Threshold Strange

by Desdemona Kakalose

bartender au.

Conrad Achenleck only went to one bar.

He had tried any number of other bars in the city, pubs, licensed restaurants, but every time he'd ended up back here at this place. The mod bars that his art student friends liked so much put him on edge—there was too much neon and too much chance of running into people he knew. He was too nervous to even enter most of the dive type places around the cheaper parts of town. It's not that he couldn't hold his own in a fight, because he definitely could, it's how he couldn't shake the klaxon warning in his head when he got too close. They're not respectable. He doesn't belong. People will stare at him.

So he comes to this place. A friend brought him a few times when he was younger and, for one reason or another, he kept coming back. It's a little rough, but he knows exactly what to expect. Nothing ever changes here, and it's the familiarity that saves him. It works for him.

Until the night it doesn't, of course.

Conrad hung up his coat on the stand beside the door, shaking off a couple puddles of half melted snow. His spot on the rack was empty, a good sign, and he was feeling pretty upbeat about the evening so far when he turned and spotted the Terrible Thing.

The man behind the bar was not the unremarkable middle aged woman he'd grown accustomed to. He towered, blond and thinner than a sheet of cheap sketch paper. Where his sleeves were pushed up his arms had been wound with bandages. Conrad's first instinct said wow, his second instinct said collar bones, and his third said abandon ship you pathetic creature. He stood there frozen, trying to figure out if he could just turn around and leave without anybody noticing—for a second too long, because it was then that then the new bar tender noticed him. The new bartender smiled at him. His teeth were crooked in places and he looked, all in all, like the kind of guy who would absolutely walk a plank between two roofs on a dare and then laugh about it halfway across.

The bar tender pointed to a stool right up at the bar, and never mind that Conrad usually got his drinks by lurking awkwardly around the very edge of the bar proper and then spiriting them away to a booth towards the back, he toddled forward and took the seat.

"Lemme guess," the bar tender said, with a nasty edge to his smile, "appletini."

Conrad scowled. "Are you implying something?"

The man shrugs. "What could I possibly be implyin'? Gosh, ya got somethin' against apples?"

Maybe he wasn't implying anything. It wasn't as if he had made any particular kind of accusation, and it wasn't as if the drink itself necessarily indicated anything of significance. But the curve of the smile, and the sly cut of the eyes—

"Just give me a Sierra Nevada Torpeda," Conrad snapped, gesturing towards the stock of beers.

"Oooh," the bar tender said. He had a name tag. It was awful lackadaisical handwriting, but Conrad thought the last name was 'Worth'." "One IPA for the beer snob, comin' right up."

"I'm not a snob," Conrad replied, automatically.

Worth, or whatever his name was, gave him a dull look. "Buddy, I bet ya could tell me more about tannic 'n chocolate notes in five minutes than I wanna hear fer the rest'a my life."

Conrad just sort of blinked at him for a second. "But," he said, "you're a bar tender. That stuff is your job."

Worth looked vaguely disgusted as he ducks down for a glass. "Sure, damn, but it don't mean I gotta like it. Look, I'm here to get folks drunk so they can make hilariously shitty life decisions. You like chemistry so much, get a fuckin' degree."

"That is so—" Conrad tried to say, but his rising blood pressure made it hard to finish. "A job like this is wasted on a bottom feeder like you."

Worth pulled a mocking fishlike face at Conrad, which Conrad had no bloody idea how to respond to. He snatched the now full beer glass out of Worth's hand, slopping foam across the counter.

"I hope they fire you for drinking off the taps," Conrad snarled, slapping down an assortment of bills that probably covered his drink. Probably.

"Well I can think'a the perfect one ter start with," Worth said casually, fishing a cigarette out of his shirt pocket. He glanced briefly at the Torpeda tap, just long enough to make a point without actually threatening anything. The image of Worth with his mouth around the tap conjured feelings of 1) abject disgust, and 2) sickly fascination.

"You can't smoke in here," Conrad said.

Worth looked down at the cigarette now between his teeth as if had appeared there of its own accord. He flipped out a lighter, and with the flourish of a magician, produced a burst of flame. "Well wouldja look at that," he said, "seems like maybe I can."

"Get bent," Conrad muttered.

"Gotta tip fer that," Worth replied. He gestured vaguely toward the wad of bills and then lit up.

This, Conrad decided, was going to be a real problem.

Conrad managed to avoid the bar for a month after that, which would have been more impressive if he hadn't subsequently collapsed like a damaged pylon under the first sign of pressure. All his roommate had to do was look up from smashing virtual tanks to virtual smithereens and say, let's go to the bar.

And Conrad just put on his god damned scarf.

The problem, Conrad thought as they trudged through lanes of gray ice, wasn't that he couldn't say no to Veser. He could definitely say no to Veser, and did so on a daily basis. The problem was that he could never say no when it mattered. Like he hadn't been able to say no to renting with him in the first place. The kid had looked so—well, so much like looking in a mirror. A really bad mannered mirror with an unnerving number of bruises. He remembered what it was like to be that age and angry and need help that you would give anything not to have to ask for. At the time, he hadn't even known the kid's last name.

