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Reverend Asher Rook, 31 years old and tall and hulking like a tree, looks like a man not to trifle with, like one of these first preacher men in the wild west, who'd hold the good book in one hand a shotgun in the other, travelling on a stagecoach across country to bring the word of God to those first brave colonies out in nowhere's land.
That's what he looks like. He has surprisingly enough quite a lot of qualms and ideals still. Enough qualms and ideals that he wants to bring a bit of God even to those lowest in society. Which is why he now finds himself in the brothel district of Frisco, wondering whether this plan hasn't been just hubris. Because so far there doesn't seem much need or want here, for a priest, unless he has coin in his pocket and intent to spend it.
Mostly he's met with mockery by the ladies (and shockingly enough even a few men) who work here.
At least one of the brothel mamas who is at least a little God-fearing has offered him board. So now he's living wall-to-wall with whatever business goes on here. And he's not naive enough not to know what kind of business exactly that is.
Still he's expected his welcome here to be different. And that was hubris alright. So far the ladies are either too busy or too exhausted to spend time thinking on the salvation of their souls. A few girls come to him for confession, with tear-clogged voices, but then go right back to their next client.
So here he is. An oddity more than anything else.
Chess Pargeter is no one he meets right away. Even though he's heard his name long before he sees him the first time. And he does see him, because Chess is hard to miss. One of the male prostitutes. Rook does not know what to call a man like him. A red-headed vixen. Foul-mouthed and unapologetic. The word hellcat comes to mind. But both the first and the latter seem inappropriate as those terms were coined to describe women.
*
Chess Pargeter approaches him in the second week he's spent there. Curious and unafraid, not like the other women and men here, who either laugh at him, or seem to shun him like either he or they are contagious.
Rook has seen him already by then many times. Piercing and omnipresent. A red shock of hair in the crowd. A loud snicker that trails all the way up to Rook's room. Sitting on some patron's lap, like a dangerous, malevolent sprite. Clad in different shades of purple, lips just touching the rim of a glass of absynth that seems to reflect his eyes. Laughing in the face of any insult and returning it with interest. Chess is vibrant and colorful. Not just his clothes, or even the hair and those cat green eyes, that seem to suck you in like a deep, dark green pond in the woods, glistening and clear only to turn out to be a swamp when you set foot into it, mercilessly pulling on your limbs, sucking them into the muddy abyss and crushing them on the way.
And sucking is nothing he wants to think about when looking at those sly, evermoving lips. Reminds him only too well of the tales told to him unasked by the drunk patrons who seem to take his gown as an invitation to tell him whatever they want. Crude, slanty-eyed remarks, delivered to be scathing but with badly concealed underlying lust in it.
"Little bitch can suck out your brain through your dick. Must have gotten that from his Momma. Had them both. But truth be told, he's better. His ass' tighter than hers too. For now."
Rook still remembers the rank breath, smelling of too much booze, and the cackling laughter. How he'd brushed the man's hand off his shoulder, lip curling in disgust and felt the urge to throw up.
Yes, Rook has quite an image formed in his head, before he ever officially meets Chess Pargeter. About whom simply everyone seems to have something to say. Once or twice he sees Chess actually meet his gaze when he's once more come to stare at him. A questioning look there, a challenge, but soon his gaze drifts elsewhere again. While Rook is without a doubt too fascinated in an uncomfortable and bemused way, by that strange creature he's found here.
He learns a lot in the first days he spends in the colorful street of hopelessness and artificial color. Learns the names of each of the houses and what kind of clientele they cater to. Learns that the Chinee dabble in magic here too. Most of all though (and he doesn't know whether people tell him because truly everyone seems to talk about him, or because Ash subconsciously invites those tales) he learns about Chess Pargeter. Learns that he's nineteen years old. That he's lived all his life here. His mother arriving with him, when he was nothing but a toddler. Said mother one of the patrons had been so kind to mention, who still lives here. Sharing quarters with her son. Who gives Rook a good view of what the future holds in store for Chess if he's to continue his way down that road. Them being alike enough to make the differences more profound. With her hair that, even if certainly longer, is just the same shade of burning red. And her language that shows clearly they rival each other in profanities. She was beautiful too, once upon a time, like her son. Still is, in a too sharp, too thin, hollowed-out way. The opium already readily eating up on her, for now still leaving enough for her to resume her profession. For a few more years even. But decay and death are already written on her face, no matter the loud, fake laugh or the too bright makeup and chokingly tight bodice.
