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"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Adam tilts his head back against the damp stone wall of the alley behind the restaurant and just stares at Tony.
"Are you trying to get yourself fired?"
"Oh please, Tony, you can't fire me."
"You're not the only chef in Paris."
"Get a lot of two Michelin starred chefs knocking on your door begging for work do you?"
Tony takes a step towards Adam not sure if he's just trying to get a point across or if he's about to punch him in that smug face. "If my two Michelin star chef doesn't show up to work he's no better for me than an apprentice."
"Oh, are you in love with one of those too?"
Tony freezes for a second, but then: "Shit. You're fucking stoned. Just... Go home Adam. Sleep it off."
Adam rolls his eyes and pushes off the wall. He's so close Tony can see himself reflected in the blown pupils. "I have a kitchen to run. And before you tell me I'm too high to do that, realize you're the fucking Maitre d' not the owner. Now get out of my way."
"Adam..."
"Fuck you Tony. Go find someone else to save."
Tony hasn't hit anyone since primary school. One punch in Gregor Schmidt's ape-like mug had been enough to keep bullies at bay and to fracture a metacarpal bone. But when he grabs Adam by the collar and jerks him back towards the wall it's as reflexive as if this has always been his prime problem solving tactic. He pushes Adam backwards until the American's back hits stone. "Get your shit together." He hisses, so close to Adam that his senses are almost overwhelmed by the scent of him - sizzling fat, spices and under those familiar kitchen smells, warm, musky Adam.
Adam uses one hand to knock Tony's aside. "I'm not the one assaulting chefs in alley ways." He snarls before pushing past Tony and storming back to his kitchen.
Two hours later when the restaurant is empty and most of the staff have trickled out and headed for the dive bar they all like to debrief in over cheap pints of cheaper ale, Tony is still in the alley. He's moved since Adam left, but not far. He keeps replaying their conversation and it gets more, not less incomprehensible with each repetition.
He always knew Adam liked a thrill, in fifteen years working front of house Tony had yet to meet a chef who didn't. But this was different. Coming stoned to work risked the restaurant, the chef's reputation, everything that mattered to Adam Jones.
So Tony stands in the alley. Sometimes he leans, or paces, but he stays there and he waits. For what exactly he isn't sure until he sees her.
It’s been easily six months since Anne Marie last came in to the restaurant, and at least three since Jean Luc mentioned her casually in conversation. Tony had naively hoped this meant she was travelling or maybe even that she had returned to grad school as Jean Luc had always wished she would. Of course, Tony had also naively assumed Adam’s penchant for doing stupid things to feel good was weaker than his love of his craft. Apparently, Tony thinks bitterly, he is an absolute idiot. Because it is very clear that Anne Marie didn’t go to grad school or on a trip – well not the kind that one comes home from with nice tan or a few photographs anyway. The kind of trip Anne Marie has been going on is injected straight into the vein and barely lasts the time it takes to get through airport security.
Heart in his throat and half wishing he had the stones to call the police to stop all of this for good right here and now, Tony watches from the shadowed alley, not hiding, but not doing anything to draw attention to himself, as Adam and Anne Marie exchange a few whispered words in the doorway before Anne Marie presses a small packet of white powder into Adams hands and a kiss to his cheek. She slinks off the way she came, and Tony notices just how thin she had grown since he last saw her. Her narrow shoulders jut out sharply and there are bruise-like bags under her eyes. It twists something inside him to see how far she had sunken. He wishes he could say that’s because he worries about her, but his sole concern as he watches her figure until it disappears from view is for Adam.
Tony doesn’t understand why he stays. He should have left as soon as Adam stalked back to the kitchen. And if not then, he definitely should have left before the staff trickled out, or when they trickled out, and he definitely should have left the second he saw Anne Marie skulking in the shadows. But he doesn’t leave. He stays in the alley, in the shadows, and he waits.
Adam emerges, wearing a coat even though the March night is uncharacteristically warm. He doesn’t see Tony, or if he sees him he doesn’t do him the courtesy of acknowledging it. But it doesn’t matter because Tony has been waiting for him for hours and he’s far past letting Adam just fucking ignore him. Worry has made him angry, and anger makes him bold.
“Give it to me.” He steps into Adam’s path and holds out one hand. He keeps his face hard – showing worry would only help Adam weasel his way out of this like he has so many times before.
