APH - USUK - Fever

Heartbreak is a funny thing, he thinks dryly to himself as he nurses a glass of whisky and ice.
   It's a different feeling than loneliness. It makes your heart throb with every beat, your mind deciding for once to be petty and remind you with every step you take that you weren't good enough for the heartbreaker.
   A sip of whisky. One less painful memory stabbing at his skull.
   -the time he held his hand; his palm was smooth and cool, not sweaty at all, the bastard-
   -that one time when he made dinner, gracious and smug about the amazement duly expressed-
   -when the snow was falling with big, thick flakes that floated like moonlight-fairies to earth and he looked him in the eyes (never nervous, not that lying asshole) and said I love you-
   Stop it, stop. Please. He can't deal with it anymore.
   "You're my world, you know that...? My everything...I love you so much..."
   What lies. He barks out a laugh - a bitter laugh coated with supressed tears - and drains the glass. The ice rattles coldly against the glass, sliding on their melted bottoms and clinking indifferently against each other.
   "Rough day?" A smooth voice asks from beside him as a body thunks into the seat beside him. A smell of tangy tobacco drifts from the space the slender frame now occupies.
   "You could say that." He answers back roughly, glaring at the empty glass. "More like rough month."
   The man - it's a man's voice - hums sympathetically from the back of his throat. "I know what you mean."
   He scoffs, doubtful. His hair falls in front of his eyes, shading his vision, and he flicks it out of the way, though it's not like he needs to see.
   The man's smile is shown through his voice, light and amused. "It's really true."
   He gulps down the next whisky quickly, and stares at the bar. There's a knot in the wood that disrupts its grain. He traces his finger over it; nails, short and uneven, scrape over the surface.
   "If you're wondering, I can tell you." The man offers as he sips casually at his own glass of amber-colored alcohol.
   "I don't care." He shrugs, already feeling the effects of the second, quick downing of sweet relief. A fuzziness descends over his tongue, making his speech thick and slowed slightly.
   "Well, it started about three months ago." The man leans back in his chair to get settled for the story. "And he was amazing."
   His eyes widened at that; he? But his vision didn't turn from the wood of the counter.
   "But I guess I wasn't good enough for him." The man's hurt tone permeats the casual retelling, betrays his true feeling towards his lost lover.
   A fast-paced song began to blare from the speakers, very club-oriented and lust-filled. He listens to the first few words absently, not really concentrating on them.
   There he goes; my baby walks so slow. Sexual tic tac toe; yeah I know we both know, it isn't time, no. But could you be mine?
   "You don't talk very much, do you?" The man asks, setting his elbows forward on the oaken counter and, assumingly, cocking his head toward him.
   "Conversing is a strenuous thing!"
   A moment of silence, then the man begins to laugh. He has a warm laugh, honey-flavored and almost familiar.
   The next whisky lays forgotten, slowly warming to the room's a-bit-too-hot-to-be-comfortable temperature, as the man cajoles him with a charming smile into telling his own story of heartbreak that led to the alcohol-drowned night at the bar that smells of cigarette smoke and vomit.
   "It started a year ago." He finally says, quietly, to the table. "And I didn't even realize he was using me. It started slowly, y'know, just a simple, 'I'd like it if you're back by nine so I can spend some time with you' to cutting off all of my friends...Not that I had too many to begin with." He finishes slightly ruefully.
   The man nods as if he understands and plops his empty cup back down on the table. The back of his hand wipes his mouth - what foul manners, really - and he smiles, a bright and brilliant smile as if he's trying to blind him by the whiteness of his teeth alone.
   The man has nice lips, he realizes and quickly drains his own lukewarm alcohol so the flush of embarassment could be blamed on the drink if questioned.
   "Do you want to dance?" His strange companion asks, his eyes brimming a mixture of intoxication and attraction, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't feel anything back.
   "Why not?" He answers, a tingle of excitement warming his stomach, and a faint hint of butterflies crowding his lungs, as he stands up, weaving only slightly.
   "I'm Alfred, not that it matters."
   "Arthur. Arthur Kirkland."
   Dancing, he recalls only too late, has never been his strong point. Especially when sloshed and heartbroken within an inch of his life.
   The man - Alfred - is patient, obviously used to fumbling around the dance floor. Laughing, the man leads him to the leaping, screaming center of the dance floor.
   "Um..." He can only get a few brief cautions out before Alfred pulls him into a space hardly big enough for one body, let alone two.
   Crushed against the (muscular, enticing, appealing, any would work) body, Arthur feels his cheeks burn to a new degree, as Alfred just laughs loudly and winds his arms around the other's waist.
   "C'mon, Arthur, you can't tell me you've never danced before!"
   Stuttering out some unintelligent reply, he finally has enough sense to wrap his own arms around the taller man's neck.
   We'll never get too far; just you, me, and the bar. Silly menage a trois, sometimes. Would you be mine? Would you be mine? Would you be mine?
   Alfred grins widely, a stunning smile that's nearly enough to take what little amount of breath Arthur still has.
   And he leans in. Close, too close, much, much too close-
   His lips are soft, and gentle, and smiling - he can feel the curve of happiness in the man's jaw - and all together too tender for someone he's just met.
   So Arthur decides to make it a bit more...interesting.
   There's clashing of teeth, a warring of tongues, muffled swears dying in panting gasps, and it all sounds like a melodious song, all passion and fire.
   He pulls back and looks into liquid eyes that glow slightly with embers of something much too intimate for the bar and the smell of sweat.
   One more kiss couldn't hurt.
   Would you be mine?