Alphabet City Everybody who comes to New York City has a dream. What is yours?

He shook his head against the pillow, then took a deep breath, letting his eyes finally settle closed. "Closet. My mom always had to check the closet before I'd go to sleep." That was years before, when he was very small, probably just barely verbal, for the first year or so after they mov...

In some form, the remark hurt, though he knew there was no reason for it. He wasn't a child, but there he was, more dependent on her by the day, afraid and sad and clingy under his usual cool exterior, and so he just nodded, breathing out. "Check the closet. That's where they hide," he rem...

"I am." He was always tired, there was no reason to deny that, or to deny how he felt stretched out across her warm bed with her petting. He was aware he was dressed and it wasn't all that late, but there it was: he'd become even more boring than he'd been before the cancer came back.

"Fair enough." He had no real ideas, himself, as Ryder and vacation were words that were rarely used in the same sentence. He couldn't actually remember the last time he left the city without a destination that wasn't for work. He wasn't sure how he'd take to not only being photographed bu...

"Works." He had a shoot on Friday, but most weekends he spent working downstairs or, increasingly, napping entirely too much. He'd been hoping the exhaustion would let up over the course of the treatment, when his body adjusted, but it only really seemed to get incrementally worse. "W...

"Pick the date, kitten." He'd promise her anything, and he wondered if she knew that, if she knew that he'd follow her to the ends of the earth now. It wasn't in his character, maybe, to be so stupidly entranced, to be so easily and totally bowled over, but it was there and it was because ...

"I am," he agreed, without hesitation. He couldn't help it: he was hers, fully and completely, and though he'd essentially given her permission to fuck other people and really want it, and like it, that didn't change how he felt about her, or about them.

Another grumble, but he was smiling. They were oddly in tune with one another in conversation, once they stopped trying to block and guard all the time, and he was dumbly sleepy and happy with her curled around him. She had an intoxicating voice, that accent that was mostly impossible to place, and ...

"Like a very cute dog or a pair of shoes," he decided, actually entertained by teasing her, though he didn't believe any of it. He didn't believe in objectification in that regard, either, and she knew it, which is why this discussion was based in such ridiculousness. "You'll put a bo...

"You drive a hard bargain. What's in it for me?" he countered, frowning but it wasn't much of a frown; when one started losing facial hair, too, every expression was more innocent, like a baby's. "You're getting the photos, getting the poses and the clothes. Where am I in this? Are yo...

Another sigh, but more like a dog giving in to being petted. "Fine," he said, squinting at her, cheek pressed to one of her innumerable pillows. "I'll do it. But no nudies. You know that will just get the art world fired up." Good God, that sounded like a horrible nightmare, and ...

"When are you planning this little vacation?" he asked, mouth quirking up in a smile, unable to resist, even as he hated the thought of her looking through a camera at him-- there was an inherit vulnerability the instant you were seen through a lens, and he didn't much want the weakness th...

Ryder heaved a sigh. "I love you," he replied, helplessly, because he'd always be helpless at that face. Ryder had never really loved someone, he didn't think-- at the very least, not like this, not where even with his preparations and planning that was generally oddly soothing didn't do a...

Of course his immediate reaction would be to say no. He didn't like being in front of the camera, ever, and particularly like this. There were maybe a handful of photos from when he was ill the first time, and possibly just a few dozen after he was grown and stopped being actually famous. But how wo...

"And I'm neither." He almost pointed out he also wasn't dead, as they were, but it was probably a better idea to keep his mouth shut on the mortality thing. "I don't even sing in the shower. It's painful for everyone involved." He dropped down on his side just next to her and the...

"I'm not singing Rick James," he chided her, bending to kiss her before pushing her back on the bed. He still had interest, and still had a mouth, just the drive and dick were in the shop. Besides, she was soft and rather irresistible anyway, and holding her made any and everything slightl...

It didn't bother him that she was defaulting to something comfortable, even as he knew she was doing it-- he did the same thing, and was doing it now, letting her take over with her cute little voice and grabby hands. They were making inroads on this communication thing, so they couldn't possibly ex...

"I'm terrible at card games," he protested, sighing. He breathed in, however, at her room; he liked it much more than he let on-- his own place was far more modern, starker, but hers was like her: bursting with her personality, bright and sweet-smelling. He supposed his own house was like ...

"Yup. Same bat time, same bat channel." He only had another couple weeks left, then a respite before checking his levels to see if the treatment had done its job. He wasn't sure how to feel about that, actually, as he could map his days and weeks by the therapies, and always felt at loose ...

He nodded without a response. He didn't quite know if she meant to sleep or to try something, to find whatever connection she was scared of losing, but, either way, he wanted to be there with her. They never planned these overnights, and so he'd come unprepared, but knew she had a few of his shirts ...