"What's got you all skittery over there?" Veser said, popping an oversized bubble of the gum that was this week's latest obnoxious habit.

"I'm not skittery," Conrad snapped, skittering over a mound of sidewalk snow.

"Something's up with you," Veser said. "I mean, like it's not always? But something specific's got you extra weird tonight."

Conrad fluffed his scarf. Conrad continued fluffing his scarf, for most of the rest of the street, very carefully working the red silk up to cover the lobes of his ears.

"Wooooowww," Veser said. "You are fucked up. Are you gonna be able to drink like that? Cause I've seen you drink when you're anxious before and I am so not going to hold your hair back. Metaphorically."

"I'm fine," Conrad said. "I just—I had a little disagreement with the bartender last time I was here."

Veser punched the walk signal a little harder than strictly necessary. A thin shatter of ice fell onto his shoes. "You got in a fight with Alice?"

"No, I," Conrad started. "No, there's a new person. A man."

"A man."

"A very," Conrad said, "disagreeable man. You can't hardly order in peace, he's so—he's sleazy, that's what he is, and loud, and unaccountably tall I mean honestly what earthly need is there for all that leg and that, that, that…"

Veser was side eyeing him pretty hard.

"He's got a very bad attitude," Conrad finished, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"What color are his eyes?"

"Blue."

Veser stared expectantly at Conrad.

"Oh," Conrad said, feeling his face heat up under the scrutiny, "oh come off it, that's a perfectly normal thing to notice. Everyone notices blue eyes. It's rather fucking difficult not to."

Veser skipped into the road, a full second ahead of the walk signal. His sneakers kicked up loose slush. "Yeah," he said, "but you remembered."

Conrad sulked the rest of the way to the bar. It was early evening, because Veser had class in the morning and, pushing through his third year now, he'd finally learned that you can't just fuck around and expect grades to fall into your lap. Junior year was coming down hard on him—there was still some of the old laissez faire Conrad had moved in with three years ago, but under the course load necessary to catch up and the dragging anchor of his family, a couple hours at a bar was the least Conrad could concede to him. They pushed through the door some time after nine, shucking their coats just inside the entrance. Conrad's peg was blessedly empty of any stranger's belongings. It should have been a good sign, but—

"So," Veser said, already leaning over the counter of the bar, "you're the hot new bartender."

The bar tender—Worth—glanced over his shoulder, a toothpick pinched between his teeth. "New?" he repeated.

"New to me," Veser said, catching on with his usual shameless abandon. "But I like surprises."

Worth kept one skeptical eye on the younger man even as he slid a heavy mug of beer down the length of the bar like an invisible zipline. "ID an' cash, kid, I don't make no exceptions."

Conrad sighed heavily as he settled onto the next stool down. "Don't worry, he does this to everyone. We've all learned to tune it out."

Worth zeroed in on Conrad, snap quick and a little bit unnerving. "Well," he said, "didn't reckon I'd be seein' you again."

Conrad drew himself up straighter. "This is my regular bar," he said. "I've been coming here for years. If one of us is leaving, it's going to be you."

The bar tender made a couple of notes in that high pitched whistle that usually accompanies tumble weeds rolling across the plateau of high noon. Conrad felt himself sinking back down in a slump of embarrassment.

"What's the occasion," Worth said, turning his attention back to Veser.

"Major test tomorrow," Veser replied, shrugging. "I'm all crammed out."

"And this sweet li'l old lady is yer chaperone, eh?"

Veser snorted into his hand. "It's funny that you'd think that," he said, "but dude, if you had been here last New Years—"

Conrad slammed an elbow into the kid's ribs, smiling around his grit teeth. "I'm sure this gentleman doesn't want to hear the particulars of our personal histories."

Veser curled over sideways swearing, while Conrad continued to smile insincerely at the man behind the counter. The bar tender displayed a terrifying set of crooked teeth in return. "Do tell," he said.

"Do not," Conrad warned.

Veser wheezed a little bit.

The toothpick in Worth's lips twirled like a baton. "Ya don't look like the type ter get rowdy on the dancefloor," he mused. "Not that we got a dance floor. Whadya do, kick up a leg on the counter here?"

"I didn't fuck anybody," Conrad snapped, "I just got in a fight. There. Perfectly normal bar activity. It's absolutely not the big deal you two are making it out to be."

Worth and Veser shared a look, which was a little watery on Veser's end.

"Look," Conrad said, slapping a hand onto the countertop, "can you just give me a—"

Worth shoved a bottle of Conrad's favorite IPA directly into Conrad's sternum. His knuckles were warm against Conrad's shirt, the bottle startlingly cold. After a moment of being gobsmacked, Conrad finally got a hand up to catch the thing as Worth let go. Their fingers brushed on the handoff. Conrad, half removed from himself, cursed his chronically awful circulation. Just a brush of fingers shouldn't feel that warm. Or distracting.

"When," he said, looking down at the bottle. "When did you grab this."

"Saw ya comin' in," Worth said, waving a hand vaguely. "Figure you for the kinda man ter get fussy if he don't get his torpedo right on time."

"Torpeda," Conrad corrected, without looking up.

