So... I found this horrible thing two-thirds finished on an old memory stick the other day. I have no idea when I wrote it, at least a year ago, maybe more. o.O But, well, re-reading it I sort of liked it so I thought I'd allow it to see the light of day. It will be three parts when I cobble together the last section.

...I really should finish all those other fics of mine but why the hell not upload this instead, right? XD

Btw, 'Jack' is not an OC. I hope the narrative makes it obvious but he is in fact Alfred, just using a false name. I'm sure that will be apparent but just in case seeing the name 'Jack' in the text repeatedly makes you go 'OC NOPE ABORT' and head for the hills, haha. XD

Title comes from the famous 1942 Edward Hopper painting of the same name.

Nighthawks

I

The boy stepped onto his table. He was beautiful, his hair bright gold under the lights, his blue eyes dark and brilliant. He was dressed like a cowboy and had a hell of a sway in his hips.

He wasn't the only dancer: it was an ensemble, six of them, three boys and three girls, all too young and inexperienced to dance on their own. This was a practice run to teach them how to kick and bite.

Perhaps the boy came to Arthur because he wasn't whistling and shouting obscenities. He was sitting on his own, in fact, quietly with a neat whisky. He liked to take his time, take his pick. This was the first time he'd ever been to this particular club and these things couldn't be rushed.

Either the boy was trying his utmost to make the decision for him or was simply hoping for a stray Abe Lincoln to shimmy his way. Whichever it was, he was very forward, sliding off the table and into Arthur's lap. He squirmed and opened a button or two, slow, barely in time with the music. He wasn't really a very good dancer, at least not yet. Arthur put his elbow on the table and watched him - and the boy slowed, faltered, then gave him quite the haughtiest look. His blue eyes had a dulled, cold charm to them. Arthur liked him.

"Do you fuck better than you dance?" he purred over the music, right in the boy's ear.

The boy leaned back, squinted at him, gave a grin.

"Why don't you find out?" He pushed backwards off Arthur's knees and slid away with a little wave. Almost immediately his place was filled by a girl in a skimpy sailor outfit, her coiffed blonde hair bouncing at her shoulders. Arthur barely paid her any mind. He certainly wasn't into women anymore - not after Francine.

After the show, he made his way backstage to inquire about the boy. The club's owner was a concrete block of a Russian called Braginsky, a well-organised man with a soft voice and a dangerous manner.

"Boy in cowboy outfit?" Braginsky went down the list of dancers arranged in a neat leather folder. "Tonight wearing cowboy outfit is Jack."

"Jack," Arthur repeated, more to try it out.

"Indeed." Braginsky nodded. "Twenty dollars for one hour. Interested?"

"I suppose so."

"How about pretty girl, too, for extra ten dollars?"

"No thank you. Just the boy, please."

"Suit yourself." Braginsky took the money and began to count it out. "You are new to New York?"

"Just visiting." Arthur glanced around the room. "...I admit to enjoying a distraction whenever I'm here."

"A distraction is always good. I agree that New York is a hellhole." Braginsky pushed a key towards him with a pleasant smile. "Room 16. Have a good time, da?"

Arthur nodded and left the room, passing a queue of men lined up, waiting their turn to strike a deal. Many of them were sailors, still in their neat blue-and-white uniforms.

He made his way up the rickety stairs, three floors, to Room 16. The building was an old Victorian one, a good seventy or eighty years old, all heavy wood and wrought iron; and Room 16, one half of the converted attic, was no exception. It had a high, slanted ceiling, one long window with a decorative iron grate and a beast of a fireplace, industrial, moulded with apple trees. There was no fire in it: doubtless Braginsky didn't feel the need.

The room was empty so Arthur went and sat on the bed to wait for the boy. He wasn't nervous, having done this plenty of times before. Besides, it wasn't as though he had a wife or a girlfriend to cheat on. The biggest worry was the police but he knew they didn't tend to venture this far into the Bronx - and that besides, Braginsky was clearly a Mafia member if ever he saw one. He didn't expect there would be any sort of trouble tonight, which left him alone with his much-needed distraction.

