Chapter 1: In which you are shameless

You roll over in a mass of sheets sweaty, sticky and hot just before dawn on the lower east side. You rub your eyes and throw the dark purple blankets off of you, taking a minute to appreciate the warmness of a bed which you have not had in a long time.

You turn to your left and see the person you'd come home with after hanging around at The Alley, a local nightclub you frequent and pretty much live at downtown. As the stranger next to you shifts you realize you've broken your rule by allowing yourself to fall asleep in someone else's bed. You run a hand through your ruffled Mohawk and find your underwear on the floor near a chair and slip them on careful not to make a lot of noise.

You find other pieces of your clothes and pull them on while you fix your hair in the mirror. In the reflection you see your date roll over and make soft bubbling noises in his sleep which makes you laugh a little.

Grabbing your glasses off of his dresser you notice his wallet and look back over at him.

Come on Tavros even this is below you, you can't possibly be considering taking his wallet?

You're conscious fights with you and out of guilt you only reach inside and take enough for cab fare and slip out of the door but not before looking back at your date and snickering at how cute he looks when he's sleeping; you appreciate it knowing you'll never see it again.

Once you trot down the narrow stairs leading up to the guy's apartment you realize just how nice of a place you actually slept in. You wander wide eyed around the lobby of the apartment building looking at the décor and cheery staff shuffling around. Taking a moment to button up your jacket you walk out into the cold air and hail a cab to east village knowing you're too far from home to make it back now.

You only have one place you can go this late night and you dread the thought the whole way there. Your cabbie lets you off in front of the building and you run across the campus of your cousins college praying that curfew hasn't passed so you can stay with him for just awhile to clean yourself up.

When you make your way onto his hall you thank the heavens that his hall is empty and no one's around to bust you.

You knock on the door rapidly three times "Rufioh! Open up its Tavros" you whisper trying not to draw attention to yourself.

At a few minutes of not hearing a sound you knock again more forcefully hoping no one comes out to see what the ruckus is.

You let out a sigh of relief when you hear the groan of bed springs and heavy footsteps pad towards the door.

The big wooden door flies open and a mess of red and black hair spoke out to reveal a clearly sleepy Rufioh. Your cousin Rufioh is pretty much the only one you really know in this whole city and the only one you can go to when you've got yourself in a bit of a dilemma. Rufioh's big dark eyes plead with you while he clears his throat.

"Yeah..? What is it Tav?" He whispers which confirms your worst fear, that Rufioh's long time partner Horuss is sleeping over and he really doesn't want to wake him. You shift your weight around uncomfortably before coming out with it

"Uh could I please sleep here and maybe clean up a bit? I swear I won't bother you and Horuss." You bit down on your lower lip hoping that sleep is all you are interrupting for your favourite cousin. He looks back in the darkness and sighs heavily before opening the door fully and letting you in.

"Thanks a lot." You whisper trying to make your way through the dark to the center of the room to borrow some of Rufioh's clothes. You're sure they won't really fit seeing as he isn't as lanky as you are but you've started remembering to eat a bit more which should fix that. Rufioh digs through his drawer to hand you a shirt and some clean underwear being ever so careful not to rouse Horuss who you can see on the bed shirtless with a blanket covering his lower half.

"Don't worry about him, he's out cold." Rufioh puts a hand on your shoulder and points you towards their bathroom.

You get almost to the door when you feel something catch around your ankle and you try to step out of it but just end up making it worse and falling down and taking something else down with you.

"Oh god really Tavros?! It was less than ten steps, less than ten!" Rufioh yells out, and which jerks Horuss awake. Thinking someone is trying to hurt Rufioh Horuss jumps up and switches on the light while you gather the shirt and underwear you've dropped.

"Oh Tavros it's you, what on earth are you doing?oh…oh dear" Horuss looks down and puts a hand over his mouth and started to stifle a laugh, Rufioh does the same and only then do you look around you to see what it was you tripped on

All around you are bright colored and different sized uh…phallic...toys. As you look around in horror you realize that worst of all, the straps on a strap on had tripped you and made you knock into the dresser where Horuss keeps his prized toys in the first place.

"OH MY GOD EWW!" You yell and jump up trying to get yourself as far away from them as possible. This action however, only causes Rufioh and Horuss to laugh even more uncontrollably. Feeling your face grow hot you angrily run into the bathroom with the clothes and yell for them to shut up or you'll throw every single one of those things out of the window.

"God damn Horuss and his fucking weird ass dildos all over the place. Shit how is anyone supposed to learn anything here with those lying around?" You gripe to yourself as you wait for the shower to get warm and step inside.

The moment the water hits your back you let out a deep sigh and close your eyes. You have to admit you're a lot more tired than you even realized and it's easy to forget that when you spend almost every single night partying in some the grubbiest parts of town till god knows when.

But this had been the life you wanted; you took off from your parent's ranch in the Midwest in order to make things easier for them. They had been struggling for a while to make ends meet with feeding you and all your litter of siblings and being one of the oldest you always felt in the way.

One day after having to watch your father sell a lot of his old war memorabilia just to pay for your siblings field trips and groceries you knew that maybe getting a job wasn't the best thing you could do for your family; but instead to leave their home entirely and make a home for yourself somewhere else so they had one less mouth to feed.

Naturally you didn't want to go anywhere where you didn't know anyone and you weren't particularly close with any of your other aunts and uncles. At some point you had grown tired of bus hopping from state to state you called up your favourite cousin Rufioh at his college in Manhattan and asked to stay awhile.

Obviously you knew you couldn't stay with Rufioh forever so you lied to him and said after a few days you had met someone who was letting you stay with them. Of course really what you had meant was that you had decided to sleep all day wherever, party all night and get so messed up you didn't have to remember all the sleazy things you had to do to get a free meal or a few hours rest in a motel.

You have been at this lifestyle for about four or five months and your body is getting more tired every day.

Shutting the shower off and drying off you pull on the shirt and fresh underwear you fell on a pile of dildos to get and lay down on the floor across from Rufioh's bed.

"Did it all come out in the wash?" Horuss whispers throwing an arm over a half asleep Rufioh.

You stare at him for a moment wanting to just tell him everything but decided against it.

"Yeah, thanks. Sorry for waking you up." He just waves your words away and leans over to turn off the small lamp on the nightstand near you.

"It's nothing, rest well now." He smiles before laying back down.

And for the first time in a few months you do.

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