Chapter 1

Julian has hit a new low.

He would have thought his low point fell somewhere right around when he hit ‘post’ on a Hookpoint bio about liking it rough.

If not then, then surely the moment where he stood on a freezing street corner, wearing the most hideous yellow and lime green hoodie in existence, to avoid the man he’s fallen for—the man who just reiterated point blank that he doesn’t care who Julian fucks, **after**being fucked by him—also had to be up there.

Or... down there? Julian doesn’t know.

However, in spite of all that, Julian manages to top both of those easily the very next morning, naked from the waist down, fisting his own cock with his nose buried in that very same highlighter-yellow sweater. The irony is that the hoodie, frustratingly, barely smells like the object of his affections at all. No, it smells like the extra strength detergent Thorne uses to double-wash his clothes on the industrial setting or whatever the hell he does to purge his garments of even the faintest whiff of his own scent.

Because even if the detergent is familiar, it always takes on a completely different smell once Thorne puts his clothes on. Julian knows that it’s not just the fabric, but the scent of Thorne’s hair, his **sweat**—

And it doesn’t smell like **this,** Julian thinks angrily. His fingers curl into the collar and yank it downwards, away from his face.

He throws his head back and strokes himself faster, deciding to concentrate on something else instead of the scent of the hoodie. He moans and brings his free hand up to find the bruise Thorne sucked into his throat yesterday. It was already dark against his skin before he went to bed last night; this morning it’s been throbbing gently with his pulse, sore even before Julian reaches up to press on it and turn it into a deeper sting that makes him squirm.

**“Ah…”**

Fuck, he can’t get enough. Julian circles his fingers over the bruised skin, hissing as the pain shifts with his touch, dick jumping in his hand.

As he gets close, Julian bites his lip, a perverse need to ask permission stuck at the tip of his tongue. It’s just… it’s always so much more satisfying to come after Thorne **tells**him he can. He turns his head into the pillow and tries desperately not to think about how Thorne would react if Julian texted him right now and asked. Thorne could… fuck, he could tell Julian to edge himself a couple times before going over. Thorne could make him beg for it.

Or Thorne could **call him** . Julian moans again when he thinks about what he might say, voice a low purr as he instructs Julian how to touch himself, or teases him for how needy he is, or calls him a good boy for asking permission to come and tells him to **go ahead, Julian, you earned it**—

**“Shit,”** Julian gasps, shooting his free hand down just in time to catch his release in his cupped palm.

When he starts to come down, Julian reaches robotically for a tissue to clean his hands as reality crashes back over him. Fuck, he feels gross. And a little guilty. It’s more than likely Thorne would just reply that he doesn’t care what Julian does, or worse, that he never consented to any kind of sexual play outside their scenes and to please not ask him that again.

Shit.

Julian yanks the lemon-lime monstrosity off and chucks it in the general direction of his laundry hamper as he stalks towards the bathroom to clean up.

The restless feeling only worsens when Julian is faced with the prospect of climbing into Thorne’s car only an hour later. His own car is still over at his apartment from the night before. They had a prearranged plan for Thorne to pick Julian up for practice, so it’s not like he can avoid him.

“Good morning,” Thorne greets him as Julian settles into the leather seat.

“Mornin’.”

Julian takes a deep breath and resists the urge to yell in frustration when his head is filled with the exact, unique scent that he’d failed to find on the club hoodie he’d embarrassed himself with that morning.

“Are you feeling alright?” Thorne asks as they roll onto the street. “Chest okay?”

Julian can’t restrain his smart mouth as he leans against the car door, “No lasting damage from yer nip-obliterating clamps, no. I looked those up last night, by the way. Ya sure didn’t hold back, didja?”

Thorne snorts.

“Someone with your affection for pain would have found clamps for beginners to be nothing more than temporary nipple jewelry,” he chuckles. “That’s boring.”

Julian chuckles in spite of himself. “You really are an asshole, ya know that, Eli?”

