AG

Chapter 1: Panic Attack in Primary Colors

The first thing Gus registers is the light.

It comes through the loft windows at an angle that means it’s late — not alarm-clock late, not I-should-probably-get-up late, but the specific and damning quality of afternoon light that meant the morning had already happened without him.

He lies there for a second, ceiling above him, paint-stained drop cloth twisted around his ankles, and counts the colors he can see from the bed without moving his head.

Cadmium yellow. Burnt sienna. A swatch of something that was supposed to be cerulean and came out the color of a bruise.

His dad’s loft. His loft now. Same unwashed windows, same exposed ductwork, same smell of turpentine and old coffee. Gus had changed almost nothing. He kept telling himself that was a stylistic choice.

His phone buzzes off the edge of the worktable and hits the floor.

He watches it.

It buzzes again.

It’s Theo: Shows at 7.

Gus looks at his phone…6:45.

“Fuck.”

The word scrapes out of him. He pushed air out, and his ribs screamed back. A white-hot wire of pain cinched tight around his chest, and memory flooded in: last night, the hypomanic lift, the ladder, reaching for the top corner of the mural, the world tilting. He’d landed hard. He’d laughed harder. Then he’d painted for four more hours because the colors were right and the pain was just another color.

Now, flat on his back on the cold concrete, it was the only color.

He rolled onto his side, slowly, swallowing a groan. The movement smeared the dried paint on his chest—a chaotic blend of crimson and black, like war paint from a battle he couldn’t quite remember finishing. Around him, the loft was a testament to the skirmish: canvases leaned against every surface, each one featuring the same spectral, faceless man, rendered in strokes that went from meticulous to violent. A half-empty bottle of Something Wild cologne sat beside a jar of toxic-green ink. His father’s crystal whiskey decanter, still full, caught the dying light on the kitchen island. Next to it, his little battalion of pill bottles—Lamictal, Abilify, PRN Xanax—stood at passive-aggressive attention.

The panic attack had come just before dawn. He remembered the sensation of the floor rising up to meet him, the concrete a shocking cold against his cheek, his own breath loud and ragged in the vast, dark space. He’d counted the flashes from the neon Sylvia Rivera sign he’d wired crookedly above the bed until his heart slowed.

He pushed himself up to sitting, the world swimming for a second. He grabbed his phone. His lock screen was a photo of his sister Jenny, grinning, covered in rainbow chalk dust from a community art day last summer. He opened his texts.

The last one was to Zayn, sent at 4:17 AM: tell me again why i shouldn’t set this place on fire?

Zayn had replied at 9:02: Because your security deposit is astronomical and I’m not bailing you out again. Also, your dads would kill me. Up or down?

Gus typed, fingers clumsy. Down. Way down. Fell off the ladder.

Three dots appeared instantly. Are you bleeding?

Only emotionally.

Gus.

Cracked a rib. Maybe two. It’s fine.

It’s not fine. Hospital.

No. Have the Janney Tower thing. Theo just texted.

The three dots pulsed. Stopped. Started again. You’re a disaster. A beautiful, talented disaster. Take the damn Xanax. I’ll meet you there at 7:30. If you pass out before I arrive, I’m telling Brian.

Gus smiled, a thin, painful stretch of the lips. He looked at the decanter. The amber liquid was the same shade as his father’s eyes in certain light. He’d never touched it. It was a test he kept failing by not taking it.

He chose a pill bottle instead, dry-swallowed a little white pill, and winced.

Standing was a project. He used the edge of the worktable, gritting his teeth as his torso protested. In the reflective surface of a giant suspended disco ball, he caught his reflection: wild dark hair, his father’s defiant jawline smudged with cerulean, dark circles under eyes that were all Lindsay. He looked exactly like what he was: a legacy having a nervous breakdown in a landmark property.

He shuffled to the shower, the hot water peeling the paint from his skin in rust-colored streaks. He dressed in black jeans and a threadbare sweater that had been Justin’s, once. It smelled like clean cotton and, faintly, of another life.

He was tying his boots when his phone rang. THEO glowed on the screen.

“I’m up,” Gus answered.

“You sound like death. The glamorous, artist kind, but still.”

“It’s my aesthetic.”

“Your aesthetic is ‘tragic heir,’ and we’ve discussed this,” Theo said. His voice was crisp, professional, entirely unsentimental. He was the only person at Kinnetik who treated Gus like an asset instead of a liability. “The car’s downstairs. The pieces are loaded. You need to be vertical and coherent in fifteen minutes. The client likes ‘raw energy,’ but not ‘I might vomit on the artwork’ energy.”