Chess knows it too, watching with disgust when she smokes her pipe, and a certain well-hidden, deeply-layered fear in his eyes that belies every foul name he calls her. And they call each other a lot of those. Their yelling matches impossible to overhear, just like everything else that goes on in these paper-thin walls. Their callous, acid-dripping words thrown into the other's face, that no day seems to go by without. Rook hasn't known them long, but he can't say he's seen just one moment of kindness or affection between those two. Except maybe those times when she sucks in her prolonged death through the pipe and Chess gives her those mangled looks of helpless desperation underneath all that bristle and barb he puts on. Makes him look like a little boy for a blink of an eye, not like the sharp, dangerous, poisonously beautiful creature, that for all he's heard and seen is quick enough to cut a man's purse or balls off if he does something to displease him.
But anyway, Chess approaches him. Mirth and curiosity in his eyes. And Rook doesn't know what he expected coming eye-to-eye with Chess Pargeter in the flesh.
Chess smiles at him sharp-toothed, tongue momentarily darting out to dip against his upper row of teeth, which seems both alluring and innocently amused.
"Now, Rev." he says, sitting on the table situated beside Rook, feet on the stool. Not flirty or suggestive yet, more like he's in a saloon, just another cowboy grabbing a drink, looking for trouble perchance. Still an easy grace about his every move, knowing exactly his attraction, knowing where to put his limbs without even having to think about it. "Can't say we had a religious man here before. And me being pious and all, I'd make you a good price." A smile that's both confident and as if he's made a good joke on Rook's expense. Still just with that touch of dirty to make it work.
Rook actually snorts out a laugh at that, eyes crinkling up. "I don't think that's a particularly good way to demonstrate piousness. And you don't strike me as particularly pious either." And how would he know? He's only just met him. That's a condescending and biased assumption, and Rook immediately feels ashamed of himself.
Chess is not affronted, though. Just laughs. Not coy or seductive, but loud. Throwing back his head, sending his red curls flying. And Rook thinks, that's part of his charm. Not the placative seductiveness everyone here wields like a club to the head instead of a knife between the ribs, but the high saturation about everything Chess does. Not in the put-on, too-much fashion all the women here do everything, a parody of it's original intent, but in a way like there's genuinely too much of everything about Chess Pargeter and it comes bubbling out at any given time. Too red hair. Too green eyes. Too sharp features. Too loud voice. Too brash attitude. Too many teeth it seems almost, when he's smiling. Too much energy brimming under the hood.
But now he's finished laughing and he looks at Rook with mirth and appraising hunger. "No, you're right. Maybe I just like the way you're build and think you could fuck me through the mattress something good." It's delivered with an easy-going casualness. Still Rook thinks, damn, now he's pulled out the stops.
With that and another smirk, Chess has hopped off the table, draping himself against another patron, with habitual naturalness taking the man's purse counting himself out what he considers his due, while the man in question lets him, eyes fixed on him in unconcealed hunger.
Chess' words, though, stay with him. For all the next weeks. Always in the back of his mind. Nevermind the fact that he knows that this was nothing but a sales pitch. Still Chess manages to hit a man right in the gut. And lower than that. Grabbing tight with one slender hand and not letting go. Until he's wrung out all there's to take from you. Every last coin. And leaves you spent and panting for more. Even if there's nothing more for you to give.
*
"Spend too many years letting people trample over me. I'll be damned if I let just one more fuck touch me without my say so." Chess tells him once, offhandedly. After Rook's seen him send a client out with a bloody nose. And however that slight piece of man, that seems to mostly consist of brashness and guts, managed to put a punch like that, Rook doesn't know. But the tale unsettles him. Makes him not want to think about how he must have grown up here. A whore's son. A whore himself. Too pretty, too loud to have it easy anywhere. Maybe he fits in better here than he would have anywhere else. But that's a weak excuse Rook's pulling up there, a coward's excuse. No one's better off here. In this place that seems more like an precipice purgatory, preparing the people there for death and nothing else. He does not like to think that 'death and nothing' else lies in the future of Chess, who seems like death is nothing in his future at all, unless maybe inflicted on others. Why it is Chess, of all the people here, he's sought out to save, he does not know. Maybe because he seems more alive than anyone else here. Like he too refuses to accept that he's with one foot in the grave already.
Rook thinks maybe he could approach him through his mother. Make her change her ways. Since Chess does seem to have a troubled affection for her. And he suspects she is maybe the reason he stays. But talking to her makes him uncomfortable. With her come-on lines and raunchy looks, that are like washed-out copies of Chess', and let him know exactly who he's learned them from, who he's maybe subconsciously immitating. Because it can only be subconscious, for Chess would hate it more than anything to realise how much he's taken after his mother.
*
He comes upon Chess sitting on his bed naked. He can't tell any longer why he's come here in the first place. Probably to talk about second chances and turning your life around. To talk about the sins of the flesh and Sodom. But there Chess is. Leaning against some bunched up pillows, his legs drawn up. Combing his hair, that's hanging roughly past his shoulders when he doesn't gel it as he seems to prefer but seldomnly does (And Rook can imagine why that is). He looks a little less on guard now, less put-on and bristling, when he's all sharp teeth and sharp edges otherwise.
