."
"What."
Kerry does this weird hand motion around where his cock would be. And, make no mistake, it'd be a fat, impressive thing. "Nada. No balls."
A beat. Several beats, actually.
"Oh, yeah," then, Johnny sniffs again, "y'could have jus' said no. Pervert."
Kerry laughs!
The dressing room reeks. Beer and cigarettes. The floor's all sticky with it too, catching on Kerry's jeans as he sits between Johnny's legs, hands braced on Johnny's thighs, slipping in the sweaty leather. He tries to stay in the moment, tries to lock in on the sex and the drugs and the rock and roll but he can't. Not now. Mind chewing itself raw on the looks, every glance, every offhand comment getting under his skin as the night progressed. His shirt clings wrong to his belly, his chest, the fabric catching on the binder he's sweat though under the armpits. Kerry's skin doesn't fit him, like he's allergic to it. And he's not enough, never enough-
Johnny notices, of course he does. Lives off two things: the attention explosives cause and which ever direction his cock points, a compass.
"Aw, where'd you go, Eurodyne," Johnny's voice is low, roughened by smoke and microphone screaming. A rough hand envelops Kerry's head, smoothing through sweaty curls, tugging sharp enough to snap him back into the here and now. "Starin' at my fly like my cock's gonna suck itself."
Kerry bristles, temptation to bite. It's a part of their game. But he doesn't move. Throat tight and full in every way except the way he wants. There's doubt there. And he hates it, hate's it all. It sits heavy in his gut, all sour, like a sharp feedback whine before the good noise. Misaligned. Every movement feeling borrowed. And Kerry wants to disappear into the noise. Into Johnny's hands and the burn of being wanted. Normally? That's easy. A performance he can ride.
It's not fear, exactly.
Not shame.
It's that lingering sense that he's out of sync with his own reflection.
Johnny leans forward, smirk catching, like he sees him, reads him, x-ray and bone marrow. He releases his hand from Kerry's hand and lets both slip to his neck, instead. Chrome and flesh on either side, holding in something that might be gentleness if it were anyone else.
Then, Johnny says, "you know what I see, Eurodyne?"
Something disgusting. Something Kerry doesn't want to acknowledge at all.
He looks at Johnny. "What?"
Shared breaths.
"I see a cock-hungry fag kneelin' like he was born for it."
It's a slap in the face and a hand on the shoulder simultaneously. Ugly and sharp. Kerry feels the sting of it first, pride flaring at the language. Something nasty working its way up. He wants to snap, to bite.
But beneath that? Something settles. The static dulls and the noise in his head silences just enough.
No flinch, no correction, no edge of mockery beyond the usual sneer. Just raw, biting truth, delivered sharp as a cig' burn. The words hit like a punch in the gut and an anchor in a sea storm. Johnny doesn't tip toe, doesn't soften. The same words he'd spit for any other guy. They steady him, Kerry hates it but they do.
It feels like being insulted back into his body.
Ain't that just Johnny all over.
The laugh that catches in Kerry’s throat is half-snarled, half-desperate. But it burns away the static in his head, leaving only rhythm in its wake, only the thrum of blood and Johnny’s voice rasping approval like a hymn as Kerry sucks his cock.