“Tony? Fuck! You scared the life out of me. What the fuck are you doing?”
Tony doesn’t even flinch. “Give me the drugs Adam.”
“Oh for fuck sake,” Adam rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t high. I wouldn’t come to work if I wasn’t up to the challenge, you know that.”
Tony raises an eyebrow. He used to think that, but he doesn’t anymore.
“Fine? You want it? Fucking take it.” Adam holds his arms out to both sides like he’s daring Tony to attack him.
Tony isn’t going to. He’s going to walk away and work very hard to forget what an idiot he is, but then Adam smirks and Tony is suddenly right up against him, hands dipping into the pockets of Adam’s coat and coming out with a packet of powder before Adam can push him away.
Adam's face is almost comically stunned for a moment and then Adam has Tony by the shoulders and is pushing him back against the wall. "You... Fuck!" And before Tony can do anything but drop the packet of drugs in shock, Adam is devouring him.
There's no other word for it. It's too harsh to be a kiss, more tongue and teeth and grabbing hands than lips. Tony is pinned flush between Adam's solid, insistent warmth, and the cold hard wall. Adam's fingers dig into his shoulders so hard Tony thinks he'll have bruises. There's something digging into his back. There's a voice in his head screaming that this is a terrible idea. But Tony can't listen to it.
He melts. His hands sliding around to the small of Adam's back, his mouth opening to Adam's questing tongue, his hips hitching a little to try and create friction, a low needy moan at the back of his throat. Because this is a fucking terrible idea, and Adam is probably half out of his mind on whatever drugs he's doing these days, and Tony should be stronger than this, but no matter the reasons why, Adam is pressing into Tony as if he wants to consume him completely.
When Adam suddenly pushes back and staggers a few steps backward, his pupils blown so wide there's no visible blue, his lips wet and kiss bruised, breathing in ragged pants, Tony almost falls. If it weren't for the wall at his back he thinks he might have. The loss of contact leaves him cold and trembling.
It's as if they've been turned to stone, Tony leaning heavily against the cold stone, Adam standing in the middle of the alley, for two long minutes before Adam moves. He's closing in on Tony again and it sets Tony's pulse racing. When Adam drops to his knees Tony lets out a whimper. But then he realizes: Adam is grabbing the baggie of drugs Tony dropped and he swears he feels his blood freeze.
Of course. He knew it really, knew this was a horrible idea, that he was about to get his heart trampled on because there was really no other way this could end, but seeing Adam on his knees in a dirty alley, fingers scrabbling a bit at the pavement to pick up a bag of drugs he had kissed out of Tony's grasp, Tony feels like his entire body is ice and the smallest movement will shatter him into crystals. "You are better than this." He barely recognizes his own voice, it's choked and so quiet he isn't even sure Adam can hear.
Adam stills. His eyes turn up to Tony's face and he looks as fragile and broken as Tony feels. His lips turn up in a heartbreaking little smile. "That's always been your mistake, Tony." And then he's rising to his feet, secreting the packet of powder away in his coat and the wall is back up, his expression is carefully blank and there is awkward politeness in every line of his body. "This is me." He says almost defiantly, as if he's daring Tony to take or leave it.
"No." Tony reaches out to cup Adam's cheek but stops an inch shy, suddenly thinking better of it. His hand hangs awkwardly for a moment before dropping to his side. "This is not the only you, I've seen you be so much more than this."
Adam's answering snort of laughter is bitter. "I've never been anything else. I guess you're just finally seeing me clearly."
Tony can hear the echoes of Adam's childhood every bitter syllable and a wave of anger thaws him into motion. He takes Adam's face between his palms, holding him firstly so he can place gentle, soft kisses against Adams' cheek, lips, chin. Adam lets him, his eyes falls closed and when Tony returns to his lips, Adam kisses back. This time it's slow, gentle, no tongues or teeth, just lips and a perfect gentle pressure as if they're both afraid to break the spell. Eventually, Tony pulls away, but he doesn't release Adam's face.
He holds Adam's gaze. "I have always seen you clearly." He whispers.
When Adam doesn't argue, just stares at Tony, lips parted slightly, Tony releases him and takes a step back.
Adam runs an agitated hand over his face. "It's not that easy."