Someone on the other side of the bar called for a second round and Worth wandered off, presumably to deal with it. Veser whirled in his seat, already spookily large eyes practically popping.

"Holy fuck," he hissed, "he's so into you."

"Wow, um, no," Conrad said, holding up a flat palm. "He's just an asshole. With a good memory. Which is what he gets paid to do. Veser, you think every waitress that smiles at you is trying to get your number."

"Aaaand sometimes they are?"

"Once, Veser. Once."

Veser pulled the bottle of beer from Conrad's hands and downed the first gulp, glancing resentfully down at it as he did. Disliking all IPAs ever made had never stopped him from drinking them. "Look," he said, "I am your wingman, bro, okay? I am going to get you laid. I'm gonna get you so laid you're gonna be like oh Ves how could I have ever yelled at you for putting your cool-ass shoes on the couch."

"I don't need to get laid," Conrad hissed, ducking down behind the protection of one cupped hand. "I need you to stop embarrassing me in public and start taking off your shoes when you come into the building."

"You'll thank me. You will."

"Veser, he's probably straight," Conrad whispered, urgently now. "He's probably fucking, I don't know, cowgirl-sexual. He probably owns more pictures of boobs than I've ever seen. Do not fucking embarrass me at my favorite bar, which I am already on unsteady terms with."

Veser rested his cheek on one fist. "Yanno you could probably just ask him."

"I'm not going to ask him, because that would imply that I cared what the answer was."

Conrad effectively put an end to that conversation by turning back to the bar, hunching over it, and determinedly drinking down small but continuous sips of beer. What would he even do with Worth's number if he got it, somehow? He hadn't been on a date in years. He'd probably shove it in a drawer and lock the drawer shut and refuse to touch it ever again even though his favorite pair of socks or something was locked inside too.

"Yer really goin' through that thing," Worth commented, as he passed along the length of the bar. "Thought junior there was the one with the early mornin' death march."

"If only," Conrad muttered.

Worth snickered. "If I get a missin' person's investigation up in my bar tomorrow, I ain't gonna alibi fer ya."

Conrad's lips twitched. He glanced over at Veser, who pointedly turned to his neighbor and launched into a cheerful overture to marriage. Worth followed the look, settled his weight against the bar.

"Could I," Conrad tried, "that is, would you answer a—not that you'd have to, it wouldn't be—if you were comfortable telling a stranger—"

"Gemini," Worth said, plucking the toothpick from between his teeth.

"Er…"

Conrad looked at him for a moment longer than could be called casual. He had no idea what he was fucking doing. Finally, he flipped the torpeda up and downed the rest of it in one concentrated effort. He set it down on the counter between them, Worth eyeing it and him with a eloquently cocked eyebrow.

"You know what," Conrad said, tiredly, "let me close up my tab. I shouldn't be drinking in… my state."

Worth waved him off. "On the house."

Conrad glanced over at Veser, who was now thoroughly engaged in some discussion with the woman on his other side and didn't seem to notice the attention. "I thought you didn't make exceptions."

"Sure seems ta be what I said," Worth agreed, "don't it?"

Conrad looked down at the empty bottle in his hands. If only someone would come and out him out of his goddamned misery.

-x-

Even Conrad would admit that coming back not even a full seven days later was weak, it was absolutely transparent. As he pulled his scarf on and ineffectively finger combed his hair in the hallway mirror, he prayed that Worth wouldn't realize how out of routine this was. It was a Friday. Fridays were normal people drinking nights.

"Bet I know where you're going," Veser said, not looking up from his gameboy. He'd found a shop that specialized in old cartridge games and he'd been on a smashbrothers kick for the last week.

"Maybe I'm getting groceries," Conrad retorted. "You know, the thing we need to survive?"

"Conrad," Veser said mournfully, "I know for a fact you're not getting all dressed up to buy some quinoa and I also have known you long enough to predict that you will, in fact, bring some quinoa home with you just to show me up, so please, don't buy anymore fucking quinoa? That shit's like eating tastebuds."

"You'll get a say in the groceries when you start helping me buy them," Conrad said, giving up on doing any better than his baseline of gelled and anxious tonight.

"Tell the hot bartender hi for me," Veser said.

Conrad paused with his hand on the doorknob, shoulders pulled up into a protective hunch. He should really stop being so defensive about the whole thing—what if, god forbid, something did come of it? He'd be eating his words for weeks.

Conrad left without pushing his luck any further, made the long trek from the apartment to the bar in brooding silence. He honestly loathed his taste in men. It had never even been that he was ashamed for liking men, not since he'd gotten old enough to realize his mother's opinions were actually the worst possible thing for him to build a world view on—the problem was that he always seemed to like the most awful men possible. And like the seedy bars that Conrad could only stand on the threshold of, he couldn't shake the klaxon warning in his head whenever he got too close.

In the dim yellow light of the bar, Conrad realized with a terrible lurch of his gut that the man behind the bar was another man entirely—one who had filled shifts for Alice before, over the years. Conrad stood in the door of the bar with his coat half undone, frozen with embarrassment and indecision. The man behind the bar looked up—oh, Christ, now he'd been seen—and gave him a friendly little wave.

