Wow, this is supposed to be like, only about 800 words long but I…got carried away lol.
Salvatore and Arthur have a very platonic (and kind of fucked up, in an outsider's POV) relationship, tho I can't really call it "like brothers" because they aren't like that. Idk. They wrote themselves :/
It took about a month before the Boss stopped giving his new child too much attention. Salvatore thinks it was because of sex, really.
He brings a little girl in one of his private penthouses and Salvatore had about two hours of quiet time, watching the Boss play games with her, cuddle on the bed and watch cartoons. At one point, they fed each other dinner and the sappy look of pure adoration on the Boss' face was tempting enough for him to leave the room.
But he didn't.
It is his duty to protect and oversee the Boss, whenever and wherever. He'll be no good if he failed something as simple as this.
And anyway, at least this is the most they were doing. If it were anything else, then yes, he would leave. Not just because he wanted to but because the Boss will tell him to.
He doesn't really like it when people watch.
Watch him fuck his children, that is.
When Salvatore notices that the girl is no longer giggling, her little hands pushing at the Boss' head as he mouths at her clothed skin, Salvatore makes a pointed noise. The look on the Boss' face directed at him at that moment as he has his face buried in her stomach was enough for Salvatore to discreetly remove himself from the room. Gladly.
Instead he stands guard at the door, head leaning against it, trying to listen for any suspicious sounds that may not come from pleasure or anything else that the Boss approves of.
Watching or not, Salvatore cannot forget his duty.
Salvatore finds himself running up, up and up the stairways, almost out of breath when he reaches the top floor, feeling his sweat dripping down from his chin to his damp suit, wet and hot from all the running he had been doing for the past hour or so.
This is the last place he knows the Boss would go, if things were really as bad as he had thought it was.
Today was supposed to be his day off too, happily spending the rest of the night sleeping on his cold bed when he was suddenly awakened by a distressed call from one of the Boss' guards, saying how the man has suddenly vanished without a trace just before he was escorted into a business meeting. Everyone were in a state of panic, worried for their Boss' safety, silently wondering if the man's deeds has finally piled up to a height that even God himself had to do something to get back at him for it.
The floor was dark and the heating was off, cooling Salvatore's heated skin and he stops momentarily to catch his breath, all the while looking around to see if he was finally wrong.
A clink of a glass from the corner of the room where the bar is located says that he's right, after all.
The Boss did run away again.
He hears himself exhale a soundless sigh, mouth wide open, still trying to catch his breath. Who wouldn't if you ran around the city, looking at every building your superior uses as his living space with worry pressing into your head, clouding your vision and ability to properly comprehend logic.
When he supposes he could breathe well again, he walks towards the light switch, about to turn the lights on and ask the Boss to please at least call and calm his men when the Boss suddenly speaks up in the dark, choking out.
"Stop!" Salvatore's fingers pause, the tips grazing at the switch. A little bit more pressure and the entire room will be illuminated.
"You know how much my eyes had always hated light," The Boss adds with a groan, and Salvatore can hear him grasping his head as he shakes it, a glass of whiskey on his other hand, idly swirled as he does so.
The Boss doesn't drink anything other than whisky when he gets in one of his moods.
Defeated, he joins him in the bar, sits beside him and readily accepts a glass that was poured for him. He prepares himself, inhaling and holding his breath as he takes a quick sip. He always hated how alcohol tastes like, burns your throat and makes your head feel funny. He could never understand the novelty in drinking liquor, no matter how many times he had to accompany the Boss for drinks and such.
They spend a few more hours like that, sitting quietly as they sip their warm drinks in the cold, the Boss' features slightly visible from the moonlight slipping through the glass walls of the building that overlooks the city below. He seemed content to take his time, taking small sips to savour the flavour, the familiar faraway look on his face as he stares at the view below him but at the same time not truly seeing them.
At some point, the Boss managed to drag him to his bed along with the bottle of the whisky he's been drinking for hours. From the looks of it, he'll need tons of water and rest come morning if he's insistent on finishing the whole thing. Salvatore supposes he should be stealing the bottle from the Boss' hand at this point, knowing how bad alcohol does to him when he had too much of them but he thinks again and drops the thought.
The Boss seemed like he really needed it.
A few more hours and they've moved from the bar to the Boss' bed, listening to the Boss talk about everything and nothing with a silly smile on his face, nostalgic about their childhood and the bottle empty and shattered on the floor, the Boss suddenly finds himself squinting, wincing as he covers his eyes. Complains about how they hurt when they open and how tears won't stop flowing out.
Salvatore peers at the window and sees that it was probably the sun that was making the Boss' eyes hurt so. Dawn's approaching.
"Already?" The Boss whimpers, face hidden by his hands, desperately covering his sensitive eyes.