He's wrestling with a particularly persistant knot right now, face set in concentration. And Rook can't help but watch him. Slim, pale, freckled limbs carelessly sprawled out. Marked skin. Some scars, some bruises, some other marks a john has left.
The sheets are ruffled which makes him think a customer must have just left. Makes him wonder if some of the marks are fresh and what else gives Chess away. But aside from the ruffled hair, he cannot tell. Are maybe his lips a little redder, a little chafed?
He does leave again. Leaves this slightly softer and unfamiliar Chess, that stirrs something equally unfamiliar and tender inside Rook, something dark and possessive too. Does not make himself known, to speak about whatever seems suddenly meaningless and shallow, when Rook can no longer believe that he could actually deliver the words in a way that would give them depth. When he does not want to face Chess like this, sure that the other man would be able to look right through him as he does through all the other men who want him.
*
The next time, he catches Chess washing himself.
He has not timed it, in all honesty, and is deeply embarrassed. Still he does not turn away and instead watches.
Chess crouching in front of a bucket, wiping himself clean. His arms and chest. His thighs where Rook can still see traces of his last encounter. And also in the most private places.
Chess wrings out the rag again, running it once more businesslike over his inner thighs, then throws it into the bucket and suddenly stands up from his crouch in one swift movement.
"You know, I cut you some slack the other time. I honestly gave you the benefit of the doubt. Thought maybe you'd turned into a pillar of salt, like in your good book, given how long you stood there. But I think it says it quite clearly on every door in this street, no lookee for free. So, you best be on your way... Otherwise you know my prices." He stalks up to Rook with more menace than a man whose forehead reaches Rook's chin should bee able to, still naked and skin partially glistening wet.
"I'm– I'm sorry." His mouth is dry and his eyes that before could not detach themselves from Chess' flesh are now trapped by his eyes. "This was..." In his profound embarrassment and all-together helplessness with the entire situation, he actually puts a handful of coins into Chess' hand and flees the scene with as dignified a step as he can muster, when the priority is speed.
And even the burning mortification he's feeling does nothing to make his dick go down.
*
Rook does not know how to classify the wicked glances he and Chess throw each other across the main hall, whenever they happen to be in the same room. Too heated to be a threat, too dangerous to be flirtations. Still Chess catches his eye in a perpatual warning and snare alike, that has nothing coming of it, as Rook does not bite, but still only seems to grow in intensity.
"What's your problem, Rev?" Chess once asks nonchalantly, sitting down beside him without being invited, ankle bobbing where it's crossed over his leg, one arm thrown over the backrest of Ash's chair. Nursing an absynth at eight in the morning, where Rook's having a coffee. But Rook's fully aware that for Chess the night's only just ended, not that he's keeping tabs on him. Even though, he has to question what capricious hand of fate has made it so that his room is only a few doors away from Chess'. "You keep looking at me like that, but you won't do anything about it."
"I'm a priest."
"Well," Chess chugs down the rest of his glass without even coughing. "You must be a pretty shitty priest, then, given how much you seem to want it." And off he is again. Not to bed either. Rook's learned by now, that sleep often only finds Chess in the hours of the afternoon. In the mornings he'll wander the Chinee market, sit in one of the pubs that never close, or go to one of the Chinee bath houses. Or just aimlessly wandering the streets, as if there was anything to find for anyone around here. Sometimes he performs in shooting contests in the great saloon on the first junction leading into this part of town. Shooting apples of tavern girls' heads, or hitting the bullseye over his shoulder or ricochetting over three other spots in the room. Chess Pargeter is a strange man. And a restless one. Brimming with anger and resentment, even though it seldomnly shows. Ash didn't even know Chess knows how to use a gun like that, nor where he learned it. Even though, in these here circles, surely everyone knows how to pull a trigger to whatever effect.
*
She approaches him. The mother. Oona 'English' Pargeter. Of all the things he's learned, he does not know why they call her that. But there she is, her hip-long hair made up in a giant poof that falls down her shoulders in ringlets. Corsett pushing up her still tight breasts to an obscene level. Skirt falling long to the floor except for the places where it matters, leaving a gaping opening in the front where her undergarments and stockings are clear to see. She's made up nice. The make-up looking fresh, not lined with sweat from excertion and the stiffling air in the house. She's put on her best seductive smile, which he knows because he's seen it on Chess so often (sometimes even directed at him). They look disconcertingly alike, especially given that he's seen Chess in women's clothing before. Which the other hates but still does some nights, getting disturbingly drunk beforehand. Chess looks good too in them. All clean-cut lines in his face, petite build and longish hair. Eyes and lips that would have made many a woman here's life easier. Chess did never strike him as a man of low self-esteem, which is uncommon in this profession. Chess always seems to exute self-confidence and sheer cockiness. He does still, on those nights, changes his body language slightly, not sweet and girlish, but a dangerous lady, a femme fatale. But, still, in these nights, Rook thinks, Chess hates himself a little. And that makes Rook avert his eyes on those occasions, when he doesn't seem able to take his eyes off the young man otherwise. Because that's the least bit of courtesy he can give him.