A spark of hope bursts to life in Tony's chest before he can quell it. "Nothing about you is easy," Tony says with a hint of a smile in his voice, "nothing worth having ever is."
It’s a cheesy line, but somehow Adam reacts as if he’s never heard it before, and as if for once he believes it. His eyes lose for a moment their haunted look and gain a spark of defiance. “I can quit, you know.” He says and he sounds so sure that Tony can’t help but believe him.
“Of course you can.”
Adam is nodding now. He steps away from Tony and paces a few feet left and then turns back. “I will.”
Tony wishes more than believes him. Sure, right now, probably still high, knowing his next fix is sitting comfortably in his pocket, Adam is convinced he can give it all up. But Tony is fairly certain no one starts using because it sounds like a great idea or stops just because they regretted it one time. If it were that simple there would be no need for rehab or detox or any of the dozens or hundreds of books and movies and TV shows about addicts in recovery. Addiction wasn’t something you turned on and off as it suited it. In fact, addiction seemed like it was probably a pretty damn inconvenient thing. Not that Tony would know. The closest he had ever been to the kind of substances Adam was using was a pair of paracetamol chased with a brandy.
“Tomorrow.” Adam is still gleaming with that manic energy, the determination radiating from his face like light. “I’ll quit tomorrow.”
“Not tonight?” Tony asks mildly, fighting the sinking certainty that this tomorrow is like the tomorrow the sun will come out on – always a day away.
Adam pulls out the packet and rolls it between his fingers. His eyes glue to it, softening to something almost like yearning. “I just… if it’s going to be the last time, I want to remember it, enjoy it properly.”
It won’t be the last time. Tony knows it, but somehow his traitor of a heart wants it so badly he can’t stop his lips form saying, “Once more, and then you’ll get rid of everything?”
The determined gleam is back. Adam nods and almost against his will Tony is nodding too. “Come home with me.”
Tony is still nodding when his brain processes the words and when Adam walks away, Tony follows. He has no idea what he’s doing, only that this is a terrible idea, but that he couldn’t refuse. He hasn’t ever been able to refuse Adam. He supposes that’s what it means to be hopelessly in love with someone. Everything they ask of you seems reasonable. It’s not until they’re standing in the doorway of Adam’s cramped one room flat that Tony’s brain seems to catch up to him.
“What are we doing?” He asks, his hands braced against the doorframe, as if holding on to the edges of his sanity and sense of self-preservation – all of which will instantly disappear when he crosses into Adam’s space.
“One more hit, and then I’ll dump everything.” Adam says. He tosses his coat carelessly on a chair. “I want you to see. To know I mean it.”
Tony swallows. “Okay.” He steps into the apartment and allows the door to swing shut behind him.
“You’ve never done any of this before.”
It’s not quite a question but Tony still has to swallow the urge to protest that he isn’t quite as innocent as Adam would portray him – even if he knows he’s probably even more of an innocent than Adam could fathom. He may be only twenty-seven to Adam’s twenty-nine, but where Adam has slept with dozens of women Tony know about, and likely countless more that he doesn’t, Tony has been with one woman and two men, and no one in nearly five years. He drinks, but never to excess, he doesn’t do drugs, never has, never plans to. He’s practically the poster child for responsibility – no matter what father might say about his ‘running off to Paris to play at restauranteur.’
“Do you want to know?” Adam’s head is tilted to one side and he’s assessing Tony with an expression Tony can’t name. “I could…” he runs his tongue over the pink swell of his bottom lip. “I can describe it to you.”
Tony’s hands are trembling. He shoves them in his pockets. He can’t hide the matching tremor in his voice: “Tell me.”
“The first hit is like falling in love and having your first orgasm all in the same breath. It’s almost out of body.” Adam toes off his shoes and pulls off his socks, tossing them in the same direction as his jacket. “Your skin doesn’t tingle, it hums. Like the air is suddenly vibrating at the same frequency and you can feel it. Everything feels so much more than it should, but nothing is quite enough.”
Tony shifts his weight and reminds himself to breathe.
Adam pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it in the growing pile. “Of course, everyone feels it differently. But that’s how it was for me. The first time was the best. It always is, don’t you think?”