“I’m vertical.”

“Good. Is it a two-pill day or a three-pill day?”

Gus glanced at the bottles. “It’s a ‘maybe I should have been a dentist’ day.”

“Too late for that. See you downstairs.”

The call ended. Gus grabbed his leather jacket, his keys. He paused at the door, looking back at the chaos. The faceless man on the largest canvas seemed to watch him go. He’d been trying to paint him for months. He never got the face right. Maybe you couldn’t paint a ghost while you were living in one.

The elevator descended. His ribs throbbed in time with the beat. He leaned his head against the cool metal wall and closed his eyes.

When the doors opened to the lobby, the car was there, idling. Theo stood beside it, impeccably dressed, tapping his watch.

Gus walked toward him, each step a negotiation. The late afternoon air was sharp, cutting through the sweater.

“You look like shit,” Theo said, opening the car door.

“Thanks. I feel like a poem by a teenager who just discovered coffee and despair.”

Theo didn’t smile. “Get in. We’re late.”

Gus slid into the car. As it pulled away from the curb, he watched his father’s building—his building—recede in the twilight. The windows of the loft were dark. He wondered if the ghost was still there, waiting for a face, or if it had already given up on him.

The city blurred past the car window, a smear of Pittsburgh grey and twilight neon. Gus pressed his forehead against the cool glass. Each bump in the road sent a bright, clean lance of pain through his side.

Theo was tapping on his laptop, the blue light etching harsh lines onto his face. He looked tired. Gus knew he should be grading papers or prepping for his Intro to Art History seminar at Carnegie Mellon tomorrow. Instead, he was here, playing babysitter to a bipolar legacy case who couldn’t be trusted to show up to his own show on time. The guilt was a low, familiar hum underneath the pain.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Gus said, his voice barely above the purr of the engine.

Theo didn’t look up. “Do what?”

“This. The chaperone shit. I’m a big boy.”

“Debatable.” Theo clicked a key with finality. “And I’m not your chaperone. I’m your agent. It’s my job to make sure you don’t flake, freak out, or flame out before the check clears. It’s a business arrangement. Suppress your sentimentality.”

“Right. Business.” Gus watched him. A notification flashed on Theo’s screen—an email from a student, subject line: Question about final paper? Theo minimized it without opening it. “You’re behind on grading.”

Theo finally glanced over, his expression unreadable. “I’m managing my assets. You are, currently, the more volatile one. The student essays on Baroque chiaroscuro will keep. Your potential public implosion will not. Now, shut up and look convincing.”

The car slid to a curb in front of the Janney Tower gallery. The building was a sleek wedge of glass and steel, glowing from within. People in black clusters smoked on the sidewalk, their breath making ghosts in the cold air.

Gus didn’t move.

“Kinney. Now.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“Theo. I painted a man with no face twelve times. What the fuck does that even mean? Who buys that?”

“Rich people with guilt complexes and interior designers who hate them,” Theo said, snapping his laptop shut. “It doesn’t have to mean anything. It just has to be. And it is. It’s yours. So get out of the car and go be the genius we’re both pretending you are.”

The driver opened the door. A wedge of noise and chilled air hit Gus in the face. The pulse of some ambient track, the clink of glasses, the low din of practiced conversation.

He gripped the door frame and hauled himself out. The world tilted, then righted. He threw his shoulders back, the movement fire along his ribcage, and let the old Kinney armor slide into place—a smirk, a challenge in the eyes. It was a fit he’d grown into, like his father’s old sweater.

Theo fell into step beside him, a silent, steady presence. “Remember,” he muttered as they approached the gleaming doors. “You’re not selling out. You’re funding the next thing. The real thing.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Gus said, and walked int

The heat of the gallery hit him first. It was a dry, oppressive warmth, buzzing with the low hum of a hundred conversations and the cloying scent of expensive perfume and wine. His paintings, the series of twelve, were hung on a stark white wall under brutal, clinical lighting. They looked smaller here. Exposed. Like someone had cut out a piece of his insomnia and pinned it up for dissection.

A waiter passed with a tray of champagne flutes. Gus grabbed one, downed it in two gulps, and immediately wished he hadn’t. The bubbles felt sharp in his raw throat.

