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Dick smooths his hair back, slumping against the elevator railing with a weary sigh.
The corner of Slade's lip quirks. “Glad your concert’s finished?”
“I'll be glad to have this make up off me,” Dick answers, pulling at the corner of his fake lashes where they're beginning to peel. There's a bead of perspiration drying on his temple; Slade can see the streak where it's cut through his foundation.
“Tour's nearly over,” Slade placates him with, taking up his post on Dick's left, hands folded in front of him. The suit is stifling in the warmth of the elevator, but Slade will bet after a stage’s worth of hot lights, it's bliss for Dick.
Dick smiles at the reminder, the relief evident through his fatigue. “I'm looking forward to the post-tour laziness. Who knew coast-to-coast concerts could be so tiring?”
Slade hums, unconvinced. “Wouldn't be as tiring if someone hadn't added two encore cities to the line up.”
Dick's sheepish grin doesn't fool Slade for a minute.
“We could've been at the cabin by now,” Slade reminds him. Away from the stage lights and signing booths. Sue him for wanting a little peace away from Dick's stage presence.
Dick doesn't reach across the distance to touch him — half the elevator is glass, and Dick's seen enough of his paramours splashed across the tabloids not to be so careless — but his fingertips inch closer to Slade's hips on the balustrade.
He turns those pretty blue eyes up to him, and Slade finds himself unspooling despite his irritation. “Promise I'll make it up to you. You'll have me for all of autumn.”
“All to myself,” Slade says, with the cadence of a threat. Dick's grin widens, his painted lower lip rolling under his teeth as he gives Slade an unabashed up-down.
“All yours,” he agrees.
This here, these moments between shows where Slade has Dick to himself, where he could just reach out and pull Dick up against him, run his hands over the curves of his body, almost make this job unbearable. The promise of Dick is enticing enough to make Slade stay, strung out between these moments like an embarassed addict, aching for his next hit, every time.
Dick glances at the illuminated button on the elevator. He knows they’re both thinking the same thing, counting down the floors to Nightingale’s dressing room. Counting down the seconds until they can touch one another without risking a scandal. Slade itches with the urge to touch him, gaze burning a hole through Dick’s skintight outfit.
They're interrupted by the elevator chiming a handful of floors too early.
The doors whisper open to reveal a young woman standing in the corridor. Probably here for the concert in the convention centre downstairs. Slade feeds the heat in his stomach plummet at the sight of her, replaced with frustration.
Definitely here for the concert, Slade mentally amends, feeling his jaw tighten. Slade can tell by the way her eyes go wide. A wave of frustration crests over him, tone curt as he says, "Mr Grayson is—”
“You're Nightingale!”
There's that smile on Dick's lips, the one he reserves for his fans. The one Slade hates.
Slade throws out an arm when she starts to cross the elevator floor, but Dick interrupts him, turning those black-rimmed blue eyes on her. “It's okay.” That smile dials up a degree. “I love my fans.”
Slade's jaw ticks. He feels the muscle twinge, irritation flaring.
“Can I get your autograph?” she asks, hastily unfurling a poster and shoving it at Dick. She looks at him like he hung the moon, like she can't believe she's sharing an elevator with Nightingale. Slade knows the feeling.
Dick’s smile is accommodating as he takes a corner of the poster between thumb and forefinger. “Sure thing. Anything for a fan. Have you got a pen?”
Her excitement dims a bit, as she starts to pat herself down for one. Dick turns to look up at Slade, batting those inhumanely long lashes.
“Can I borrow a pen, Mr Wilson?” he asks, and this smile, this one's only for him. It's only for this reason Slade reaches into his suit’s inner pocket to unearth a marker.
Slade lets his gaze wander away from her adoring expression, seeking a distraction out the glass window of the elevator. The city is laid out beneath then, Gotham twinkling amidst the fog of threatened rain. Across the road, an electronic billboard flickers to a new advertisement, Nightingale's face filling the screen to announce a new line of luxury perfumes.
Slade lets his gaze trace the features of his face, searching for a hint of Dick beneath the dazzling smile and airbrushed cheekbones.
“You’re a gem,” Dick tells him, taking the marker Slade offers with a showman's flourish.
Slade tries not to let that sultry tone seep under his skin. It’s an uncomfortable reminder of the mask, of the shadow of Nightingale that hangs over their relationship. The persona that Dick can never seem to shake, no matter how much distance they put between themselves and his stage. Slade’s learnt to share himself with a ghost, but it doesn’t make seeing Dick like this any easier.
He distracts himself with holding open the protesting elevator door as Dick signs a pretty signature for her, sweeping up the line of his ‘T’ into a wing. Dick rolls the poster up when he’s done, handing it back into her adoring hands.
“See you at the next show,” Dick says with a wink. The young fan only just manages to contain her squeal, stepping back out of the elevator and back onto her floor.