But because of that, it's even more strange to see Oona Pargeter in front of him like that.
"What do you want with my boy, huh?" she asks, leaning forward, crossing her lace-cloved arms on the table between them, showing off her cleavage even more prominently. Not that she has much (even though the corsett does her courtesy), all lean and thin and small-build, like her son. "What do you want with my Cheshire." She laughs, a perversion of a girlish laugh, that sounds nothing but tired and disdainful. "That's right, that's what I called him."
"I want nothing with him." Rook replies. "I'm trying to help all of you here. To save your souls and better your lifes."
"Oi, aren't you condescending?" She sounds so much like Chess now, it's unbelievable. "You're on a mightly high horse, I tell you, given that your mouth and cock's been leaking for my boy ever since you got here." She laughs again, high-pitched. Then changes her routine again from evil witch back to washed-out seductress. Walking closer to him, hips asway, one hand on his shoulder, one leg tilted to the side giving a clear line of view from her still clothed crotch to her bare inner thigh until the ruffles of the skirt finally fall over it again from the knee downwards. "Watcha want with that little queer-boy, Rev? A real man like you. You ain't no faggot. All strong and tall. A man of God." She let's her hand trail further down his chest. He gently brushes her hand away when it comes to rest on his belt buckle.
"Ma'am, especially as a man of God I could not indulge in either of these activities."
"Ma'am? My, aren't you a proper little gentleman?"
Being called that by a woman who's maybe his elder, but even smaller than Chess, seems slightly surreal. Even though, he realises she cannot be that much older than him. She was just a girl when she came here. Maybe two or four years older than him, tops. And still, she looks old, weathered and weary. Like she's lived more lifetimes than anyone should. Cold, angry, scared and desperate. All together worn out by this world. Mean and hard. He doesn't want to imagine Chess like that. Years from now, with empty eyes, maybe from sucking on a pipe like his Momma, or from the sheer hopelessness. Chess is not a light he thinks he could bear going out. But he doesn't know how to change any of it. Chess sure won't accept help. And Rook is not really in a position to offer help. What kind of priest is he anyhow? Lusting after a male whore. Oona was exactly right about that. He has to wonder if the only reason he wants to save him is to get him into his bed. And he could have that cheaper. Chess would tell him so himself.
Oona seems to sense his lack of attention for her, as one deft, small hand darts forward and graps his hand in surprisingly strong grip, bringing it right between her legs, rubbing it against that place that's only seperated from his fingers through a thin sheen of lace.
"Now that's what you should want." she tells him huskily, as he desperately tries to wrangle his hand free without injuring her. "Oh, my snatch's still good, let me tell you that. Not any worse than that boy's ass, who's had about each and anyone in there. Got a few tricks up my sleeve he don't know too." She's speaking fast, breathless, like this is in fact getting her off. "That stuck-up little faggot can do nothing for you I couldn't. And I'll be nice and wet for ya, Rev–"
He's finally pulled his hand away, securing it against his own chest, like she tried to bite it off. And she's cackling again, truly amused, a malicious glint in her eyes.
She reaches for her own private parts with a deliberate caress. "My, my, getting me all hot and bothered, Rev." She laughs once more at what she must see on his face, turns around with a sway and stalks off on her high-heeled feet, waving at him in passing. "You think about it, Reverend Asher Rook. My door's always open. Some other parts too, at that."
He's left behind, feeling distinctly disturbed and hoping that Chess will never learn of this scene, despite not even sure whether the other would care.
Rook has no doubt that she didn't do it because of an interest in him or because she actually wanted the coin, but simply because he's interested in Chess.
She's a strange woman, Oona Pargeter, who's brought a creature such as Chess into this world. Cheshire. That's one hell of a name. It fits though, unexplicably. As nothing that woman ever did to him managed to diminish him in anyway. It's hard not to feel pity for such a broken, wrecked woman. But it's also hard not to hate her, knowing that Chess was far too young (even though probably not younger than many others here) when she forced him into this business. Did she think it was only his due, given that she had to do this when she was just a girl? He does not know. Can not understand why this woman has such disdain and envy alike for her own son. Even though, he can, to an extend. Does she see in him that flame that's only barely smouldering in her any longer. Even though it probably never burned as high in her to begin with. The urge in here to destroy what dares to live in front of her so brightly, when her life is already over to all effects, when looking at him, she sees her own decay all over again. Still she raised this child. Kept him alive, however halfhazardly. And just as he sees that well-hidden desperate, hollow-eyed love of a child to it's mother in Chess' eyes, he catches glimpses of the same on her. The poisened, smothered, but never truly killed affection a mother cannot deny for the life she brought into this world. The hawk-like gaze with which she sweeps the room first, looking for her son, hand momentarily tightening on the rail of the stairs, until she's found him. The unwilling, clipped way with which she'd sometimes push an errant strand of hair out of his face, in as close to a carress as she'd ever allow herself.