Theo’s hand found the small of his back, a warm, steady pressure. “Breathe,” he murmured, his lips close to Gus’s ear. The professorial command was gone, replaced by a softer, more familiar concern. “Just don’t make eye contact with anyone who looks like they own a yacht. They’ll talk at you for forty minutes about ‘negative space.’ I’ve graded more compelling third-grade book reports.”

Gus let out a short, pained laugh. It was the first real breath he’d taken since walking in. Theo wasn’t his agent. Theo taught eight-year-olds about multiplication and how to be decent to each other on the playground. He was here tonight because he was the only person Gus could stand to have witness this particular flavor of personal hell.

“I think I see a yacht guy,” Gus muttered, eyeing a man in a cashmere-blend turtleneck who was nodding very seriously at one of the faceless portraits.

“He owns a chain of sports nutrition stores,” Theo said, squeezing his side gently, avoiding the bruised ribs. “Same energy, though.”

People were looking. Gus could feel the glances slide over him, stick for a second, then dart away. He was a curiosity: the son, the heir, the problem. A walking open secret. He leaned into Theo’s touch, a silent acknowledgment.

A woman materialized in front of them. She was all sharp angles and severe black silk, her hair a silver helmet. Morgan Staub-Tierney. Gallery owner, gatekeeper, predator.

“Augustus,” she said, her voice like crushed velvet over glass. “You’ve outdone yourself. The textures are… visceral.”

“Thanks,” Gus said. The word tasted like ash.

“There’s a rawness here. A real sense of absence.” She gestured with her wine glass toward the largest canvas. “It’s compelling. Disturbing, even. My clients are already asking. Who is he?”

Gus felt the phantom ache in his ribs flare. “He’s no one.”

“Everyone is someone, darling. Even no one.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. She turned her laser focus to Theo. “And you are?”

Theo didn’t flinch. He extended a hand. “Theo. I teach third grade.”

Morgan’s perfectly sculpted eyebrow twitched, almost imperceptibly. It was the subtlest dismissal Gus had ever seen. “Charming,” she said, then redirected her energy back to Gus. “We should talk. Properly. This work… it shouldn’t be hiding in group shows. I have a space opening up in Soho next spring. A featured solo exhibit. ‘The Unseen Man.’ Think about it.”

She glided away before he could formulate a response, absorbed by another cluster of black clothing.

“Solo exhibit in Soho,” Theo whispered, his tone flat.

“She wants to put a price tag on my ghost,” Gus said. He felt nauseous. The champagne churned in his stomach, mixing with the bitter chalk-taste of the pill.

He watched the crowd swirl around his paintings. They weren’t looking at the brushstrokes, the layers of meaning he’d tried to build. They were looking for a story they could buy, a piece of the Kinney mystique. His father’s ghost was in this room, too, in the way people said his name like an incantation. Brian Kinney’s son. He wanted to scream that he was Gus, just Gus, that these paintings were his, that the faceless man was his own goddamn reflection staring back from a canvas because he couldn’t bear to look in a mirror some days.

A young man with a carefully curated mustache approached him. “Mr. Kinney? I’m with Pittsburgh Arts Review. What would you say is the central thesis of this series? Is it a commentary on the erosion of masculine identity in a post-digital world?”

Gus stared at him. The words piled up in his throat—no, it’s about how I feel like a stranger in my own skin, it’s about the meds that flatten the world, it’s about the hollow space where a father should be, it’s about trying to paint a feeling before it eats you alive—but they jammed behind his teeth. He just shook his head.

The reporter’s smile tightened. He waited a beat, then turned to Theo. “And what’s your role in the creative process?”

Theo smiled, disarmingly genuine. “I make sure he eats something other than coffee and nicotine. And I grade spelling tests. Lots of spelling tests.”

The reporter left, visibly confused.

“I need air,” Gus said, his voice tight.

They pushed through the crowd, Gus nodding vaguely at congratulations that felt like small, sharp stones. He burst through a service door into a grey concrete alleyway. The cold was a physical relief. He braced his hands against the damp brick wall, head bowed, and just breathed.

Theo leaned against the wall beside him, a solid, quiet presence. He didn’t ask if Gus was okay.

After a minute, Gus spoke to the ground. “She wants a solo show.”

“I heard.”

“It’s everything I’m supposed to want.”

“Is it what you want?” Theo’s question was simple, direct.

Gus pushed off the wall, running a paint-stained hand through his hair. “I don’t know what I want. I want to make something that matters. But nothing I make matters for the right reasons. It’s just… it’s just because of who my dad is. It’s a fucking family heirloom.” He looked at Theo, his expression raw. “I’m so tired of living in a museum of someone else’s life.”