Slade withdraws his arm a little too eagerly, taking up his parade rest as Nightingale’s security.
“Take care,” Dick says, as the doors slip closed on her dazed expression. The elevator silently grinds back into motion, carrying them upwards.
The silence is a physical thing, stifling, after her interruption. Dick shifts his weight against the bannister.
“Jealousy is a good look on you.”
Slade startles, glancing down at Dick’s smirk. His teeth are dug into his lower lip, like Dick's holding back laughter. “I'm not jealous.”
“Hmm, sure. Maybe I'll write it into my next song. The jilted lover, scared of a little competition.”
Slade's jaw tightens. “I thought we agreed you wouldn't sing about me.”
“We did,” Dick agrees, with a little nod, deflating slightly. “Can't blame a man for dreaming, though.”
“I'm not dating Nightingale.”
“So you've said,” Dick says, reaching up to tug a clip out of his perfectly gelled hair. It doesn't budge an inch, all those products keeping it in a perfectly coiffed wave. He turns the clip over on his fingers, needing the physical release as much as Slade.
The elevator chimes again, opening onto an empty corridor, and Slade is privately grateful that Dick's manager Wayne always insists on buying out the whole floor of suites.
It means he can let his guard down an inch after scanning the hallway, leading Dick towards the solitary room they’re occupying while Nightingale wraps up this leg of his North American tour. Dick’s outfit doesn’t allow for pockets, so Slade slips the keycard from his suit jacket and swipes into the room, holding the door wide for Dick to duck through.
Nightingale’s dressing room is a monolith of steel and mirrors. Sleek edges and vanity. Not like Dick at all. Slade's grown to despise the room, after all these concerts. He hates watching Dick go in, and Nightingale emerge.
It’s almost a relief to watch the perfect mask chip away, revealing more and more of Dick. Already the physical distance feels like too much, Slade’s skin tingling with their proximity in the dark, private room.
“Donna will be up soon,” Dick tells Slade, unearthing more clips and tossing them onto the counter. They go skittering across the surface in streaks of blue. “She'll help me get cleaned up and then—”
Slade grabs Dick's wrist, corralling him up against the nearest mirror. “And if I don't want to wait?”
Dick’s chest rises and falls with his next breath. His eyes stray to Slade's mouth and back up to his eye. “She'll be here in half an hour.”
“Plenty of time,” Slade growls.
“You want to fuck me here?” Dick asks, eyebrow arching. Slade has made his distaste for Nightingale’s dressing room known multiple times. “Looking like this?”
Slade usually has rules about when they do this. Never in public, obviously; they keep to their strict professional roles whenever there's a chance they could be in a paparazzi’s lens. Neither of them need the public scandal their relationship would cause.
But even when they're alone, Slade has made it clear he isn't interested in Nightingale. He understands Dick's job, and its demands on the young idol. But Nightingale is a persona, a mask that Slade isn't interested in romancing.
If he can't have the real Dick, he doesn't want a facsimile of him either. Slade knows that everyone fawns over Nightingale's charm and charity, but he knows they're missing out on the real prize beneath.
Slade would trade a thousand Nightingales for a night with Dick.
“Absolutely,” Slade growls, and leans in close so he can press lips to Dick's earlobe, teeth closing on the glittering black diamond stud there. “I get to ruin you looking like this.”
Dick shivers, hands fanning over Slade's flanks and hooking into the buttons of his dress shirt. “Will you? Please?”
Slade doesn’t need permission, but it’s damn good to hear the plea on Dick’s lips. So he starts with them, smearing Dick’s lipstick with his thumb. Dragging the digit across that plush mouth, grinning at the way Dick’s tongue darts out to taste his finger. The streak of blue looks good on him, looks messy. Looks imperfect, just how Slade likes him.
He chases it with his lips, until he can get them on Dick's mouth, until he can taste Dick on his tastebuds.
Dick moans, rutting against Slade's thigh. Sweat and glitter glisten on his skin when he wraps his arms around Slade's neck, using the leverage to grind on him.
“So needy,” Slade teases, pulling back for air. Dick's chest heaves above the neckline of his outfit, cheeks flushed as he pants. His eyes are dark and ravenous, drinking Slade down with each glance.
“Need you,” Dick confesses, so Slade splays a hand across his lower back and lifts him onto the vanity, slamming him against the mirror so hard it rattles on the wall.
Dick flashes a grin, ducking down to claim his mouth again. Slade inhales deeply, revelling in the scent of sweat and a musk that is only Dick's. It intoxicates him, makes him ravenous as he breaks away from Dick's mouth to kiss down his jawline.
“Only because you beg so pretty,” Slade replies, and cants his head to press lips to that long expanse of Dick’s throat.
“Careful,” Dick huffs, biting back a moan when Slade sucks a mark against his neck. “I don't have an infinite amount of concealer.”
