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Pretty Woman

There were still dying ribbons of pink resting on the horizon when Jet settled in against the outside wall of the strip club. He could hear the bustle and voices of customers coming in for the night around the corner but didn't bother to look. He didn't care.

One, two, cigarettes and two other people stepped into the mouth of the alley. The shorter one turned to face the taller one and wrapped his arms behind their neck to pull the taller man into an intense kiss. They exchanged a few words, the shorter man kissed his friend again then saluted as he turned into the alley and walked up towards Jet.

The red head watched as the taller shadow seemed to hesitate a moment before finally leaving, then turned his attention to the man who'd settled in beside him with his own cig.

"Thought we agreed you weren't gonna hang around out here by yourself anymore."

Jet shrugged. "No one's really around yet. Besides, I got done with my stuff early and decided heading over was easier than hanging around."

Bucky didn't say anything to that, just gave a mildly irritated grunt and worked at the stick in his mouth instead. They were better at silence when it came to those heavier issues like why Jet wasn't supposed to hang around on his own.

Jet wasn't like Bucky, he didn't pack as much punch on his own, though he did have his height. Beyond that, Bucky had Steve who never failed to walk the brunette to and from work like an overprotective watchdog. Jet had been present for the arguments that had ensued about Bucky feeling like Steve didn't trust him to take care of himself, but those arguments had stopped after one night when a customer had gotten really handsy with Buck -more than any other customer before- and after the night when Bucky had found Jet behind the club after that one guy went too far.

That had been over a year ago and where Jet lacked a body-builder-esk boyfriend, he had his own methods of protection. It wasn't even really that he wanted a boyfriend like Steve, he had his classes and his job and plenty of things that made having a boyfriend difficult, but he'd be lying if he said the idea of having someone care that much about him didn't sound appealing.

Too bad he was a stripper and guys like Steve didn't come out of the woodwork very often.

"Come on, we should head in and get ready. You know Jackson hates it when we smell of smoke."

Jet nodded and stomped out the butt of the cig before leading the way through the back entrance and into the backrooms.

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The coy question does get a smile from Albert but it's short lived, the German immediately noting the cigarette in Jet's mouth, the way the bouncer had straightened up as Jet stepped out and remained actively watchful until the redhead had reached where Albert was waiting under the streetlight, the dark look that had cleared over Jet's face the moment he'd laid eyes on Albert. (He can't pretend that didn't make him a little happy.)

Concern marks Albert's face and he takes the cigarette from between his teeth, frowning a deep frown and moving in to study Jet's face. "Are you alright?"

Jet took another drag but then waved the question away. "I'm fine. Work was just...annoying." He shrugged. "Jerks." But then that brighter light in his eyes was back, the whole thing paled in comparison to Albert's presence.

"What're you doing here? Didn't have enough of me in your business before?" His expression and smile turned softer on the edges and his empty hand came up to brush back a bit of Albert's hair in concern. "You're supposed to be sleeping. You don't always get enough of that as it is."

"Couldn't sleep, and I never get enough of you in my business so I thought I could take you home," he smiles again and this time it stays in place. It's not an easy smile, his rarely are, but it is an earnest one even if it's worried. He leans back a bit on his bike, putting his cigarette back between his lips and folding his arms. "Annoying how?"

He was supposed to be going back to the apartment he shared with his friends...but if Albert had been out here a while then Bucky and Steve had likely seen him on their way in and out. Still, just in case, he reached for his phone and sent a message to Bucky so his overprotective friends wouldn't worry when he didn't show back up.

"Annoying like this guy kept buying my time and he 'forgot' the no touch rule, that's all. Security tossed him on his ass and I got a thick roll for my trouble and his gross hands." He shrugged and looked back to Albert as he shoved his phone back into his pocket. "So, you're gonna take me home, huh? This would be the 'home where you live but also I spend a lot of time' right? Cause I kinda just told Buck I wasn't coming back tonight..."