Tony swallows compulsively. He can’t tell if Adam is trying to draw him in or if he’s really describing his experience. He isn’t even sure he understands the words. All he knows is the sensations Adam is describing seem to be mapping themselves to his body. He can’t tear his eyes away from Adam’s bared torso, and it really does feel as though there’s a humming just beneath the surface of his skin. His tie suddenly feels too tight and his shoes too small and every caress of fabric against his skin is abrasive because it’s not the touch his body needs. It’s all too much, and not enough, and he needs it to stop and never wants it to end.
“You can make yourself comfortable.” Adam gestures to Tony and then the room. “Take off your coat at least.”
The sudden shift in tone is jarring, but Tony removes his jacket and toes off his shoes as he’s told and then he’s loosening the knot of his tie and undoing the first button of his shirt and he feels like he can breathe again. And then he meets Adam’s gaze and all the oxygen is sucked out of the room.
“The first time it’s like time stands still. Like you are suspended in this endless bubble of sensation so overwhelming there’s nothing else. No up or down, hot or cold, fast or slow. You just are. If there’s even a you. Because even that gets lost in feeling and pleasure. It’s intense. Mind blowing. And then it’s over and all you want is more. But you can’t ever quite catch it. Every other time it’s like pleasure is running out ahead and if you just move faster, push deeper, harder, just give more, take more… if you just want it badly enough you will catch it and you’ll have it again: that perfect moment of bliss.”
Tony doesn’t remember moving. But suddenly his hands are in Adam’s hair and he’s kissing those lips again, swallowing a surprised moan. And then Adam’s hands are pulling his tie free, tugging at the still buttoned front of his shirt and Tony thinks they should stop, this is madness, but he swipes his tongue over Adam’s and there’s another deep moan into his mouth and he locks up that logical voice and throws away the key.
Tony has never been reckless, but tonight he gives in to every instinct except the ones telling him to run.
…
Running has always come naturally to Adam. So it's not really a surprise when his fingers seek out the passport stashed among his socks or when he finds his feet leading him unerringly towards the airport. By the time Tony wakes alone in Adam's bed, Adam has a one way ticket to New Orleans and two hours to drown his self-loathing in whisky at the airport bar. He composes an apologetic text message for Jean Luc but then thinks better of it. They'll all be better off without him. Better he just disappear and they assume his debts to Bonisis finally caught up to him. Better if no one is looking for him. He pulls the SIM card out of his phone and tosses it into the nearest trash can. Better if he can't rethink the decision four or five drinks from now.
He stays just drunk enough he doesn't have to think without being drunk enough to be denies access to the plane until they're at cruising altitude. Once the plane levels out and the flight attendants are rolling their carts through the aisles offering stale peanuts and mini-beverages to the cramped masses, there's nothing to distract him. And then the pleasantly dissociating buzz becomes an oppressive blanket of half memories stuck on repeat. Tony in the alley, looking down at him with such compassion and love in his eyes it hurt to meet them. The smooth expanse of Tony’s back. The warm heat of Tony’s mouth. Tony falling asleep, head pillowed on Adam’s chest. Tony rolling away to rest against the pillows with a sleepy grumble, his arm reaching out for Adam in his sleep.
“Fuck!”
The woman beside him glares.
Adam spends the rest of the flight in silence, and wracks up a considerable bill ordering as many dixie cups of alcohol as they will give him.
Adam is good at finding the worst crowd. He finds the seediest district of New Orleans pretty easily and he loses himself to it for weeks. Each time he begins to sober up he remembers Tony and he can’t, he just can’t cope with it. He can’t understand how it happened, or how it was everything his every other sexual encounters hadn’t been. How the orgasm Tony wrought from his body with his fingers pressing that spot deep inside that Adam had never known could feel that much, while the perfect pressure of his lips and mouth sucked Adam’s pleasure from him like it was the most delicious delicacy. It was nothing like he expected; it was a revelation; it was terrifying.
He’s not… he isn’t… Adam Jones is straight. He’s always been straight. He likes women and they like him. He didn’t experiment in school or at bars in his misspent youth. He didn’t pin pictures of muscled hunks to his wall, he didn’t ogle men at the gym. He is straight. Except… Tony. Tony was most definitely not a woman.
