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Cleo and Scott are the first to arrive, just before sunset, carrying a big bowl of pasta salad and normal salad, respectively. Bdubs greets them with excitement, but fails to say thank you; Impulse thanks them while wrestling with the barbecue and failing to greet them.
Scott looks… perplexed.
Snickering, Cleo steers her chosen partner to the big table set up by the pool. ‘Don’t mind them. Neither is particularly organized on a good day; planning a party for this many people is pushing it.’
Scott blinks. ‘We’re only fourteen, though.’
Cleo laughs. ‘How many people do you think would willingly move to a place that pulled its moon out of orbit, just to hang out for a while and watch the apocalypse? Trust me, for these two, three is a crowd.’
Scott’s frown smooths over and he nods. ‘Alright. I won’t take it personally, then. But I will go and help Bdubs in the kitchen, because what you just said made me very concerned.’
He slides off his chair and heads inside and Cleo turns to Impulse, only to find that he has mysteriously disappeared.
‘I moved out there to meet you all,’ a different voice muses.
Cleo doesn’t jump. She doesn’t. She just felt like slapping the table in that moment, it has nothing to do with the red-streaked face rising from the bushes.
‘You don’t count. You’re insane.’
Pearl giggles. ‘I am, aren’t I? But was I already insane when we first met?’
‘What difference does it make, now that you are actually crazy?’
Pearl’s eyes fixate on her. She must be wearing contact lenses, because her irises are a deep, cherry red. ‘Do you remember the things we used to do, back in the early days?’
Cleo stiffens. She does remember. Well, not exactly, because a lot of those memories are already growing hazy with age, but she recalls her body burning in a way it hadn’t in a very long time, and a melting heat between her thighs. That could also be the present.
‘We found many ways to dispel our loneliness,’ says Pearl, coyly tapping her lips. ‘Maybe I’m just lonely now?’
Cleo might not be the sharpest tool in the shed by her own admission, but even she can spot an invitation when it’s presented to her gift-wrapped and with a bow on top. Her gaze snaps to the terrace door.
‘Joel and Etho just arrived,’ Pearl informs her, as if she read Cleo’s mind. Which she can’t. Cleo is sure of that, but it’s still unsettling.
‘No one else is here yet. It’s gonna take ages for things to get interesting.’
That tone is almost a whine. Cleo sighs. ‘Fine, alright. Scooch.’
Pearl retreats into the bush and out the other side and Cleo follows, through the high grass and into the shade of the trees. When Pearl grabs her arm and swings her around to press her back up against a mighty spruce, Cleo pushes off her hood and tangles her fingers into the other’s hair.
‘You better make this quick.’
‘Quick and good, gotcha,’ Pearl snickers. Slippery as a wet salmon, she wriggles out of Cleo’s arms and onto her knees.
*
‘It’s just up the stairs and to the left, you can’t miss it,’ Impulse calls after them, his hands buried to the elbows in a chest full of coal. ‘Bdubs should be in the kitchen, right through.’
‘Okay,’ shouts Joel and bounds ahead. Etho tails him at a more sedate pace, taking the time to look around. He likes what Bdubs has done with the place: the white walls, the dark wood to contrast it, the verdant greenery everywhere. There are a few paintings that look suspicious, though. He’ll have to come back to investigate at an opportune moment.
He hears a shout as he reaches the upper floor, then a splash, and concludes that Joel has probably found the pool. Smiling to himself, Etho turns towards the sounds of cutting knives, when an arm shoots out from a dark corner between a thick-leaved croton plant and an empty bookshelf, grabbing him by the elbow.
‘Etho, over here!’
Bdubs pulls and Etho follows, squeezing into the niche with him.
‘What are you doing, man? Isn’t this your house?’
Bdubs slaps a hand over Etho’s mask. ‘Shh. Come with me. I need your... expertise.’
He checks the hallway – still empty – takes Etho by the collar and pulls him across, to a painting of a pig-headed... thing... riding another thing, and then right through a gap in the canvas.
‘I knew there was space behind there,’ Etho mutteres, delighted, and Bdubs grins.
‘Of course there was. You know me.’ He spreads his hands, encompassing the room. ‘Love nest. Isn’t it fantastic?’
The room’s naked stone brick walls are cold and unassuming. A single torch lights up the thinnest mattress Etho has seen in a while and there is a draft coming from somewhere he can’t spot. A bucket of water, probably cold, stands by the torch.
‘Yeah. It has all the modern amenities of a prison cell.’ He crosses his arms in front of his chest. His lips twitch. ‘If you just wanted my advice on the decor, let’s go back to Impulse’s nice living room–’
Bdubs rolls his eyes. ‘Oh, very funny!’
