Chapter Text
Drumsticks clack together one, two, three, four times, and the heavy bass and guitars tumble into the fast beat being pounded out by the shirtless, sweaty drummer. Nick loves this song. He rolls his eyes back, letting the crashes of the cymbals fill his brainstem with chaotic energy, then throws his tall, muscular body forward into the thrashing crowd. He makes contact with several bodies on his way to the center of the mosh pit, who push him right back in shared joyful pandemonium.
The mess of individuals tossing their bodies back and forth reeks of unwashed armpits and stale spliffs. It’s the most intoxicating, craveable stench that Nick looks forward to immersing himself in whenever he hears about an upcoming basement punk show.
The drummer thuds the double bass with unbelievable precision, inspiring fists to be launched in every direction with no particular target. Nick’s protruding knuckle meets a bony shoulder blade, and his hand excruciatingly slips over the person’s joint and into the flesh between shoulder and spine. It stings for a second, but Nick is too wrapped up in the speeding tempo to give a fuck about the pain.
Steel-toed shoes kick his shins. Fists hit his stomach. An arm comes down from overhead and whacks Nick’s skull; he’s thankful for his cushion of thick blonde rugby lad hair. He considers it an advantage, compared to the bald-headed men and the women with Chelsea cuts who lack a makeshift mosh pit helmet.
Nick lets the atmospheric exaltation of the gig course through his veins. He senses the bruises forming already, but that’s the whole point of going to punk shows. To let off steam and enjoy being surrounded by His People.
The music stops for half a second before slamming back into an even faster and heavier beat. He gets spun around by someone in the first line of onlookers, and is shoved back into the center of the dancing crowd. He laughs, completely disoriented, putting his full trust in the strangers around him to keep him safe should he fall.
He stomps a foot down in time with the snare. In an instant, he is struck in the back of the head by a hard object, physics forcing his teeth to clamp together painfully. He turns around to throw another fist, in the loving way one can beat another person up in such a setting, when he sees the object.
It’s a person.
It’s the guy whose shoulder blade was so sharp that Nick’s hand will certainly be swollen tomorrow from the impact.
The hottest guy Nick has ever seen. Swelling indicates that what crashed into Nick’s skull was this man's eye socket, and now he is falling to the floor. Fuck.
Nick doesn’t like to brag about his athlete’s body, especially not when he would have to admit that he follows a pretty strict gym regimen since he doesn’t actually play rugby anymore as a 20-something punk.
A lot of people in the scene are wiry, lanky, and some would probably be swept away in a strong oceanside breeze. This guy beneath him is no exception. Nick learned as a kid that it’s up to every gig-goer to keep an eye out for everyone else - that’s really the only way to keep the robust DIY subculture going: having everyone’s backs, and assuming the same treatment in return. People should only walk away from shows with cuts and bruises that they wanted, and never any worse or non-consensual injury.
Someone falling to the floor is a code red - especially with the inordinate amount of combat boots here tonight, a person on the floor is at risk of severe harm by being trampled.
With all his strength, Nick pushes a tall woman with radioactive green hair forward, as he’s not sure she notices this person on the ground behind her. Someone wearing a denim jacket covered in safety pins pulls back two or three other people nearby, stepping in to help Nick help this fallen dancer without hesitation. Because that’s what you do in a mosh pit.
Nick extends both of his hands, and the person looks up at him with electric blue eyes, seemingly dazed. He sports a devilish smile, and it’s like the entire room slows to 30 beats per minute. He has never smoked, but he thinks that this is what the spins must feel like. Bodies move in slow-motion around him and the gorgeous person laying on the sticky concrete, and Nick could swear that the song shifts from uptempo queercore to that stupid old timey love song his mum always sang while cooking lasagne.
The man blinks and his captivatingly cerulean irises disappear momentarily. When his eyes reopen, his pupils are still chained to Nick’s.
Nick realizes that this guy probably, definitely has a concussion from the impact with Nick’s thick skull.
Out of nowhere and without warning, dimples appear on this man’s face, and while Nick’s heart jumps in a way that indicates he needs to get this person’s number, the sensorial lawlessness around them snaps back into real-time. Nick thrusts his hands towards the person again, and he takes them.
They are clammy, but enchantingly supple. No person has any right to have hands this soft.
“You ok?” Nick shouts. “How’s your head?”
The man shakes his head, still staring and smiling at Nick. With both men upright, Nick notices he’s a bit shorter than himself, but his messy curls almost compensate for their height difference.
“Let’s go get some air,” Nick suggests, pulling the stranger towards the staircase by the hand. He doesn’t put up a protest.
Outside in the cold February air, Nick takes a closer look at this person. The singular streetlight illuminating the alley casts shadows across the man’s face. Sunken cheeks give way to those dimples that formed in the basement and haven’t yet disappeared.
“I’m Nick. How are you feeling?”
The smaller man nods, sweat-dampened curls bouncing up and down with the motion.