"My place, then," he agrees amiably but there's a sharpness to it, something vaguely unsettling if not dangerous, though clearly not directed at Jet. "You know, I don't-"

He's interrupted by a jingle of Jet's phone, a return text. It's Bucky's number, but Steve's the one answering.

Have a good time. Bucky says 'get it.'

Thankfully because its Steve, that isn't followed with a string of somehow obscene emoticons.

"Nevermind, here." In the span it took to read the text, Albert lost his nerve and instead just holds out a helmet for Jet to wear. He'd bought it not long after they'd started dating, when Jet had flipped his lid over the fact that Albert, of all people, rode a motorcycle. Albert had put his foot down and insisted on buying him the thing before ever letting him even on the back of the bike. The helmet is garish, a bright thing with an American flag design, but it's what Jet had wanted so Albert had gotten it. There's no accounting for taste.

Edited 2016-09-21 03:27 (UTC)

Jet can hear the sharp note in Albert's voice. With his boyfriend usually so quiet and gentle, that edge nearly always catches his attention, whenever it rarely shows up. But he's also interrupted by his phone and the eyeroll he gives in response.

Yeah? You do the same, hunk.

Something to make Steve blush since Jet knew from experience Bucky was a much harder target. But Jet grins anyway and re-pockets the phone so he can take the helmet instead. He'd told Albert he'd be fine, that he was more likely to get hit by lightning than fall off his cool bike, but Jet's roommates weren't the only protective ones and he'd gone ahead with the helmet idea so Albert wouldn't have one more thing to stress out about.

As soon as Albert was on the bike, Jet had his arms wrapped tight around him, cheek pressed to the German's shoulder briefly in lieu of any other sign of affection. Whatever Albert had to say, maybe Jet could pry it out of him once they were back home.

Also it's the law but little things like that don't generally bother Jet apparently. Albert likes that a little though, how wild his redhead is. Which is also why he tends not to argue or ask anything of him. He doesn't want Jet to think he's trying to clip his wings.

But this handsy guy, he's not the first, and he won't be the last, and it sickens Albert to think that Jet isn't safe. Which isn't entirely the truth. There are the bouncers, and the owner is on the up-and-up according to Steve, who's opinion Albert had asked candidly out of Jet's earshot. He trusts Steve would know and tell him the truth. But the clientele is what gets Albert's blood boiling, every story that Bucky laughs off about people getting kicked out, the way Jet groans, as if it's just something that happens that people grope at him like slathering dogs in heat.

He clenches the cigarette in his mouth and sits stiffly, pulling out of the parking lot and speeding off towards the avenues.

Jet held a little tighter when he felt Albert's body grow more tense and waited until they got back to the apartment. He was quiet while they parked and headed to the door, but he held Albert's hand to try and get him loosen up.

But Albert was Albert and loosening up was a tall order sometimes.

Inside his boyfriend's apartment, Jet leaned against the back of the couch and gave Albert a small smile. "Alright, what's bothering you? You've been surly since I got off work." His smile turned to a smirk and his eyes ducked under his bangs as he stood a little straighter with a hand on his hip. "I could find a way to loosen you up, if you'd like."

"I'm fine," comes out automatically as he tosses his keys on the table by the door. The apartment is small, a one bedroom with a shower-only bathroom and kitchen attached to the living room. It's kept neat, though a little more lived in now that Jet is around more often. The single bookshelf that used to be a few crime novels and books on music or history now has a small collection of bluray movies to go with it, the machine he'd bought himself sitting gleaming black in the tv stand. The coffee table, where it was once bare, instead near always has mugs or cans perched on coasters, maybe a couple of comic issues that Jet forgot to take back home and Albert will deny to the day he dies that he flips through when Jet's not there. There are more pillows on the bed, two phone chargers in the wall instead of one, two toothbrushes in a cup on the bathroom sink. Little things that show just how much Jet has become a facet in his life and not just a visitor.