Theo studied him, his face softened by the dim alley light. “Then don’t.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Sure it is. You walk back in there, you tell Morgan you’re flattered but you’re exploring other avenues. You go back to the loft. You paint something you don’t show anyone. You make a fucking mess just for the sake of it. You come over on Sunday and help my kids with their dioramas. The world keeps spinning.”

“The money…”

“Fuck the money.” Theo said it without heat. “You’ll ghost for Kinnetik another month. We’ll eat a lot of rice and beans. My health insurance is spectacular, remember?”

A real laugh escaped Gus, rusty and surprised. It hurt his ribs. He looked at Theo—this man who spent his days wiping noses and mediating disputes over Lego bricks, who came to these awful things and deflected the vultures with talk of third grade. This was the real thing. Not the paintings on the wall, not the potential solo show. This.

“I hate it in there,” Gus admitted softly.

“I know.”

“I want to go home.”

Theo pushed off the wall. “So let’s go.”

“Just… leave?”

“It’s your party. You can cry if you want to, but leaving’s more dignified.” Theo shrugged. “Send Morgan a nice email tomorrow. Or don’t. Come on.”

Gus looked back at the service door, a rectangle of light and noise. He thought of the faceless man, hanging there, being discussed and priced. He thought of his father’s decanter, gathering dust. He thought of the ladder, and the fall, and the laugh that had come after.

He turned his back on the light. “Yeah. Okay.”

They walked down the alley, their footsteps echoing in the empty space, the sound of the gallery fading behind them until all that was left was the city’s night hum and the warmth of Theo’s shoulder against his own as they headed towards the street, the dark, and the quiet sanctuary of a messy loft that was, for now, still entirely his.

They walked down the alley, their footsteps echoing in the empty space, the sound of the gallery fading behind them until all that was left was the city’s night hum and the warmth of Theo’s shoulder against his own as they headed towards the street, the dark, and the quiet sanctuary of a messy loft that was, for now, still entirely his.

The cab ride was quiet. Gus stared out the window, watching the neon smear across the glass. Theo’s hand rested on his knee, a steady, heavy weight. It wasn’t a question. It was an anchor.

Back in the loft, the silence was different. It wasn’t the deafening void of the afternoon; it was a shared, breathing thing. Gus shrugged off his jacket, let it fall to the floor. He went to the kitchen, poured two fingers of Brian’s whiskey into a dusty glass, and held it out to Theo.

Theo took it, drank half, and handed it back. His eyes never left Gus’s face.

Gus finished it, the burn a clean line down his throat, warmer than the champagne. He set the glass on the counter with a definitive click. The facade from the gallery, the brittle armor, it was all gone. What was left was just Gus, cracked ribs and all, vibrating with a desperate, hungry energy.

“I need to not be in my head,” Gus said, his voice rough.

Theo understood. He always did. He closed the distance, his hands coming up to frame Gus’s face. His thumbs brushed over the high cheekbones, the stubborn Kinney jaw. He didn’t kiss him yet. He just looked, his dark eyes reading every fault line.

“Tell me what you need,” Theo said, his voice low.

“You. Everywhere. Hard. So I can feel something that isn’t this.” Gus gestured vaguely at his own chest.

Theo’s mouth finally found his, and it was less a kiss and more a claiming. It was all tongue and heat and a silent, potent yes. Gus melted into it, his hands fisting in Theo’s sweater, pulling him closer, groaning as the motion lit a flashfire in his side.

“Easy,” Theo murmured against his mouth, but his own hands were already pulling Gus’s sweater up and over his head, careful but urgent. His fingers traced the brutal purple and yellow bloom across Gus’s ribs. “You’re sure?”

“Fuck yes, I’m sure.” Gus was already unbuckling Theo’s belt, his fingers nimble and impatient. “Unless you’re scared you’ll break me.”

A ghost of a smile touched Theo’s lips. “I’m not scared of anything.”

He proved it by picking Gus up, one arm under his thighs, the other a solid band across his back, avoiding the bruised flesh. Gus gasped, clinging to him, the world tilting. Theo carried him to the wide, paint-spattered worktable and set him down amidst the clutter of brushes and ink pots. He never strained, his athletic build handling Gus’s lean weight without effort.