‘The couch looks really good, though.’
‘Get on the bed! We don’t have time to dilly-dally.’
Etho shucks off his vest, then loosens his finger-less gloves. ‘What about your pool party?’
‘Scott just came in, took one look at what I was doing and chased me out of my own kitchen. If we want to do something, there is no better time than now.’
Bdubs pulls his sweater over his head, revealing lean, tanned skin and a mess of pale scars.
‘Unless you disagree?’
‘No.’ Etho’s hands come up to measure the span of Bdubs’ ribs with his fingers, palm flattening over the bones. ‘Seize the day, and all that. Tango and Jimmy were right behind us, though. So we might have to make this quick.’
He gives a push and Bdubs falls onto the bed. It creaks. Etho climbs after him, straddling his thighs, and circles both of his nipples with his thumbs.
Bdubs arches up into the touch. ‘In that case, I got good news.’
‘Yeah?’
He pulls a vial from the pants he’s still wearing, filled with golden liquid, and shoots Etho a shit-eating grin. ‘I grabbed the oil on the way out.’
*
‘This is so cool,’ Tango gushes, spinning around himself on the tips of his toes. ‘Seriously, so, so cool.’
‘Thank you. It took me a while to get it rigged up.’
‘Mhm, I believe it.’ He lets his eyes slide over the mess of redstone wiring that winds around the two of them like they’re standing in the eye of a hurricane. They’re below the pool, and Tango watches in apparent fascination as the water sloshes into a boiler and upwards from there. ‘You realize someone is going to rig this to blow the moment they turn red, right?’
Impulse sighs, steadying himself with a hand on the pipe above his head while climbing over another. It puts him right next to Tango, boxed in between a water tank and two more pipes, one of them leading to the shower inside. Their hips bump.
Tango taps the warning label, running his fingers around the edges of the HOT – do not touch!! sign. ‘All that nice geothermal energy, so easy to divert…’
‘Nu-uh,’ says Impulse, slapping his hand away. ‘I can see you getting ideas. Stop it.’
Tango smirks, which actually looks kind of dangerous in the flickering light from the lanterns behind the pipes and the wiring and the water. Like a creature emerging from the deep, and all that Impulse can see for a moment are just his bright white fangs and his eyes, glowing like embers.
Then Tango leans in. ‘I’m getting ideas, alright.’
His voice is kind of breathy. And oh, Impulse shouldn’t. Especially not in the redstone, where it would be so easy to trip, or slip, or bang their heads against something, or come away with third degree burns after a second’s inattention – the latter being less of an issue for Tango, of course.
The other’s hands are already pushing up under his shirt, though, and he’s got that expression on his face of absolute concentration, like he’s looking at a circuit rather than a body. Impulse has so many memories connecting to that glint in the other’s eyes, he can’t help but squirm.
‘We– we really shouldn’t–’
‘What, you think someone’s gonna walk in on us?’
‘They might. Ren’s a redstone buff, and he and BigB just got here right after you and Jimmy–’
Tango unhooks the button of Impulse’s pants and slides his hand in.
‘– or you can just do that. Right.’ Impulse flails about for something to hold onto that will not cook his hand and finds the edge of the water tank. ‘Yeah. This is fine.’
Tango presses even closer, nuzzling Impulse’s throat. His fangs dig in, sharp little needle-points where Impulse’s heart pounds in his throat.
He tilts his head back, shutting his eyes and allowing his hips to roll, chasing then sensation of Tango’s questing fingers when suddenly–
‘Oh my god, is that a calendar? You hooked this system up to a seasonal cycle?’
Tango leans past him, crouches, then has to disentangle his hands to get a better look.
‘You did!’
He goes down on all fours and crawls right into the redstone, until just his ass is sticking out.
‘How does this even work?!’
He’s probably fiddling with something already. Impulse swallows, takes a deep breath and tells himself to be patient. His time will come. Probably.
‘Need a magnifying glass?’
*
‘Hey there, soldier.’
Grian, who’s just been putting down the basket of bread and pastries he and Scar brought for the night’s festivities, whirls. ‘BigB!’
BigB grins; that little, lopsided curve to his mouth that makes something in Grian’s belly immediately liquefy. He looks over his shoulder, to where Scar is crouching by the pool, testing the water with one hand while using the other to fight off Joel trying to push him in. Then he takes BigB’s sleeve and pulls him through the terrace door.
