Gabe didn't know what to expect as he stepped into the elevator from the hotel lobby.

The whole SUV ride from the stadium to the hotel had been silent. Harley hadn't said a word to him since they'd left and hadn't spared him a single glance the whole way.

Gabe hadn't been to the hotel the band was currently staying at. It had a high rating, as the band wouldn't stay there if it didn't, and the lobby clerk greeted Harley as they entered the building.

The drummer continued on with acknowledging the staff member. Gabe rolled his eyes.

The elevator ride was without sound and they stepped off on the top landing where the hallway lead to the hotel's classiest suites. Harley opened the last door with a key card and stepped inside. Making his way over to the armchair by the window, he sat down and flipped open a notebook on his lap.

Gabe postured in the doorway. Silence had never been something he loathed, but it was getting to the point where it was causing his anger to skyrocket. He stared, almost in disbelief, as the other man made no move to acknowledge his presence.

In the solitude that followed, Gabe sunk into the rare and fleeting moment of Harley Stone's personal life.

Part of him loathed being there, and another part couldn't believe he was. From all the stories told about Harley, none seemed to match whatever Gabe had been given in this rare moment.

Gabe didn't know what to expect from the mysterious personal life of the band's drummer, but it certainly wasn't what stood before him.

Tyler and Nate's rooms were always messy, a testament to their youth and all the activities involved in such a lifestyle. Clothes and various objects would be strewn throughout their rooms, their beds unkept and the entire place wreaking of alcohol and the remnants of high-class marijuana. It was the standard canvas painted with rock and roll.

Austin was a little better. Being the oldest, his room was generally much kinder on the eyes as he sympathised with the hotel staff and cleaned up his drug-fuelled after parties with a warm smile. A few extra tips would have all traces of rockstar gone in the morning.

But this, this was something different.

Harley's room was, without a doubt, spotless. The bed was made without a single crease, either the handiwork of a skilled maid or perhaps Harley really was a vampire that never slept, as one rumour so adamantly theorised.

It was as though everything stood still and time ended beyond the door to the suite. Crisp with sharp lamp light, the room was illuminated in a golden hue that shadowed the majority of vulnerability one would expect to have in a single hotel room.

Still, Gabe couldn't help but wonder. On the floor beside the bed was a small black suitcase, zipped tightly closed. The nightstand was empty and the door to the adjoining bathroom was shut. It was as though there was no breath of life in the room.

Above all, there was not a single personal possession in sight. Other than the notebook balanced on Harley's lap, the room could have been mistaken for a hospital room, cold and unwelcoming. Gabe was half convinced that Harley was extra-terrestrial.

He breathed in the sound of dark serenity. No one should live like this. More specifically, no member of The Seventh Affliction should live like this. It was uncanny, and Gabe didn't like how it changed his perspective. It was though the room was challenging him, daring him to the confinements of curiosity that he despised with a passion. It was unsettling.

Beyond the armchair in which Harley sat, the bright city lights glowed in the night. It shone through the room, casting the two boys in a technicolour of light. It looked beautiful, but Gabe had no time nor care for beauty.

The small click of a pen sounded as Harley wrote something down in the notebook, completely focused on the task at hand. Gabe watched as he leaned against the doorway in staged frustration. With each minute of silence, his frustration grew. When ten minutes had passed, he cracked.

"If you're not going to acknowledge my presence, what the fuck am I doing here?"

Harley didn't look up. "I thought you liked being invisible."

Gabe tried not to bristle. "You told Tyler to fuck off so you can have me and than you spend the night note-taking like some fifth grader? What am I here for?"

"What exactly did you think would be going on here?"

The question stumped Gabe, though he tried not to show it. The truth was, he didn't know what to expect. At all. Anyone who ever spent the night with Harley was sealed with a kiss. No word ever escaped about what Harley did with his hookups and they would turn their noses up and walk away if you ever asked.

Gabe told the drummer as such. "I don't know what I'm doing here then." he said truthfully.

Harley finally looked up. "What do you want to do?"

"I don't understand."

"I'm sure you've heard the rumours." Harley said.

"I don't-"

"Don't lie." he snapped, closing the notebook quickly and tossing it aside. Harley stood. "People talk. I know you've heard it."

Gabe swallowed quickly. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"What do you think of me, Gabe?" Harley stepped closer.

"I don't think anything of you."

"Yes, you do." A step closer. "Everyone does, and that includes you. People talk, people think. I want to know your opinion."

"I don't know you." Gabe said with a tinge of heat. "All I know is that you lurk around under dark stages and seem to like bothering me with your mind games. I don't-"

"Is there anything else?" Harley asked, eyes narrowing. "Is that what I am to you?"

"You're not anything to me," Gabe reminded him. "We're not friends."

"Couldn't we be?"

Gabe stared, confusion slowly enveloping the anger. "What is it that you want from me?"

"People talk. What do they say?" Harley repeated, a step closer.

"I should go-"

"Running away? You're good at that, aren't you?"

Gabe's fists curled at his sides and he held his ground with a stance that matched Harley's. He would have to figure out later how Harley had that piece of information. Right now, he worked on slowing his heartbeat.

"Why does it matter what they say? It's none of my business."

"But you care."

"And you got that impression how?"

"You wouldn't be here if you didn't."

"I didn't have a choice."

"You always have a choice. Would you have chosen Tyler?"

"As opposed to you? You're not giving me anything worth choosing you over."

"Everyone talks," Harley said, standing in front of the roadie. "What do they say, Gabe?"

"Why does it matter?"

"I want to know why you got in that car with me."