"Hi Lamont," Conrad said, finally giving up. He hung his coat on the rack—and his peg was taken, god damn it—and made his way to a stool in the middle of a couple other empty stools. "It's… been a while?"

"Hanna's here," Lamont said, winking. "You picked the perfect night for a reunion."

"Oh," Conrad said. The emotional whiplash was going to kill him if it kept up like this.

Hanna had been the friend who took him here in the first place, nearly three years ago. Dragged him, really. There had been a breakthrough in his case and Hanna had been determined to celebrate, as if they were friends and not just two strangers engaged in a protracted business transaction. It had been Hanna's bright confidence and stubborn optimism that had endeared the place to him to begin with.

"I'll go get him for you," Lamont said.

"No need," Conrad muttered. "He's already spotted me."

Hanna catapulted over a table, drawing every eye in the room for the brief high note of his flight, and then landed in a stumble just feet away from Conrad's seat. He adjusted his glasses, perfunctory, and then threw out a hand. With a sigh, Conrad shook it.

"Well if it isn't my favorite customer," Hanna said, sliding into the chair next to his. "What brings you out on this gorgeous Friday night?"

Conrad shrugged, shoulders hunching again. "Bad company," he muttered. He wondered if he could slip out the back before anyone else he knew showed up.

"Speaking of Ves," Hanna said, "he missed D&D night this week, and I wanted to talk to him. I think I'm getting somewhere with his case."

"Hanna," Conrad said with a frown, "it's been years. I admire your resolve, but no one expects you to keep on it. You've done more than enough."

Hanna shrugged him off, which was a particular talent of his. At least he looked like he'd been sleeping, and there was nothing too terribly wrong with him that Conrad could see, a few fading bruises at most. Privately Conrad suspected that Hanna had taken most of his PI notes from old film noirs rather than a proper certification course. Real life investigations shouldn't yield that kind of collateral damage.

"I'm thinking about hooking Toni up with the management here," Hanna said, gesturing towards the bar. "She's between jobs and I think she could rock the nightlife. They still don't have a real replacement for Alice."

Conrad squinted at him. "What about the new guy," he said.

Hanna squinted back. "New…?"

"Blond, bloody tall, some kind of awful butchered accent?" Conrad bit his lip. "Smokes in the no-smoking area?"

"O—oh!" Hanna said. He leaned back in his seat, clearly trying not to laugh. "You mean Worth? No, man, no, Worth isn't the new bar tender, he's the owner."

Conrad could actually feel his pupil shrink. "The… owner..."

"Sure," Hanna said, oblivious the full storm of awful realization that was about to crash like a tsunami over Conrad. "That's how I know the place, I lived with him for a little while once, during some stuff, really boring stuff you would totally not want to hear about, very uninteresting stuff, and anyways me and Worth go way back."

Christ what a goddamn tool he had been the first night they met, who had given Conrad permission to leave the house, like, ever? Why couldn't he have been born mute and also possibly just not been born at all.

"Uh," Hanna said, "you okay, man?"

"Sure," Conrad answered automatically, "sure."

"Was Worth giving you trouble?" Hanna asked, looking serious now. "He doesn't mean any harm, usually. Did you get in a fight?"

That snapped Conrad out of it. "No, Hanna, I didn't get in a fight. Why does everyone act like I go around picking fights with people everywhere? It's not like a fun thing I just do on the weekends."

"An' here I was gettin' my hopes up."

Conrad whirled so fast that he actually toppled off his stool, landing in an ungainly half crouch on the floor next to Worth's feet. His elbow, smashed against the floor, gave a shout of pain and then went numb.

"Then again," Worth said, breathing out a cloud of smoke, "I can see why ya don't."

Conrad stared at the ceiling. "What cruel god…" he started.

"You, uh," Hanna hid his mouth behind his hand, "you need some help up there buddy?"

High above him, Worth sighed and replaced the cigarette between his teeth. He bent at the waist, extending a hand down towards Conrad, who eyed it warily.

"You seem like exactly the sort of guy who would drop me halfway up," he said.

Worth grinned, exposing his terrifying, fascinating teeth. "Wanna find out?"

Conrad stared at the man—blond and thin as a spire and quite possibly as mean as he sounded—and then at the hand, and then decided that yeah, he did want to find out. He reached up with the arm that wasn't screaming icy fire, and he took hold.

Worth lifted him, more easily than his skinny frame should have allowed, and then most of the way up off the ground, he let go. Conrad tipped backwards—swearing explosively—only to land with his back pressed up against something thin and sturdy. Worth's hand spread like a spiderweb between Conrad's shoulder blades, and with his other he lifted the cigarette from his lips.

"Whoopsie me," the man said, blinking down at Conrad. "Seem ta have lost my grip there fer a second."

With a casual flick of his arms, Worth set Conrad upright where he belonged. The bar had gone positively mute under the consuming pulse of Conrad's heart in his ears.

"I'll get us somethin' ter drink," Worth said, looking as innocent as a man of his appearance could manage. "If yer not gonna pansy out on me tonight too."

