Over the months, the three refugees have swapped rooms several times. It’s a big house, after all. Tin likes to nap wherever it’s quietest, which varies most days depending on whatever the other occupants are doing. Fray first shared a room with Baj, until the tension between them got weird; then, after his rescue, he had tried to find the room furthest from Baj every night. Just in case.
It’s not that Baj asks for him to come back (though part of him wishes they would). It’s more that Fray starts to find he’s less and less comfortable when they aren’t in sight, and that includes when he wakes up at three in the morning to piss.
They’ve been cuddling a lot lately, anyway. It’s not that weird that he’s been falling asleep in Baj’s bed. It’s not that weird for him to doze off in their arms. And Baj runs furnace-hot, and it’s not like they haven’t seen each other naked before, they were too close for that, so it’s not weird for Fray to wriggle out of a sweat-damp shirt and go back to them topless.
But he’ll admit it’s weird when Baj crawls on top of him while he’s shirtless. He’ll even admit it makes him freeze and stare up at those luminous eyes in question. Baj stares back from where they crouch animal-like above him.
Normally, having someone climb on top of him while half naked is something Fray would count as a good thing. Things haven’t been normal in quite some time. “You good?” he asks eventually. As punctuation, he puts his hands on Baj’s forearms.
Baj says, “Yeah,” and does not elaborate.
So: Fray nods. He forces himself to relax a little, because it’s only Baj. Relax and enjoy it. He thinks back to that awful day at the barn, and how it ended in the last way he could have ever guessed.
Fray says, quietly, “What’s the plan?”
Baj, being Baj, just shrugs.
It’s sometimes a little maddening. Fray’s learned how to live with it. He settles back into the pillows and meets that unblinking gaze. Presently he asks: “Can I kiss you?”
With less consideration than Baj usually gives these things, they nod. Their eyes open a fraction wider. They close entirely when Fray reaches up and cups their face in his hands. Everyone else feels too cold to him, now, even Tin and his mass of fur. Well; April probably wouldn’t. Harper would know.
The kiss doesn’t come immediately. He strokes their cheekbones with his thumbs and admires the arch of their nose, until they open one eye questioningly, and just, god—“Your eyes,” he mumbles, suddenly shy.
Wrong thing to say. Baj freezes, then tries to turn their face away. “Wait,” Fray hastens to add, alarmed. “They’re, they’re—” He never has the right words. “I like them,” he finishes lamely. “I’ve always liked them.”
Slowly, Baj looks back at him. They don’t seem to know where to put their gaze, for it darts over his face and chest like a frightened bird. “Always,” Baj echoes, flat and doubting.
Fray nods, hungry to prove his sincerity. “Before. And now, too.”
“I thought,” says Baj, “you were going to kiss me.”
“Well, then, come here.”
Baj does. They lean down as he pushes up, and their mouth is so, so warm. Fray moves slow, feeling his way over their chapped lips and tilting his head to better match them together. He catches their lower lip between both of his and holds it for a moment before letting go, and the startled little breath Baj exhales is maddening to the heat that’s already begun to coil at the base of Fray’s spine. He tries and fails to fight off a shudder. “Better?” he murmurs.
Baj says nothing, but their fingers tighten in his clothes. The stare lingers on his face now, in the way Fray long ago learned means they’re waiting for something. What, though—that’s always the question. Fray searches his brain. All he finds is the unvarnished truth. “I used to think about it a lot,” he says, still cupping their face. “Kissing you.”
“You did not.”
“Did. Seventh grade through ninth.” His face is heating up and it’s not even due to the phoenix. “Um. Part of why I started dating Daryl. Get my mind off it.”
Baj’s stare becomes laser focused. “Dude.”
“I know …”
“Daryl was a mega-hick.”
“Yeah, but he had nice arms.”
“You suck,” says Baj, but there’s a smile working its way onto their face. “You are the goddamn worst guy alive. I hate you.”
“At least I stopped eating my own boogers before fifth grade.”
“It was a nervous tic and you know it!”
