Daylight arrived in Sasha's room at a ragged crawl, falling upon a chaste threesome that was just barely contained by the bed. Chemicals held Casey in a firm embrace and Sasha seemed to be completely asleep as well, as though Casey's drugged breaths had a sedative power over him. For his part, Zeke had been gritty-eyed awake for the past few hours, keeping guard at one side of Casey, occasionally surrendering to the impulse to touch him but mostly just watching with scant illumination from outside the window. Street light, and there may have been some moonlight helping out, too; Zeke wasn't sure. Now, in the brighter light of day, he was reproaching himself for not having devised some sort of practical strategy instead of spending those hours in a voyeuristic stupour.

Not that he could have done anything to stop himself. He didn't particularly want to, for starters. The more time he spent learning Casey's face, the more fascinatingly alien it became, an assemblage of crooked paths and shadows. The shapes that he observed lost meaning and began to render something foreign where a moment ago there had been something known.

He heard a small, querulous exhalation from someone else in the room. Tearing his attention from Casey's face, he saw that Sasha was awake, and his eyebrows were getting a vigourous morning workout. Without making a sound, Sasha was strongly suggesting to Zeke that it was time to get up, that Zeke was not to miss another day of class as Casey was in very capable arms and wouldn't wake up any time soon, that there was no reason why all normalcy had to cease just because Casey went on a rampage in their living room last night.

When Zeke glared back that he didn't want to leave the bed or the room, and never mind fucking school, Sasha literally kicked him out. It was a gentle kick that didn't disturb the bed's other occupant, but Zeke got the message. Stumbling out of bed, he showered and shaved and dressed, all of which went a long way towards his feeling less like crap.

Somewhat revived, he stuck his head back in Sasha's room and verified that Sasha was asleep once more, or at least cultivating the appearance of sleep for Zeke's benefit. Casey looked like he hadn't even shifted position, his face lax and empty, and once more familiar. Zeke fetched his backpack and let himself out quietly.

The unseasonably warm weather of yesterday had given way to grey and damp once more, and an unexpected chill in the air that made him want to turn around and head back to bed. Without engaging much of his mental energy, he made the decision to just drop in at Wellth instead of heading to the bus stop. There was no way, just no way he could do it this morning; he could not tolerate lectures on the New Deal, the Post-War Settlement and Plato, nor the inane questions that would inevitably surround them. Now, if the university were willing to hold the lecture on his roof, that would be different. That, he could have managed to attend, with Casey less than a minute away.

He stepped just inside the store and scanned for Stokely. There were a handful of die-hards browsing for new detoxifying formulas and metabolic boosters and whatever else they might require at this hour of the day, but no one behind the cash register right then. He went on a hunt and found Stokely in the bulk foods aisle. She was squatting, sweeping up the spillage from a bin of coarse, brownish flour. He could see immediately that she was not in a terribly balanced state of mind or body. When she glanced up and found him standing, she quickly constructed a facade of brightness over her actual face. "Hey," she said, straightening up.

"Hey, Stokes."

He paused, trying to decide what he wanted to say. There was a redness around Stokely's eyes. She shifted her weight, looking uncomfortable and decidedly hungover.

"I..." Zeke performed a visual scan for any audience. Finding no one within range, he continued, "I wanted to see how you — how you are."

Stokely rubbed her forehead. "I could use a coffee break."

"First alcohol, now coffee?"

"You can just bite me. I thought it would be easier than saying let's go grab a soy-milk low-fat chai latte and a whole-wheat bagel."

He gestured for peace. "Fine, sorry..."

"No," Stokely sighed. "It's me. I'm bitchy this morning."

"`s okay. Let's do soy latte, then."

"Don't you have class or something?"

He shrugged. "Or something."

Stokely raised her brows and scolded, "Bad boy. Very bad." She called out, "Tara, I'm going on a break, okay?"

"Okay!" came from somewhere in the store.

They went across the street to Zorba's, where they had taken Casey's parents for breakfast on Saturday morning. Two days ago that was. Only two days, and here was one fuck of a good paper for Casey to write if he ever returned to his physics degree: On the Nature of General Relativity in Times of Crisis, or How Two Days Can Feel Like Two Years.

