Based off a prompt I received from Wednesday (littlelansky on Tumblr). Modern AU because it's fun.
It's a nice little leather deal, his wallet, black leather with a clear window in the front pocket for his driver's license. That New York driver's license of his (not that he has a car) is probably the worst possible picture of his they could have taken (mostly because he's never had a mugshot—not that he hasn't done anything illegal, because he has, but because he's yet to be caught). In the picture, his doe eyes are about seventy times bigger than they are in real life, and he nearly looks scared, but only because the lady at the DMV took the picture when he wasn't ready (and how come that always seems to be the case?), and his hair is all over the place. But he doesn't look at the picture very often. Or anything else on that driver's license. It isn't going to give him any new information.
Full name: Meyer Elijah Lansky. Date of birth: July 4, 1992. Height: 5'3". Eye color: brown. Hair color: brown. Even the residence, a place in the Lower East Side, is hardly a revelation to him. He wants nothing more than to get a new driver's license photo, but this one was taken two days after his twenty-first birthday a little more than a year ago, and the great state of New York won't let him retake his photo this early. He just has to deal with it for the next three years.
He fumbles in his wallet for fare for the subway when he hears a voice say, "Hey, man, how d'you get to Greenwich Village from here?"
Meyer stashes his wallet in his back pocket and looks up (which he has to do for nearly everyone, considering his height), straight into the deepest brown eyes he's ever seen looking right back at him. And maybe that's a lie—he's seen deeper eyes before—but this guy looking at him with that easy smile and slightly bemused expression is making his heart flip over. For a second, he forgets how to talk, and then the guy says, "You know? Or are you a tourist, too?"
He swallows and finds his voice as the young man—maybe five years older than his twenty-two years old at the most—approaches. "Yes—I mean no, I'm not a tourist. I know how to get to Greenwich Village."
The guy is less than a foot away now, and Meyer fights not to lean in close to him. "I'm Charlie," the tourist says. "My friends call me Lucky, though."
"Lucky. I'm Meyer." He swallows again and starts quickly explaining how to get to Greenwich Village from here. Lucky's still smiling, a sweet half-smile with his lower lip caught by his top row of teeth. Meyer's practically melting and he hope he doesn't look like an idiot, but the guy is leaning in, too, and he must be taken in for whatever reason.
"Thanks, Meyer," Lucky says, so quietly that Meyer has lean that much closer just to hear, so close that there's almost no space between them.
It only takes another three seconds for "almost no space" to become "no space at all" and Lucky's soft-looking lips are brushing against his. Every cell in Meyer's brain screams to alert and, yes, he definitely isn't averse to the idea of kissing Lucky and it's already a nice kiss, but they're in public, in the middle of a crowd waiting on the subway train, and he doesn't know this guy, not really. Without really thinking about it, his hand balls into a fist and he shoots a punch at the easiest location right now: squarely into Lucky's gut.
Lucky lets out a strangled gasp, the sound of the wind being knocked out of him (for a small guy, Meyer has a strong right hook), and he doubles over, wrapping an arm around his stomach. He falls to his knees and Meyer takes a quick step back just as something falls out of Lucky's other hand. It takes him a second to recognize the wallet that's just fallen open on the ground, but his own driver's license is right there in the front pocket.
Lucky doesn't make a move to recover the wallet, too preoccupied with catching his breath again, so Meyer lazily crouches down and pockets his wallet again. "That was a rather ill-conceived ploy, yes?"
Still wheezing, Lucky somehow manages to flash a sheepish grin at him. "It just kinda happened. Didn't plan on it." The lazy non-accent gives way to a slight Brooklyn sound, a bit of a drawl on the vowels.
Meyer doubts that. "So you kissing me..."
"Couldn't help myself."
"To my wallet?"
"To your mouth."
Lucky is still actively flirting with him. For a second, Meyer finds himself at a complete loss for what to say. It isn't often that he's rendered speechless, but Lucky manages to still look adorable, like a chastised puppy. Meyer hangs his head and laughs in spite of himself. "You are ridiculous."
Lucky laughs softly and finally pulls himself into a sitting position, stretching out his legs next to Meyer. "Hey, you ain't gonna call the cops on me or somethin', are youse?" The Brooklyn accent is out in full force now, a definite sign that Lucky is little more than a street thief, but Meyer finds it endearing anyway. If he didn't like Lucky, at least a little, he sure as hell wouldn't be sitting here still.
"No, Lucky. I will not call the cops. I'm not predisposed to like them myself, to be quite honest," he adds, thinking of his illicit numbers-running for one wealthy New York gambler and banker Arnold Rothstein. He's been working for Rothstein ("A.R." to his friends) for six years now, and one of the many things that A.R.'s taught him by now is not to trust any police you haven't bought yourself—and the ones you have bought are only slightly more trustworthy.
Lucky's smile brightens. "Heh. Lucky for me then, huh?"
"You still got caught." Meyer pulls his wallet out for a moment to brandish it. "You didn't score anything off your mark. And you got punched. Not very lucky, yes?" He neglects to add that, had Lucky chosen a different mark, he probably would have gotten away with it. Meyer didn't even feel the wallet slipping out of his pocket. He's not sure how he feels about knowing that Lucky had his hand that close to his ass without Meyer being aware of it.
"But you ain't callin' the cops on me. That's pretty lucky." Lucky grins, a charming smile that has Meyer melting inside, and he must look like a violin or something because Lucky is still playing him, but he can't bring himself to care. He makes plenty of cash—all under the table—working for Rothstein, so what's the harm in parting with two fifties?
He straightens up and helps Lucky to his feet, and the would-be thief shoots him one last sheepish, charming smile before turning around and starting to walk away. He closes his eyes for a moment and calls after him, "Lucky, wait."