A twisted and pained girl she is, under all that lace, make-up, and prematurely aged skin. Venomous to herself and by extention Chess. She makes him sad just by looking at her. For he thinks she is what broken dreams and lost hope must look like. Or maybe that is only because beside her he still sees Chess in contrast, still beating against the tide of an inevitable fate. Still holding onto everything that time and deprivation will steadily pull from him.
*
It doesn't take long after that.
"I want you." he finally acknowledges, face set, the necessary coin already in hand.
And Chess smiles like Rook's just delivered the punchline to a joke Chess started, and spreads his legs, beckoning him closer.
Afterwards it's Chess who looks taken off guard. Slightly less sure of himself, still breathless and undone. Like he for once doesn't know what to make of Rook.
And Rook takes one of Chess' hands and presses a kiss to his wrist. Then gets dressed and leaves.
*
He doesn't feel cured of the toe-curling, dick-leaking (as Oona put it so well), God-defying need, after it. He doesn't feel particularly damned either, though.
If at all, he feels like he's spinning more out of control than ever. Like his obsession with Chess has turned pathological, uncontrollable. And he needs and needs. And craves to have again what he had once. Wonders if he's turned into yet another of those pathetic fools who drool after Chess like he's the stuff Oona's smoking.
He considers his situation and decides that the point is that he's starved of sexual gratification (not that he's been entirely guiltless of either the sin of the flesh or the sin of Onan), and that he needs to explore this to get it under control again. So he decides to sleep with another of the male prostitutes. From a different house, since Chess' the only one in the house Rook's staying at.
It's okay. It does the job. Rook comes. But it's not the gut-churning, trembling, what-the-hell-have-I-been-doing-with-my-life-so-far revelation, fucking Chess was, that almost left him in pieces from it's intensity, looking at that red-headed man and knowing he could ask anything of him now, knowing that he's his and his only until Chess decides for it to be different.
That was only the haze of the orgasm, naturally. But then again, not quite and not just. While Chess might certainly be the best fuck he's ever had, fucking was the conclusion and not the start of this. It was Chess as a person who first set him on this spiralling trail to damnation. Making him break his vows in such spectacular fashion without even feeling all that guilty about it.
While not having had the intented effect, Rook's stint with the other hustler has an entirely unanticipated effect. Chess finds out, of course he does. Rook can almost imagine in his head, Oona prancing over to him, all overbearing hip-sways. "Well, looky there, laddy. Looks like your man found himself something new, pretty damn quick." Or anyone else for that matter, any other of the gossiping, envious lost souls in here.
And, oh, Chess is angry, stalks over to Rook across the room, eyes ablaze, and teeth bared, like the most beautiful fury any ancient greek legend could have ever painted.
Chess actually kicks the table over at which Rook is sitting.
"You think you can go with someone else, you fucker?!" are his words of greeting. "You come running after me for months and then you've got me I'm not good enough for you anymore?! Huh?!" He's deep into Rook's space now, eyes burning into his face.
Beside them the prostitute, Rook went with, laughs.
That's a mistake. Without even pausing or looking, Chess has swirled around and hits him straight in the face with a bottle. So hard it shatters and leaves a cut across the man's face. Chess doesn't bother looking where he falls, and it speaks volumes that no one in the brimming full hall of the brothel bothers to interfere. Already he's spun back to Rook.
"You think you can go and fuck someone else?" Chess asks dangerously, loud and angry, not caring that everyone's watching this scene. "You better fucking think again."
Rook still just sits there quietly, enraptured by the spectacle, can't even really feel sorry for the poor sod who got between them on this.
Chess gives a growl, misreading Rook's silence. "You want that little hussy?" he asks, a curt jab of his head, indicating where some of the girls are just helping up the man who's name Rook doesn't even remember any longer.
"No, Chess." Rook finally says, a mild smile on his face. "I only want you."
Chess gives another growl. "Damn right you do."
Then he turns on his heel and is off again, to places unknown.
*
If Rook thought, though, that Chess was going to make it easy, now that he's at least settled for himself, like literally every other person in this street, that damnation can wait until he's dead, he's thought wrong.