He really hated coming to New York.

The door opened and the boy stepped into the room. He was still in his cowboy outfit - highly impractical as it was - but Arthur saw that he was now wearing glasses, chunky prescription frames perched on the bridge of his nose.

The boy met his gaze, saw that he was staring at his glasses and immediately moved to take them off.

"Sorry, I know they're ugly," he said. "I'll take them off, it's just I need them to get up the stairs without breaking my neck-"

"No, it's alright. You can keep them on. If you need them you need them. Besides..." Arthur scratched at his cheek. "I rather like them."

The boy tilted his head at him. "You think they're sexy?"

Arthur coughed. "I suppose they have a certain charm to them."

The boy shrugged and came over to the bed. "Most people call them ugly," he said, "but I kinda like them, too." He put out his hand. "Name's Jack."

It probably wasn't but Arthur nodded.

"Arthur." His name was so common that he never bothered to give a fake one. They shook. Strangely professional.

"So you decided to take me up on my offer?" Jack asked nonchalantly, beginning to undress.

"I suppose I thought your fucking couldn't possibly be any worse than your dancing," Arthur replied.

"Ouch." Jack grinned. "That's some tongue you have. You any good with it?"

"I didn't pay your boss twenty dollars to see if my tongue was any good."

The boy laughed - and something about it suddenly set Arthur ill at ease. It was very young.

"Can I ask how old you are?" Arthur took his wrist. "I want an honest answer."

"I'm nineteen." Jack arched his eyebrows. "Why, you want younger?"

"Certainly not!" Arthur let him go. "I just wanted to be sure you're perfectly legal."

"Are you serious? You just paid twenty dollars to fuck a teenaged boy in the ass. I'm pretty sure that's at least four kinds of illegal."

Arthur scowled. "Look, are you sure you're nineteen?"

"Yes." Jack rolled his eyes. "You want me to go get my birth certificate?"

"No."

"Good, 'cause I don't have one, haha." Jack pushed him onto his back and straddled him, unbuttoning the last of his shirt and tossing it onto the floor. He arched his back and stretched for a moment; smiling down at Arthur when he reached out to run a hand up over his chest. "You like what you see?"

"Mm." Arthur dragged his fingers down again, pulling over Jack's belly, dipping just beneath his belt. "You're beautiful."

Jack hummed, beginning to undo Arthur's waistcoat. "Can I ask how old you are?" he murmured. "You can be honest. I like older men."

"I'm thirty-seven."

"Heh. You are definitely not the oldest I've had."

"I don't know if that's comforting or not."

"It should be." Jack rutted against him suddenly, making him gasp. "You're definitely one of the most attractive."

"Indeed." Arthur pressed his knee between the boy's legs in kind, making him shudder. "I bet you say that to them all."

"Maybe." Jack shook the shiver out of his spine and loosened Arthur's tie, deftly undid his shirt buttons. "Well, you're lucky - because not only do I like older men, I also like Englishmen."

"In that case, you're the lucky one, aren't you? Perhaps you should be the one paying for this."

"Ha, can you imagine? Ivan'd hit the goddamn roof!" Jack ran a curious finger over a scar on Arthur's ribs. "Get into a fight?"

"A very big fight," Arthur agreed. "I think they call it the Second World War."

"Oh, damn, yeah. If you're thirty-seven, I guess you fought, right?"

"Yes. I got that on D-Day going up the beach." Arthur paused, propping himself to glance down at it. "I was luckier than most."

"I'll kiss it better." Jack made quite a show of leaning down and pressing his mouth to it, suckling it, lathing his tongue over it. Arthur squirmed, putting his hand to the boy's head.

"Nice?" Jack was smirking at him.

"Mm."