"Pull down my curtains, will you?" He orders, curling down on the bed facedown, pulling at the blankets and pillows to cover his head and his body. Suddenly, the room had gotten cold and he's shivering badly.
"You should go to sleep now," Salvatore says by the windows, dutifully covering them with heavy curtains to block the light completely. The Boss merely groans at his suggestion irritably. It wasn't Salvatore who suggested to drink all night now, did he? So he had no place to complain at the moment.
"Just, just get here already!"
Salvatore gets kicked when he attempts to pull at the Boss' feet, trying to pull his socks off.
"I said get here, not there! I'm cold!"
"I know, I know, you'll thank me later." Salvatore mutters, fighting down the want to hit the defiant limb.
"Ow!"
"Stop being difficult and take off your jacket."
He received another unwilling groan, unfortunately. The Boss pulls his feet off from Salvatore's hold to be curled and hidden from sight and Salvatore thinks he should probably not bother pulling those out again lest the Boss finds his hands on the hand gun he hides under his pillow and actually shoot him.
He's quite lethal when sleepy.
Salvatore's lucky that he got the socks off, then.
He moves up to where the Boss' head was, grabbing his hand to take his jacket off, knowing how the Boss will have a hard time sleeping later when he's damp with sweat with all the layers he had been wearing when the limp hand suddenly wasn't so limp anymore and pulls him down, the Boss' face buried to his chest.
"We need to take off your jacket first, Boss."
"Hm," He groaned in an affirmative, nodding his head once but does nothing about it. Salvatore sighs.
He rests his head on the pillow, facing the ceiling. Slightly wondering how his supposed time to himself became all about the Boss. Again.
When the silence was occasionally disturbed by the ticking of the clocks and the Boss' breathing on his chest, he shifts to move the possessive hand around him, planning to clean the mess on the floor, then on the bar and prepare the Boss something to eat and to drink later once he feels well enough to get up and probably contact the guys while he's on it and ease the panic.
He thought was quite successful at the attempt until, that is, he feels the Boss' arm shoot out to grab at his sleeve, swollen-red eyes peering at him from the pillows, begging him not to leave in that weak raspy voice.
Powerless against the man, he obliges. He settles back to where he was before and this time, puts an arm around the Boss' back to pull him closer towards his side, Salvatore's head resting atop his from where it was back to rest on his chest.
Not much later after they had properly settled down, hears an inhale, breath shuddering and wet, and the next thing he knows, the Boss is crying. His tears making his shirt damp.
"I'm so lonely, Sally."
He couldn't find the words to say anything, knowing whatever he may say wouldn't change how things had turned out.
So he lifts his hand to gently rub the Boss' back, up to his shivering shoulders, no longer cold but shivering nonetheless.
"I miss them so much."
Anxiety.
It was coming from the bottom of his guts, brewing and making him want to throw up.
It has been a month, hasn't it?
That man has yet to return once again.
Alfred remembers how he had been so…persistent. Not in an aggressive way Alfred would usually see in his mother's past lovers, who would later go back into the habit of spending her money and beat them both and rape her.
That man, though, Alfred doesn't understand.
He placed him in a big space, with a bed and a couple of rooms filled with things to keep him occupied because he said he's a very busy man and cannot see him for more than a few hours before he had to leave to take care of business again. Then he smiles apologetically, as if Alfred actually has the right to get mad.
He was kind. Awfully so to the point that Alfred started to doubt if this man is really who they say he was.
Kirkland.
The maniac, they call him. His previous owner, one of the Bonnefoy's big men used to spit his name like some kind of poison. They like to call him a bastard in hushed whispers over cheap drinks with their women-or sometimes his fellow kids-on their laps, almost naked and being groped before falling into a fit of laughther.
It was like they were talking about a punch line of a joke only they know.
His thoughts were cut to a halt when he hears the main door open, and then hear it slam close again. They weren't gentle in doing it, where you can only hear the lock clicking. This one was slammed close harshly that it made Alfred wince; the walls probably shuddered at the force.
Now, he's terrified. Wondering if the building had been invaded by a rival gang and its people probably killed. What if it sees him and shoots him on site? He's not stupid to hope that he will be spared, knowing what he had seen when Kirkland's men took over their building in a matter of minutes. Guts and fluids splattering the walls and the floor, he and the rest of the kids huddled in a corner, eyes closed shut and hands covering their ears. Everything was so loud they could barely hear their own voices as they cried and whimpered and prayed.
Is it really a blessing that the leader of the operations had seen it fit to present them to Kirkland as a prize?
He had overheard from the conversations amongst the men that their Boss is overly fond of children. How he might be interested to take one of them home to play with so they shouldn't touch the kids yet until they get the approval. From Salvatore, at the very least.