The hallway is dark and quiet, either because some of the guests are still missing, or because they have wandered off already to explore Bdubs’ and Impulse’s massive mid-century modern mansion.
Grian looks up into BigB’s face. It feels like he has waited weeks to get him alone, but now that they are, it seems he can’t find anything to say. ‘Uh, so. How are you?’
‘Good, good.’ BigB cocks his head, looking Grian up and down over the edge of his dark glasses. ‘How about you?’
‘Grfhwwdhg,’ says Grian.
‘What?’
‘Er. Good, I mean. Phew, is it hot in here, or what? We should probably get out of the hallway.’
BigB blinks. Then his lips curve. ‘Lead the way.’
Grian doesn’t know the mansion yet – something that will have to change over the course of the evening; the others may be here to have fun, but these are still death games, and he’s here to win. That means recon, recon, recon – so he opens the first door they come across. It’s the master bedroom. He tugs BigB inside before he can change his mind.
‘Oh, wow, G,’ BigB chuckles. ‘If I didn’t know better, I would ask about your intentions now.’
Grian’s cheeks heat. ‘But you do know better.’
‘I do.’
BigB steps towards him and swoops him up in his big, strong arms, and Grian all but swoons into his chest. His fingers tangle in the other’s jacket, holding on tighter than he should probably allow himself to.
‘Aw, boo. Did you miss me that much? We saw each other yesterday.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Grian mumbles into his collar. ‘You’re my secret soulmate; I miss you every second I’m not with you.’
BigB pauses. ‘You know, that’s actually quite romantic.’
‘I thought about it on the whole way over.’
‘Just that, or–’
Grian flushes harder. His face is probably the color of a tomato by now, but he doesn’t care. He slides his hands up to BigB’s neck – it’s broad, like his shoulders, like all of him – and leans onto his tiptoes, tilting his chin in an obvious request, because even like this, he’s not tall enough.
BigB’s arms slide around his waist, squeezing tight and lifting him up. Then they’re breathing into each other’s mouths, damp and hot, a split-second before their lips collide.
Stars explode behind Grian’s closed eyelids. BigB’s mouth is a revelation every time anew; the taste and feel of it, the way he knows exactly how to tease at Grian’s tongue with his own to make him gasp.
He doesn’t know for how long they kiss. Time tends to turn to taffy when he’s doing this with BigB; it might have been ten seconds, or an hour, or a day.
He’s so lost in the sensations, BigB has to tug his hair to get his attention.
‘Hey, G, you wanted to do something else here? Or just this?’
Oh, right. They’re in a bedroom. Grian wraps his arms around BigB’s shoulders. ‘Don’t know yet,’ he mumbles against his secret soulmate’s lips, sparks dancing over his skin. ‘Ask me again in a minute.’
The other slides his palms under Grian’s ass to hold him up, and Grian shudders, kissing him again.
*
Ren steps into the upstairs study – which is just one more of those things only Bdubs would do; no one needs a downstairs study in a death game, much less a second one – and finds Martyn there, both arms curled around the side of a massive bookcase.
‘My dude?’
Martyn cranes his neck. ‘Yo, Ren, help me out here real quick.’
Ren shuts the door. ‘What are we doing?’
‘Checking for hidden safes or tunnels, duh.’
Duh, indeed. Ren takes the other side of the bookcase and they pull on three. The polished dark oak wood groans as it scrapes across the floor. Two steps, three steps, and without any need for verbal confirmation, both of them let go.
Martyn squints at the thus revealed, white wall. ‘Is it an illusion?’
Ren raps his knuckles against it. ‘Nope.’
‘Dangit!’
Martyn kicks the bookcase, yelps and holds his foot, jumping in place.
Ren’s ears twitch towards him; he cocks his head. ‘Why are you snooping around Bdubs’ place? I thought we called a ceasefire for tonight?’
‘We did,’ says Martyn. ‘But c’mon, when will we ever get such a perfect chance to get the lay of the land? You gotta be a horse to cross the living room threshold!’
Ren’s lips curve. ‘True.’
Martyn rolls his shoulders. ‘That’s part of it, but truth be told… You all got your soulmates and I got lots of energy I don’t know what to do with. If you catch my drift.’
He stretches his arms over his head, then bends low to touch his toes, before pulling each individual knuckle until it cracks. Sweat shines on his temples and his hair sticks up in every direction, probably from too much finger-combing action. He seems to be practically vibrating and Ren’s chest aches for his friend.
He clears his throat. ‘I could help you out with that. If your own hand feels too lonely.’
Martyn stills. ‘What about BigB?’
‘Let me ask him.’