"Got any more for me to kiss better?"

"I... ah..."

"Or shall I keep looking?"

"Yes, perhaps... perhaps you should do that..."

Jack slid his way down Arthur's body, kissing over his chest and belly, nipping at the skin just above his belt. Arthur arched against his mouth, lifting his hips for the boy to unbuckle his belt, take down his button and zip. Jack paused with his hands pressed to Arthur's inner thighs.

"Yes?" he asked quietly.

Arthur's breath caught in his throat; he swallowed with difficulty, nodded. Jack hummed his agreement - approval, perhaps: excellent choice, sir - and swallowed him up. Arthur threaded his hands into his golden hair, held his head, felt the muscles moving over the back of his skull. He was good, sending a tremor right up through Arthur's core, leaving him panting, writhing on the gritty sheets.

I've known too much of this. A sudden thought, unwelcome, as he looked up at the ceiling. Half of his life was lived behind cracked plaster and old doors.

There was a sudden hot jolt low down in his belly and he came, almost without expecting it. He let out quite the string of colourful words and felt Jack grin around him as he swallowed. Their eyes met as the boy lifted his head and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand; and his were dark, not with desire but a weariness, practiced words, reflex actions. He didn't think twice about swallowing. Too many ceilings and cracked plaster and old doors.

How have we come to this, you and I? That was what Arthur wanted to ask. Why did our paths cross here of all places?

Because. That was why. This boy, a teenager in a ragged cowboy costume in the sleaziest part of the Bronx, had just swallowed his semen because he had paid a Russian mafioso twenty dollars. Was that fair? Jack seemed to think it was - so who was Arthur to say that it wasn't? What did he know? Because. That was enough.

So before he asked something idiotic like "Do you like doing this?", instead he said "That was lovely," (which was slightly less idiotic). Jack smiled and opened his mouth to reply and promptly started coughing. It came right from the very bottom of his chest, a violent fit that wracked his entire body, and he doubled over on the bed. Arthur recoiled for a moment, shocked, before beginning to fumble in all of his pockets for a handkerchief.

"Goodness, are you alright?" He found a blue silk one in the top pocket of his jacket and pressed it into Jack's clutching hand. "Here."

Jack nodded his thanks, coughing into it. When the fit subsided enough for him to withdraw it, Arthur saw that there was blood on it. Jack saw this, too, clenching it in his fist as he turned his scared gaze on Arthur.

"I-I'm still good, I'll do whatever you want!" he begged. "Please don't tell Ivan. He'll throw me out if he knows I'm sick."

Arthur frowned. "Throw you out? He should be getting you medicine."

Jack shook his head. "I can be easily replaced. Nobody wants a sick prostitute." He suddenly seemed to realise what he was saying. "B-but I can still do my job! Whatever you want, I can do it!"

"I think perhaps you should rest for a while," Arthur said. "That was quite the coughing fit. If you do anything too strenous-"

"No!" Jack grabbed at his arm, his blue eyes filled with panic. "If you don't get what you paid for then you won't come back - and if you don't come back, Ivan will think I didn't do a good job and he'll throw me out and-"

"Alright, alright." Arthur shook his arm free. "But let's at least get you some water." Jack's voice was scratchy and hoarse, as though he might start coughing again at any moment, so Arthur helped him to the sink near the window and made him drink. He slurped thirstily from the tap for a good twenty seconds, panting for breath when he came up.

"Better?"

"Mm." Jack nodded, wiping his mouth with the handkerchief - then offering it back.

"Keep it." Arthur pushed it back at him. "You need it more than I do."

Jack actually seemed quite touched. "Thank you." He squinted at Arthur over his glasses. "You're... very kind."

"It's just common decency."

Jack didn't look like he'd ever heard of such a thing. He gave an absent-minded nod and took Arthur's hand, leading him back to the bed.

"Look, really, if you need to lie down for ten minutes, I completely understand-" Arthur began.

