Neon is the Colour of Vengeance (Flappers and False Gods)

THE WANT

Some six weeks after they first met, Evan found himself sitting on the floor of Hugo's living room, a bowl of homemade tortellini in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. It had become something of a routine. He spent his days researching his uncle’s murder, though his efforts were yet to yield results, and his nights in Hugo’s company.

Hugo, as it turned out, was warm and funny. He was an excellent listener and an even better cook. It was becoming all too easy to forget that he was a dangerous man with blood-steeped hands, but with every blush, every near touch, every shared glance, Evan did forget.

There had been no more kisses, drunken or otherwise, no near misses, and much to Evan’s growing irritation, nothing that gave him any sign that Hugo intended anything different.

He was still focussed on his mission, every fibre of his being was desperate to find out what had happened to his uncle, but bubbling underneath was a fire he couldn’t quell. He wanted Hugo, and he was going to have him.

“This is good,” Evan said through a mouthful of pasta.

“You say that every night,” Hugo said with a chuckle from where he sat stretched out next to Evan.

“I mean it every night.”

“I have a couple of…errands to run tomorrow, but once I’m finished, I think I know where to look for our next lead.”

“Where?”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow—I don’t want to ruin our evening.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence as they finished their food and supped at the wine. Evan watched lazily as Hugo read over the leads they had followed so far and made notes on a holographic whiteboard that floated next to him in mid-air projected by his Index.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Hugo didn’t look up for the report he was reading.

“About your past.”

“Can I change my answer to yes, with an option to plead the fifth?”

“You know all about my life, I’ve told you everything. I don’t know much about your past.”

“What do you wanna know?” Hugo tapped the small implant on his wrist. The reports and the whiteboard vanished, leaving the flickering flames in the fireplace as the only illumination. The newfound gloom was mirrored in Hugo’s expression.

“Maybe you could do me a favour while we talk? Do you have any hair clippers?”

Evan’s usually immaculate hair had grown out in the time he’d been with Hugo, and it was starting to look shaggy. He didn’t like it.

“I’m sure I got some as a Christmas gift. They’re probably in your bathroom.”

“Feel like giving me a trim?”

“If you value your looks—I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I just want it one length all over, even you can manage that.”

“Nice,” Hugo said sarcastically, but he was smiling.

With the air of kids on a first date they made their way into the guest bathroom that had become Evan’s. Hugo ducked under the sink and came back with a pair of clippers. They looked like they’d never been used.

“Gimme a second.” Hugo left the room, coming back a moment later with a chair from the kitchen. “Sit.”

Evan did as he was told. Hugo picked up the clippers and stood close behind him, visibly nervous. Evan watched him in the mirror with a smile. It was nice to see someone who was usually so composed seem so out of his element.

“Last chance to back out.” Hugo was deadly serious.

“I’ll risk it.” Evan laughed.

Hugo screwed up his face as he pressed the clippers gently to the back of Evan’s head. He lifted them up slowly as a rain of coiled dark hair fell on to Evan’s shoulders.

“Okay, now I have you good and distracted…Let’s start with the easy stuff. Tell me about your last boyfriend.” In truth Evan just wanted to check that Hugo was unattached. He’d seen no evidence to the contrary, but if he was going to act on his desires, he wanted to be sure.

“I’ve never had one.” Hugo didn’t look up, intent as he was on his task.

“Have you seen you? You aren’t celibate, right?”

“No, I’m not celibate.” Hugo laughed. “This life doesn’t lend itself to dating.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hi, I’m Hugo. What do you do? Oh, you work in marketing, that sounds interesting. What do I do? Oh, I kill people for money…Turns most people off.”

Evan watched Hugo’s expression as he carefully performed the intimate task. He was finding it hard to look away.

“What about someone who does what you do?”

“Dating implies trust. When blood is money, there isn’t a lot of that going around.”

“That must be lonely.”

“What else do you want to know?” Hugo asked, brushing the comment aside as he brought the clippers carefully around Evan’s left ear.

“Everything. How did you end up with Samuel? How did you meet Rishaan? How did you become…what you are?”

“That’s a complicated story,” Hugo said slowly.

“I want to know you, like you know me. You’ve heard my sob story a few times over now.”

“You want the biography, huh?” Hugo sighed and Evan nodded.

“Don’t move your head.”

“Sorry.” Evan couldn’t help but smile at the peevish expression on Hugo’s face.

