Chapter Text
Kevin worked his newly cleaned hands into the latex gloves he had removed earlier, the tools of his trade spread on paper towels inside autoclave pouches on the stainless steel counter behind him. Now that Carlos took a good look at the jewelry he had chosen alongside the needles and other accoutrements Kevin was going to be using on him , probably still wearing that extra wide and unsettling grin, he wondered if he had been a little too cocky - ahaha, no pun intended, and even in his head, his laughter sounded a little on the hysterical side.
But no. He had done plenty of research - he was very good at research - and had deduced that, once the healing period was over, the benefits appeared to far outweigh the trauma of the actual procedure, and he wanted to surprise Cecil. Also, kind of cool. If this went well, he’d be interested in doing more than just the one frenum.
“All right,” said Kevin, and his grin widened to show every single one of his teeth, and Carlos had to repress a shudder. His eyes flicked down to Carlos’s groin. “Are you ready?”
Taking a deep breath, he nodded.
“Well then,” Kevin said with a flourish, “drop trou and lie back. I won’t be a moment.”
“Everything?” Carlos blurted.
Kevin, who had started to turn to gather his things, faced him again. “Why, yes,” he purred with a gleam in his eye.
“I mean - I mean, boxers and all?”
“Yes. You don’t want me to have a cluttered playing field, trust me.” His tone was just a touch more professional now, and Carlos remembered that this was his actual job . “I’ve done hundreds of these, there’s no need to worry. You won’t be maimed or anything - unless that’s what you’re really going for,” he added with a little more glee than Carlos thought necessary. He started transferring his tools to a surgery cart while he was speaking. “I could hook you up, you know. I have lots of experience, and some very fun ideas.”
Carlos closed his eyes and didn’t reply. Even replying with something normal would only bait him, and so his hands moved to the button of his jeans and slid them open, tugging down the zip as he leaned back against the table. In one motion, he pushed down both his jeans and boxers, gritting his teeth and wondering if he dared to look at Kevin.
He didn’t want to, but he had to. He probably could keep his eyes closed the whole time, but a small part of his mind was fascinated by this process, and he wanted to see as much as he could. He peeked through one eyelid as Kevin wheeled the tray over to the table.
“Well now,” Kevin said, and did he think that misshapen grin couldn’t grow any wider? Because he had been wrong. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? See what you can do if you just stay positive ?” He was staring openly at Carlos’s flaccid dick, and Carlos felt the insane urge to cover himself when Kevin’s split tongue darted out to lick his lips. “I can see why my brother likes you. Very impressive.”
“Just - dispense with the commentary and get on with it,” Carlos muttered, his face burning.
“Then lie back - and enjoy.” He started humming a jaunty little tune as Carlos eased himself back on the table, his trousers catching on its edge and ending up closer to his ankles than he had really wanted, but there was no point in fixing it now. Kevin came around to his right side and lifted his shirt up and away, putting in its place a sterile cloth with a hole in the middle. Carlos wondered bizarrely if he should have shaved for this. Then, (and he didn’t know why he was surprised by this) Kevin reached through the hole in the cloth with two gloved fingers, gently grasping his dick and pulling it through so it would lie, accessible and exposed, under the flourescent lights.
He couldn’t watch. He let his head fall back, his fingers drumming a nervous tattoo on his chest, as he felt Kevin handling him with impartiality. This had to be the most surreal experience he’d ever had outside of a doctor’s office, and he didn’t even have the benefit of Kevin being a total stranger to make it less awkward. He felt a little pinch on the skin just behind the head, and he glanced down briefly.
“Just finding the best spot,” Kevin said soothingly, but he was anything but reassured. He knew he ought to be relaxing - deep breathing, thinking about kittens, anything other than the twelve gauge needle about to go through his skin in such a delicate area - but he dared not let his guard down, not around Kevin, not even while he seemed to be acting so… normal . There was the cold, rough pressure of an alcohol filled cotton ball all along his length. Lie back and think of England , he thought, a little giddily. He felt Kevin pinch again, but the pressure didn’t let up as his free hand grabbed something from the tray with a clatter. A moment later, the gloved fingers were replaced by cool metal, clamping the spot and working it back and forth as, he assumed, Kevin further inspected the spot for suitability.
“Excellent,” Kevin said at last, and Carlos let out his breath. He could hear a tattoo machine buzzing somewhere across the hall and wondered exactly how much time he had before Cecil was done with his current piece. “You know, I’ve seen a lot of dicks in my life, but you-”
“Save it,” Carlos said. Kevin gave a high-pitched laugh that lasted just a little too long.
“I was just thinking,” he continued as his fingers hovered over the things on the table, his pitch black eyes darting to Carlos’s face. “Since you’re a regular here, and you are dating my dear brother , I could probably knock a little off your price. You know, because you’re such a good customer .”
“It’s not like you don’t get a tip.”
“I’ve got the tip,” Kevin said, waggling the clamp a little so the skin slipped and slid. “Right here.” This outlandish comment didn’t quite distract Carlos from the gleam of silver in his other hand: the needle, ready to do its job. He gripped the side of the table with one hand, the other clutching the fabric of his shirt.