Zeke fetched himself a cup of the "Alaskan" blend and a muffin, and he paid for Stokely's chai and bagel as well, conscious that she was going to be in financial distress soon. They sought a table near a window, where Zeke could view the people passing by outside. He wondered what sort of dramas they were enduring in their homes, what things were going on in their lives that you would never know from their faces. They could be dealing with loved ones who were sick and hurting. They could actually be falling apart without anyone noticing.

"So how's it hanging, Stokes?" he asked.

"You're hilarious. My head is frigging killing me, feels like someone drove a nail right in between my eyes." Stokely took a sip of her chai. "Ahhh... that's better."

"I've been there."

"I'll bet you haven't. I'll bet you've never felt quite this rotten."

"If you say so," he conceded, amused.

"Well, my consolation is I've learned my lesson and I remember why I gave up alcohol." Stokely was twisting her napkin in her hands. "I'm sorry about that whole scene last night, too. I didn't want to — I didn't want my problems to be your problems. Or Casey's."

"Don't sweat it." Zeke wanted a cigarette badly; he glanced around for a sign of prohibition, hand creeping towards his shirt pocket.

"No smoking in here, Zeke."

He felt a little bit caught and he resented it. He should probably consider that a warning sign; as much as he currently enjoyed his habit, he certainly didn't want to end up a forty-year-old addict with yellow teeth and a lung-shattering cough. He wasn't there yet, but it did occur to him that lately a pack didn't seem to be going as far.

Stokely was thinking along the same lines. "Maybe it's time to quit those."

He shook his head. "Definitely not a good time."

"Why not? You can't wait until there's no stress in your life, by then you'll be dead of cancer."

"Why, what an uplifting thought. Thank you."

"I just mean that if you're really and truly committed —"

"Stokes, spare me the twelve-step. I need more patience right now, not less ."

"Why? You afraid you'll snap and start beating up on Casey?"

"Of course not," he shot back.

But he saw himself as he had been last night with Casey hanging in his grip. He had an unambiguous memory of bone under his fingers as his hands pressed into Casey's arms. There would be bruises — and worse than that, he remembered wanting to squeeze harder, to shake Casey until he tumbled all the crazy thoughts out of his head. He remembered dropping him, or maybe he had actually pushed him down. He couldn't be sure.

"Zeke? You okay?"

The question had him right on the brink of some sort of outburst that he really didn't want to have. "Not entirely," he managed.

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

"I thought we came here so you could tell me how you were."

"You know how I am, Zeke. Break-ups suck. Listening to you talk about your stuff will take my mind off my stuff."

He was always doing this to her, though. Probably because she knew a lot of the important facts about him and Casey, not the least of which was a certain life-changing episode that she had faced with them — but it wasn't fair and it was more self-indulgent than Zeke liked to consider himself. She was his friend and she had problems of her own that deserved airtime.

"What was going on with you and Sasha last night?" she asked, trying to give him an in. "I've never seen him so cranky."

"Stokes," he sighed. "It'll take hours to explain."

"So give me the Readers' Digest version."

"A lot of it is private."

"Just tell me what you can."

He stalled for time, slurping his coffee.

Stokely grinned at him, batting her eyelashes. "Well, it's up to you of course, but just so you know, I've been dying of curiosity here. I hope you noticed how hard I've been working at not being nosy."

He decided that it would be the appropriate to reward her good-humoured determination. "Yeah, I noticed. Okay, I'll tell you some of it — but you really do have to keep it to yourself."

"Who would I tell?"

"And you'll have to ask Casey if you want specifics."

"Deal — okay, now spill."

How did he get from summer in their boring old hometown to this? It was a blur, but he knew that the core of it was between himself and Casey, and would not be talked about to anyone, today or ever. He would give her an abridged account of events — but he was not going to tell her all the nasty details of his sex life. That simply wasn't going to happen. Twenty-two year-old guys did not share that stuff with their girl pals.

"I think you've heard Sasha mention an ex of Casey's?" he began.

Stokely settled in to listen, wrapping her hands around her cup and returning Zeke's gaze with concentration. "Roy."

"Yeah, Roy. Casey met him not long after he went off to school. They were together for almost two years and he ditched Casey just before Casey came home for the summer."

"I kinda knew this part. The ex-boyfriend who fucked with Casey's head."

"Yes and no. I mean, yes, Roy is a prick and I would pay big bucks for a chance to beat the shit out of him, but...I wouldn't put all the blame on him."

Stokely reared back a little. "I'm amazed you can say that."