Theo stripped off his own clothes, methodical, almost solemn. In the soft, multicolored glow of the neon and fairy lights, his body was a masterpiece of functional strength—broad shoulders, thick pectorals, the powerful cut of his obliques leading down. And his cock, thick and heavy, a fact he never mentioned, a source of a quiet, private pride that battled old, stupid whispers he’d absorbed from a world that liked to make assumptions.

Gus drank him in, a low whistle escaping. “Jesus, Theo. You’re a fucking cathedral.”

Theo didn’t respond with words. He pushed Gus gently back onto the cool surface, the shock of it making Gus arch. He knelt, his mouth finding Gus’s cock, and took him down with a practiced, devastating ease that made Gus curse, his head hitting the wood. Gus talked, a stream of feverish, filthy praise, directing, demanding. “There, yeah, just like that—your mouth is so good, I want you to use that on me later, I want—”

Theo stopped, looking up, his chin wet. “You talk too much.”

“Then make me quiet.”

Theo did. He stood, retrieved the bottle of silicone lube from the bedside drawer—they had their routines—and coated his fingers. He pushed one inside Gus, who was still spread on the table, watching him with dark, defiant eyes. Gus’s breath hitched, but he pushed down, taking him deeper.

“Another. Don’t you fucking baby me.”

A second finger, a slow, burning stretch. Theo scissored them, his other hand pinning Gus’s hip to the table. He watched Gus’s face, the play of agony and ecstasy, the moment his jaw went slack. Theo knew his body better than Gus did sometimes. He knew when to crook his fingers, when to add a third, when the preparatory gasp became a plea.

When Theo finally lined up, the blunt head of his cock pressing against him, Gus went still for a second. His eyes locked on Theo’s. “Yeah,” was all he said, a raw exhalation.

Theo pushed in, one slow, inexorable inch, then another, until he was sheathed fully inside. The stretch was profound, breathtaking. Gus’s mouth fell open in a soundless cry, his back bowing off the table. Theo held there, letting him adjust, his own muscles corded with the effort of control.

“Move,” Gus begged, his voice shattered. “Please, Theo.”

Theo moved. He set a punishing, deep rhythm, each thrust knocking a gasp from Gus’s lungs. He leaned over him, bracing his hands on the table, his body covering Gus’s, a living shield. Gus wrapped his legs around Theo’s waist, heels digging into the small of his back, surrendering to the current of it. The pain in his ribs was still there, but it was secondary now, a distant ache compared to the feeling of being so thoroughly filled, so utterly possessed.

“God, you feel… you’re so deep,” Gus babbled, his hands scrambling over Theo’s shoulders, his back. “You fill me up, you make the whole fucking noisy world go away. Right there, right there, don’t stop.”

Theo was silent, a study in intense concentration, his breaths coming in hot, sharp bursts against Gus’s neck. He shifted, pulling Gus even tighter against him, and the new angle made Gus see white. His monologue stuttered, broke apart into ragged pants.

Theo felt the change. The stream of consciousness dried up. Gus’s body tightened around him, his silence suddenly louder than any word he’d ever spoken. This was the cue. Theo reached between them, his calloused hand working Gus’s cock in time with his thrusts, short, rough strokes.

That was all it took. Gus came with a choked-off, shattered sound, his release painting stripes across his stomach and chest. The clenching, rhythmic pull of him tipped Theo over the edge. He buried his face in Gus’s neck, his own orgasm a silent, powerful quake, a long, shuddering release that left him trembling.

For a minute, there was only the sound of their breathing, the faint hum of the city below. Theo softened inside him, but didn’t pull away. He stayed there, holding Gus’s weight, keeping the pressure off his injured side. He pressed a kiss to Gus’s sweaty temple.

Gus finally opened his eyes. The frantic, haunted light was gone, replaced by a sated, drowsy peace. He traced the line of Theo’s jaw. “You’re the best thing,” he murmured, his voice thick. “The absolute best thing.”

Theo helped him up, guided him to the shower, where they washed each other with a quiet tenderness that was its own intimacy. Later, tangled in the sheets of the platform bed, Gus’s head on Theo’s chest, the loft felt different. The ghosts were still there—the faceless man on the canvas, the whiskey decanter, the weight of the name—but they were pushed back, held at bay by the solid, breathing reality of the man beside him.

Theo’s fingers carded slowly through Gus’s damp hair. “You okay?” he asked, the simplest of questions.

Gus listened to the strong, steady beat of Theo’s heart under his ear. His ribs ached. His mind was, for once, a quiet room. “Yeah,” he said. And for now, it was true.