Thorne continues to grin, self-satisfied, under his mask.

“Might have heard that, once or twice,” he murmurs.

**Gosh,** Julian likes him. He likes **this** , what they have. It’s in casual moments like this that he realizes what was once played-up but genuine animosity between them has turned into a real friendship. It’s not that he used to **dislike** being around Thorne, but most of the enjoyment he previously drew from it was a direct result of them butting heads. At the absolute most he would have called them frenemies.

Now… while they still talk a lot of shit, it’s **different.** It shouldn’t be shocking. They’ve spent a lot of time together; of course they’d get more comfortable with one another. He just didn’t expect to like what he found behind Thorne’s prickly exterior so much.

It’s not like he’s even this sweet or different dude once you get to know him. Behind his hard jerk walls there’s really just a soft jerk center—but the soft part makes Julian’s gut twist and flutter. The times when Thorne smiles or laughs, a quiet and understated thing, Julian finds himself cherishing those moments. While he’s not very observant and doesn’t care that much about inconveniencing people he finds annoying, when push comes to shove Thorne is actually fairly considerate and even... thoughtful.

He complains about Croft bothering him and sending him dumb texts, but made time to take him all over Briarport City when he visited. He gets grouchy when Callahan and Bennett watch him stretch his freakish wrists, but he’ll stay for hours after practice to help Bennett with his cut shot. Thorne will insult Julian eight ways from Sunday but… well, there are too many things he’s quietly done for Julian, while domming or otherwise, to even list.

The rest of the drive passes in comfortable silence. The drizzle, just on the edge of snow, collects on the windows before running down in streams. Julian rests his chin on his palm and watches streetlights diffusing through water.

He knows he’ll have to deal with things one way or another, at some point—that this isn’t sustainable—but for now he just lets himself relax into the familiar scents and calm companionship inside the protective walls of the car.

Julian is in his bathroom around three hours before game-start, a handful of products scattered across the counter. After the absolutely brilliant move of going into practice with a neck full of bruises, Julian realized he needed a real bruise covering strategy. He was only a couple of months late, he supposed. He had the weird color-correcting palette that Thorne gave him ages ago, but never bothered to pick up the powder to go over it. After trying some drugstore powder and immediately sweating it off the day after the altercation in the stairwell, Julian eventually sought out a make-up specific store. It wasn’t difficult to find one in the shopping mall by the practice facility.

He entered with some amount of confidence which was immediately shattered upon taking in the vast and overwhelming boutique. After wandering the first aisle looking like a fish out of water, an employee found him and took pity.

“Hello, sir. Can I help you find something?”

“Um… I need the stuff that’s supposed to go over color correction makeup. To, uh, cover… some, um, marks on my skin,” Julian said, face flaming. “Something that won’t come off easily. I, um, sweat a lot at my job.”

The employee, a young woman with bangs and the sharpest eyeliner wings that Julian had ever seen, looked very quickly down at Julian’s neck. Her eyes darted away immediately after and she smiled pleasantly.

“Right this way,” she said, leading him down the aisles, matching a foundation powder to his skin and eventually pressing a small spray can into his hands. “This is **setting spray.** You put this over your makeup and it’s not going anywhere. I mean it’s not going **anywhere.**”

Thank the heavens above for professional, smart, and helpful sales associates.

Still, now that the choking bruises are completely faded, Julian hesitates with the setting powder in his hand. He knows he needs to cover up the hickey before being on TV. He **knows**that. The bruise Thorne left after they last played is no small thing. Still, he twirls the setting spray in his fingers.

He reaches up with the back of his palm and rubs at his perfect makeup job. He doesn’t rub it all out, but removes just enough makeup that a shadow of the bruise can be seen. Before it can really sink in how ridiculous he’s being, Julian applies the setting spray and heads out of the bathroom.

He pulls his shoes on and grabs his phone. There’s one message.