“Just - come on, Kevin, just do it.”
The piercer complied, leaning over Carlos’s groin and setting the tip of the needle on one side of the clamp. “All right - on the count of three, love. One - two -”
Carlos had just started to tense when he felt the needle slide smoothly through his skin, in one side and out the other in a split second. “ Jesus holy fucking shit christ ,” Carlos hissed, squeezing his eyes shut. His pulse battered against the new wound; it felt like lightning, striking his groin and spreading steadily through his extremities until his fingers and toes were tingling. He felt heady, suddenly, a little dizzy, and was glad he was lying down.
“That’s it, that’s good, you’re fine,” Kevin was saying, his voice calm and quiet as he carefully disentangled the clamp from the needle. “Just another moment and you’ll be done.”
“Oh my god,” Carlos breathed through the endorphin rush. “You said on three, you bastard! Fuck.”
“Well, if you insist, I wouldn’t say no,” said Kevin, picking up the barbell’s wrapper and tearing it open. “Just another moment now, you’re fine, sweet Carlos.”
“Don’t fucking call me that,” he snarled, but vaguely. Only Cecil could call him that. Only Cecil could put adjectives in front of his name while addressing him. He suddenly felt dirty, sullied by the touch of Kevin’s fingers where only Cecil’s belonged.
“Of course.” In a flash, the needle was replaced by the barbell, its end screwed in place, and the next thing he knew, Kevin was wrapping the fresh piercing in gauze and stripping his gloves off. “All done!” he said brightly. “You just lay there as long as you need to, okay? There’s no rush to get you off my table.”
Carlos sat up, slowly, to avoid a head rush. He ran the fingers of one hand shakily through his hair, not caring if it was mussed right now, and looked down at his groin. He wished he had been able to see it before Kevin wrapped it, but between just regular showering and aftercare, it wasn’t like he wasn’t ever going to see it again. “That’s it?” he murmured, sliding carefully towards the edge of the table. He was especially eager to get his pants back on.
“Not so bad, was it?”
“No,” Carlos said truthfully. Oh, he understood now how people could get addicted to piercings. It was a different feeling from getting a tattoo, much shorter and less sustained, but what a rush ; his teeth were buzzing .
“It was even a little wonderful, wasn’t it?” Kevin was suddenly too close, his words hot on Carlos’s ear. He jerked away a little too quickly and lost his balance, but before he could fall entirely, Kevin caught him by the upper arms, shifting him so that they were standing face to face.
No matter how he felt, he wasn’t going to admit it to Kevin. This was the first piercing he’d gotten from his boyfriend’s brother, and he vowed that it would be the last. He brushed Kevin’s hands away and bent down to retrieve his trousers from around his ankles.
“Kevin, I’m going to go and get lunch,” came a new voice - a familiar voice - oh shit. Carlos struggled with his jeans, trying to be careful but also extremely quick, and in doing so jostled his new piercing. He couldn’t help it; he let out a little yelp of pain, just as his boyfriend rapped on the doorframe and walked in without waiting for a response. “Do you want any… anything…”
Carlos couldn’t see his face, but he could imagine what this scene must look like: Kevin grinning like a maniac, one hand still on Carlos’s shoulder; Carlos half bent, having just made a sound that could sound sexual in another context, and, most damning, with his ass hanging out.
“Cecil! Yes, I would like some lunch, and I bet Carlos would, too,” Kevin said, rolling the ‘r’ in his name and shifting his hips to one side. “He’s just had a very exhausting ordeal.”
Carlos finally managed to pull his jeans up over his hips, his face hot with embarrassment and shame. Why Cecil couldn’t have waited just another couple of minutes, why Kevin had to be… well, Kevin , why he had put himself in this situation in the first place…
“Cecil, hi,” he said, turning around with the largest smile he could muster under the circumstances, but he may as well have not bothered. Cecil was looking thunderous - no, murderous - his fist still extended where it had knocked against the doorframe moments before.
“What - the hell -”
“It’s not - Ceec, it’s not what it looks -”
“ What does it look like? ”
He had never heard this tone of voice from his boyfriend, and he quailed a little under the ferocity of his stare. His eyes were darting back and forth between Carlos and his brother, trying to put pieces together that lined up in any way but the most obvious - the most terrible.
“I got a piercing!” Carlos blurted. “I wanted to surprise you and we thought you’d -”
“Oh, you thought I’d . A piercing? A genital piercing?” He fixed his glare on Kevin. “Really Kevin? Really ?”
Kevin spread his hands in an innocent ‘who, me?’ gesture. “It was his idea,” he said sweetly.
“Carlos, Kevin!” Cecil flung his hands in the air, then clutched at his hair. “I can’t,” he said, “I can’t deal with you right now.” And with that, he turned on his heel and stormed away. A moment later, the little bell over the shop door jingled, and the door slammed shut.
There was a ringing silence left in Cecil’s wake, which Kevin broke by pointing towards Carlos’s jeans, still flapping open from the button and fly. “Do you need some help with that, or…”
“Fuck off, Kevin,” Carlos snapped, and he did up his jeans as he raced after his boyfriend. He would pay for the piercing when - if - he could make this right.