Moulin Rouge AU ( Part 2 )
Brendon/Ryan, Spencer/Ryan, Brendon/Spencer ( Panic! At The Disco )
NC-17

For the wtf27 prompt #15: “Hookers. At least one of the characters sells sex for money”. I apologize profusely for character death. It’s the Moulin Rouge AU. What did you expect? Beta by _safi, who was careful to make it more French for me. Apologies for the name. I’m not THAT creative.




“He’s lucky,” the doctor whispered to Spencer, standing in stairwell that led up to the flat. Spencer nodded, leaning against the wall. The doctor was a friend of his father’s, and Spencer was just thankful that he’d agreed to come to this part of the city, to see some whore that Spencer shouldn’t have even been associating with. And Spencer was even luckier that the man had promised to say nothing to Spencer’s father. “His ribs aren’t broken. Cracked, perhaps, and bruised, certainly, but not broken. Very lucky.”

Spencer noticed that he was cleaning his glasses nervously, and Spencer couldn’t bring himself to ask why. He had a good idea. He didn’t need to ask.

“Thank you for doing this,” Spencer said. He was just glad to hear that this wasn’t going to kill Ryan.

“Your father would disapprove so much, Spencer,” the doctor said, frowning. “You’re a smart boy. You could do so much better than associating with boys like these.”

“They’re no different from me,” Spencer said. The doctor shook his head.

“They’re whores, Spencer. Your father would be disappointed to know that you’re spending your time and money on whores. And male ones, even!” He started down the stairs. “Make sure that he knows he is NOT to be … er. Performing until I’ve seen that he’s properly healed. He could very well cause himself worse injury.”

“I’ll let him know,” Spencer said, watching the doctor leave. He turned and walked quietly back into the flat, praying that the older man would not tell his father.

He walked back, but froze as he approached the bed. Ryan hadn’t moved, of course. He could barely breathe. There was no way he could go anywhere. But Brendon had leaned over, and was kissing Ryan softly, holding himself carefully away from the other boy’s body. He could have punched Spencer in the stomach just as well and it would have felt the same. He remembered Ryan telling him that he kissed no one, but Spencer should have known. He should have seen it.

He slipped out of the flat silently, breathing hard and leaving them to do whatever they were going to do. Not much, of course, seeing as Ryan couldn’t move, but Spencer hated the thought. He hurried out onto the street and headed toward home.

He didn’t return for almost a month.

***

It was a mistake that they’d even seen him. He’d gone to the show just to see how Ryan was doing, if he was healing. The doctor had seen him twice, checking up to make sure that he was okay. Ryan must have been looking for him, however, because once the auctioning had begun, Ryan had slipped through the crowd and grabbed him, pulling him out of the building.

“Are you okay to be working?” Spencer asked, worry overwhelming the anger that he felt at Ryan lying to him.

“Dancing only,” Ryan said. “No actual work, because the men are too rough with me.” That had been a horrible conversation to have with the doctor. “Where have you been? I was worried about you.”

“You didn’t need me around,” Spencer said, bitterness suddenly overwhelming him. He watched Ryan’s eyes go wide and hurt, completely startled. He had no idea that Spencer had seen Brendon kissing him.

“I. You. I thought.” Ryan sputtered out. It almost made Spencer happy to see him caught so off guard. “You were helping us. I thought we were friends. Did I do something wrong?” The words came out small and pathetic, and if Spencer almost felt bad.

“You lied to me,” Spencer said. “You looked me in the eye and lied to me.”

“I lie to a lot of people,” Ryan said, suddenly cold, and Spencer could almost see something in his face shut down. The abused kitten look disappeared, and the angry boy that Spencer had first met replaced it. “I never lied to you, though.”

“You don’t even remember doing it, it was so easy for you,” Spencer snapped. Ryan didn’t back down.

“You were nice. I didn’t lie to you,” Ryan said. He even sounded like he believed it, Spencer noticed. Because he didn’t know that Spencer had seen.

“But you don’t kiss anyone, Ryan, do you remember telling me that?” Spencer said, and he realized that he sounded like some man’s jealous, angry wife. He hated that Ryan had done this to him.

“I… I don’t,” Ryan said, but the confidence he’d had before had evaporated. The abused kitten was back.

“Except Brendon,” Spencer said. “And I’ll wager that he’d be quite upset if he knew that you considered him no one.” Ryan’s face went even paler than normal, and he shook his head.

“He. I.” Ryan swallowed, trying to regain some kind of composure. “So you found out and you stopped coming to see me? Was it when he kissed me the day the doctor came?”