The thought of his mark on Dick's neck, his claim bruised into Dick's skin, bleeding through his makeup, makes Slade dizzy. An entire stadium's eyes on Nightingale, and Slade's mark splayed over a thousand pixels on the concert widescreens. Tabloids buzzing with speculation, Slade's mark printed in glossy colour on every gossip rag that hounds Nightingale's every step.
He doesn't want to claim Nightingale though. Slade's mark isn't for the world. It's for Dick's eyes only.
The need to stake his claim overtakes Slade. His hand fists in the material of Dick's half-skirt, sequins slipping loose as he tears the split higher on Dick's thigh. A shower of glittering plastic rains to the tile between their feet, crushed under Slade's shoe.
Dick hisses, “Slade,” as he twists his fingers under the waistband of Dick's skintight shorts.
“Like you don't have a thousand other outfits to wear,” Slade sneers, fabric stretching over his knuckles as he fists Dick's cock.
Dick's toes curl in his boots, a curse tumbling from his lips. He looks so pretty, long dark lashes fluttering. The blue eyeshadow catches the light when he closes his eyes, sweat shining on his throat when he tips it open for Slade to mouth at.
Slade goes down to one knee between Dick's legs, running his thumb along the paler strip of skin exposed by his torn skirt. His hand doesn't stop moving around Dick's cock, and Slade hears Dick's head when it thuds back against the mirror glass, underscored by a needy whine.
He pushes Dick's thighs open wider, until he can fit his bulk between them. It's a stretch, even for someone as flexible as Dick, calves hooking over Slade's shoulders as he lowers his lips to the soft skin revealed.
Dick cries out when Slade sucks a hickey into his flesh, nipping with his teeth as he lays his claim. Those long fingers tunnel into Slade's hair, painted blue nails scratching over his scalp.
“A thousand different Nightingales,” Slade ruminates, fingers dancing over Dick’s perfectly tanned skin. Running down the fitness trainer-conditioned ridges of his stomach, the just-censored-enough-for-television vee of his hips. Revelling in the way that flesh trembles beneath Slade’s touch, singing just for him, “but only one you.”
Dick’s cock slicks easily, greedily, ready for Slade with barely more than a touch. He wonders what his adoring fans would think if they saw how eager Dick was for him. For his gruff, blunt bodyguard who couldn’t name a single one of Nightingale’s songs if he tried.
“All those lights on you— all those eyes on you, and I'm the only one who sees you.”
Head tipping back against the mirror, Dick groans, loud and long for him. Slade uses the distraction to hook his fingers in Dick’s shorts and tear them open.
His cock springs free, arching up towards his stomach as it’s freed amid the sequin shower. Dick’s legs jump up as soon as Slade tosses the material aside, arms wrapping around Slade’s shoulders and latching tight.
“Donna’s going to kill you for that,” he gasps, hips rabbiting up into Slade’s fist, chasing friction and connection.
“She can take it off my paycheck,” Slade retorts.
“Paychecks,” Dick corrects between whines, emphasising the plural. “That outfit was Versace.”
Slade just growls, lifting his large hand to cup Dick’s face. To stifle whatever part of him is still thinking about his concert, about his tour, about Nightingale. Right now, Slade wants to be his whole world. He demands it.
“I'd take you wearing nothing,” Slade tells him, thumb bruising his thigh.
Dick’s eyes blaze when they meet his. “Take me then.”
Slade’s never been shy about showing how much he loves Dick’s body, and using Dick’s body. It still stuns him a little, how someone with millions of fans like Nightingale can come undone just from Slade’s solitary attention.
He does though, unspooling in Slade’s hands as he fumbles in his pockets for the condoms he keeps on hand. Slade’s knuckles bump the marker as they unearth a foil packet, tearing it open with eager teeth.
Dick’s hands go to his belt without prompting, tearing the leather free and yanking his zipper down impatiently. His hands are hot on Slade’s skin, blue-painted fingernails marking lines on his stomach when Dick pulls his trousers down enough to free his cock.
Dick sits back to watch him work, breath hitching when Slade reaches down to roll the condom on. His legs part, almost subconsciously, to beckon Slade into the cradle of his hips.
Slade crowds him against the mirror, close enough to feel the flutter of Dick’s breath when he slips a lubed finger into him.
“Fuck, Slade,” Dick gasps, filthier than any lyric on his tongue. Perfectly, completely, Slade’s.
“Show me how you fall apart, little bird,” Slade murmurs, mouthing at Dick’s collarbone as he fucks the digit into Dick. It’s faster preparation than they’d usually take, but Slade can tell Dick’s as eager for Slade to be inside him as Slade is. “Get loud for me.”
