"Wow, Sarutobi-Sensei...You're a perv." ~Little!Jiraiya

If you haven't read the previous chapters, they are available here.

WARNING!!!! Reading this story may cause you to spontaneously burst into flames and spend the rest of eternity being sodomized by Satan. Just thought you’d want to know that.

The Boys of the Gallery
Chapter Three: Vampires, Albinos, and Mexicans! Oh, My!

The car pulled up in front of a decrepit old house that had been divided into apartments. Dash and Ganymede rang the bell and waited. Almost an eternity later, a very young man with obviously dyed black hair swung the door open and stared at them through eyes lined with a gratuitous amount of wet-looking black makeup.
“May I help you?” he asked in a miserable monotone common only to the pathetic little goths that Dash used to throw lit firecrackers at.
Dash looked the boy up and down confusedly. “Does Sang live here?”
He nodded slowly, but didn’t invite them in. “What is your name?”
“What are you, his fuckin’ butler or something? Either let me in or tell him to come talk to me himself!”
The boy’s eyes narrowed as he studied Dash. “Dash Sanam?”
“Do I know you?”
He looked hurt. “Dash, I know that I have changed, but I hope that my transformation has not so seriously altered me. Do you not remember Hyacinth?”
“You...? That’s you? Really?”
“Not anymore. I know that I was never allowed to tell you, but my real name is Marcel Murray. Please come in. Sang will want to see you. Who is your - um...your companion?”
“That’s Ganymede,” Dash said, pointing over his shoulder at him. “He was one of Steve’s boys, but -- well, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you and Sang at the same time.”
They made their way up the stairs into the living room of a very bare apartment. There was a man with scruffy white hair and skin paler than Murray’s sitting on the couch. His almond-shaped eyes where tilted sharply like a cat’s, their pale pink irises moving rapidly back and forth over a worn paper-back.
“Sang,” Murray announced in his grave drone, “we have guests. I‘ll make drinks.”
“Nothing with blood in it,” Sang said, seemingly automatically. He shook his head as if to clear it, and then stared up at Dash and Ganymede. “Sanam,” he purred, the ghost of a smile creeping over his lips. He pushed himself up off of the couch and threw his arms around Dash’s shoulders.
“Devereux,” Dash shot back, grinning. “What have you been up to lately?”
“Oh not much. I just got back from L.A. last week. I was there doing some...um...promotional shots.”
“For what?”
Sang grinned guiltily.
“I am officially the first albino adult-entertainer to endorse a line of sex toys.”
“Damn. I saw your pictures last year, but I didn’t think you were that famous.”
“Oh, I’m not really. This is nothing big time, they just wanted me on their packaging because the line is called White Lightning. Apparently, I’m the whitest you can get.”
“Speaking of white, when did Hyacinth stop going out in the sun?”
“Oh, I’m not sure. We only just met up, right after I got back from L.A. He’s staying here. His parents kicked him out and cut him off. He’s got no job, no money...I felt sorry for him.”
“Why’d they kick him out?”
“Well, they sort of found him drinking blood...from another boy’s thigh. I don’t think that they would have been wholly against him dating boys, but eating them to bring himself spiritual power was kind of strange for them.”
Dash faltered, not sure if this was a joke, or if he should take it seriously. “So he’s a vampire?”
“Yes, that’s what he seems to think.”
“Uh-huh...”
At that moment, Murray came back into the room, carrying four stemmed glasses, three containing red wine, one containing apple juice. Once the drinks were passed around, he settled in on the couch next to Sang and looked up expectantly.
“So,” he said, “you were going to tell us about your friend?”
Dash laughed over the rim of his glass, took a sip, and then said, “If you want to know his name, you’re shit out of luck. At least he won’t tell me. Steve called him Ganymede, though. Steve asked me to watch him while he was out of town. The bastard wiped all evidence of his existence from the house, then framed me for all his pictures. He wasn’t going to tell me, but he pussied out at the last second and told me. We stayed in a hotel Wednesday night, and in my car last night. Now here we are. Steve still wants me to take the blame for him. Says I’d get off easier ‘cause I don’t have a record.”
“Bullshit,” Sang hissed.
“Yeah, I know. Anyway, I came here because, well...I guess I feel like the Boys are the only ones I can trust.”
Ganymede, who had been silently sipping his apple juice, interrupted, “What are you talking about?”
The three men regarded Ganymede uncomfortably.
Finally, Sang spoke. “When we were kids, Steve took us in and took pictures of us. Dash and I were living on the streets when Steve picked us up. He paid us good money to pose and gave us a place to stay. Marcel here joined us later. There was another boy, too. Cordero Perez, he was the youngest. We formed a sort of club -- we called ourselves the Boys of the Gallery.”
Ganymede stared at them. “He did that to you, and you didn’t run away?”
Murray shook his head. “Steve was different back then. He never touched any of us. Just took pictures and gave us money.”
“Well,” said Dash, shifting nervously, “He did, to me at least, but it was...well it wasn’t the same thing.”
Sang smiled thinly, “Dashie was always Steve’s favorite boy. Treated him more like a boyfriend. Even gave him a Roman name instead of a Greek one.”
Ganymede scowled. “He gave you names, too?”
Nodding, Sang said, “Marcel was Hyacinth, I was Iolaus, Cordero was Chrysippus, and Dash was Catamitus.”
Ganymede sipped his apple juice silently. The others could think of nothing to say. Very suddenly and much louder than before, he said, “I’m tired.”
“Stay the night,” said Sang quickly. “Marcel can stay in my room. The two of you can stay in his. We’ll figure out what to do about Steve in the morning.”
Sang showed them down the long hallway to a room near the end after the bathroom. It was large, but filled with broken and unused furniture and cardboard boxes. An air mattress was shoved in one corner. On the windowsill above the bed sat a collection of burnt-down black and red candles, their drippings making wax stalactites down the wall. The glass was blackened directly above them.
“I wouldn’t go out there, if I were you,” Sang said, gesturing towards a door leading out onto a sagging balcony. “It’s bound to collapse any day now.”
Sang and Murray wished Dash and Ganymede goodnight and left for the room at the end of the hall. Dash went into the small bathroom, pissed, and checked his reflection until he was sure that Ganymede had had enough time to change and get in bed. The kid was already asleep when he came in, so, cursing himself for not buying anymore cigarettes, he got into bed and tried to ignore the warm body next to him. He attempted instead to focus on Sang and Murray’s muffled conversation, to make out the words, but the bathroom between them garbled everything into a steady, continuous murmur.
Around midnight, the hushed talking turned to barely-stifled gasps and moans and the soft, rhythmic creaking of mattress springs. Dash forced himself to keep staring at the wall, at the candles, the junk in the corner, anything but Ganymede. He couldn’t smoke, so he drove his fingernails into his palms, until they were warm and wet.
At about two in the morning, he heard footsteps in the hallway, and then the shower started running. It ran for a long time.
Dash fell asleep before it stopped.