When he comes to Chess' rooms again, the coin already at the ready, Chess is already standing there, between the curtains that are the only resemblance of a door to his room, clothed in literally nothing, and eyes him dismissively, arms crossed.
"What do you want?" Chess asks, curtly.
"I think that's pretty obvious, Chess." Rook replies with a smile.
"Too bad then." Chess shrugs, not budging an inch, entire lithe body like an inpenetrable wall. Cold green eyes as much of an dismissal as the two bruisers at the front door would have been.
That's also something Chess told him once. Sell yourself hard and sell yourself dear and never anything but at your own terms. Even though, that's not entirely true either. Rook's seen Chess go with patrons he clearly didn't want to go with. Which is to say something, because Rook doubts that Chess truly wants to go with most of his patrons. Which is a thought he really doesn't want to elaborate on, given what he's come here for. Rook recalls one of those instances though, right then. One was when Oona'd been really out-of-sorts. Too much smoke, not even able to get up anymore, had pissed herself and still there'd been a guy who'd thought he could try something with her then, who thought throwing a bit of money would give him leeway. Chess had beaten the guy off her and thrown him out (keeping the money, and everything else he had, not that it was much). Rook had seen how he'd taken care of his mom the next week, washing her, feeding her, while she was all glassy-eyed and babbling. Couldn't work, obviously, so Chess pulled some extra-shifts to pay for her rent too. Didn't say one word to her about it, once she was up and about again. And the second she was, they were at it again as nasty and mercilessly as ever. Like he hadn't just shown that he loved her dearly, and like she didn't know exactly what he'd done for her. Rook can't understand them. Chess more than her at least. It's hard to stop loving a parent, no matter how wrong they treat you. But for now, Oona is the least of his concerns. He's come here for her son. Who's the only person who's truly ever interested him here, from the beginning. And is probably, if he's being honest, the only reason he'd stayed. And right now, right and wrong, sin or no, he's just a man and he has needs. That those needs might exceed the plain physical is a topic for another time. A topic that's worked on by both him and Chess constantly, ever shifting their relationship, spinning the net tighter and tighter. Still there's so much to learn about Chess. And Rook wants to. Wants to understand the unpredictable about him.
"What can I do?" Rook asks softly.
Chess' mouth curls in disgust, head raised in a way that makes him seem taller than Rook for some reason.
"I'm sorry." Rook says. "Will you forgive me? You have to know that there could be no one beside you, certainly."
"Oh, I do, I do." Chess replies aloofly. "Still I don't want you sticking your dick into some dirty little bitch's hole."
"Very well, Chess Pargeter." Rook concedes. "I didn't intend to repeat that mistake."
"You're only sticking your dick into me, from now on." Chess continues. "You get that?"
"Certainly. If I may?"
At Chess' nod, Rook lifts him off the ground with one arm, carrying him back into the room at a speed that seems to take even Chess by surprise.
*
And there's no more circling around each other with ambigeous glances. The change is nothing that's just confined to how they might spend some of the nights with each other. Chess will walk up to him whenever he sees him, smirking and cocksure, abandoning whichever patron's arm he's been hanging off till then. Will walk over to him and place himself on the table right on the newspaper Rook is just reading, or snatch the bible from his hands, reading a few verses (and who knew Chess knows how to read), or he'll settle himself straight across Rook's lap.
"Why, Reverend, we all know by now you're a little sweet on me." He'll smirk at him. Sometimes he'll rub himself against him, sometimes he'll even snake a hand into Ash's trousers. Not too much, not too long, then he'll be off again, to drip his madness into another man's ear until he's willing to leave all his coin at Chess' doorstep.
Sometimes he'll just sit there, though, and talk to him, about anything and all. Sometimes about the coffee prices having gone up at the market or whoever got shot last night at the saloon. Sometimes he'll ask all kinds of nosy questions about Ash's life before he came here.
And sometimes it's not even Chess who engages him. Some days, Rook will come back from the makeshift service he gives on the marketplace and he'll spot Chess across the room and it takes only as much as him giving Chess a questioning look and the other will give a smile that's not half as wicked as his usual ones are, and he'll make his way across the room in no time, and nothing more will happen between them but Rook buying him a glass of absynth.
And some days, some days, Rook will walk across the room in all his imposing stature, to whoever's just gotten his hands all over Chess. And he'll lean down until his lips touch one freckled earshell and whisper things that he's never even dreamed he could think up let alone voice. And Chess will be his for the night, no matter the dealings made beforehand, the patron of the hour abandoned where he sits with his pants too tight. While Chess follows him away. The grip by which Rook leads him away, equally possessive from both sides.