Spencer’s eyebrows raised. He wouldn’t have thought that Ryan would have even noticed enough to be able to pinpoint when it happened.

“Yes,” Spencer said, finally pulling his hand away from Ryan’s. Ryan just stood there, looking at him, feeling guilty.

“Why would you care?” Ryan asked. It just didn’t make sense. What would Spencer care who he kissed?

“Because I want you to kiss me and you won’t,” Spencer said, and realization dawned on Ryan just then. He took a deep breath, his eyes a little wider.

“You’re jealous,” Ryan whispered, looking at Spencer. “You were fine with it until you knew that I was kissing someone. You wanted it to be you.”

“Yes,” Spencer said, turning and starting to walk away from Ryan.

“Spencer?” Ryan said. Spencer stopped, but didn’t turn. Ryan walked forward and touched his lower back, hoping that he’d turn around.

“What do you want?” Spencer asked, his voice cold.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan said, and pulled his hand away. He didn’t walk away, and neither did Spencer. It took a moment, and then Spencer turned and looked at him, not saying anything. “I’m truly sorry,” Ryan said.

Spencer leaned forward and kissed him. It wasn’t a soft kiss, nor a particularly spectacular one. It was just a quick press of Spencer’s lips across Ryan’s. Ryan didn’t kiss him back, and he looked away as soon as Spencer stepped back. Spencer looked at him for a moment, completely frustrated, before turning around and walking away. Ryan stood in the hallway, completely alone for a moment before making his way back to the dressing room to change and wait for one of the other boys before going home.

***

Spencer knew that he should really be the bigger man about it, just let it go and not hold onto it. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t let it go any more than he could stop himself from trying to think of ways to make Ryan unhappy in the exact way Ryan had done to him. Maybe it wasn’t exactly right that he wanted revenge on a boy who had made it very, very clear that he never wanted anything to do with Spencer in the first place. Maybe Spencer had no right to be angry with Ryan for the way things were, because even Spencer realized that he’d tried to impose himself into their world where he wasn’t wanted.

It wasn’t right that he was sitting on the edge of the bed, and Brendon was looking at him with a frown on his face. He wasn’t really sure what was going on, why Spencer was suddenly buying him.

“I’ve never done this before,” Spencer said, trying to keep his voice steady. Brendon’s eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t? Interesting. “So.”

“So… what?” Brendon asked. He frowned, confused. That didn’t make sense. Spencer had been buying Ryan for weeks. He couldn’t imagine that Spencer had never had sex with another man. “Why haven’t you done this with Ryan?.”

“Because Ryan doesn’t want this with me,” Spencer said, then shook his head, sighing. “No, because I didn’t want it with Ryan. I wanted… I wanted him to kiss me.”

“Ryan doesn’t kiss,” Brendon said. He was shocked by the glare Spencer shot him.

“Ryan doesn’t kiss anyone but you,” Spencer said, reaching out and grabbing Brendon by the waistband of his pants, jerking him forward and crushing their lips together. Brendon almost started to pull away, because something inside his brain was screaming that this wasn’t right.

But this was his job. It was his job and it was easy to just shut his brain down, turn off the part of him that said he really shouldn’t be doing this with Spencer, who was probably thinking about Ryan, but Spencer had paid for him. Spencer had bought him for the night and he would do what Spencer wanted because that was his job.

Brendon pushed Spencer back onto the bed and started unbuttoning. It was rare that men kissed him, and he was never, ever in control. He was used to being shoved facedown into the mattress and fucked until whoever got off, whether he enjoyed it himself or not. Spencer was different, because Spencer didn’t seem to have the inclination to shove Brendon’s face into the mattress.

In fact, Spencer didn’t really seem to know what to do with Brendon at all.

It was awkward and Spencer was shaking ( “Relax,” Brendon whispered, and Spencer made an annoyed little noise in the back of his throat and Brendon smiled ) as Brendon’s fingers touched places that Brendon’s fingers really had no right to be touching, and – fuck, Spencer thought, would Ryan have done this to him the first night? ( Don’t fucking think about Ryan, he told himself shortly thereafter. It was rude to think about someone while having sex with someone else – and Spencer was nothing if not a gentleman ) – arched his hips up against Brendon’s body with a moan.

“If you don’t like something, tell me,” Brendon whispered to him, thrusting fingers slowly in and out of Spencer’s body and making him gasp.

“Just do it,” Spencer said, digging his fingers into Brendon’s shoulder.