"No," Conrad replied faintly. "No, I'll have a drink."

Smoking again, now, Worth meandered around them and down the bar, becoming obscured by the shapes of people. Conrad turned back to Hanna and found him staring, mouth open in a gaunt O, shoulders slumped in shock. When he breathed out it made a sound a little like laughter and mostly like choking.

"Is he keen on you," Hanna said, when he'd gotten some air back into his lungs.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Bro—" Hanna beckoned him closer, pulling him down into a sloppy huddle, "—are you single right now?"

"Ye-eees?"

Hanna widened his eyes pointedly. "Then you better watch your back, man. If he hears you like dudes for sure you're never gonna get him off you."

"What, like," Conrad said, "he'll rag on me?"

Hanna squinted at him, screwing his whole face up in a gargoylesque expression of sheer incredulity. "Uh, no," he said. "Like, he will hit on you. And possibly hit you? I don't mean in a weekday special episode kinda way, I mean it's a weird sex thing with him that I am very careful to never ask too much about because I reeeeaaally don't need to know. He's weird man. He's super weird."

"You can hit people in a sexual way?" Conrad echoed, dumbly.

Hanna pinched the bridge of his nose where his glasses rested. "Watch Fight Club with him sometime," he muttered, "I will never unlive that experience."

Conrad stared through the crowd at the partially eclipsed shape of surprise entrepreneur Something Worth. That sounded like the exact opposite of a mire he ought to get involved with, and honestly he was still processing the fact that the man wasn't straight, and on top of all that he was loathe to disabuse Hanna of the notion that he would ever consider stooping to wherever Worth's level was, but. But. He could still feel the spiderweb of long fingers between his shoulders, mouth dry with the memory. He wrapped a hand around his wrist, covering the impossibly warm splash of skin where Worth had gripped him.

He had stood outside of enough seedy bars, heard enough klaxon warnings. How much of his mother's shrill voice was still directing his life, anyways? How much more could he take?

"But he is single?" Conrad asked. "I mean. Just wondering."

As the evening wore on, Conrad periodically surprised himself with the knowledge that he didn't have to leave, actually—he was in a constant loop of rediscovering why so many people across the country spent their Friday evenings deep in drink. Hanna turned out to be as bewildered and fascinated by Conrad's interest in the bar's owner as Conrad was himself. He'd been trying to keep his prying casual and vague, but apparently any interest in Worth was too much interest for normal people.

Worth brought them both back tequila shots. Hanna plucked Conrad's from his hand and switched theirs out—the narrow look he shot Worth before downing the drink seemed to imply some kind of warning. Conrad hadn't had a shot of anything in years. Hanna's—the one that had been handed first to Conrad—made him sputter and wince.

The three of them settled in at a table on the edge of the floor, sipping on beverages of Worth's apparent selection. He didn't seem to think anything of plunking down a five dollar drink in front of Conrad without preamble or explanation, but then, it was his bar. Worth informed him that it was a sex on the beach, and the fact that this was a very popular and common drink with the sorority crowd did nothing to stop Conrad from burying his face in his hands while Hanna watched, bemused and sipping on his rum and coke through a bendy straw. It did taste pretty good, though. Worth said something about peach schnapps.

Behind the slick line of the bar Lamont was doing good business, smiling in a particularly ingratiating way which made you feel as if you must have met him before, even when you hadn't. Hanna launched into an explanation of Veser's case, while Worth's lips got a little tighter and paler with every mention of skating by under the nose of the law. Conrad had long ago stopped being surprised by even the wildest reports from the field of unlicensed private investigation.

"I tol' ya," Worth said, jabbing at Hanna with the glowing end of his cigarette, "no cops. None. You get tagged once 'n that's the end o' the fuckin' line."

Hanna grinned nervously. "So, uh," he said, "Connie here is an artist. Right Connie?"

"Nobody wants to hear about that, Hanna."

Hanna leaned forward, his chest practically smooshed across the table. "I worked his case too! Years back. There was this woman—"

"Huh," Worth said. "A woman."

"She was really beautiful," Hanna said, with a touch of a distracted sigh.

Worth brought the cigarette back to his lips, glancing aside at Conrad. "Regular feme fatale?" Worth asked, without breaking his gaze.

"Ummm, I guess so," Hanna said, catching his chin in the crook of his thumb and forefinger. "I mean she robbed Conrad blind, so, that's pretty apt."

"Felled by a pair'a high heels, were ya, Conniekins?" Worth said. There was something reserved about his expression, though, partially hidden behind the angles of his fist. "She catch ya with yer tie undone?"

"Please," Conrad said, "as if."

Hanna shot him a pointed look, and it was only then that Conrad realized, one step behind the curve, that Hanna had been offering him an avenue to deflect attention if he wanted one. No real lie, a little smoke and mirrors, misdirection, slight of hand. Conrad had skidded right over it.

"Huh," Worth said again. His fist dropped, the cigarette it had been holding now firmly wedged between the teeth. "So how'd that go, then?"

Hanna told him. When Hanna told a story it was a whole production, pantomime and all, and Conrad carefully lifted his cup off the table when Hanna got into the fistfight portion. Worth lifted his too, sparing a smirk aside for Conrad and a lazy gesture of cheers. When Hanna got to the part with the belt, they both put and elbow down on the table to hold it steady.