So no. He's not fine. He's not fine with sweaty strangers pawing at Jet, pupils blown and minds brimming with ideas of just what they would do to the lithe redhead in front of them whose job it is to make them want but never to actually give them anything. That's for Albert. Just him. As Jet has told him in the only conversation they ever had about it. He took his word, understood that Jet wanted to make it through school on his own dime, that he needed to somehow prove he was capable. Albert had nodded and resolved not to complain about his job ever. Not how he was kept up nights wondering if someone had gone too far, or tried to corner him in an alley, and was only able to finally rest when he got that text at this time of morning that Jet was home safe with a little emoticon thumbs up.

He'd promised himself he would be okay with this, silently promised Jet, but the way he cocks his hip and loos at him through auburn bangs seductively... instead of feeling aroused or special or even lucky to have that attention, he just pulls off his jacket forcefully and decides to get it over with. "I don't like other people's hands on you. I don't think I need to loosen up about that."

There. It's out in the open, and coward that he is, Albert can't look at Jet, instead keeping his back turned under the guise of hanging his jacket on the hook by the door.

Albert's not fine and the way he says he is tells Jet better than any admission. And then it's out there and Jet feels something in him deflate. He thought they were fine, he'd thought they'd talked about this. Six months and not a damn word.

But Bucky'd been doing this for over a year and Jet could still see the hesitation and anxiety in Steve. He knew Bucky laughed it off, he wasn't in any danger, but it still hung around Steve. The biggest rift in their otherwise perfect relationship and it tore Steve up.

Albert shouldn't be Steve.

Jet's smile fell and his eyes stayed hidden under his cover of bangs. He couldn't just quit, he needed his job, he needed the pay to get through school, god knew his mom didn't have it, even as she tried to send him what she could each month.

"Al...that guy's not gonna come back. Every time someone breaks that rule, they get blacklisted. The ones that stick around know the rules." He shrugged. "The Bouncers are there for a reason."

But what about when they weren't? Eight months ago. A creep, a dark alley and if Bucky hadn't forgotten something...it had been close. Sometimes it ran through his head and he just had to pull up his text messages and see Albert's name there to bring a smile back to his face.

The man who made him most happy, made him feel safer than anyone ever had in his life, and Jet was tormenting him like Bucky tormented Steve. But Steve didn't say anything. Albert had.

"I know, but..." What about the next man? Or someone powerful enough the bouncers can't touch? You read in the papers about strippers found dead in the Hudson, brutally raped and beaten. There's an entire network crime show about it, been going for close to two decades, all because that situation is entirely too relatable. He can see it, sometimes. Being questioned by the sex crimes detective. It makes Albert feel sick and he can't watch that particular show, despite his proclivity towards criminal mystery stories.

But Jet's life is his life and who is he to tall the redhead that he - who admittedly has limited knowledge of places like his work from television and hearsay - can't do what he wants to do any longer? If it wasn't for that place, Albert maybe wouldn't have ever met Jet despite going to the same university and in similar programs. He dances perfectly on stage at school and in auditions and shows, but Albert knows he makes far more money dancing about a pole in tiny shorts. He's put himself through school at NYU, you can't do that unless you have money. And while Albert could offer similar stability - he's frugal and still has a great deal saved up from what was granted him by Hilda's family. Enough to see them both to graduation and still be able to pay rent, though it would be tight - he can't offer independence.

He would do it in a heartbeat but he doesn't want Jet to think he owes him something. He doesn't want to be the subject of Bucky's laughing stories over the men who tell him they can 'take him away from all this' even if that's exactly what he wants to do for Jet. He's wasted on a strip club stage. He should be in the New York Ballet or on Broadway. Albert had told him such before and gotten a brush off.

Most of all though, right now, he doesn't want a fight. He never wants a fight. Life's too short and too uncertain and he should just forget the whole thing. Write it off as the anxiety he's so often plagued with and let the whole thing go. Better than watching Jet walk out that door and leave him alone once again. He's not sure he could take that.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything, please forget it."