Lucky stops three steps from him and turns. "Yeah, Meyer?"
"Here." He pulls a hundred dollars—two bills with Ulysses S. Grant on them—out of his wallet and holds out the cash for Lucky to take.
Lucky doesn't move for a minute, but when he does, it's to scratch the back of his head with a puzzled expression crossing his face. "What, that's it?"
Meyer raises an eyebrow, still holding out the money. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, you're just gonna hand me a hundred dollars? Just like that? That's no fun."
He finally drops his arm. "Excuse me?"
"Yeah. It's no fun to just get handed money. I like to work for it, even by stealin' it."
"Do you need the money or not?"
"I don't need your charity."
"That's not what I asked. Do you need the money or not?" Meyer repeats.
It doesn't look like Lucky's clothes have been washed in a couple of days. He's not necessarily dirty, but he doesn't look clean, either. He's thin, too, like he doesn't eat regularly. His charm probably doesn't get him very far.
"Never mind. Come with me," Meyer says. He begins striding away, toward the throng of people waiting on the subway, and if Lucky wants to follow him, he will. He can already hear the screech of the train's brakes as it approaches.
"Come with you where?"
"My place."
"What? Why?"
"You want to earn a hundred dollars, yes?" Meyer asks, turning to face Lucky. He can't help his grin. He isn't the type to just pick someone up off the street, but Lucky doesn't know that and besides, Lucky is handsome in a sleazeball sort of way, with a mop of dark curls that hints at a likely Italian ancestry. "I can make you work for it. But it's up to you."
Lucky swallows, glancing in the direction that the train is coming from. He hesitates for only a few seconds before he nods. "Alright, nothin' wrong with earnin' a bit a' scratch," he says with a small grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Lucky definitely isn't what Meyer expected, which ends up being a good thing. Lucky manages to keep up a stream of wisecracks on the way to Meyer's shitty apartment—he could afford a nicer one if he wanted to, but he prefers to save his money, knowing that it could all vanish in a moment. And if Lucky thinks it's odd that a twenty-something with a seedy little apartment can afford to lose a hundred dollars, he keeps it to himself.
The moment the apartment door closes behind them, Meyer pulls the cash out of his back pocket, holds it up for a moment so Lucky can see what's in his hand, and slips it into the front pocket of Lucky's jeans. As he suspected, Lucky's rather baffled by it. "What, you just wanted an escort home?" he asks, and as Meyer walks toward his bedroom door, flinging his keys onto the coffee table, he grins to himself. Lucky actually sounds a little disappointed.
Meyer wipes the smile off his face and turns around, heading back to Lucky. "No. Now the only thing keeping you here is you. You can leave whenever you want."
Lucky raises his eyebrows. "You want me to leave?"
"Of course not. If I didn't want you here, you wouldn't have made it through the front door. My point is, you're not being coerced or forced to stay against your will."
Lucky glances at the door. "So if I walk out now..."
"Then you leave and that's that."
"An' I keep the hundred bucks?"
"I gave it to you, yes?"
"Lemme make sure I got this right. You're givin' me a hundred bucks to fuck you, but I don't actually have to fuck you?"
Meyer furrows his brows and shakes his head. "That's not exactly how I would put it. I'd think of it more as, I paid you a hundred dollars to spend time with me. The sex is a bonus."
Lucky looks at him with something akin to respect in his eyes. Meyer knows what he looks like—it's easy to underestimate a short, baby-faced Jewish boy in well-worn designer jeans and a faded Matisyahu "King Without a Crown" T-shirt. No one looks past his surface—no one except A.R. and now Lucky, it appears. Few people realize that Meyer knows exactly what he wants and what he's doing.
Right now, Meyer wants Lucky, and Meyer is pretty sure Lucky wants him, too.
Lucky kisses him again, tentatively, as if expecting another blow to the solar plexus, but now that they're not in public—Meyer doesn't like public displays of affection and never has—he has no interest in punching Lucky. He rubs the back of Lucky's neck and Lucky relaxes, wrapping his arms loosely around Meyer's waist. It's strangely comforting, and Meyer shoves out of his mind the fact that an hour ago, he hadn't even met Lucky.
It's a short stumble back to Meyer's bedroom, out of their clothes—Meyer making a point of putting his wallet on his dresser—and between the sheets. Lucky surprises him yet again by being far more submissive than Meyer took him for. And then Meyer forgets how to think when he finally pushes into Lucky, and Lucky's nails are sharp points of pain against his shoulders, and he's panting Meyer's name, his breath hot against Meyer's neck, and it takes all of Meyer's self-control not to bury his face in Lucky's shoulder and mark him.
He dozes off later with Lucky already asleep next to him, and he reflects that it doesn't feel as awkward as it should.
He wakes up a few hours later, yawning and stretching. That was a good nap, and there's still time for dinner. He rolls over to ask Lucky if he's hungry, but the bed next to him is empty.
Lucky's gone.
He sits up, looking around for Lucky's clothes—maybe he just went to the bathroom or the kitchen or something—but his clothes are gone. He slides out of bed and, scratching his head, heads to the door, but something to his right catches his eye.
His driver's license on the dresser with his credit and debit cards next to it.
There's a torn-off piece of newspaper underneath his license, and when he moves the ID, he sees unfamiliar handwriting.
Meyer, want your wallet back? Lucky
PS: Nice photo.
Under the note is a phone number, and Meyer sinks to the edge of his bed and laughs. "Little klepto prick," he murmurs, starting to get dressed again.
A.R. is going to flip when he hears this story.
Matisyahu is a Jewish reggae artist.
I'm thinking about expanding this chapter and posting at least one more part to it because I want modern!A.R. to meet modern!Charlie and of course A.R. already knows what Meyer's been up to with Charlie so yeah. Thoughts?