"So then, Connie gets the belt around her neck but she's still got the gun and she's, wow, she's mad, and they're jerking around like this crazy earthquake architecture until she's finally like, shit, I'm gonna lose consciousness soon right so I better get a shot in while I can, and BOOM! The bullet goes ricocheting past the officer's hat, I mean, whizzes right past, we had to dig it out of the wall later, too, or forensics would have found it, and meanwhile Conrad is still bleeding and he's getting preeeetty pale but he won't let go—"

Worth looked at Conrad over the rim of his glass, eyes glittering, and Conrad took an overly deep swallow of cheap cognac to hide himself from that all-consuming appraisal.

Three drinks later, Hanna finally had to bow out, citing some unfortunate morning business that needed to be taken care of. He ducked out of the bar in a fuzz of red hair and neon yellow cotton, but not before giving Conrad an unusually serious look.

"Hey," he said in a low voice, "I don't mean to give you a hard time, right? Do what you want. I barely ever see you anymore and you always look so… burnt out. Be weird. Have fun. Just call me if you need a ride out of anything, alright?"

Conrad nodded dumbly, already teetering on the edge of losing all eloquence without Hanna going and getting all heart-to-heart with him. He watched the man go, pressing a thumb under his own eyelid. He hadn't realized—maybe Hanna even thought about him sometimes, when they weren't in the same room. It was kind of humbling, kind of warming.

The fuzzy feelings didn't last much longer than that, though, because it was at that moment that some drunken reveler crashed into their table and knocked over Conrad's drink which was, as he furiously calculated, still three fourths full.

"Watch it," he snapped, drawing back from the table with as much grace as he could muster. God, it got on his shoes. That was going to be a sticky hassle if he'd ever seen one.

The man who had bumped into them squinted at Conrad. "You watch it, buddy."

Conrad practically kicked his chair away, stepping towards the man. "I don't have anything to watch," he said. "You apparently do."

The man—a good half foot taller than Conrad, and not terribly solid on his feet—readjusted his stance and scowled. "Fucking prissy foreigners," he said. "Go back home, asshole."

"I live down the block," Conrad retorted, "you go home."

"'E's bigger'n you," Worth called from across the table, not sounding particularly troubled by the fact.

Hmmm… true… and yet…

"Well he's a bit bigger," Conrad said, at last, "but he's drunker, isn't he."

The stranger, apparently having had enough of this whole event, lurched forward. Conrad caught the movement out the corner of his eye—it had that peculiarly slow stumbling quality you often get when alcohol is involved—and twisted aside, swinging out with the nearer fist. The two of them collided, the man's knuckles cracking into the tabletop, Conrad landing a hook to the man's ribs that thudded all the way up his arm, more than solid. The man wheezed, stumbled back. Honestly Conrad stumbled too, there was a lot of leftover momentum that he was not so well equipped to compensate for.

"You want a go?" he snarled, when he'd gotten his feet back under him.

The man took another uncertain step, moving closer, and Conrad fell back into something better balanced. They were getting looks, he was dimly aware, from all the people at the tables around them. From Lamont at the bar. From—

"No fightin' in the establishment," Worth said, twirling his empty cup in his hands.

The stranger drew back, peering at Worth. "Says who?"

"Says me," Worth replied. "Take it out back or can it."

The man stood there for a moment too long, flexing uncertain muscles, and then waved dismissively. "Whatever," he said. "Forget it."

As he wandered off—Worth's eyes followed him the whole way—Conrad tipped back into his own chair. "Really thought he was going to take another shot at me," he said, mournfully considering the slowly melting ice cubes strewn across the table.

"Eh," Worth said, "'e's not a real fighter. Ain't ready ter go all the way."

"Oh," Conrad said, "er."

The next drink Worth brought him lasted until the room started to shift—not in the sense that Conrad's vision was so fucked that it was starting to tilt, but in the sense that all around him bodies were beginning to move and stand. Although he had been worried for a second there. In the tide of people, Conrad found himself standing as well and not entirely sure why or when that had happened. The big push of the migration was towards the bar, and Conrad watched them go, uncomprehending, for a couple seconds until a hand settled on his shoulder. He stiffened.

Worth spun him like a top, one little tug transforming into a full rotation as Conrad belatedly remembered to be a stationary target.

"Bar's closin'," he said, watching the whole exercise with raised brows.

"Oh," said Conrad. He had forgotten that bars closed—it seemed to him that a place ought to remain open until it could dissolve softly into the wash of sunrise.

"Yer in no fit state ter drive," Worth said.

Conrad slapped his hands over his ears, which he could feel going bright flushed. "I walked," he said. "It's not too far."

Worth looked him up and down once, crossed his arms, and said, "Awright, I'm walkin' with ya."

"No," Conrad managed, "no, really. I have it."

"Sure ya do, dollface." He reached for his coat, the furred collar of which hung over Conrad's usual peg. It looked to Conrad like something out of a rock band from a very strange era, a splash of a statement daring commentary. Worth shrugged it on, held the door open for Conrad. He smelled of smoke, more than anything else, and as Conrad brushed past him there was an incredible press of heat that seemed to radiate out from him.

