Have the first bit of a fabulously scandalous BDSM-flavored oneshot that I started writing last winter while working in Manhattan, and have ten pages of, but probably won’t ever finish, so now it’s a tumblr braindump??
*** PART 1: C LINE, IF IT EVER COMES, WHICH IT VERY WELL MIGHT NOT.
New York had pros and New York had cons.
Pros: fewer people who noticed or gave a fuck about accents, hair color, whatever clothes you were wearing. Food everywhere, which was particularly good when you were a person who always forgot to eat, or ate at whatever weird hour you managed to remember it. The friends were plentiful, even if the boyfriends weren’t. But hope sprang eternal, given a plethora of gay clubs and brunch spots.
Cons: everything about Louis’ current experience.
First of all, the end of January automatically meant bad things. People had finally shaken off enough holiday somnolence to buckle down and pretend they could get done in one week what they’d been avoiding for the previous five. Louis, who rarely avoided anything (ok, who rarely avoided anything at work), found this infuriating.
Second of all, winter had hunkered down for real. There was a constant cloud cover the sick-grey color of a steak that you’d bought with the best intentions and then found a month and a half later behind the yogurt. Not that Louis had done that (twice). You could no longer pretend this was just brisk weather and march determinedly from your apartment to the nearest stop without a heavy coat. Or when you did, you’d freeze your delicate body parts into uselessness, much like the steak. Not that Louis had done that (five times this week alone).
Third of all, the subway was borked.
Oh, the marvels of the big city commute, everyone had said. Oh, how egalitarian to use the subway every day. How you won’t miss the spreading highways and endless traffic of LA!
Bullshit. Half the lines were down for repairs, and the other half should be. Louis flipped between five different apps to manage his commute, and twice a week he still ended up on an A that changed to a C on a whim between midtown and uptown. The crowds were so bad even the rats were getting claustrophobic.
Louis stood miserably in a hot corner of the subway car. As far as he could figure out Satan himself ran this particular car, the only one that Louis had managed to even get on, after waiting twenty extra minutes and getting rammed in the back of the knees by a package. Satan had stuffed the car with people who didn’t have functioning showers, or ears; it was loud and hot and wet, snow-slush melting disgustingly between everyone’s feet.
Louis didn’t do great with crowds at the best of times. That was a possible flaw in the whole move-to-New-York-City plan.
He tugged unhappily at the hem of his blazer, which had ridden up underneath the coat he’d reluctantly worn today, and now didn’t have room to take off. He’d been jammed further and further in, and everyone was mad. The simmering tension wasn’t helped by delays on the tracks. Louis kept trying to stand his ground like the underground veterans around him but, Louis kept failing. He wondered how Liam always maintained an effective barrier on public transportation. Likely because Liam looked intimidating these days, with the buzz and the arms and all. Louis didn’t have that advantage.
There was a scuffle somewhere three bodies deeper. Louis couldn’t tell what it was, but if he knew Massive Transportation of Assholes, somebody was probably getting stabbed.
And then of course it got worse. The car stopped dead on a pitchblack section of midtrack, gears screeching and killing half the passengers’ stereocilia.
“Fucking hell,” someone snarled. It was New York, so most people were already deep into well-practiced catatonia, awaiting either train movement or suffocation with equal stoicism.
Stoicism had never been Louis’ strong suit. He shuffled as much as he could, from one foot to the other, and watched the bodies around him wobble. The scuffling was still going on, whatever it was, and it was sending hot, big bodies up against the bodies next to him. Louis swallowed hard.
“Get off,” someone snarled, maybe the same guy. Great, so they had one of those.
Somebody snapped back, too indistinct for Louis to hear. People were full on stumbling back now. A man in a yellow coat tripped, sending a woman in a velour tracksuit into the construction worker in front of Louis, and Louis watched an elbow come straight for his face.
“Oh, fuck me,” Louis whispered to himself, closing his eyes.
There was an oof, but it wasn’t Louis. Louis gingerly opened one eye to see the construction worker fallen into another man, who’d jumped right in between Louis and the chaos. Louis was back against the corner and the wall of the car, pressing a hand to his chest like the little old grandmother he was at heart.
