rivers_bend

Title: Taste the Rainbow
Pairing: Darren Criss/Brendon Urie (AU)
Words: 1100
Rating: Teen
The Obvious: I do not know any of the people whose public personas are used here, and neither believe nor mean to imply that this actually happened.
A/N: This is for miss_begonia. It's her fault Brendon is in SF, and her idea, but the plot bunny hit me like a ton of bricks, and ran away with me. However, she's lovely and seems to have forgiven me for writing it before she even got a chance to wonder if she wanted to. At least I hope she has. (for day 9 of mmom)
Summary: Darren Criss has said multiple times that he didn't spend his formative years doing body shots off hot guys in the Castro. But what if he had?



Darren is-- well. Chazz said, Absolutely fucking off your tits, man!, but Darren's wearing this new hemp and bamboo t-shirt and it feels kind of amazing on his nipples, and he can't stop touching them, so 'off his tits' is inaccurate at best and at worst is-- Hooooly fuck who the hell is that on the bar?

"Who the hell is that on the bar?" he yells over the thumping music into Chazz's ear.

Chazz's head swivels around like a really swivelly thing until his gaze lands on the bartender. "Jacob!" he shouts back.

Darren takes him by both cheeks and turns his head another couple inches until he's facing the right way. "Not the guy tending bar, the guy actually on it!"

Chazz's head has definitely ceased swivelling. His mouth is hanging open, and his tongue is, yep, Darren would for sure call that lolling. There may be drool. Not that Darren can blame him. He wants to get all up on that, and he's not even all that gay. Chazz is as gay as a May pole. As hard as one too, if the glazed look in his eyes is anything to go by.

"I have absolutely no fucking clue, but it's definitely time for body shots," Chazz says.

Darren isn't exactly sure how body shots etiquette in Stud works. Like is this guy working? Or is the dude currently licking hot guy's chest, pouring salt on him, and, woah, okay, drinking tequila out of his belly button, his boyfriend? He's about to ask Chazz when he realizes that Chazz has just exchanged money with the non-Jacob bartender for a shaker of salt.

That answers that.

Darren isn't going to watch, because he's known Chazz forever, and he doesn't really want to see him drooling on the body-shots guy, even if the body-shots guy has big eyes and pouty lips and is somehow tiny and long and lean all at the same time. But then body-shots guy does this thing--this impossible amazing thing--and Darren has to watch.

Chazz is tall. Like, not Michael Jordan or anything, but many inches taller than Darren, and quite a few taller than the last customer. Tall enough that he'd have to bend over a fair ways to do his shot, except the guy on the bar has somehow arched up on his shoulders and his feet--his bare feet, painted toenails, Darren has no idea why that's doing it for him, but it so is--and his stomach is still all flat and good for pouring booze into, and there's this line at the edge of his ribs that is pretty much made to be a salt lick, and Darren is not the kind of guy who spends his weekends doing body shots off pretty boys in the Castro, he's just not, but he is maybe probably definitely going to have to make an exception tonight.

He's still standing, feet rooted to the floor, when Chazz comes back. "His name is Brendon," he says. "He tastes like rainbows."

"Skittles?" Darren asks, because Chazz is also off his tits, but that's pretty much situation normal for him, and he usually still makes sense.

But, "No. Actual rainbows. And salt."

Darren pats his pockets, finds the roll of fives and ones from his piano tip jar; it still feels thick enough to get him a body shot. "Be right back," he says.

Chazz makes a V with his first and second fingers, lifts it to his mouth, and waggles his tongue. Darren flips him off and heads to the bar.

"Brendon," Brendon says in Darren's direction when the guy ahead of him is done. "Twenty five."

"You're twenty five?" Darren asks. He barely looks eighteen, but Darren figures he's probably twenty-one if he's working here. Though maybe he just has a really good fake. No way he's twenty-five, though.

"Twenty-five dollars," the bartender says, sounding bored. How you can sound bored when you're getting paid to pour tequila over Brendon's abs, Darren cannot imagine, but different strokes and all that. Darren scrabbles through the roll from his pocket and peels off the right bills.

Brendon doesn't need to do his amazing table stand trick for Darren, but he's still got his feet planted and his knees bent, which lifts the low-riding waistband of his jeans a little. It's dark enough that Darren can't see anything more than shadows, but they are tantalizing shadows, and wow. He's really doing this.

"Salt, sip, suck," Brendon says, and Darren is already sprinkling salt just below Brendon's sternum when he notices that Brendon is putting a lime wedge plucked from the bowl next to his head between his teeth.

"Um," Darren says. He didn't notice the other guys sucking lime right out of Brendon's mouth.

Brendon doesn't try to speak from behind his citrus gag, though. He just winks and lifts his chest a little, like, Come on, we doing this thing?

Darren has no idea what rainbows taste like. Brendon tastes like salt, and tequila, and lime juice. It's a heady combination. Darren's pretty sure if rainbows did taste like that, no one would have bothered coming up with that pot of gold stuff. Who needs gold when you've got body shots?

"That's what I always say," Brendon says.

Darren did not mean to say any of that out loud. He really hopes it was only the gold part. He doesn't get to ask, because someone else is already there ponying up his twenty-five bucks, and he's being pushed back toward Chazz.

"Taste the rainbow!" Chazz shouts in his face, and he hooks an arm around Darren's neck, and they're out on the dance floor, Brendon out of view.

Two nights later, Darren's playing piano at the Hyatt for tips, when a familiar looking guy comes up and slips a ten in his jar. Darren's trying to place him and not lose his place in Old Man River, when the guy stretches back, his arms over his head, and his shirt lifts up, showing Darren a sliver of belly. A sliver of belly he's licked tequila off. Brendon looks different with his shirt on. Still really hot, though. Darren's sure he's going to lose him, but Brendon sits down in one of the little chairs in the lobby, smile on his face, watches him play.

Two more songs and Darren can take a break. Maybe this time Brendon will let Darren buy him a drink.