They meandered into the night—into the darkness of morning, really—leaving the yellow warmth of the closing bar behind them. The mounds and valleys of compacted snow looked, now, like an alien landscape, strangely mottled with dirt and gravel. On the street ahead of them, the orange flare of a streetlamp winked and dissolved into dimly buzzing darkness.

"You got a helluva right hook," Worth said, breathing out a pale cloud of crystalizing vapor. He wore the cold well, pale and sharp as something made of ice himself.

Conrad rubbed his cheek, doing his best to pretend that the heat building there was just more of the weather. "I used to get in fights a lot," he murmured, "back home."

"Sounds like some rough tea parties, 'cross the pond."

"It was a bad neighborhood," Conrad shrugged, too buzzed to rise to the bait. "There was this one time—" He twirled, losing and then catching his balance halfway through, eyes half shut. He grabbed Worth by the neck of his jacket, jerked him down. "Listen 'ere guv," he intoned, "ya wanna watch where ya drop that bashah, follow?"

Worth grinned like the flash of a lighthouse, his face closer to Conrad's than anticipated. "Ain't nobody said that."

Conrad blinked, a little dazzled. "Well how would you know?" he said.

Worth continued grinning as Conrad let go of his collar, took a step back along the segmented stretch of sidewalk. Barely visible above the heavy cloak of light over the city, the moon was half full. The chin of it disappeared behind a skyscraper, one of many more. He took another step back, shifted his weight, turned and carried on moving forward. A crunch of frost told him that Worth had followed.

The streets ran on in front of them, and they caught every walk signal along the way. Worth said nothing else. Conrad swished his surprise at that around, dissecting the flavor. He had expected the man to be more mouthy, maybe a bantering type, a fill the silence type. The silence had its own particular texture, and Worth seemed satisfied enough with it. Conrad was just drunk enough to feel a rush of relief at the prospect of not having to keep up a conversation—god only knew how he'd embarrass himself if he opened up his mouth in this state.

Somewhere between fifth and sixth street, Worth hung his arm around Conrad's shoulder. Conrad looked up at him, eyes wide in the darkness, and the man looked so strange and so sharp. The sharpness, he thought, was the real mankiller. Conrad had never been the type of child to run his thumb over the blade of a kitchen knife. He was beginning to suspect he might be that type of adult.

"Gotta make sure ya don't tip over," Worth said, in response to the stare. He didn't look down.

"I'm not going to tip over," Conrad snorted. "I'm not that far gone."

Worth's fingers on his shoulders tapped and then tightened. "Ye'll probably contrive ta trip on a pebble somewhere an' then I'll get my ass sued. Lousy ungrateful patron, yer type."

"Say that to my face," Conrad said, "not drunk, and see what happens."

Worth let out a single hack of laughter, a terrible noise from deep in his chest. "Bet yer ass I will."

"Good," Conrad said. "I may not be tall, but I can—I can hold my own."

"Tuesday," Worth said, "out back behind the bar."

Conrad squinted up at him. "Is that a fighting thing? Are you asking me on a fight date? Cause I—have been warned about you."

Worth scowled. "Christ, Hanna's a goddamn pest."

"Tuesday," Conrad said. He nodded once to himself, sharply. "Eight."

"Eight," Worth repeated, "what, you got a fuckin' bedtime 'r summat?"

"Don't like it," Conrad sniffed, "don't take it."

Worth shrugged, looked away. "Roit," he said. "Buy me a beer 'n we'll call it a bargain."

The lobby of his flat was only a little way away now, and Conrad regarded it with a mixture of desire and a vague longing for the streets already behind them. Also he was going to have to decide exactly how far he was willing to trust this man right now. Did he really want the guy to know which building he lived in? Which floor? His mother's voice twinged through him, shrill and sobering. Here he was on another threshold, this time his own. And the sky was a bright swirl of lantern clouds and black, still silhouettes, and Worth's breath was silver against it all, and Conrad hadn't seen a moment like this since he was fourteen, listening to a strange music below his neighbor's window.

His hands were in his pockets. He lifted one, pressed it against Worth's abdomen. Even through the cloth he imagined he could feel heat.

"Are you going to come up?" he asked, frowning faintly.

Worth let go of him, stepped back. He dug in his coat and came up with a cigarette, impossibly white against his black gloves.

"Nah," he said, "Nah."

He offered one to Conrad, who shook his head. "Don't smoke," he said.

"Nasty habit," Worth agreed, with no little satisfaction. He flicked his lighter, catching a spark on the first try which was nearly magic for a man wearing gloves. "I'll see ya Tuesday."

Conrad nodded, a thrill of something cold and lovely racing through his chest.

"Heh." Worth smiled like a terrible promise, mouth half hidden behind glove. "Think 'a me, eh?"

He left Conrad rooted to the frozen sidewalk, disappearing around the corner, all blue shadow and pale smoke. Above Conrad the light of his apartment's window glowed a dim riot of color—Veser was playing some game in the living room—and his bed was waiting. He would be useless in the morning, he was certain.