“Do you want to sit down for a minute? I can go find you some water-”
“Charlie! There you are!” A person with mousy blonde hair approaches the pair from behind a beat-up parked touring van. They take a drag from a hand-roll then pass it to the woman trailing behind, who looks far more put-together than the messy-looking leader of the couple.
“Everything ok?” the woman with perfect twists and a remarkably unstained tight white band tee asks the man, Charlie, as she lowers herself to sit next to him on the wheelstop.
“Uh, he took a tumble inside, so I thought I’d bring him out here for a breather,” Nick explains, suddenly timid in the presence of the trio, who clearly are friends. He raises a hand to play with the soft hairs on the back of his neck. His unmistakable nervous tell.
The two newcomers join Charlie in drinking Nick in, and the blonde raises their eyebrows suggestively as they sidle up next to him. They smell like a skunk, and Nick loves it. “And who might you be?”
“Darcy!” the seated woman scoffs as she raises a hand to rub Charlie’s back. “Please, ignore them,” she says to Nick.
Charlie, by the way, hasn’t taken his eyes off of Nick since he was dangerously horizontal.
The man instinctively leans into his friend’s touch, then has the audacity to flash Nick another grin. Under the dim light, his blue eyes are like mischievous beacons. “Uhm, I’m fine! Really,” he turns his body to his friend as if speaking to her, but keeps his gaze locked on Nick. “Actually, um, sorry to be a prude, but would you spot me while I take a leak?”
Darcy laughs out loud and elbows Nick in the ribs. They offer the blunt to Nick, who declines. “Charlie doesn’t smoke, either. More for us! Here you go, Jonesy,” Darcy exclaims. The other mumbles an ‘oh my god’ as she reaches for it to take a puff.
Charlie stands, and under the pretense of checking for signs of a concussion, Nick analyzes his every move. No noteworthy wobbliness, and his vision doesn’t appear glassy or foggy. Charlie clasps Nick’s bicep - oh god, he clasps Nick’s bicep and gives it a squeeze, then leads them both behind a nearby dumpster.
Nick’s brain can’t keep up with what is happening - why would someone want a stranger to stand so close while they pee behind a pile of rubbish? - but he follows along anyway, completely captivated by the aura of this beautiful man.
The gravel crunches underfoot as the pair take a few steps away from Charlie’s friends. He pauses and undoes the fly of his ripped black skinny jeans. Before shifting his stance to provide the man a semblance of decency, Nick notices a mended patch in the crotch, hand sewn with what looks like dental floss. Probably covering a hole created by years of thrashing at punk shows and extending the life of the trousers for many more years of the same.
“Thanks for saving my life in there,” Charlie says as piss starts flowing down the slight incline towards a cardboard box filled with crushed Strongbow cans.
“Sure thing,” Nick responds, his back turned away from the urinating man and eyes searching frantically for anything to focus on to distract from the knowledge that this person’s junk is on display behind him and he seems nothing but confident about it.
Nick hears the final splashes of this stranger’s stream, and as he zips the fly, he casually asks, “Are you gay, Nick?”
“What? No!” Nick replies with slight urgency. Where’s this urgency coming from?
As Charlie turns around, Nick swears he sees his face fall. “Oh.”
Realizing how his response came off, he quickly adds, “I mean, I’m bi?”
Despite the swelling under one of them from their meet-cute, Charlie’s eyes widen, the skin at his temples stretching as his ears pull back. Not quite a gleaming smile, but an understated yet obviously gleeful response.
“Are you going out with anyone at the moment?”
Nick shakes his head, entranced by the delight spreading across Charlie’s smooth, angular face.
Instead of a verbal response, Charlie turns away and flips open the lid to the bin he’s just peed on. He boosts himself up, and Nick tries his best to be respectful and not ogle the man’s cute butt that's perfectly hugged by his well-loved jeans as the man folds his body into the dumpster to reach inside. He rifles through the rubbish, glass bottles clanging against the metal walls, then pushes himself up again and hops down from his perch. In his hand is a discarded Tesco receipt.
He turns to face Nick once again, serving that same playful grin that he gave Nick from the floor of the mosh pit. He uncrinkles the receipt, and reaches into his front pocket to pull out a silver marker. He scrawls something on the paper, blows on it briefly, and passes it to Nick.
On the front is someone’s gig shopping list: Buckfast, Monster Munch, and earplugs. On the back, a telephone number.
“Use it,” Charlie instructs as he juts his chin towards the glorious, anointed trash in Nick’s hand. Before walking back to rejoin his friends, he turns one more time to the dumpster, and tags ‘fag4fag’ in stylized, shiny letters. A moment later his body is next to Nick’s so that he can lay a hand flat on Nick’s shoulder blade, notably less bony than Charlie’s.
Inside the venue, the next band is already starting. The men wordlessly agree to head back inside.
“Where are you headed after this?” Nick yells over the opening notes of the final band’s set.
“Your place?” Charlie yells in response, flashing Nick a goofy grin before pushing him back into the mass of thrashing bodies once again.