“Whatever, dude.” Fray’s grinning now, feeling the color in his pale face and not caring. “I wanted to kiss you so bad I had to date Daryl about it. Awful.”
Baj snorts. They knead at his arms and sit back a half measure. “Not my fault.”
“With lips like those?! Shut up!”
“Then why didn’t you, if you wanted to so bad?”
Shyness seeps through Fray with unexpected vigor. His eyes find somewhere in Baj’s hairline to focus. “Nervous,” he admits. It seems ridiculous now. “Thought you might, I dunno. Be upset if I tried. Didn’t want t, to. Ruin our friendship.”
Baj seems to consider this. “We could’ve been friends who kissed. Ashley and Jake did that.”
“Ashley and Jake had a weird thing going on.”
“What, and we didn’t?” They give him God’s blankest look. “I wouldn’t have been mad.”
Fray can’t stand it. “Wanted,” he says, with no small difficulty, “more than kissing. With you.”
Peering down at him, Baj slowly allows their hands to take their weight atop his chest. All Fray can think about is how close they are, how they’re straddling his hips. They look so serious, but they always do. “I can safely say,” they go on eventually, “nothing like that ever occurred to me.”
It’s like the floor opening up under him. Fray’s head swims, his stomach sinks. He can’t make eye contact. “Sorry,” he says, for he can think of nothing else to say.
“For what?”
“Um. Wanting.”
This makes Baj squint. “That’s stupid,” they say at last. “Don’t be stupid. You can want whatever.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing.” They slide a hand over his chest, gentle. “Maybe I want things too.”
He wonders if Baj can hear his heart thumping. They must. You could form a bass line with it. Now he lies there under them, smiling uncontrollably in the way he does when he’s both embarrassed and eager. It’s not like Baj hasn’t seen him exposed before; they’ve shared changing rooms since they were twelve. But it’s never been like this. It’s never been Baj casting a searching look over his bared chest and barely mentionable breasts, eyes lingering on tattletale stiff nipples. They bite their lip in the absent way they do when they’re trying to arrive at a decision. They get there. Almost, anyway. “You … you really want … ?”
Fray is certain the answer is yes, whatever Baj’s missing word is, but the rest of the sentence never comes. Instead, Baj points to themself, dubiously. Light spills from their eyes to paint their cheeks.
Fray’s no better in the speaking department. He finds himself nodding furiously, and then feels stupid for it. A steadying breath and he reaches up to grasp Baj’s shoulders. Yes, he wants to say, sliding his hands down their sides, more than anything. More than I can understand.
This is not what comes. What comes, instead, is his fingertips slipping beneath the hem of their tank. His wavering voice returns long enough for him to ask, “Can I?”
“I think so,” says Baj, which means yes and duh and hurry up all at the same time.
When he pulls the tank off, bra and all, his breath catches. This he hasn’t seen. This, the impossible glow that burns from within them, and how it highlights their bones and stains their skin. It doesn’t penetrate fat well, though. What it does do is give their breasts a kind of permanent rim light, the golden heat limning their dark skin. Fray stares, caught between hunger and awe.
“Staring,” says Baj, which, as the resident Starer-In-Chief, they love to call out in other people. Fray winces and scrambles to look them in the eye again. You have to really know Baj to know the faint twist in their mouth is a smile. “Pervert.”
Headshot. Instant K.O. Fray feels heat more intense than Baj’s flood his face. Own it, he decides. “Chief pervert,” he tells them, and on instinct reaches up and cups their breast. It’s hot, so hot, he almost lets go for fear of a burn. But his tolerance adjusts, and he’s left lying there with his thumb lazily playing their nipple. “King slut.”
“Lord of the cockring.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” says Baj, again turning their attention to Fray’s chest. They blink. “I don’t know how to do this,” they say.