That night when he was fourteen, he'd never heard such melancholy, hopeful music before. He thought of it now, a hand over the shoulder that Worth had only just released. He should stop thinking about the world in terms of thresholds: barred entries, forbidden rooms. The world was a city of potential moments, infinite avenues, and streets like this one.

Conrad knew that he would regret it in the morning, that he would miss the sleep he wasn't getting, but Conrad did not go home just yet—Conrad made his way to the nearest all hours grocery, instead, and picked up a bag of quinoa.

Some moments were worth it.

[Bonus Track]

The woman behind the checkout at the grocery is very young, and very confused. Conrad slaps down the bag of quinoa with a flourish that is two parts smug and one part completely losing track of where his arm was for a second. He looks down at it. God, he's a fucking mastermind, this is going to make Veser scream.

"Sir," the woman says, "sir. Sir, please. It's five dollars. Please. Do you have five dollars?"

Conrad pats the bag of quinoa. This was such a good idea.

-x-

Lamont takes one look at Conrad in the doorway of the bar and nearly drops the mug he's wiping clean. "No way," he says, "no way."

Conrad carefully hangs his coat on the correct peg, lifting Worth's and shifting it one space over.

"Tell me you're here to get a beer for the road," Lamont very nearly begs him.

"Er," Conrad says.

Lamont stares for a second too long, throws down his rag and storms out from behind the bar. "This is why you couldn't take the shift tonight?" he shouts at the back room, "Really? Are you blackmailing this kid?"

"I'm twenty eight," Conrad says, confused and no little bit offended.

Worth appears around the edge of the doorway, fingers wrapped over the jamb. He looks the same as ever, a chiaroscuro of dark circles and bright cheekbones, with the collar of his button-down bent in a crumple that no iron could melt away. His eyes fall on Conrad's, so dark that they seem to be black under the shadow of that doorway, and he grins.

"Thought ya mighta chickened out," he says.

"Me?" Conrad says, hand on chest. "Please."

Lamont stomps back to his post, picks up his mug, points it at Conrad. "You better not dent up my car," he says. "I don't want to hear anybody got thrown at it, got me?"

Worth meets Conrad's eye again, gaspingly intimate, and shrugs. "It's a nice car," he explains.

-x-

With his sleeves rolled up above his bandaged forearms, Worth looks like the god of some dismal cutthroat pantheon. He puts his hands on his hips and leers at Conrad, and his breaths make a faint fog around him. "I want ya ter hit me," he says, "as hard as ya can."

Conrad can't shake the suspicion that he's heard this line before. He makes a fist, trying not to shiver visibly, and he thinks: this is the point of no return. If he doesn't like it, he'll have to bow out and give up on all this bizarre, impossible madness. Wrap it up and set it aside with all the dusty photo albums of things he will never have.

He takes a swing.

He loves it.

-x-

Worth kisses him, in the shadow of an overpass, fingers drawing Conrad's chin upward and holding it there. They are hopelessly lost somewhere at the edge of downtown. The kiss tastes like Coca-Cola and ash.

-x-

Conrad lies on the floor of the office, which is not something he foresaw himself doing but he actually does not have the energy to stand up right now, and watches Worth tapping away on an old fashioned calculator. He's smoking furiously as he does it, or he was until he mixed up his pen and his cigarette and he still hasn't realized which one he's stuck between his lips. He probably won't realize until he tries to write down a figure and burns a hole in the ledger.

"Do you really need that awful visor?"

The clear green plastic bill reflects light as Worth nods with absolute seriousness. He looks like a caricature of a bookie, keeping the records of his own completely legal business.

Conrad closes his eyes, and smiles faintly as the sound of Worth swearing violently shatters the close silence of the room. Looks like he figured out where his cigarette went.

-x-

It is an evening, blue and silver out here at the edge of town, and at the distant end of the parking lot a patch of white light spreads like liquid across the asphalt. Conrad turns his head, burying his cheek in the thigh of Worth's jeans.

"My mother would disown me," he says, thoughtfully, breathing in the tang of winter and cigarette smoke.

"Thought she did already."

The pickup truck squeaks faintly as Conrad attempts to shrug. It wasn't either of their trucks. It had simply stood, wide and white, on the empty plane of the parking lot they had wandered into, and the tailgate had been simple to open. Worth sits with his long legs hung over the edge, smoking upwards into the night. His left cheek is a battlefield of abrasions, dark with bits of loose gravel.

Conrad draws himself up from Worth's lap, throwing a leg over Worth's thigh. He grazes a thumb over the swelling mess, surprised in a way that Worth would let him. The older man only looks at him, eyes dark with the intensity of someone considering a complex challenge. For a few seconds, Conrad is the only thing in the world, and he's never been that before. It strikes him with an unexpected pleasure. He feels as if maybe he has shaken Worth as violently as Worth had shaken him.

"Come on," Conrad says, at last. "We're going back to mine. I'm going to clean this thing out before you contract something fatal."

A whisper of smoke curls from between Worth's parted lips.

"Yer match, princess," he says. "Whatever ya say."