"Stokes, when I ran into Casey in June he was shut up in his room, he hadn't gotten out of bed or changed his clothes or brushed his teeth or talked for a really friggin' long time. That wasn't just because his boyfriend jerked him around and dumped him."

"You don't have to tell me, Zeke, I've known Casey since kindergarten. I'm just impressed that you want to give Roy any get-out-of-jail-free cards."

"Don't get me wrong, I still hate his fucking guts, but...I guess I just have a vested interest in being the devil's advocate."

Again Zeke heard Casey hitting the floor last night. That had been right before Zeke violated his promise to Casey, a promise that also happened to be the only real one he had ever made. Fuck, how he wanted a cigarette — but it was probably just as well that it was illegal. Stokes would see how his hands shook, and better to keep that under the table.

"Hey, Zeke? Guilt is just so not you."

He flicked a glance at Stokely.

"When it comes right down to it," Stokely continued, "I think that Casey would have been this way without ever meeting a Zeke or a Roy or even a Mary Beth. He was always by himself, always looking for someone to latch onto but no one let him — and thatincludes me, by the way. I could blame myself for refusing to play Lego with him when we were in second grade."

"You refused to play Lego with him?"

"I had my own issues, Zeke. So why don't we just agree that he was born with certain wires and was unlucky enough to go to a high school that got invaded by aliens?"

"You know...you're a lot wiser than I realized," Zeke said, not entirely teasing.

Stokely turned bright pink and retorted, "I don't know shit. All I know is nothing is simple...Um, so Roy fucked with Casey and then dumped him and he came home for the summer — right? And then you came into the picture."

"That was around the time that I decided I didn't want to marry Delilah — "

"— which was so totally right — "

"— and I wanted to see Casey. I envisioned him with this amazing life that I thought I could have too. I had only seen him a few times since high school and he just seemed so..."

Stokely smiled knowingly. "What?"

"You know," he replied. He was probably the same shade of pink Stokely had been a moment ago. He fiddled with his muffin, reducing it to bready crumbles.

"No," Stokely drawled. "I don't."

He made himself look at her and not smack the smarmy grin right off her face. "Do me a favour and fuck off."

"Nope, not until I hear you describe Casey. In your own words."

"He was different, but in a good way. Happy?"

Rolling her eyes, Stokely said, "That the best you can do?"

"Uh-huh."

"Zeke — "

"No, Stokes."

"Oh, fine," Stokely pouted. She shrugged, and busied herself washing down a bite of bagel with her chai tea. "Sorry. I'm just such a sap, I wanted to hear you being all gushy and romantic — but I forgot one very important thing."

"What's that?"

"You're not me."

"I don't know, I've been feeling pretty gushy lately."

"Oh, please. Zeke Tyler doesn't gush. He expounds...or maybe if it's something really good, he enthuses."

"I've been known to rhapsodize," Zeke offered.

Stokely rolled her eyes. "Get on with the story, would you?"

"All right...so I went to his parents' house back in June and that was where it all started. He was in a terrible state and it just got worse. I thought he was getting help. He lied to me and said he was getting help and I let it go."

"But you were kinda having your own crisis, weren't you?"

"I know, I was totally wrapped up in it and I didn't see what was going on. Remember how we talked and I said I wasn't sure if I wanted him to come with me to Seattle? It turned out he knew. I didn't tell him but he figured it out. So Roy and I both jerked him around...and everything just sort of came to a head. He hadn't been eating and he had some sort of accident at home and burned himself. I had to take him to emergency, and that was how he ended up in that hospital."

"Zeke...I'm sure it was the right decision."

"There was nothing to decide," he said, feeling uncomfortable. Maybe he was violating Casey's trust by telling these things to Stokely. Maybe he should quit before he gave away too much. He checked his watch and suggested, "This is a pretty long break you're taking."

Stokely easily deflected his attempt to ditch the conversation. "They're flexible as long as we don't abuse it. Come on, I want to hear the rest."

"That's it. Casey decided to come to Seattle with me, so right or wrong, here he is."

"But...what was going on last night?"

"Long story short, Casey's parents brought him his mail this weekend, and it included a letter from Roy. We all read it, and Sasha got all worked up and wanted Casey to talk about some things that went on between him and Roy. I figure Casey will talk when he's ready — or maybe he won't but either way there's no point in pushing him. But of course Sasha just wouldn't leave it alone."

"Ah."