"It's okay, mom," Jack teased, pushing him back to the sheets. "I think I can manage." He pressed down, kissed Arthur on the mouth. He still had the coppery taste of blood on his tongue.

Quite how well he could manage was up for debate, in Arthur's opinion. He tried to take him on his back and heard him beginning to gasp for breath after thirty seconds or so, rattling in his chest like the wheels of Death's chariot. Arthur rolled him on top and let him ride, holding his hips to keep him steady - so he could concentrate on thrusting, breathing. Jack spread his hands over his chest as he moved, smiling down at him with a sultriness no doubt perfected before a mirror. Looking up at him, with the dim electric light flush over his young body, Arthur could clearly see that he wasn't well. He could see his ribs and the dark shadows under his blue eyes. He wanted to touch his face, run his thumb over his cheek, but he couldn't reach. Anyway, he noticed, Jack was now looking absently at the wrought iron headboard.

Arthur wasn't really offended. He didn't expect much else.

Jack came over his stomach with quite a lovely little cry - also perfected - and rocked mindlessly for a few moments more, coaxing Arthur to follow. Arthur held his hips and bucked up against him, exhaling through his nose. He didn't groan or whine anymore, he'd managed to get himself out of the habit. As for calling names, well, often by now he couldn't even remember. It didn't matter. It usually wasn't their real name, anyway. He didn't think Jack was really a Jack.

The boy slithered off and lay alongside him, his breath rasping.

"Are you alright?" Arthur mumbled, looking lazily at him.

"Mm." Jack coughed a little bit into the handkerchief. "Yes, I'm fine." He glanced at the tin clock on the table. "We still have twenty minutes. Is there anything else you'd like to do?"

"No." Arthur sighed, reaching down to peel off the prophylactic and zip himself up. "This is nice. Let's just lie here for a little bit."

Jack scrunched his nose at him, then grinned. "You're odd," he said. "I like it."

"Hm." Arthur folded his hands across his stomach and said nothing more. Jack shimmied closer and lay his head on his chest.

"Do you want to talk?" he asked. "I'm not too smart but I know some stuff."

"Just lying here with you is nice," Arthur replied. "I like the company."

"Are you lonely?"

"Sometimes." Arthur rubbed at his gold hair. "Why don't you sleep for a bit, get your strength back." A pause. "I doubt I'm the last you'll have tonight."

Jack said nothing to this - but he did close his eyes and go quiet. Within a few minutes his breathing evened out and he seemed to have nodded off. Arthur dared to stroke his hair as he lay back and looked around the room. How many more would be in his place tonight? How many others would Jack fuck for money he clearly didn't see very much of? Did he like this job or did he have no other choice? He wanted to ask but also he didn't really want to know. Brothels had a heirarchical misery that besotted Arthur, that he found grimly fascinating; one of the many reasons he kept coming back.

Presently there came a knock on the door.

"Hour is up." It was Braginsky's voice. Arthur sat up and roused Jack as a key turned in the lock.

"Mmm, already?" Jack adjusted his glasses and began to dress, still half-asleep. He was clearly exhausted, yawning as the door swung open and Braginsky entered the room.

"Hour is up," the Russian repeated pleasantly. He looked to Arthur. "Good time?"

"Very. He was excellent." Arthur was buttoning his shirt. "In fact... might I buy another hour with him?" He wanted to let Jack sleep, he was clearly in need of it.

Braginsky gave a broad smile.

"I am glad you are so impressed." He shook his head. "However, regretfully he is now booked up for the next four hours."

"Four?" Arthur repeated.

Braginsky shrugged.

"He is popular." He gestured towards Jack, who was stuffing the handkerchief into the pocket of his denim jeans. "Nice to look at, good technique, da?"

"W-well, yes, but-"

"If you like him so much, you come back tomorrow night." Braginsky tilted his head. "Or, if you are not fussy, I can find you someone else. I have most beautiful boy from China, almost look like a girl. Very skilled."