Jet watches him through that fringe of hair, he can see the gears turning and Albert fighting with himself the way he'd done so many times when they'd first gotten together. His heart knew what it wanted, and his mind was telling it to shove it. All the confirmation Jet needed was Albert's own dismissal.

Jet was good at reading people when he wanted to be and he'd memorized every subtle change and shift Albert made over the months to be able to read his closed off boyfriend. He was grateful he did. If he forgot about it, this wouldn't go away, it would fester and churn and burn them until either Albert decided he couldn't take it anymore or Albert turned out to be right and something really did happen to Jet and then things would be so, so much worse. It would be Jet's fault for not listening, but Albert would blame himself for not pushing harder, convinced he could've out-stubborned Jet.

Jet didn't want to be the next Hilda. Considering the state Jet had found him in, Albert surely wouldn't survive it.

'Don't put some man ahead of your future' he could practically hear his mother's warning, but then again, if Jet had ever told her what this awesome job was that got him through, she'd probably come down from Buffalo and kill him herself. Don't put some man ahead of your future...but what if you didn't mind so much if the man was your future? Albert wasn't his Pa, he'd never tell Jet to quit his dreams and rely on him. And Jet wasn't his Ma, he wasn't going to give up so easily; why couldn't he simply have both?

There were other jobs. There wasn't another Albert.

Jet turned away from Albert after having been quiet a long moment and dug his phone from his pocket. Checking the time, he felt a rush of gratitude to know his boss would still be there for a bit longer, just enough time. Jet pressed the contact and stepped away, still facing the other side of the room.

"Hey. It's me. Look, boss, I gotta quit. Nah, nothin' like that, just other things. Personal, just can't do it anymore. Yeah, Buck'll pick up my last check. Thanks." He laughed and smiled up towards the ceiling. "Yeah? Well you can let some of those fresh faces up on your cruddy stage, maybe they'll fall off the pole or something. Yeah. Tell em'..." Jet glanced over to Albert and then away again. "Tell em' I found something worth more than those big bucks." He scoffed and shook his head. "Yeah yeah, shut the fuck up. Yeah, see you around."

A Minute, minute and a half, and everything had changed. But Jet felt better for it. He tossed his phone to the couch and finally faced Albert with a small, hesitant smile, waiting for his reaction. He was terrified, his heart was hammering in his chest for such an impulsive decision, he hadn't made one that big in years, but he was also hopeful. Hopeful that maybe, just maybe, they could actually make this work.

Edited 2016-09-24 16:37 (UTC)

Staring. That's all Jet gets for a long, long moment is Albert's eyes wide and eyebrows vanished into his hair, jaw slack with confusion. Had Jet just...

"You--"

Why, for him? He'd barely said a thing and then suddenly Jet is turning his own life upside down just because... because.

Is he that important?

Suddenly Albert feels simultaneously heavy and light. He's been serious about Jet for awhile now, but this step - a major step - proves that Jet is serious about him too and not just killing time until someone he has more in common with strides onto the scene. He's all in and the German can't speak for how that fills him with welcome dread and terrifying happiness.

It takes him far too long to remember how his mouth works. How to form words. "Is that... is it okay?"

Jet's smile softened and his eyes vanished under his hair with a shrug. "Oh yeah, definitely. I didn't like that job anyway, it smelled like sweat and perfume and the lights gave me headaches sometimes." He waved off Albert's concern and stuck his hands in his pockets. But then his smile fell and he shrugged again.

"I...it's not as important to me. I'd kinda like whatever we've got to go a long while. I don't want to look up and catch you looking at me like I might vanish if you take your eyes off me. It's no good for me and it's sure as hell no good for you."

He wouldn't say how he knew the look, how many times he'd looked up and seen it in Steve's face while Bucky laughed and joked and didn't even notice because he was too confident and too comfortable to think to look. Jet simply hadn't wanted to look up.