"So after you left last night there was — for lack of a better word I'll say Casey and Sasha had a fight. And then Casey and I had a fight, and I had a fight with Sasha...it was your basic disaster. Then..." He cleared his throat, hesitating just for a moment before plunging on. "Then I woke up in the middle of the night and I heard Casey on the phone, talking to Roy."

"Oh, fuck."

"Yeah, I felt like..."

Zeke's tongue failed him. He couldn't comprehend what he had felt, he couldn't believe that it was even possible for him. It contradicted everything he believed about human emotions and the universe in general. It was not some over-the-top sentiment — it was just the messy, enormous reality. Logic could define it but gave him no rescue.

"You felt like...?" Stokely cued him.

Like I would die.

He couldn't speak those words, but Stokely's hand was now lying warm and friendly upon his, just long enough to let him know she cared and then it was gone.

"So you heard Casey on the phone..."

"I was pathetic, Stokes. I jumped out of bed — " Jumped out of Sasha's bed, tripped over the unfamiliar layout to the room and his own feet "— and ran to the living room. I don't know what I was thinking but maybe I wanted to grab the phone and yell at Casey and tell Roy I would kill him if he ever showed his face again...But I actually froze. I was completely fucking numb."

"Understandable."

"Yeah, but...Casey could have been giving Roy flight information and I wouldn't have been able to stop him. I was just useless."

"What was he saying, though?"

"He took me by surprise, that's for sure. I thought — I don't know what I thought. I certainly didn't expect him to be tearing a strip off Roy."

"Oh, my," Stokely said. "But that's good, right?"

"Yeah, it's good..."

"But what?"

Zeke looked out the window at the windows above the store. "Oh, Stokes...He could hardly talk, it was painful to hear...and he blurted out to Roy that he was in Seattle and I wish he hadn't done that, but...well, anyway. It's done now. He did say he never wanted to see Roy again. Are you sure you can be gone this long?"

Stokely raised a knowing eyebrow. "Tara's keeping an eye on things. She'll understand when I tell her it was a personal thing."

He took a deep breath, the images taking focus in his internal lens. His heart was pounding again. He felt as paralyzed as he had been last night, standing there in the dark with Sasha next to him as they watched Casey go ballistic on the telephone.

"It did feel good for a few seconds. Just to hear him say it...but you didn't see him, Stokes. I know it didn't make him feel any better. He just...freaked, really and totally freaked. He started screaming at Roy, and then he smashed the phone...I mean he smashed it into little bits."

"God," Stokely breathed.

"I think he would have smashed something else but then Sasha made some stupid remark about how we need a new phone."

Stupid, but it had gotten Casey's attention.

They all stared at each other until it became ridiculous.

Standing in the corner, surrounded by a mess of plastic and paper bits on the floor, Casey was a study in extremes. He was wrathful and fearful, furious and desperate, empty and manic — all of it borne on the splotchy and tear-streaked countenance of a single young man. His entire body was vibrating with distress while he hugged himself and shifted his weight unevenly from foot to foot, as though that could somehow keep it all in.

Zeke didn't have a fucking clue what to do.

Finally Sasha made a move to bridge the coffee table and the few feet between them. He laid hands on Casey, who cried a denial and tore his arm away, staring at Sasha in warning and panic.

Sasha was not going to give up easily. "Kitten..." he said, and reached.

Then Casey was scuttling backward in the narrow channel between couch and coffee table so what began as an offer of comfort had turned into a chase, with Casey circling the table Sasha stalking him around it. "No...no good," Casey muttered. "Don't...stop it, stop it — " He broke off, making a sound of surprised pain as his shin came into contact with the coffee table. It was solid wood with an oak veneer, a relic from one of Sasha's secondhand shops. The collision must have given him an idea; he laid into the table with that shin, kicking repeatedly with no apparent intention of stopping, synchronizing his words with the damage he was inflicting on himself: "Stop. It. Stop. It."

"Casey...kitten...please," Sasha begged.

Again he managed to get close enough to touch Casey, just a small touch above his elbow, and Casey recoiled like a person who had suddenly discovered a very large insect crawling up their arm. "Don't," he hissed. He took a jerky step back and ran into the couch again. "Don't...say that..."

"Okay, kitten."

"Don't call me that!"

"I'll call you Mr. Connor if you want, only please — Casey — please don't hurt yourself."

Casey got still, his face contorted in anger, sorrow, suspicion, and a dozen other things.