Fray has to take a moment to calm his heart back down. Of course. Of course Baj is a virgin, they were one before they disappeared and they sure hadn’t had the opportunity since. “It’s fine,” he says with what he hopes is a casual tone. Baj is offering him their virginity. They don’t think it’s anything special, he remembers that much, but still—still—
“Here,” he says, and sits up. With careful confidence that disguises his rising anxiety, he guides them to lay back, sliding a hand experimentally along their thigh as he does. Their legs twitch. “I’ll—I’m good at this.”
It’s such a lame thing to say, such an insecure thing, but he can think of no other way to assure them. He’s at their side, now, leaning over them as they shift on the pillows. None of this seems real. Two weeks ago he’d been convinced he would never see Baj again.
All the more reason to get on with it, then.
He slides his hands along their stomach, their ribs, their bared calves. It’s met mostly with silence, though once Fray gets his nails into the mix and draws out a little hitch of breath. Their skin is so hot. He wonders how much hotter it must be inside them.
With this lodged in his head, he exhales long and low before bowing to press his mouth to Baj’s again. They kiss back best they can, beautifully amateur. Dizziness sweeps through him. He can’t fuck this up. He bites their lip, gentle, and slips his hand between their legs.
The heat. Fray doesn’t know how their clothes don’t singe. He braces himself against it and probes with his fingers. Baj is like him, down here, and he has a lot less experience with that side of the field. But he’s going to become an expert, he decides, he’s going to learn exactly what gets them off and—
Baj moans. It’s just a little snip of a sound, reactionary to some bolt of pleasure. Their jaw clamps shut as they realize what they’ve done. Fray is pretty sure he’s going to soak through his jeans.
He grinds the heel of his hand gently against where he thinks he needs to aim through the denim. It takes a second, but he’s rewarded with another seethe of breath, hot against his face. He feels dizzy. “Right,” he mutters when Baj rolls their hips against his palm. “That’s right …”
A hand sinks into his hair and clenches, tugging at his scalp, and something shoots through him. Some wretched noise is forced out of him, a whiny moan, damn it, damn it, damn it, he’s got to be collected here—
“Knew that’s why you grow your hair out,” Baj murmurs in his ear, and draws up his hand to the button of their jeans.
Fray knows he’s turning scarlet. There’s just no hope for him at all anymore. He needs to move to Hawaii and live in a cave where no one can look at him. “Go to hell,” he gets out in a voice that cracks. Before they can answer, he’s pulled their fly open and pressed the flat of his hand to the curve of their belly. He eyes their underwear’s waistband.
“Did,” says Baj. “Sucked.” They tug at his hair, sending a violent shiver down his spine. “Hey, this is fun.”
“Dude!”
“Moan again,” they say encouragingly, and pull. It’s an act of sheer willpower that keeps Fray from obeying. “Since when are you shy—ah!”
Fray’s hand has slipped beneath the waistband and gone straight for its target: fingers cupped, he moves forward until he meets damp and impossible heat. A firm twist of his wrist and Baj is arching their back, eyes wide. He does it the other way and they clamp their thighs together in a desperate bid to defend their anatomy. Fray, though, has always had good flexibility. His fingers wriggle and squeeze, and Baj bucks against him. “Good?” he questions, just to hear them gasp out yeah. As a reward, he shoves their jeans and underwear down their hips.
He’s arrested by the sight of them like this, almost naked, heat melting the air above them, the actual, literal glow that pulses gently through the dark curls that hides what he wants. Their breasts heave in a way that makes him feel insane, and the way they look at him over the crests and curves of their own body leaves him breathless. “God, Kaiana,” he mumbles, and must lean forward to kiss them again. They meet him with what he hopes is eagerness. He’s hyper-aware of the sensation of his fingers sliding forward through hair, pausing to investigate whenever some new landmark is found. He can do this. He’s good at this. His fingertips find what they’re looking for, and he presses like this—and this—Fray’s other hand has slipped into his own pants, too consumed to mind about dignity—and then—
Heat floods his hand as Baj bucks again, crying out. He’s scarcely done anything, he thinks with a moment’s disappointment, and then he remembers that he’s pretty sure this is Baj’s first climax in a long time. The thought sends him grinding his own hand. Baj’s tensing and panting fuel the heat between his own legs.