He would soon realise that Salvatore was his supposed saviour, Kirkland laughing about it at his face as he tries to calm Alfred down when he cries too much, just so, so afraid of Kirkland when he gets too close, knowing what lies beneath that warm smile and warm food and warm bed.
Salvatore. It means saviour, Kirkland barely manages to say in-between his laughs.
It was so ironic it hurts.
"You must be Arthur's new kid, huh?"
"Huh?" Alfred looks up from where he sat, cramped in a small space between the corner of the wall and his bed.
It was a boy, peering down at him with large brown eyes. He seemed foreign but speaks English just fine. Too fine.
The boy gives him an unimpressed look, his hand coming up to cup his face as he continues to stare Alfred down.
"I'm Hong, by the way. You're Arthur's new thing, right?"
"…thing?" Alfred asks, confused as how things went from a simple assumption of an invasion into nothing but another child being sent in to his cage (this is what this whole thing is, isn't it?).
Alfred thought that this place was only for him, for Kirkland to keep him isolated and all to himself. Since the day he was brought here, the only constant faces he sees were Kirkland and his ever-loyal shadow aside from maids who come in at least thrice a day to bring him meals and bathe him and take care of the place.
He was well-cared for.
The fact that lately, Kirkland had been coming up to visit less and less became the reason of his unease, though. Spending days in solitude, the maids sent to his cage barely saying a word to him other than "what do you want to eat today?" or "Time for your bath".
It gets lonely up here, alone with nothing but your own thoughts to brew.
With this boy appearing all of a sudden, introducing himself as Hong and calling Kirkland by his first name so casually and shamelessly calls him Kirkland's…thing, it brings the anxiety he had been trying to oppress back.
Is he getting replaced?
If so, where would he go now? Back to where he was before?
Or somewhere worse?
"So, wanna tell me your name? I don't bite or anything." Hong asks, impatient.
Before Alfred managed to open his mouth after moments of contemplating, Hong makes another impatient noise, shuffling out of Alfred's sight.
"Come on, let's go check your fridge for something to eat, I'm hungry."
"You're too damn quiet, it pisses me off," Alfred heard him mutter under his breath as he stands up to follow, blood pumping loudly in his head.
Is he my replacement?
Alfred looks at the bowl of cereal laid down on the table in front of him, and then winces when a tall glass of milk was slammed right next to it, Hong pulling a seat right next to Alfred, his own bowl of cereal on his hands, a smaller portion. He silently munches on them, mouth open as his eyes remain fixated at Alfred's.
Alfred finds it strangely uncomfortable in the least, to be stared at with such intensity yet at the same time remaining disinterested. He doesn't know what Hong wants from him, what he wants to see in Alfred. Does he see competition in him?
But if he does, he wouldn't be bothering to feed him, right?
And it was a big serving, compared to what Hong is eating right now…
"So, wanna tell me who you are now?" Hong says in-between his bites, then his eyebrows raise, "Or you didn't have any…?"
He sets his bowl of unfinished cereal on the table with a gentle clack, the gentlest thing he had done so far in Alfred's cage, and leans forward, his face closer to Alfred's, eyes wider and lit with curiosity. Then one of his eyebrows quirks up in inquiry, almost interrogatory as he asks another question, "Arthur didn't even name you, at least?"
Hong seemed to see something in Alfred's expression-confused, surprised, overwhelmed-because he backs away, a hint of a smile on his face now as he looks at Alfred up and down and up again back to his face.
"You're not mute, are you?" He says, in the brink of laughing. Why he thinks being disabled is funny, Alfred will never know.
Doesn't want to know.
He wants to speak, was intending to, but finds that he's unable to summon his voice and so settles with shaking his head. He's not mute.
Hong snorts, "Pfft, yeah, that's what mutes would say when asked."
"I'll call you Alfred then." Hong adds.
When Hong hears his gasp, the other boy smiles wider at him, legs partially raised on his seat in a way that he's about to curl into himself. Like he's trying to conceal the excitement in his body language but fails miserably with how his face shows every little detail about it.
"You were teasing me." Alfred manages to say, accusing. He doesn't feel as anxious anymore, finding Hong's presence welcome rather than threatening. His displeased frown at Hong's antic, however, doesn't seem to unnerve the other boy in the very least. Instead he got a giggle and an excited nod.
"Salvatore wouldn't bring me over here without briefing me, you know."
At the mention of Salvatore, Alfred's mind drifts back to Kirkland, his lack of presence in Alfred's confinement lately and back to his anxiety.
Oh, how short moments of relief can easily be overpowered by reality.
"Salvatore did?" Alfred asks, brows furrowed. Did Kirkland make him do it?
"Oh, hm," Hong nods eagerly. "He did."
"Arthur doesn't know," He adds with a wink, said in a hushed whisper and a finger to his lips.
"Salvatore wanted me to teach you stuff."