"I didn't have a choice-"

"Of course you had a choice!" Harley replied loudly. "What did you expect this to be?"

"They talk!" Gabe yelled, matching Harley's animosity with his own fiery anger. "They say you're the best there is. You're a god in bed. You're the most passionate, the most heated, the most chaotic. You've always been better then the others. You're an addiction. Everyone wants the chance to have just one night with you! You're Harley Stone!"

Harley's face was stony. "But you don't. Why?"

"Because I don't give a shit about you."

"Why did you come here, Gabe?"

"I get paid to fuck you." Gabe seethed. "That's all this is and right now, your wasting my time and my money."

He moved to leave. Harley said, "Stay."

Gabe turned, fire in his eyes. "Fuck you."

"Walk out that door and you'll never have the chance again."

"Chance for what? You've already made it clear this isn't the conventional hookup."

Harley backed down. "The chance for answers."

"My god," Gabe muttered before turning to meet Harley's gaze full on. "What don't you get about this? I don't give a fuck about your life! I don't want your answers!"

"Is that why you keep asking questions?"

Gabe frowned. "How did you-"

"I have loyalty in all corners of this darkened place, Gabe." Harley replied coolly.

"How poetic."

"You've been asking about me."

"Only because you keep being an enigmatic asshole! It's getting real old, by the way."

"You're curious."

Gabe scoffed.

"If I were Tyler, you would've been naked and high right now. Don't you want to know the difference?"

"Is it your money or your ego that makes you think people are obsessed with you?"

Harley glared at him, unimpressed.

"If you were Tyler," Gabe said with a scowl. "Or any of them, you would just be another pay check. Right now, you're lost profit."

"Is money all you care about?"

"I don't care about anything."

"How exhausting is it to keep telling yourself the same lie everyday?"

"Not as exhausting as the emotional whiplash I'm getting from this conversation." Gabe snorted.

The heat died off then. Harley took a step back, returning to the armchair beside the window. He gestured to the chair opposite him.

"Fuck off." Gabe said.

Without a word, Harley picked up his notebook again and began writing.

Gabe knew he was baiting him. It was so easy to walk out the door and never look back. So easy to pretend this never happened. Gabe could easily continue his life without ever needing to know anything from Harley. It was the way he preferred it.

But Gabe wasn't himself tonight. It was the only explanation he could come up with that justified why he hadn't already turned and run. If he did, he would only be proving Harley right and they both knew it.

Nothing had changed. Ever since beginning this little game of their's, Gabe still didn't care in the slightest about Harley Stone. He'd heard rumours, of course, but he never paid them any mind. Still, part of him was hungering to ask. Curiousity was a human flaw, and Gabe could only be a monster in the flesh.

He knew Harley was waiting for him, which is why he was seething when he stalked across the room and plopped down stubbornly in the chair opposite him. Harley's gaze flicked up, unimpressed.

"You took your time. Are you ready to have a civil conversation now?"

"You manipulated me." Gabe seethed.

"Yes, because you're easy to manipulate."

Gabe went to stand again, regretting every decision he'd made since leaving the stadium, but Harley's sigh stopped him.

"I apologise." Harley said with a gentler tone. "That was out of line."

Gabe slowly sat back down, suspicion running through his veins. He knew it when the corner of Harley's mouth curled into a smirk.

"You're a fucking asshole." Gabe spat.

Harley dismissed him with a wave of his hand. "No time for pleasantries. There are more important matters to attend to."

"Like why you're a dickhead?"

"Good start, but we both know that's not the question you want to ask."

"You don't know shit about me."

"So enlighten me."

"I thought this whole shitfest was about you. That's what you wanted isn't it?"

Harley scowled. "Excuse me?"

"This," Gabe gestured between them. "The whole reason I'm here is apparently to get to know you, right? Well, I don't get it. I'm not here to fucking chat like a couple of nine-year olds at a slumber party. I'm here to do my job or I'm leaving."

Harley cocked his head. "Do you even like sex?"

Gabe's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"You're right. You get paid to be an on-the-road hookup, but do you actually like sex?"

"I could have better options but everyone likes sex."

"I don't."

That threw Gabe. Questions flooded his mind before he could stop them and he asked, "What?"

"I don't like sex." Harley repeated.

Gabe's mouth opened and closed like a fish as his brow furrowed. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. "So, when you have boys up here..."

Harley shook his head. "No."

"And you just...?"

He nodded. "Talk. Yes."

Gabe leaned back against the chair at Harley's revelation. He still didn't care, but he also didn't understand.

"What are you paying for, then?" he asked.

"The roadies aren't for me. They're for them."

Gabe knew what he meant. Tyler, Nate and even Austin to some degree were incapable of abstinence. Lust fuelled their desires which in turn controlled their actions. Going without sex would be like going without oxygen for them. It was an itch that constantly needed to be scratched.

So why wasn't Harley the same?

"I can see it on your face," Harley said across from him. "You want to ask but you don't want to seem like you care."

"I don't care."

"You can tell yourself that all you want. At some point it's bound to get exhausting."

"Every time I ask you always give vague, enigmatic answers." Gabe said. "I still don't understand what you want from me."

"I told you, you're interesting."

"Compared to the rest of the boys?"

"They all have the same stories. Yours is different."

Something must've slipped through Gabe's mask because Harley said, "I haven't asked Mark for anything. I'd much rather figure you out on my own. And in turn, you can do the same to me."

"Because I'm just jumping at the chance to get to know you."

"I think we can help each other."

"There's nothing I want from you."

"Carter Knowles."

***

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