“Are you sure?” Brendon asked, and Spencer nodded, and then it was all Brendon pressed up against him, guiding himself against Spencer as he pushed in, making the other boy gasp. Maybe it hurt – God knew that it had hurt Brendon like hell the first time – but if it did, Spencer didn’t show it. Brendon watched his face, watched him bite down on his lip as Brendon pushed in deeper.

“Okay?” Brendon asked quietly, and Spencer nodded. It was strange, to have had someone pay for him and then to do this? Brendon shifted his hips and slid out, then pushed back in, this time faster, making Spencer gasp. It wasn’t perfect, and Spencer was finished before Brendon came anywhere near getting off, and that was fine. It happened. When it was all over with he could lie next to Spencer and jerk himself off at his leisure. Spencer even watched him do so, his eyes a little wide and dazed.

He was still lying there, even as Brendon got up and started to dress. He didn’t think about it, just did it. Never mind that he knew Spencer, and that there were things that should have been done when you’d just fucked someone that you knew… But Brendon got up and pulled his clothes on just like it was a regular job.

Spencer wouldn’t even admit to himself that it hurt his feelings.

***

Ryan wasn’t speaking to Brendon.

Ryan wasn’t even looking at Brendon. He’d already been in the flat when Brendon had returned, first of the three of them who could actually do their jobs. He was sitting on the bed with a dirty, patched blanket wrapped around him, and when Brendon had walked in, he’d been leaning against the window, asleep. Brendon had woken him up by touching his cheek gently and telling him he was going to catch cold if he slept with his head in the window’s draft that way.

Ryan had jerked away from him and had said, “you fucked him,” in a way that Brendon wasn’t sure how he was supposed to interpret, other than Ryan was angry. At Brendon, or at Spencer, Brendon didn’t know. And with that he’d thrown himself down on the bed and curled up into a ball, tugging the blanket up around him. Brendon had sighed softly and leaned down and kissed the back of his head before going to get something to eat. He even pushed Brendon away as the four of them climbed into bed, sharing body heat to ward off the bitter cold, opting to sleep against the wall with Michael at his back just so he didn’t have to be close to Brendon.

***
A week later, Spencer showed up at their door, soaked to the skin and out of breath. It took him ten minutes to calm down while William and Brendon found him clothes to wear ( Brendon’s, and a bit ill-fitting ) and wrapped him in blankets and made him sit close to the fire while Ryan hid under the bedcovers and kept his back to the whole business.

“My father found out,” Spencer explained quietly. Brendon frowned. He knew what that could mean. “He is forcing me to return home. Under other circumstances, I’d do what he told me to do, but I can’t – I won’t. Not this time.”

Ryan had turned onto his other side and was watching Spencer by the fireplace. Spencer noticed, but said nothing.

“Can he force you?” Brendon asked, skeptical.

“He funds my schooling,” Spencer said, “and my stay here in Paris. He can do anything he wants. If I don’t leave with him when he wants me to, he cuts off the money and I have to go home of my own accord or be forced to –“ He cut himself off abruptly. Or he would be forced to live a life much like these boys, a tiny drafty flat above a dingy boulangerie, selling their bodies at night for money.

“Stay here for a while,” Brendon said. “Maybe you’ll think of something.” And with that, he and William were on their feet. It was time to get to work.

They left Spencer alone with Ryan, who wasn’t feeling well ( the consequence of nights spent trying not to touch Brendon, sleeping against the drafty wall in the cold ). He was exhausted and his head ached. He didn’t want to be left alone with Spencer.

“Ryan,” Spencer said quietly, after the other boys were gone and he felt warm enough to move away from the fire. Ryan pretended to be sleeping, though he knew that Spencer had seen him lying there with his eyes open only minutes before. “I wanted to apologize for what I did. For what I forced Brendon to do.”

“I’m sure you didn’t force him,” Ryan said bitterly, turning sharply so that he was facing away from Spencer. “You wouldn’t ever force anyone to do anything.” He was angry, but he didn’t believe that Spencer would force something like that.

“I’m still sorry,” Spencer said. “I wanted to know what it was like, and you weren’t willing.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Ryan said. “And I suppose I should have been. I owed you for everything you’ve done for us, anyway.”

“I gave you things because I wanted to,” Spencer said, sitting down on the bed, wishing that Ryan would turn back and look at him. “Not because I expected repayment.”

“I could have at least given you what you wanted.”

“You didn’t have to. I wish you would have, but it was your choice. Not mine.”