Dick doesn’t disappoint. That wavering whine rises to a higher melody when Slade adds another finger, vocal chords straining with pleasure when Dick tips back his head and braces a hand against the mirror. His fingerprints smear on the glass, the imperfection of their coupling marked on the sleek surface.
It doesn’t take much for Skade to make Dick sing for him. His voice is a cresting crescendo, wavering around the notes as Slade adds another and adjusts his angle. All of Dick jumps with the new sensation.
“Slade!” Dick shouts, rutting up the mirror. It shrieks against his sweat-soaked skin, a musical accompaniment to their coupling.
Someone pounds on the door, and Slade buries his teeth in Dick’s exposed shoulder with a growl. Dick doesn’t even acknowledge them, fingers fisting in Slade’s hair as he gasps through every breath and screams for him.
They’re both too impatient to wait for a third, and Slade withdraws his fingers in the next moment, fisting his cock to line up with Dick’s eager hole. He knows Dick likes the stretch anyway, likes to feel Slade for a few days. An ache deep inside him, beneath the layers of outfits and makeup, throbbing quietly through the hours of rehearsals and sound tests.
Slade can’t deny he loves the reminder. The little flush that lights up Dick’s cheeks whenever he’s reminded of their last night together. The two of them sharing the moment amidst a crowd of production staff.
Something starts to buzz, far away and muffled. Dick whines, lips hot and swollen when Slade claims them. He kisses Dick as he presses in, eating up every gasp and sob that Dick gives him, until he’s settled inside him.
Dick’s nails bite into the back of Slade’s neck, goading him as those hips roll against his. It still amazes Slade, even now, how perfect Dick is for him.
So he gives him what he wants. Slade grips Dick’s hips with a vengeance, pulling out almost to the tip and slamming back home. Dick screams for him, nice and loud. Enough to wake the whole damn complex if they keep this up. Slade can’t get enough of the sound.
Dick's hand is braced against the mirror, giving him the leverage to meet every one of Slade's thrusts. He looks exquisite, muscle rolling over that finely tuned abdomen, legs clinging tight to Slade's waist. This is what Slade considers perfection; Dick at his rawest.
Dick desperate, squirming in his grip. Body meeting his greedily, clinging so tightly to him that Slade sees stars.
“Fuck,” Dick is babbling, incoherent, and Slade relishes the crass word on those pretty lips. He’s clinging to Slade, trembling as he crests his climax. “Fuck, Slade!”
It doesn’t take more than that. Dick comes with a bellow, seizing tight around Slade’s cock and yanking him over with him. Slade fucks him through it, rolling his hips between Dick’s as he groans long and loud.
He holds him close, fucking in long strokes until Dick is trembling around him, oversensitive and needy.
Slade pulls out reluctantly, extricating the condom to tie it off and toss it towards the nearest wastepaper bin he sees.
Dick lists back against the mirror, chest heaving in the confines of his too-tight shirt. Slade leans against him, smothering the smaller man with his body as they come down from the rush.
They breathe in tandem, sweat mingling between their bodies as their blood settles. Dick's heart thrums beneath Slade's ear, his tempo matched by Slade's own steady bass.
Slade’s phone rings in his pocket, the shrill default ringtone startling the pair of them into fumbling for his jacket. Dick gets his lithe fingers on it first, swiping into the call and lifting the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
With his forehead resting against Dick’s shoulder, Slade has a perfect audience to the shrill voice on the other end of the line. “I know you’re in your dressing room, hurry up and let me in.”
“Come back in ten,” Dick says breathlessly, a self-satisfied smile curling his lips. Slade huffs a quiet laugh, fingers splaying over Dick’s lower back.
“We don’t have ten. You’re being called up for a signing booth. Let me in so I can touch up your make-up,” Donna demands.
Slade’s completely wrapped around Dick’s body, so he feels when he stiffens. “Um,” he says into the phone.
Donna’s pause feels like an anvil hanging over their heads, until she breaks her judgemental silence with, “You cannot be serious.”
“Can you grab a new outfit for me?” Dick asks sheepishly, gaze sliding over the mess of sequins and glitter that is now his dressing room.
Slade thinks he catches an “Unbelievable!”, but tunes out the rest of Donna’s tirade to turn his head and suck a kiss against Dick’s neck.
Dick squirms, groaning, “Slade. Slade, stop! I don’t have any high-collared shirts left—”
“Wilson,” Donna growls through the receiver, “if you put a hickey on him, I will sic the paparazzi on you myself.”
Slade lifts his head to look at the lavender marks scattered across Dick’s collarbones and shoulder. Dick looks too, dismay tugging his handsome features into a grimace. He’s distracted enough that he doesn’t notice Slade’s grab for the phone until it’s already in his hands.
“Too late,” Slade tells her, ignoring Dick’s yelp of protest, and thumbs the end call icon before his ear drum can be ruptured by her response. Smirking up at Dick, he asks, “Want to go for an encore?”