"N-no, it's quite alright." Arthur drew a breath, glanced at Jack. "Perhaps I'll come back tomorrow."

"Very good." Braginsky clapped Jack on the back as he came to them. "Good boy. Now here." He pressed another key into his hand. "Room 8. Is Mr Beilschmidt, you know what he likes."

Jack gave a nod, took one last look at Arthur and left the room, clattering down the staircase.

"Won't he be tired?" Arthur asked, pulling on his jacket. "Five in a row?"

Braginsky shrugged.

"You get used to it," he said. "I used to do it back in Russia. After a while you do not even feel it." He put his arm around Arthur's shoulders and led him quite forcefully down the stairs. "Besides, if no demand, there would be no need for supply."

Arthur had no response to this, descending the staircase in silence. He could hear thuds and squeaks and moans coming from behind the doors on each landing: Room 8, he noticed, was already closed.

"Perhaps tomorrrow night, then." Braginsky shook Arthur's hand at the office door. "Thank you for your custom. Goodnight." He went back into the office and shut the door, leaving Arthur to make his way out through the front of the club.

It was even busier than before, with lots of respectable men in suits and fedoras crowded close to the stage to admire a busty blonde singer in a glittering red burlesque number. Arthur paused with a jolt, watching her across the room with a pounding heart.

For a moment, she had looked like Francine.

But it wasn't her. This girl was too young - twenty-five at most. Francine would be in her forties by now. Besides, he didn't know what she looked like anymore. He hadn't seen her for years.


The following day he could think of nothing but Jack, the boy filling up every last absent space within him. He swung wildly back and forward between a resolve to return to the club that night and talking himself out of it. After all, he hadn't exactly promised to return and he doubted Braginsky would hold him to it; and really he oughtn't, he was taking a risk and if he was caught, he could most certainly kiss his career as a university professor goodbye. Word would certainly get back to his home university back in England of just what he'd been up to whilst on his fellowship in New York; and that was if he was lucky enough not to be arrested.

Still, that boy. All he could think of was the way Jack had looked at him as he had left the room, how he had coughed up blood, how tired he was. He wondered how much rest Braginsky allowed his workers, how much food he gave them, if he ever offered them any sort of medical attention.

All in all, he was rather absent-minded for the whole day, forgetting his lecture notes on 18th century Whig rhetoric and twice calling a student 'Jack'. By the end of the day he was forced to sit in the faculty room for twenty minutes with a strong cup of tea, trying to get his head straight. No prostitute had ever had this sort of effect on him before. What was so different about this one? He wasn't necessarily the most attractive Arthur had ever had - and certainly not the most skilled - but there was something about him, an aloofness, something Arthur had seen in his eyes during the dance. He cared about being thrown out into the street for being sick, perhaps, but he didn't give a damn about much else.

Arthur could relate. He cared enough about not losing the job he had worked so hard to secure - but as for the rest of his life, he was more or less indifferent. He knew that look in Jack's eyes: it was in his own.

In the end he decided to go. He stopped by a pharmacy on his way over and bought some cough medicine, which he tucked inside his coat. It couldn't hurt.

From the outside the club didn't look remotely out of the ordinary: just a tall old run-down Victorian townhouse. He glanced about as he descended the steps to the club's door, which was a plain green with a small brass plaque in the centre. It read Braginsky's Private Gentlemens Club in a neat, embossed font and looked as though it had been on the door for a very long time.

He skirted around the edge of the main club, though not without a brief scope to see if Jack was dancing. He wasn't; instead the stage was taken up by a single male dancer all in black. He had white hair and piercing scarlet eyes that went right through you. Arthur averted his gaze.

Braginsky was in his office. There was a different bottle of vodka on his desk tonight. He looked up when he saw Arthur, smiled broadly.

"Ah, you return! You want Jack, da?"