"Why don't we sit?" Sasha proposed, very reasonably.

"No."

Sasha looked helplessly at Zeke, who grasped that he was expected to intervene. "Please, Case...can we sit down?" he echoed, and winced at his lack of originality.

"Why?"

"I think we all need it."

"Not me." Casey's frantic gaze moved from Sasha, to Zeke, to Sasha...back and forth like he expected either of them to pounce at any moment. The blotches had faded, leaving him a desperate, clammy white.

"I'm looking at you, Case, and I think you need to sit down."

"You don't want to. Not with me."

"Don't tell me what I want to do," Zeke contradicted gently.

Casey blinked once, twice. A third time, while the dementia began to melt off his face. "Okay," he said, frowning.

He sat cross-legged on the couch, right in the middle, and rested his folded elbows on knees, folding his body over like his stomach hurt. Zeke sat next to him, while Sasha positioned himself in front of them and began firing round after round of solicitude. "Can I bring you anything? Did you hurt yourself? How about some tea? Or maybe something cold?"

Casey appeared to consider it all, then: "How about a nice pill?" When neither of them responded, he started to laugh. "How — about it...gotta calm down, right? Calm the confused, crazy boy down? I'm not making any sense here and you gotta calm me down."

Zeke said, being sure to speak loud enough that he would hear, "You're not crazy, Case."

The laughing crashed to a stop; Casey tilted a look at him. "How do you know?"

"I just do," he said.

Out of nowhere, Casey accused, "You left."

Zeke's mind was racing, his body charged with adrenaline as he collected visual and aural input, seeking indicators as to the right approach, and still finding himself at a loss. Casey's body language said that he still didn't want to be touched, and a Casey who didn't wish to receive physical comfort was a Casey that Zeke never quite knew how to deal with. He was glad to be sitting; his knees, his hands — his whole body was trembling under the weight of responsibility. Meanwhile, Sasha was sitting on the edge of the coffee table, practically knee to knee with him, and offering nothing.

"I know," Zeke replied, his throat dry, "and I shouldn't have done that."

"You should do that. You should never come back because you'll just get broken if you do why should you even want to come back god...fuck...I don't...I hate this...IhatethisIhatethis!"

"Case — " Zeke risked a touch, laying his hand lightly on Casey's shoulder. When that wasn't rebuffed, he slid his arm around both shoulders and carefully hugged Casey against him. When Casey's hand crept up and took hold of Zeke's shirt, he could have wept with relief.

"You left," Casey said again. "And — and — I broke your phone —"

"We'll replace it. No big."

The grip on Zeke's shirt tightened until the collar pinched at his neck. "Told Roy where we live."

Zeke had already decided he was not going to let that one bother him. If Roy tried to make use of that information, Zeke would deal with him. "It's okay."

"But what if he comes here, what if — "

"I doubt that he will, but if he did we would handle it."

"I — I hurt you — "

Zeke trailed his fingers up Casey's neck and rubbed his nape, massaging muscles and tendons that felt like wires and string. "Yes," he agreed. "You did."

Across the way, Sasha's eyes became huge.

"You did, but you didn't mean to," Zeke said, with a challenging stare right back at Sasha. "I know you would never hurt me on purpose. You're trying to protect me and I appreciate it but I want you to stop. I want the pure, unadulterated Casey. He's not nearly as scary as you think he is."

Zeke didn't know if it was a wishful delusion on his part, but he sensed that he was accidentally saying something important. Casey was very quiet now, his body shuddering as it tried to restore equilibrium. Zeke kept up the stroking, waiting for the clenched body to unwind and take succour with him.

He added, "So you had a bit of a meltdown. You're still here, I'm still here and Sasha's still here. I'm sure there'll be more of them but we'll survive it."

Casey muttered something.

"What's that?" Zeke prompted.

"Not so sure."

"I am," Zeke said, thickly slathering confidence on the two little words. "Just — tell us what you need right now, Case."

Casey lifted his head and looked at him with wet eyes. His hair had formed damp spikes, his eyes were red-ringed, yet to Zeke he was perfect.

"I need the bathroom," he said, almost defiantly.

"All right, that's one thing," Zeke said, "but you have to give Sasha something to do before he implodes."

Casey remained rigid, shivering in waves. He looked in Sasha's direction, just barely. "Dunno — "

Sasha said, "Whatever you want, kit — uh, Casey."

"I...want one of my pills."