Breathing rapidly, shallowly, Fray makes himself continue fingering himself when Baj settles and looks at him again. They watch for a moment, looking disheveled in the most stunning way, then say, “Not bad.”
Fray stops short. “What?”
“I said not bad.”
“That’s it?”
Baj blinks. Shrugs.
Fray is still sulking over this when he remembers the hand teasing his sensitive anatomy. He pulls it free and licks at his fingers, trying hard to disguise disappointment. He doesn’t want to just be not bad, he wants to make them see stars.
“Hey,” they say, tugging at him. “Come on. Mount up.”
“What?”
In reply, Baj pats their thigh and lets their legs fall open. For one mad moment Fray is convinced he’s going to see a cock where there was none before. This not being the case, he chalks it up to wishful thinking. His confusion remains. “On your leg? What?”
“Yes, on my leg. I’m not letting you have all the fun.”
“Oh,” Fray says stupidly, and clambers on.
This, this he’s more used to, he thinks as he straddles Baj’s thigh. Then his mind goes blank as their hands grip his hips and drags him forward a little. The resultant pressure and angle makes Fray pitch forward with a gasp, catching himself on their shoulders. He’s wet-wet, something he can feel the truth of in the way his underwear now clings to him. He needs to get these off, but Baj repeats the motion and Fray is left with staggered breath and a hunched posture. He feels his own emptiness with a kind of ache.
“Wow,” says Baj, conversationally. “You really should do porn.”
“Man, sh-shut up.”
“I thought people were just being assholes when they said that about you but—”
“I would love to do porn,” Fray bursts out, and Baj’s lips quirk (the equivalent of a cackle for them). “But everybody except you would get upset about it and I can’t now anyway.”
This seems to get through to them. Baj makes a sound of assent and then rocks their thigh under him again. Fray sighs with the sensation, now less overwhelming and more soothing. “So what am I doing up here?” he asks. “Humping your leg?”
“Yeah. If you want.”
The complete lack of any kind of coyness does more to unbalance Fray than any dirty talk could. It dissolves any hope he might have had of maintaining composure, and without that armor he feels exposed and vulnerable. It’s not a bad feeling. Not with Baj, anyway. He makes a quick excuse about chafing and stands just long enough to shed the rest of his clothes, leaving him naked before their appraising eye. It thrills him as he settles back down on their bare leg, feeling the immense heat press against his sex. He wanted that, to feel his skin against theirs. He wonders if it’s obvious. Probably. That’s okay.
God. He feels dizzy, he feels high, he feels lifted a hundred feet in the air. Baj finds his hands with theirs and takes them. He squeezes their fingers; they squeeze back. He wants to tell them how he feels, except no one has invented the words yet. Love? Need? Codependent? Maybe.
Instead he leans forward again and kisses them on the mouth before trailing down their throat. He licks at the dip of their collarbone and sucks at a spot on their bare shoulder, fingers weaving into their hair until it tumbles from its bun. They make little noise save for what he would almost swear to be a purring sound, and begin again to drag him by the hips over their leg, forward and back.
It’s good. He picks up the pattern and grinds on the forward motion, lifting slightly on the backstroke. He can feel the damp trail he’s leaving, and how it threatens to evaporate with Baj’s heat. He’s taken utterly by surprise when Baj slips their hand between them, palm up. “Keep going,” they tell him without an ounce of self-consciousness, and, flushed red, he does.
This is a side to Baj he hadn’t realized existed, he thinks blearily as he shoves against their probing fingers. And here he’d assumed they would be passive. That’ll show him.
Any other thoughts gets knocked out of his head when they twine two fingers together and press into him. The heat is immense and sends warm shivers all through him. Fray makes a noise between a moan and a squeak. “Too much?” Baj says instantly, and he feels their hand trying to withdraw. Perhaps more firmly than necessary, he drops his full weight onto them. “Ah,” Baj says, and stops their retreat.