He tries to blame the drugs he took earlier that night. He was high. That’s why he lost control and let Tony fuck him with mouth and fingers. He was high and desperate for Tony to understand. That was all. Except... he wasn’t always high. And he wasn’t high the first time he noticed Tony’s lips. They were nothing like a woman’s lips. They were thin and masculine, but so very expressive and Adam had wondered what it would be like to slip his finger, his tongue, his cock, between those lips. What it would be like to see them stretched and spit slicked around him. What the sharp tongue with its rich, accent would feel like put to uses other than speaking. But that was only because he knew Tony was gay. It had to be.
Curiosity is healthy and Adam has no problem with gay men. He just… He isn’t one of them. He’s straight. Only... it wasn’t just Tony’s lips and it wasn’t only the one or ten times. And then that night, Tony looked so wrecked. Adam hadn’t been able to stop himself. Maybe he had been high, but those lips were even more pliant than he had imagined. Maybe it was the desperation and the sure knowledge that everything was crumbling around him, but when Tony loosened his tie, Adam hadn’t been able to stop himself pulling Tony close or cut off a moan of pure need when Tony was suddenly kissing him. He could blame the drugs, but the reality didn’t change. Adam had sex with a man, with Tony, and he’d loved it. And then he’d done what he did best: he’d run as far and as fast as possible.
He is so screwed.
New Orleans is a world away from Paris. Yet, there are moments when Adam is reminded so strongly of the life he fled it feels like it’s still chasing him. Two women speaking French on the street car, the smell of frying butter, the stench of urine in a stone walled alley, the pulse of too loud techno filtering out of a club, that moment when the needle slips beneath his skin and he can feel his body respond before the drugs can even enter his blood. The memories are never good. They nip at his heels with sharp teeth of regret and sometimes Adam thinks he'll keep running. But he knows nowhere will be far enough and a part of him thinks he should be punished this way. It's right, isn't it?, that his demons should find him here and hold him captive.
He can't hold down a job. He works for cash under the table, moving from food truck, to mom and pop restaurant, to fish market. Each new job he tells himself he can stick this one out, but invariably someone tries to befriend him, or he starts to feel comfortable, and then he has to run again before he ruins even more lives. Cooking was always his solace, but it's not anymore. Cooking reminds him of Paris and thinking of Paris brings back the vivid memory he wants so badly to forget:
It was barely morning. The sky was just lighting up around the edges with hints of grey light. Adam woke and for a moment he lay in the near darkness, clinging to the last vestiges of peace. He knew what he needed to do, but for those few precious seconds, Adam let himself imagine he was someone else, someone better, someone who could stay.
Tony shifted in his sleep, moving unconsciously closer, and the peace was broken. Adam moved slowly, careful not to wake Tony. He knew what he needed to do, but leaving Tony was hard enough without having to say it aloud. Somehow he knew that 'this is for your own good' sounded more convincing in his head than it would to Tony's ears. But it was. It was for Adam's good too. This... whatever had brought them to this point, whatever was between them…could never be what Tony wanted it to be, and all Adam would do was hurt him.
He dressed quickly, pocketed the drugs Anne Marie had brought the night before and cast one last look at the man sleeping in his bed. Tony looked almost exactly the same asleep as he did awake. It twisted something in Adam's chest, seeing the slight furrow in his brow, the clench of his jaw. Even asleep, Tony was tense, worried.
"I'm sorry, Tony." Adam whispered, not sure if he was apologizing for what he had done or what he was about to do.
He left the spare key out on the night stand, knowing Tony would lock up once he woke and realized Adam had left. It was brutal, but he knew from experience it was efficient.
By the time the sun has broken fully over the horizon, Adam knew he was never coming back, not the Tony, not to Paris, maybe even not to Europe. It wasn't just the money he owned Bonesis, or the drugs. Adam had already burned too many bridges here. Had already done so many things he shouldn't. Had stocked up so many regrets he would never be free. He couldn't think about it. It was too much, too many failures, too much pain. So Adam did what he always did when it was too much. He ran.
It's only at five am, when the morning is barely breaking and the light is just right and he is too sober to block it all out; it's only at five am he really lets himself feel it all. The memories are unruly, they try to intrude at every opportunity, but it's at five am Adam trots them out one by one, a parade of mistakes so long and varied he never runs out of fresh material. But it always seems to end in the same place. In the alley, in his apartment, standing over Tony's sleeping form in the pre-dawn light, whispering an apology he knows Tony will never hear.