He hesitates again, longer, eyes falling to the coffee table as though those cans held all the answers. "You're right: shit happens, people suck and there's bound to be other jobs out there. Something that'll keep some money in my pocket and the grey out of your hair." He smirked at his own joke but finally managed to wrench his eyes away and put them back on Albert, even still shaded by his hair. He was too tired for all this soul-baring, but he'd talked his circle around what he really wanted to say, now he just needed to get to it.

"Six months ago, I danced for this hot guy and he dashed out like his ass was on fire. Then I ran into him at an audition and kinda stole his music. When Steve played a bit of it...it hurt. It was so sad and...it made me want to get to know him. To maybe find a way to-" he winced, his mind coming up with words but his throat and tongue too tied to actually get them out. He wasn't a poet, he needed to leave the pretty words to people who actually knew what to do with them. "I just wanted to find a way to make him smile. Stressin' him out's no way to do that or tell him why it even matters."

"I'll take care of you," he blurts it out, almost before Jet stops talking. Albert's hands are shaking at his sides and he can't keep his eyes off of the redhead even for how wide they are at everything turning over in a snap. "I have savings, until you get another job. I know it's difficult to find work, so I can cover things until then. Rent, loan repayments, books."

It's the least he can do for the enormous leap Jet's made for him. What he wants to say is Jet can move in here, that on the practical side it just makes sense. He can afford the rent on his own anyway, and it's not a terrible little place, but even now he doesn't want to step on Jet's toes. He's already received so much more than he'd ever hoped. Ever dreamed.

Jet; all his.

He doesn't smile. He wants to, its there under the surface, in his eyes first but not his mouth. He's still too much in shock, wondering if the other shoe will drop and Jet will realize what he's just done on a crazy impulse and try to put things back the way they were. He swears to himself he won't be upset, if that's the case. Steels himself for it.

But there's that pesky hope, that glow that Jet lit within him from the beginning, and he can't extinguish it now. He wants, more than anything, he actually wants for this to be real. He wants this to work, and he wants to believe it will work and not come crashing down his ears like most other things in his personal life in the years previous. Maybe it's time, the glow says to him. Maybe it's time to be okay with wanting.

"I... I want you to stay, Jet. Here. I can already afford it and half of your things are here already regardless." He lets out a shaky breath, for the first time letting himself actually ask Jet for something. "You did that for me, let me do this for you. Move in with me."

There's surprise on Jet's face with Albert's sudden offer and he can feel heat in his face. He didn't need to be 'taken care of' he was an adult who'd been getting along just fine so far on his own. Except when Steve and Buck had pitched in to help him out. And it wasn't like he could afford that apartment himself, it was all his friends and he was just giving them some money each month because he didn't want to feel like he was mooching.

And, on the other hand, living with Albert...he could see him full time, as far as their schedules allowed anyway. And if he went ahead and found another job he could help out like his pride required.

Albert was really offering this, wasn't he? His kind shy quiet boyfriend, this amazing guy he'd accidentally seduced was wanting to open his life up all the way to Jet. How in the hell could he say no to something so special?

"You don't got to keep me like some houseboyfriend, I'll find a new job, maybe something with daytime hours that pays at least something. I mean..." He wasn't wording this right to sound like an acceptance. He closed the distance between them and pressed a hard kiss to Albert's lips. "Hell yeah I'll move in with you...just let me help out so I don't feel like some kind of freeloader, alright?"

"No, I know, I ju-" Albert's interrupted by Jet's kiss and he all be melts into it, relief flooding him enough to slide his arms around his boyfriend's narrow waist. He has to hide his face against Jet's shoulder for a half a moment when the kiss breaks, needing to regain his composure.

"Of course. The amount you eat, we'll need it," he smiles as he says it, a stupid joke but a real smile across his mouth, eyebrows drown up into a steeple. He's just so happy. So light. He hasn't felt like this since he left Germany. He hasn't felt a lot of things since he left Germany save for the grace of Jet in his life. "I think one of the dinner theatres we provided flowers to last week said they were hiring wait staff."

Jet would look awfully good in a vest...

"And there's always auditions."

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Pretty Woman

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