Ryan turned and sat up. He had dark circles under his eyes and Spencer could tell that he didn’t feel well. And still, Spencer leaned in and kissed him anyway. Ryan was startled and stiff beneath his lips, but soon gave way, leaning into the kiss. He was too warm, fevered, and Spencer was sure that whatever he had, he’d catch it.

He didn’t care, and Ryan was suddenly pliant beneath him, allowing Spencer to push him backward onto the bed.

“I didn’t mean to cause you to fight with Brendon, either,” Spencer said, once they were lying side by side on the mattress.

“You were mine,” Ryan said, his eyes still closed. “You were mine and I didn’t want to share you.”

“I’m still yours,” Spencer said, and went back to kissing him.

This time, it was more awkward, because without Brendon leading, Spencer didn’t know what to do, and Ryan wasn’t helping him. He tried to mimic the things that Brendon had done to him – they had felt good, at least, and Ryan seemed to enjoy it. He moved more than Spencer had, arching his body up against Spencer’s, rocking their hips together as Spencer pushed slowly in then pulled out. Spencer kept his eyes open, watching Ryan’s face, how his eyes stayed closed and his lips parted and how he made tiny pleased noises as Spencer fucked him.

Spencer lay beside him afterward, sweaty and tired, and still wanted to keep touching him. Ryan seemed to only want to sleep, and was reluctant to let Spencer wrap around him and hold onto him while he did so. He finally conceded, exhausted, and fell asleep with Spencer’s arms wrapped around him while the other boy pressed kisses into the hair at the back of his neck.

Spencer was dressed and sitting by the fire when the other boys returned. Ryan woke only briefly, just long enough to shift over in the bed and let his body settle down between Brendon’s and Spencer’s for the night. Michael whispered to them that William had sneaked off with Peter for the night ( the Gypsy, Spencer remembered vaguely ) so there were no worries about running anyone off. Ryan told him to shut up and sleep, and buried his face into Brendon’s chest.

Spencer wished that he could stay with them forever.

***

The knock on the door came early in the morning, when all three boys were still asleep. It woke Spencer first, a faint banging on the door at the bottom of the stairs. He was pressed up against the wall, and Ryan’s back was pressed against his chest. He was snoring softly, his breathing thick. He was definitely not feeling well. There was more banging, and Spencer watched as Michael woke, a little startled, bleary eyes still ringed with dark makeup from the night before. Brendon didn’t wake, even as Michael untangled himself and went to answer the door, pulling his coat around him.

It was cold in the room, the fire long burned out, and soon Spencer heard yelling in the stairwell. It was the yelling that finally woke Brendon and Ryan, and made them both sit up. Spencer didn’t move. He knew who it was.

The man who came through the door was Spencer’s father.

“Spencer,” he said, and it was clear that he was angry. Ryan twisted to look down at Spencer, his eyes wide, and moved to get out of the bed, taking the blanket with him as he stumbled over to the fire, poking at the grate. Brendon followed him, trying to get out of the way of whatever was about to happen.

“Father,” Spencer said, sliding to the edge of the bed and dressing quickly. Ryan sat back and let Brendon rebuild the fire, watching Spencer silently.

“I did not send you to school in Paris so that you could associate yourself with sodomites and whores! So you could be one yourself!” the older man yelled at his son. Spencer flinched away from him. “And when I come here to bring you home, you run away and close yourself up with him? Stand up, Spencer. You’re leaving with me, and you’re doing it now.”

“No,” Spencer said.

“Oh, you are,” Spencer’s father said. “And if you do not, you’ll be forced to live as a whore and a sodomite because you will no longer be part of my family.”

For a moment, Spencer considered continuing to defy him. He sat there for a long moment, determined not to move. If he had to sell his body, then fine, he’d do it. But then he realized that he couldn’t do that. After seeing the way the other boys lived, freezing and sleeping curled together this way, and after seeing the way Ryan had been beaten, Spencer knew that he couldn’t do it.

So after a tense two minutes, Spencer stood, and followed his father out.

Ryan watched them leave, and when he heard the door close, he flinched, and Brendon reached out to touch his arm, to hug him perhaps. But Ryan just pulled away, wrapping the blanket around him tighter, crawling back into the bed. Michael looked at Brendon, not sure what to do. Brendon just went back to the fire.

***

The letter came to the boulangerie, because the delivery didn’t seem to be able to figure out that there was a flat upstairs. Joseph passed it across the counter to Ryan when he came in to buy bread. Ryan was surprised – he didn’t know who would write him a letter, and he couldn’t read it anyway.