Arthur nodded, mentally filing away that this man had an extraordinary memory.

"I want him for the entire night," he said. "How much?"

Braginsky blinked. "Entire night?"

"Yes. Is that permitted?"

Braginsky gave a shrug. "I suppose. Unusual request."

"And I want to take him off the premises." This was something Arthur had decided on the way over. He met Braginsky's gaze, watching for his reaction. "Also permitted?"

Braginsky raised his eyebrows. "As long as you do not murder him and dump him in alley."

"Well, I certainly won't do that." Not that Braginsky would have much of a case if he went to the police, unfortunate as it was; Arthur knew that this was more of a personal threat. "I won't harm him in any way, you have my word."

"Good." Braginsky gave a crisp nod. "One hundred and fifty dollars, then. Have him back by six."

Money and key exchanged hands. Jack was in Room 3, second on the left on the first floor, and Arthur went to fetch him. He knew it was risky to take Jack outside - even in this part of town, he might be seen with him. But he didn't want to be in this place tonight, didn't want to play this game by Braginsky's rules. What was Jack like outside these walls? Would he still have that look in his eyes under a streetlight?

He unlocked Room 3 and stepped inside. It was dark, lit with a single blown lamp sat on the floor, and had a musky perfumed smell. There was no bed, just a mound of pillows and blankets in the centre of the motheaten carpet. Jack was curled up in the midst of them, his back to the door. He sat up with a start when he heard the door click shut.

"Arthur!" He smiled at him, fixing his glasses. "You did come back."

"I did." Arthur approached him, shrugging off his coat. "I wanted to see you again."

"Everybody always wants to see me again." Jack grinned and spread out his arms. "Welcome to the Sultan Suite."

"Ah." Arthur could see it now, he supposed. It was supposed to reflect a luxurious Middle Eastern palace, although it was a rather paltry imitation, with thin, cheaply-printed rugs and balding velvet pillows. There was a chemical-smelling oil-burner on the mantlepiece. Jack himself was in pale blue harem pants and a purple beaded waistcoat, although both looked as though they had seen better days.

"Most of the money goes into the upkeep of the main club," Jack said, noticing his expression. "These are just fun rooms for clients. Some of them like a bit of roleplay."

"Roleplay of what, the Bankrupt Sheikh?"

"Haha." Jack flopped onto his back, getting comfortable. "Well, if that's not what you want then we can get right to it. These pants are so loose they slide right off me." This with a suggestive smirk.

"A-actually, I bought you for the entire night," Arthur said, clearing his throat, "so we have plenty of time."

Jack blinked, sitting up. "You did?"

"Yes. I asked to take you out. Braginsky said it was alright."

"Out like... like outside?"

"Yes." Arthur shrugged. "I thought you might like a change of scenery."

"Wow, can we go to the movies? There's this alien movie out that I always hear people talking about, there are these two guys that go into space and they fight these aliens, right, and they have these guns that go pew pew and-"

"O-of course we can." Arthur didn't much like the sound of the movie but Jack's entire face lit up when he started talking about it and he didn't have the heart to say no. "And I thought we might get something to eat and-"

"Really?" Jack seized his hands. "You're not fucking with me?"

"No." Arthur frowned at him. "Why would I do that?"

Jack shrugged. "Some people have a weird sense of humour." He tilted his head. "So why are you doing this?" He gave a strange, ironic smile. "Are you in love with me or something?"

"After twenty-four hours?" Arthur rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. I like you, though. I think we're quite alike. I thought we might keep each other company."

"Okay, well, it sounds fun." Jack leaned close to him. "...Want some other fun first?"

"Well," Arthur replied, sliding a hand up over the boy's sallow chest, beneath the cold heavy beads of his waistcoat, "only if you absolutely insist."


...I'll maybe try to get this whole thing posted within a week. I don't think there needs to be much ceremony about it, tbh. It's a fairly miserable affair. XD