"Stuff?" Alfred can't help but repeat, confused. First was thing and now its stuff. He doesn't think he would be able to understand Hong much if he keeps being uncomfortably vague.
Hong doesn't seem to notice Alfred's problem with his vocabulary, giving Alfred's inquiry an off-handed shrug, settling back down on his seat and rests his cheek on the cool table, peering up at Alfred.
"Yanno," He says with a wave of his hand, "Stuff. Things Arthur likes. Salvatore thinks," Hong makes a horrible impression of Salvatore's heavy scowl, not as awkward and disturbing on the real thing's face—like he's actually having problems making human expressions-and makes his voice a hundred times deeper than a child's usual high pitch, "the Boss isn't happy."
Alfred couldn't help but let out a snort at that one, too funny to imagine the expression on Hong's face to be on Salvatore's. Hong starts laughing at it too, and then he sighs, laughing lowly to himself. "He's over-reacting, I think. I mean, Arthur's always stressed or something about a coupl'a things. He just smiles a lot because he thinks he looks hot like that," He looks at Alfred with a big grin on his face, voice low, he says, like it was some kind of secret, "He actually told me that yanno, while sucking me off once. He's the only guy I've seen smile and laugh that much with a dick in his mouth, I'm telling ya."
Hong was laughing as he recollects, like it was some funny tale kids Alfred's age would normally talk about with fellow children and seeing Hong act so casual and shrug something like that off brought chills down Alfred's spine. Dread settling down his gut, heavier than the anxiety that once occupied it.
So he wasn't being replaced. He's being trained. Because Salvatore thinks he's not bringing his precious boss satisfaction. Was that why Kirkland barely comes in here anymore?
Wouldn't it be more ideal to just get rid of him, then?
"Hey," Alfred jumps when something cold was pressed to his cheek. He didn't realise he had been looking down at his feet until he had to look up once again to meet Hong's eyes, his hand on Alfred's glass of milk, still cold from its recent storage in the refrigerator. Hong looks at him with worry as he settles the glass of milk back to the table.
"You feeling alright? You're kind of pale. Here, eat something, for fuck's sake." He pushes the bowl of cereal towards Alfred, its contents starting to unfortunately become soggy, but still edible.
Shakily, Alfred nods, choosing to remain quiet and eats the food Hong prepared for him silently.
"He likes it when you call him Arthur." Hong suddenly blurts out in the silence, making Alfred twist his spoon too hard, spilling cereal and milk on the table. Hong barely spares the mess a glance, raising a brow at him as Alfred tried to ignore it, intent on focusing on eating his serving, pretending he hasn't heard Hong say anything, at which Hong immediately catches on.
"You do call him Arthur, right?"
When Hong was met with silence, Alfred insisting on eating through the awkward atmosphere he had built up himself and fails, Hong's smile falters, sagging on the table, stunned. "You haven't…"
Had sex with him yet? Was the question that seemed to linger on Hong's tongue.
"Oh my God," Hong madly whispers, face paling.
"That's crazy." Hong adds, sounding quite impressed as looks at Alfred wide-eyed in a way that it seemed that he is seeing Alfred in a different light.
Alfred scowls at him, spoon half-way into his mouth. "No."
"No? Are you serious? That's-"
"No, I mean I don't want to know. The stuff you came here to teach me. I'm not planning to stay here for much longer." He cuts Hong off, displeased at the scandalised look on Hong's face. He can't really expect him to just accept how things are, doesn't he?
Alfred thinks he doesn't like Hong anymore, if he keeps talking like that.
Hong flashes him a wry smile. "Arthur picked you, and that means he would want to have at least a taste. Then after that, you can worry about what'll become of you, given that he thinks you're boring enough or too old," At which Hong makes a pointed look at Alfred's body. Young enough for Arthur.
"Piss him off and he won't think twice to throw you at anyone who'll take you. Saw him did it once. Bought two little girls that he heard made friends with Salvatore. Long story but basically, he didn't like anyone stealing his playmate away, so he bought those girls from whichever gang owned them just to have them raped and fucked with scary as heck things until they died, making sure Salvatore saw everything." Hong was shaking his head, giving Alfred a sympathetic look, actually worried for his well-being.
"You don't want him angry."
Try counting how many times I had to retype salvatore's name bc I kept on typing Sally. LOL. He doesn't like people calling him Sally, unless you're Arthur. Also Hong is aph hong kong. He's around Alfred's age in this au too. As you can see, he's been involved in this gang thing longer than Alfred was, so stuff like child prostitution and such doesn't faze him anymore. You really actually get used to them if you see them everyday or if you're raised in that environment (see: Arthur and most especially Salvatore who was already in too deep before he got introduced to Arthur when they were kiddos) that stuff will be your typical day. I'm not gonna say anymore but yea.