Free Outlier: Rebellion by Daryl Banner

…
    But something else invites him more.
    He pushes himself off the train a stop too early and has to walk the rest of the way, three blocks in. He reaches the destination at last, peers up at the tall, skinny building and squints. “The Noodle Shop.” That’s what the tattered sign says. Did Rone seriously invite him out for noodles in the middle of nowhere? He knows at least a dozen places closer to home they could’ve met, if a little bite was the idea on Rone’s mind.
    A world without a screaming King …
    Boldly opening the door, he finds just two occupants in the corner at a table eating soup, all the others empty. The slurps of broth and muted chatter is all he hears, and the aroma of the room is, regrettably, appetizing. He moves over the creaky linoleum floor, considers whether he should put his quaking stomach at ease and order a bowl when he notices Rone’s sister at the smoky bar.
    “Hey.” Wick comes up to her side. “Is Rone…?”
    “This way,” she murmurs, the first words Wick’s ever heard her say. With a healthy bit of reluctance, he follows her into a passage behind the counter and up two staircases cuddled by slanted wooden walls.
    At the top, it opens up without a door to a large, cluttered landing. Everything is draped in scarfs, colored handkerchiefs, frayed tablecloths … Beads and charms and odd ornaments dangle from rafters in the ceiling, chains are secured along one of the walls, weapon racks and armor racks set beneath them. Large dusty tapestries seem to casually divide the back half of the room into several odd areas without apparent purpose. The air is thick and musky, the temperature like a sweaty hug.
    There’s an echoing laughter from the end of the room somehow familiar and unfamiliar to Wick. Slowly edging across the landing, he finds the source behind a purple tapestry.
    Rone? Is that you? The words stick like honey in his mouth, for there’s a shirtless boy with a distractingly toned bronze body strewn across a litter of pillows on the floor. His arms flex as he grips the head of a long-legged woman with thick blonde curls of hair that dance with her every movement. Her movements being: a steady rise and fall of her tall head, up and down, at his hips. He lifts slightly, abs crunched up, and lets out a quivering moan like a shiver, and then he starts to laugh, throwing back his head. It smacks the floor and he hardly notices, still giggling, and when his eyes open, they’re wild and wet and searching for her—he flexes his arms again in the effort of bringing her face up from his cock. Her half-shut, wide-apart eyes, decorated with electric blue powder on the eyelids, flit to the side, spotting Wick.
    Her own giggling is silenced at once. “Who’s this?” she asks, annoyed.
    Rone seems mesmerized by her neck, ignoring the question and staring the way a child watches a rainbow. Then he looks over suddenly, noticing Wick, his eyes alight like sapphire torches in the bronze sea of his face.
    “Sorry,” Wick mumbles, averting his gaze.
    Rone smiles and says, “Wanna join in?” He laughs and runs a lazy hand down the woman’s face, which inspires an annoyed huff from her. The woman is dressed scantily and she wears a tight, permanent frown. “She’s very kind. And she’s—what’s the word?— giving.”
    “N-No, thanks.” What the hell has Rone invited him here for? Some sort of prostitution thing? Getting head from some slum woman with blue eye shadow?
    “Oh.” A thought seems to cross Rone’s face. “Oh. I didn’t realize … Well, hey.” He stretches his abs, runs another lazy hand down them, grinning. “You can have a lick then, if you want. Guys don’t really do it for me, but I’m havin’ so much fun, can’t deny my buddy when I’m—Oh, or did you want—?” He grabs his cock, gives it a wiggle and lifts a brow. “Yeah? No?”
    Somewhere between Rone’s first word and his last, Wick’s rate of breathing has tripled. He finds his eyes