And they're on scratchy sheets that are the same in Chess' room as they are in Rook's own. His bulk all but engulfing Chess, whose limbs are snaked around Ash in a trap that is all the more deadly for he doesn't want to escape from it. And sometimes Chess looks like his mother when she takes the first drag of her pipe, looking at him. And it might be an act, but he doesn't think too much on it, when he's staring down at Chess with the same expression and it's as if they're both breathing from each other's mouths, a poisonous vapor, that Rook, for one thing, is already addicted to.
"I might be a little sweet on you myself, Rev." Chess smirks, covered in sweat, lying there unabashed, one leg still hooked around Ash's waist. "Or maybe that's just your cock." he adds, giving the part in question a proprietary squeeze.
And then he'll be off again, leaving Rook's bed after too short a time, to go with however many other men for the night. And Ash stays behind, unable to change it but equally unable to accept it. Reading to himself from the bible against all odds, when he can hear them through the doors, one after another.
*
Sometimes he thinks what would have become of Chess, if they hadn't met here. Thinks of a future Chess, as he could have been, as he still could be. He doesn't for a second imagine that Chess is going to spend the rest of his life here, either way. Chess is strong, Chess is a survivor, so sooner or later he'll have outgrown this dreadful place here and go looking for a different place that suits his needs better. For, while Chess certainly likes to fuck, he likes to fight just as much. And that's not exactly a trait that fits his profession so very well.
*
It's not even a conscious decision, but Rook simply can not stop. And soon he's beaten his knuckles bloody on the man's face, who isn't moving at all any longer.
And when he does stop, Chess is standing there, wide-eyed, pupils blown the way they only are after the two of them had sex. There's still fresh blood running from his split lip. And Rook walks towards him and wipes it away.
"You belong to me now." he says roughly.
And Chess pulls him down and kisses him hard and wet, completely ignorant of the tear in his lip, filling both their mouths with the taste of fresh blood. Which Rook feels is the appropriate taste for their relationship, for the love he feels for Chess. Destructive. All-encompassing. Painful, bitter and unresistable. Alive and blood red. Like Chess himself.
Chess let's him stay that night, doesn't kick him out with sneers and reminders that his time's up. Stays pressed close to him, all of his body fitting so perfectly against Ash. Stays there, looking fragile, like a chipped cup of china, with the bruising spreading around the nasty cut on his lip, standing out vividly against his pale skin.
Chess is strong, Rook knows that. But not that strong. No matter how he makes himself out to be, and no matter how people buy in on his story. At the bottom line he's just a mouthy little whore. And Rook would kill anyone who'd say that to his face. It's true nonetheless. Chess is fighting tooth and nail every day, in each and every form. Fights so hard, he must be weary to the bone, worn out inside like Oona's on the outside. Chess isn't that strong. He could be, one day. But for now, he isn't yet. One day, people might tremble in fear from the mere mention of his name. But for now, he's a hotshot little number. Who, with piss and vinegar, a mean fist and a mouth to make grown man cry, has made himself a name and has build up an reputation that keeps him save most of the time. But only most of the time. Because if someone's to call his bluff, he's just as quick once again (like every single other person who has the misfortune to occupy these halls) a whore, who has very little chance of anything if a john is a little too tall and too brute, and decides he wants to beat 'em, before he throws 'em on that mattress to fuck 'em after all. Very little chance at all, other than to charge him double afterwards.
Chess is strong. But not strong enough. He doesn't have to be, though. Not if Asher Rook has any say in it. He'll be damned (even more than he already is, by none other than Chess Pargeter himself) if he ever let's anyone put another hand to Chess in a way that is in any form unwelcome to him.
*
Chess is pale and red in the morning. Like dried blood on snow (or a corpse). Looks at Rook first with disoriented fear, then for an infinitisemal blink of an eye with relief and a lost neediness he's never seen on Chess ever, before his expression closes off and turns into a devil-may-care smirk.
"Since you're already here." Chess comments, before he pushes Rook back down on the mattress, sucking his dick into his mouth faster than Rook can think. Sloppy, wet and aggressive, with ever too much a graze of teeth. And whenever Rook actually manages to keep his eyes open, he sees Chess' eyes glaring up at him with anger. And Rook cannot fathom why he'd look at him that way when he is pretty sure he'd do anything for Chess and that he's just pledged his soul to him the other night (little as Chess might care for that). Nevertheless, Rook comes faster than he has since he was a boy of fourteen wanking for the first few times. Chess sits up between his legs, hands on either of Ash's thighs, and spits his come on the floor with the same disregard with which he then turns to eye Rook. "Well, ever so much thanks for the other night, Rev. Consider that your payment."
*
Rook got the message alright. Chess doesn't seem to think he did, though. As he approaches him again, later that day, at the table where Rook's having a coffee. Face set and dangerous. Eyes angry and somewhat scared.