It’s been ages, and he feels tight. He doesn’t mind the stretch, though. He rocks his hips, sighing contentedly, and his eyes only open when he feels a hot and careworn hand slide up between his breasts. Baj is studying him, mild interest that Fray can translate into fixed fascination on their face. They say nothing as their fingers slip up his throat, up his jaw, and along his ear. They frown, fractionally. “Not pierced anymore?”
Thoroughly distracted, it takes Fray a moment to answer. “The–n, no. The—you know. They healed up!” On “up” Baj grinds the palm between his legs flat against him, and his voice pitches to an embarrassingly high octave. “Dude!”
“Wanted to see what you’d do,” they intone mildly, and to Fray’s disappointment, they pull their hand back from his thighs. “Ow,” they say, shaking it out, and Fray can see his own slick on their fingers. “Wrist hurts.”
“Switch positions?” They shrug, which earns them a punch in the shoulder. “You better not blue-ball me,” Fray says, and can only manage to make it half-joking.
“Right, yeah, your balls. Get off.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do!”
This quip has the effect of causing Baj to roll him onto his back, pinning him by the shoulders. Their hair falls around him, leaving their face the only thing left to focus on. Prolonged eye contact has never been Fray’s forte, even with Baj. Baj, on the other hand, spends large portions of their time doing nothing but looking at Fray. They’re doing it now, in fact. The unrelenting fiery gaze consumes him. He welcomes it.
It feels right when Baj kisses him again. It feels right to have their raging heat pour into his mouth through their tongue, to relax into their touch when they hitch up one of his legs, to arch into their hand as they slip their fingers back into him. His heart thunders in his ears, overfull with whatever the thing he feels with Baj is. All he wants is their touch, their attention, their interest. He rolls his hips and covers his face with his arm, overwhelmed. “Please,” he whines, to no response. “K-Kaiana.”
The fingers slow, and a sound of distress escapes him. “Please!”
When he pulls his arm from his eyes he is half blinded from the winter glare that creeps in through the windows. All he can make out is the orange burn of Baj’s eyes. “What?” says Baj.
“Fuck me!”
It’s so corny, coming out of his mouth, but it’s the only thing his hormone-addled brain is offering. He expects a laugh, teasing, more jokes about Fray-as-porn-star. What he gets is Baj dragging his hips up into the air, braced against their front, leaving his legs to dangle over his head. Before he can think of anything to say, Baj has sunk three fingers into his cunt, straight to the knuckle.
Fray’s voice fails him, cracking into breathless, meaningless syllables. His mind blanks. His hips move in time with Baj’s finger-fucking, he clenches, he pants. Baj watches him from above, intent and serious, like Fray’s writhing is scientifically interesting. That thought does something to him. As Baj twists their wrist to thumb at his clit, Fray’s orgasm rolls through him like thunder. Baj fucks him all the while.
He has to bat Baj’s hands away when it passes, reeling and with no hope of speaking. They peer down at him between his legs while he rides the aftershocks. “You should do porn,” they say with a bit more reverence than they had earlier. Fray wheezes a laugh and covers his face in his hands.
Eventually, they slide him back down to the sheets. Eventually he gets to curl up against their unnatural heat and bask there like some reptile. Eventually he realizes what the words trying to bubble up in his chest are.
He resists them as long as he can, but he’s more used to trying to force words out than keeping them in. The syllables feel clumsy and stupid on his tongue. Baj will roll their eyes at him. But that’s okay, he supposes. If it’s Baj.
“Kai?”
“Mm,” says Baj. Their nose is buried in his neck, their breath like the summer sun on his skin.
“You feel like home.”
They shift, enough to look at him with the unflickering glow of their strange eyes. It’s a steady light, an unrelenting ember. A hearth fire.
Home.
It’s only after they clean up (a shower that felt cold from the start with Baj pressed up against him) that Fray sees it. Hair still in a towel, he stops on the threshold. “What?” Baj asks from behind.
Fray, still low on words, points. Baj follows his gaze to the rumpled bed, the sheets of which bear scorch marks in several roughly Baj-shaped ways.
“Ah,” says Baj.