The fast-reflexed stranger was facing him, an arm on either side of Louis’ shoulders, holding a space around them with sheer force of will and a strong frame and his extra inches over Louis.
And he was hot. Really hot, a beautiful face and a sinful body. Well, Louis assumed, under the winter clothes. He'd been working on getting better at reading the cues even through those overpriced Canada Goose coats everyone kept wearing.
“Hey, sorry, you looked a little trapped,” Hot Stranger said, in a voice that Satan could not have authorized. Or maybe he had, because this man sounded like a seductive devil. His voice was thick: honey and wine, soft and slow. And he was from God's own country, like Louis. Louis was losing his shit. Heat exhaustion.
He blinked at Hot Stranger, and Hot Stranger blinked back, only slower, everything in his body measured, and unafraid.
“But not in a good way,” Louis said, because Louis was made stupid with heat exhaustion and Satan was on his shoulder, cackling.
Hot Stranger’s mouth twitched. His really pretty mouth. The car was settling down, mumbles and grumbles and people pulling out their phones. Hot Stranger didn’t drop his arms.
“Thank you for your service,” Louis said, quickly, in case Hot Stranger turned around to pull out his own phone. “But it’s a lost cause. I’m going to die on this car. Can you tell my mum I love her?”
“I’ll try,” Hot Stranger said gravely. “You’ll have to give me her number.”
“Nice try,” Louis said, “She gives great advice but she’s got enough kids, not giving you my mum’s number.”
“At least a name, then,” the man said, “England's a small country but it's not that small. I can go on an epic quest to find your family and relay your last words. I’m Harry.”
“Louis,” Louis said. “Good to know my knight in shining armor has a name.” Wow, an idiot, that’s what he was.
Hot Stranger--Harry smiled. God, and it was a good smile. Louis cleared his throat. He must truly be deprived, to feel this rushingly attracted to a mere set of dimples.
“Lot of dragons in these tunnels,” Harry said. “Pity I forgot my sword.”
“Pity you forgot your horse, we could’ve ridden home by now,” Louis said.
Harry smiled again, big. The construction worker smiled, apparently friends with them now. Lord, it was way too much smiling for New York. It was making Louis nervous. Maybe it was Harry’s extremely large hands so close to his body. Maybe it was the curve of Harry’s shoulders under his jacket, his body heat, the fact that he was the only person in this car who actually managed to smell good.
The car moved, and the people jostled, and Louis clutched his briefcase a little tighter. Harry’s eyes flickered down his body. Harry leaned a little closer, still bracing over Louis. For some reason it felt deeply comforting, even though ten minutes earlier Louis had been contemplating stabbing anyone who got into his space.
“I gotcha,” Harry said. Louis went melty. His shoulders slumped down.
Louis reminded himself that he was a powerful person with a powerful job and an apartment and everything. A powerful person who hadn’t been held down by another, at least within-human-reason powerful person in a long time. It was possible that Harry was noticing this play out on Louis’ face. Harry’s gaze had flickered to his shoulders, and then to his mouth, and Harry was awfully close, for a complete stranger.
“How about that sports team?” Louis said, wildly.
“Which one?” Harry asked.
Louis waved a hand. “Any, Harry, any of them at all. How are they doing? Are they in season? Is the season going well?”
“Fuck the Sox!” somebody said, on Louis’ right.
“It's January, fuckwad,” the woman in velour said.
“We’re having a conversation!” Louis said, to the car.
“Shut up, Queen Elizabeth,” somebody said from the front.
Louis stuck his hand as high up in the air as it could go, flipping the bird to the entire car.
“Are you trying to start a fight? I didn't bring my sword, remember?” Harry said.
“I’m a New Yorker, I can’t help it,” Louis said, accent strong. Harry narrowed his eyes, and Louis’ stomach went melty again. There was something dangerous behind Harry’s smile and Louis absolutely wanted it.
“I'll restrain you if I have to,” Harry said. He looked calculating. “For the good of the commuters. Public safety.”
“I thought I was the princess,” Louis said in mock outrage, “Not the dragon.”
“You could absolutely be both,” Harry said.