Ren ducks out the door, sniffs, and furrows his brows. Rotating his ears, he listens for the low timbre of his soulmate’s voice, but only catches Scar and Joel out on the terrace. He returns to Martyn.
‘I can’t find him right now, but I’m sure he won’t mind me helping out a friend.’
Martyn hesitates, but only for a second. ‘Okay.’
‘Aw, sweet!’ Ren rubs his hands together. ‘How do you wanna do this?’
Martyn shrugs. ‘Honestly, I just want to get off. It doesn’t need to be anything elaborate.’
‘On here, then,’ Ren decides, skipping over to the desk and pulling out the very fancy chair so Martyn can fall onto the black leather. Then he spins him around and sinks to his knees. ‘Last time for special requests.’
Martyn snorts. He kicks off his shoes and lifts his thighs over Ren’s shoulders, while the other’s hands are already tugging his ass to the edge of the chair, working on undoing his fly.
‘Don’t choke and die, I guess.’
Ren smirks. ‘Aw, baby. You would never.’
*
‘Scott.’
Scott doesn’t even look up from the cucumber he’s chopping into spears. ‘Go away, Jimmy. I don’t have time for you right now.’
The words, old and familiar, curl through Jimmy’s chest, kindling an uneasy warmth. He steps into the kitchen. ‘I’m looking for our gracious hosts.’
Scott’s eyebrow twitches. ‘I wouldn’t know where they are. I’ve been doing their job for the past half an hour.’
Jimmy snickers. He can’t help it. ‘That’s your own doing, though.’
For the first time, Scott’s gaze cuts to him. His irises are dark blue, like the churning waters surrounding an ice biome. ‘Why do you say that?’
A shudder runs down Jimmy’s spine. ‘Because I know you,’ he tries. ‘This is exactly the kind of thing that you would do, right?’
Scott turns to face him, eyes boring into his. Heat coils in Jimmy’s guts at the derision in his former husband’s face.
‘People change.’
Ice drops into Jimmy’s stomach. He flinches. ‘You, you don’t want to–’
Scott holds up a hand. ‘Maybe not that much.’ His smirk is nothing short of mean. He did this on purpose. Jimmy squirms, rubbing his damp palms on his pants.
The other watches him twitch in place for another long moment, then he points to the floor. ‘Come on, then. We both know what you’re here for.’
A weight falls off Jimmy’s chest. It pulls him right down with it and he crashes to his knees, pain zinging up his legs and down into his toes. Sorry, Tango, he thinks, but he’s too dizzy to really mean it.
Scott taps his leg.
On all fours, Jimmy scrambles towards to him. His heart pounds in his throat. With shaking fingers, he reaches for the other’s belt.
Scott slaps his hands away. ‘Not yet. I’ve still got work to do.’
He turns back to the counter. Jimmy scoots up to him and leans his forehead against his thigh. Scott’s pants smell of wheat and hay and flowers, and it takes him back to a hundred different evenings like this, on the floor of a warmer, smaller kitchen, next to a burning stove, the summer rain drumming onto the windows. His heart slows. He closes his eyes. Drifts.
Eventually, careful fingers push into his hair.
‘How are you doing, little bird?’
‘Mhmmshfn.’
‘Hmm, eloquent. Just how I like my men,’ says Scott, tugging at the bangs that are growing long enough to fall over Jimmy’s face. ‘I’m not quite done, but just so I can prepare: What do you want to happen here? Or later?’
Jimmy takes a moment to parse the question, then he shivers. Ideas fill his mind. So many possibilities. He wouldn’t even know where to start. He wraps his arms around Scott’s knees, leaning more heavily against him. ‘This is good.’
Scott pauses. ‘Alright.’
The fingers in his hair move to the back of his head, scratching lightly at his scalp. Warm, syrupy pleasure curls through Jimmy. He makes a soft whining noise and lets himself fall.
*
‘Okay,’ says Joel, peering down into the pool.
Scar pops up, a big grin on his face. ‘Believe me yet?’
The other waves a hand. ‘Yeah, yeah. You can swim really fast. Too bad this area doesn’t really contain any large bodies of water for it to be a tactical advantage.’
Scar’s grin turns sly. ‘That can be changed.’
‘Good luck with that. But more importantly, isn’t this supposed to be a pool party?’ Joel throws his hands up. ‘Where is everyone?’
Scar shrugs. ‘They’ll show up sooner or later. Hey, do you want to see me hold my breath for ten minutes?’
‘Uh. No, thank you?’
The other smirks, bright pink tongue darting out to lick pool water off his lips. ‘Your loss.’