“This is for me?” he asked Joseph, confused. He looked down at the letter. He could read enough to know that it was his name on there, but other than that, he knew nothing.

“Yes,” Joseph said. “They brought it for you yesterday.”

“Thank you,” Ryan said, holding the letter between his hands, before grabbing the package of rolls and hurrying back up to the flat, yelling Brendon’s name.

“What?” the other boy asked, waking up cranky from where he was napping. He rubbed his face and glared at Ryan.

“I have a letter,” Ryan said, bouncing onto the bed, slipping off his shoes and climbing under the blanket with Brendon. “Read it to me?”

Brendon twisted around and took the letter, opening it up and sliding the paper out. It wasn’t a lengthy letter. “It’s from Spencer,” Brendon said. He almost frowned when he saw the way Ryan’s eyes lit up.

“What does he say?” Ryan asked, curling the blanket up around his shoulders, looking up at Brendon with his eyes wide, expectant.

“He says that he misses you,” Brendon said, reading the letter. He didn’t really want to read it out loud, but he didn’t mind telling Ryan what it said. “And that he’s sorry that he chose to leave. He says that he’s not as strong as we are, and that there was no way he could ever do this. What we do, and if his father had cut him off, he wouldn’t have had a choice.”

“Oh,” Ryan said. He didn’t seem so excited anymore. Of course, Brendon couldn’t imagine that he wanted to hear about why Spencer had chosen to leave. “Anything else?”

Brendon continued reading. “Mostly he misses you. A lot that he misses you.”

“I miss him too,” Ryan said, reaching up and brushing his hair off of his face. “Will you write him a letter back for me, please?”

“Of course,” Brendon said. He didn’t even sigh when he said it.

***

They sent letters back and forth for a long time, as quickly as they could. It came as a surprise to Spencer when the letters stopped coming. He waited for a month or more, but no word. He knew then that something had to have happened. He packed his things and left immediately.

He was too late.

When he arrived in Paris, he went straight to the flat. He found it locked, and no one answered when he knocked on the door. From there, he went to the show, but couldn’t seem to find anyone. Eventually, he managed to talk his way inside and found the gypsy, Peter, sitting in a room, writing figures on a paper. He jumped to his feet when Spencer walked in.

“Spencer,” he said, walking over to shake the other man’s hand, to lead him to a chair to sit down. “It’s good to see you.”

“I’m looking for Ryan,” Spencer said. “No one answered at the flat, so I came here. I assumed that someone would know where he is? I’m worried – he stopped sending letters.”

“I…” Peter said, and Spencer knew instantly that something was definitely wrong. Peter walked back to his chair and sank down, rubbing his hands over his face. “I’m sorry, Spencer. Ryan stopped… I’m assuming the letters stopped arriving about two months ago?”

“How would you know that?” Spencer asked.

“Ryan was sick,” Peter explained. “He had been for a while. I mean, all of them were – occupational hazard, you know? Cupid’s disease.”

“No,” Spencer said. He refused to believe that any of them had gone through that. The blindness, the madness… He wouldn’t have wished that on anyone.

“I sent you the letters for a while. He’d tell me what to write, but he wasn’t… he wasn’t well, Spencer,” Peter continued. “After Brendon…was gone, you know, he… he didn’t have anyone, and he was just under the delusion that Brendon was there, even that you were there sometimes.”

“You should have told me,” Spencer said, suddenly angry with Peter. “You could have written me and told me that he was sick. I would have come here, and I would have been here for him.”

“He wouldn’t have known, in the end, Spencer,” Peter said. “It wouldn’t have mattered. He couldn’t see you, and most of the time he wasn’t… I’m sorry, Spencer.”

Spencer just sat there. He’d come to France for nothing. He’d spent years begging Ryan to come to stay with him, and the boy wouldn’t. And now he was gone.

“Thank you,” Spencer said, getting up. “Is there a way to get into their flat? Do you know?”

“You might ask the boulanger? It’s part of his property, really, so…” Peter just shrugged slightly, and Spencer nodded.

“Thank you,” he repeated.

“If you need anything, please let me know,” Peter said.

“No, there’s nothing,” Spencer said, then walked out.

When he reached the street, clouds had started gathering in the sky. It would have been appropriate, he thought, to start raining. It matched his mood, really. Dark and dreary. He decided that he would just return home, and try to forget all about everything that had happened.

The sun was shining by the time he boarded the train.