"About yesterday." Chess starts all bellingerence in both voice and stance. "What you said." A pause. "I don't belong to anyone, Asher Rook." There's clear deadly intent in his eyes and at the same time a hungry lostness like he wishes for it to be different. "And if you think you can fuck me for free now–"
"I don't." Rook interrupts him there, voice calm and even. He remains seated, not towering over Chess. "You are right. You don't belong to me. I belong to you. Whatever you need of me, you got it." What a promise, how sudden. What to make of that, when Ash's pledged himself to someone before and broke that promise without any true regret.
Chess is taken off guard by that, clearly having come here expecting a fight. "I don't need nothing of you, Ash."
"Still. It's yours." Rook simply replies. Where is all that strange affection coming from, he feels for Chess? That terrible passion that sweeps him away like a man who had the misfortune to slip into a river and then get caught up in a piece of driftwood, getting dragged along the current, no matter how his bones break against the rocks under the surface. He came here to bring God to those who certainly were paid no consideration by the rest of society. And instead, most would say he's lost both his vocation and all modesty now. Making nice with some whore, pledging himself like some lovesick fool. But the thing is, he doesn't actually feel like he's lost his vocation. Doesn't, against all expectation, feel like God's forsaken him. He feels just as much priest as he's felt before. Feels true to himself and to God, with Chess around him. And that he'd give his love to a man, who probably doesn't even know how to love, seeing as he's never received any (even though he does love that decrepit mother of his, who certainly doesn't deserve it). To Chess love is weakness. Because to him it's always been just that. As he's never learned any different than that you'll get pain and disdain for your love, that it shackles you down, all thanks to that mother of his. And even twice sad, that that's the only love he's ever received, when Rook would even have to thank that woman for at least she's kept Chess alive.
No, Chess is not a good choice for any man or woman to fall in love with. But while all that is well and true, he also knows Chess well enough, to know that he's doubtlessly a little conning minx, but also far too proud to ever even pretend he to have true affection for a john no matter how much money it'd make him. So Rook knows, despite having to tread lightly with Chess as not to have his throat cut, that no matter how ill at ease Chess is with this, he is returning some of Rook's feelings.
"Whatever." Chess hisses. "As long as that's clear then."
*
He does still pay for Chess. He even takes on a job, as to sustain his income. Brakes up brawls between customers, here and at the nearby houses. Kicks out drunk patrons and gives those a beating who mistreat one of the ladies or gents going about their business here. He's big and dangerous, and there's surprisingly much money to be made from that.
It's common knowledge soon, that the brothel of Sue-Anne in Frisco has a new pimp. A bull of a man, with heavy fists, who dresses up like a preacher man.
*
And despite the money exchanged, Chess and him do have a relationship. And Chess will sleep in his bed when he asks him to. And Rook tells him he loves him all the time.
Chess never says it back. Snorts and scoffs at his words, says things like 'Love my ass, more likely'.
And Rook will reply, "Sure. Your ass. Your mouth. Your razor-sharp wit. Your foul language. The way you take shit from no one. How you barely ever listen to good advice. The way you laugh at me when I still try to find people for Sunday service. How you look at your mother when you think no one's watching. But yes, sure, also your insane hair, your beautiful eyes, your legs and every inch of your skin. Your feet. Your dick. The dip where your collarbones meet."
Chess is looking at him weirdly by now, like he's blushing. Not that Rook's ever seen him do that (and he's seen Chess do quite a few things that would, as they say, make even a whore blush). "God, you're such a weirdo." Chess finally says, actually averting his gaze. "But talking as you love my dick so much, why don't you get to sucking it?"
And Rook does just that.
*
"If you's leaving, Rev." Oona tells him. "You better take that prissy skank with you. You here me, you big dumb fucker?" She leans in, two sharp painted nails digging into his chin. "Don't you leave him here. Don't you ever leave him behind."
"I won't, Ma'am."
*
But Chess was never one to turn from his momma. So instead him and Rook are taking over the houses, becoming the kingpins of the night world around here. Turns out when they throw their lot together, there's almost nothing they can't do. Him, Chess and a few ladies with colts, they run a tight ship. And of course Chess' mother walking the halls of her own brothel like a damn queen, inhaling the smell of crips dollar notes these days, instead of the pipe.
There's no more need for Rook to pay for Chess, for there's no one who could buy him any longer. There's no one here who'd dare to touch Chess any longer. Except of course Rook.
Chess is maybe not free of this place, as Rook had wished, but he is free nevertheless. To make choices of his own. And now he chooses Rook. Even though, truth be told, he did that a long time ago.
Chess once talks about joining the military. But Rook calls him an idjit, because people are dying out there. And one thing's for sure. People will always die and they'll always fuck. So Rook'd rather belong to those who fuck.
And somewhere deep in the earth an old goddess is stirring, so old that she's almost forgotten who she is herself.
There's no one to hear her though. And she goes back to sleep.