“It’s not all sunshine—my past.”

Evan didn’t say anything, he just waited patiently. He desperately wanted to know Hugo, really know him, but he wasn’t going to pressure him into sharing if he didn’t want to.

“My dad left before I could walk,” Hugo said eventually, resuming his barber impression. “I don’t remember him. My mom was kind and loving, I think. She got sick when I was about two. Cancer. She fought hard, and long, but…it took her anyway. I was six.”

Evan watched Hugo carefully, but his younger years seemed to him no different than if he were discussing the weather. He appeared far more interested in Evan’s hair.

“She had set up a fund for me, or so she thought. The people at the hospital were supposed to set me up with care takers and things—they didn’t. They kept me, clothed me, fed me for about six months, then I guess the money ran out.” He shrugged. “I remember this really old woman, sitting me down and telling me that they could put me into foster care, but with how broken the system is in this city, I’d be better off on my own. She packed me a bag, gave me a sandwich and some snacks, and that was it. I was out on the street.” Hugo shrugged again.

“That’s awful. You were just a kid.”

“I learned pretty fast, where to sleep, what places to avoid, where you could steal food or dumpster dive, and not to accept candy from strange men offering a warm bed to sleep in.”

“Hugo…?”

Hugo met Evan’s eyes in the mirror over the sink and shook his head with a slight smile that told Evan he was not going to discuss that any further.

“I met Rishaan maybe eight months after I was on the street. He was the first person to be kind to me. He tried so hard to help me, but I was just a kid. I was scared and those first few months had been hard. I couldn’t let myself trust him. I would go to him and then it would seem too good to be true after a while, so I’d leave. I was so convinced he would hurt me or that he wanted something from me that I didn’t want to give him. I know now none of that was true. He’s the kindest person I have ever met, and my life would probably be very different if I had gone with him, but it didn’t work out that way.” He shrugged for a third time.

“Do you wish you had gone with him?” Evan asked gently.

“I know my life must seem distasteful to you, but no. Sam has been a great father to me.”

“How come you trusted him and not Rishaan?”

“He offered me something Rishaan didn’t. I was a small kid, I was malnourished. Other kids would beat me up, steal my food, my clothes, try to get me to do things. I learned what it was to be humiliated, to feel small, long before I knew what it was like to be loved.” Try as he might, Evan couldn’t imagine a weak and defenceless Hugo, it was the antithesis of what he was now. “Sam didn’t offer me hugs and a home like Rishaan—well he did, but what he really offered me was power and safety. He told me that he could make it so I could take care of myself. He would teach me to be stronger than anyone else. More capable. He told me that people would avert their eyes in fear when they saw me if I went with him. I was tired of being scared and to a kid that had been kicked down a few too many times it sounded like heaven.”

“Was it?”

Hugo’s lips curved into a bittersweet smile. “Growing up in the mob was never going to be sunshine and roses, but since I met Sam, I have never wanted for anything. He loves me, he cares for me, and he raised me. If I have to get my hands dirty to protect the house he built, so be it.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I have to; I wouldn’t be able to do what I do if I didn’t. Sam and the family, it’s bigger than me, you know?”

Hugo gave Evan’s scalp a final pass with the clippers to make sure it was uniform then set them aside. Evan ran his hand over his freshly cut hair and grinned.

“Is the interrogation over?” Hugo asked, brushing hair from Evan’s shoulders onto the floor.

“How old were you when you realised he was a mobster, or did you always know?”

“Nine.”

“How old where you when he asked you to kill for the first time?”

“Nine.”

“Jesus, Hugo…”

“Have you heard enough? I don’t need you looking at me like that.” Hugo drew his eyebrows together in a frown.

“It’s not pity?—”

“Then drop it. Ask me something else.”

Evan thought for a moment, there were so many things he wanted to know but was afraid to ask.

“How did you get those scars on your back?”

Something dark passed over Hugo’s face and Evan knew he had pushed him too far. Evan couldn’t quite explain to himself why he wanted to know that particular thing. Perhaps it would confirm his beliefs about Hugo’s childhood in a way Hugo’s sugar-coated retellings never could.

“Maybe we should call it a night.”

It was with regret that Evan watched Hugo make his way to his bedroom and close the door. He had hoped that encouraging Hugo to share would have brought them closer together, but it seemed to have had the opposite effect.