"I'll get it, but you need to be sure to tell Dr. Chakri how many you've been taking, to make sure it's okay. Anything else?"

Casey drew a breath and said in a very small voice, "Hungry."

"How about cinnamon toast...maybe some hot chocolate?"

With a swipe of his sleeve over his moist face, Casey said, so quietly that Zeke almost had to strain to hear him, "Yeah."

It seemed like Casey was in the bathroom for a long time, much longer than it could possibly take to do the usual things one did there. When he did emerge he was subdued to the point of invisibility, not meeting anyone's eyes as he shuffled his way back to the couch. Zeke put a tentative arm around him and was gratified when Casey leaned in. They remained in that pose, not moving or speaking, until Sasha returned.

The cinnamon toast had been cut into neat triangles and, in an attempt at levity, was arranged at artful angles on the plate with the tiny white pill perfectly in the centre. Casey didn't comment on it. He started with the pill, then got to work on the toast and cocoa. Since no one was talking, Zeke put on the TV for background noise.

"Would you like some more?" Sasha asked the minute Casey was finished. He was giving off the glow of a vindicated cook.

"Okay," Casey said.

"Um," Zeke interposed. The butter, chocolate and cinnamon fragrance had drawn him in; his stomach was growling.

Sasha had leaped up but stopped in mid-stride. "Yeah?"

"Could I...could I have some?"

Sasha broke into a grin. "Sure."

By the time he got back with a second helping, though, Casey was unconscious on Zeke's shoulder. Sasha shrugged, and the two of them sat up together for a while, sharing Casey's toast.

"We managed to get him to calm down and then we just sat up together," Zeke finished. He had given up on his muffin entirely. "Casey fell asleep on the couch and Sasha and I ended up watching Charlie's Angels together until we decided to try and crash. I think that was about four-thirty in the morning."

Stokely winced. "No wonder you look wrecked."

"Thanks."

"Did you get any sleep at all?"

"No. We went back to bed but I couldn't fall asleep." Zeke sighed. "And I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen when he wakes up. I don't know if what happened was good or bad, or what it means...It's not a good feeling."

"I can't believe what you're dealing with, Zeke."

"Never thought I had it in me, huh?" Zeke downed the dregs of his coffee and stared out the window. It was starting to drizzle, making an already damp day even less inviting.

"No offense — but no."

Zeke shrugged. "None taken. I never thought I had it in me either."

"I wish I could help somehow, but...Casey just doesn't trust me like he used to."

"He trusts you. Believe me, if he didn't you would know."

"Then why does he look at me sometimes like he expects me to sprout tentacles?"

Zeke controlled a shiver as the unpleasant image settled to the bottom of his mind, where it would stay. He said, "I think he suspects everyone that way."

"Not you, though."

"Even me. Sometimes he gives me this look and I can tell he's cataloguing everything, correlating the data..."

"But why should he worry about you? You never really came into contact with them."

Zeke had never shared with anyone what went on between himself and Mary Beth in the storage closet, and he had no intention of doing so now. "It isn't exactly a rational thing, Stokes," he mused aloud.

"I guess." Stokely shredded her already-shredded napkin. "Do you ever feel that way? Like we might be surrounded by them?"

"Yeah," Zeke admitted. "I do, but I'm not about to say that to him." Feeling the need to end the conversation, he got up from their table, concluding, "There's really no point worrying about aliens. If they want to get us, they will. We were just lucky last time, and who's to say that they don't have bigger, nastier cousins out there?"

"Okay, now that I'm completely freaked out...I guess it's back to work." Stokely wrapped her bagel in a napkin and got to her feet. "I'll take this with me."

"Stokes...I meant what I said before about finances. I'd be happy to help out."

"I appreciate that, Zeke, but I'm going to try posting an ad for a roommate, see what sort of nibbles I get. I...um...may have to borrow a bit from you here and there."

"Like I said...you only have to ask."

"Thanks."

They were heading to the door in single file, Zeke in front of Stokely.

"And feel free to drop in whenever you'd like..." He trailed away as an unlikely scene presented itself to his eyes. Stokely had begun to answer him but was cut off by Zeke's exclamation. "What the hell — ?"

As they moved to the door, Zeke's eye line had expanded and he was now getting a full-on view of Casey standing at the cash register, surrounded by strangers.

The stain was going to be permanent.

On his knees next to the wall, Casey took a break from his scrubbing to ease the ache in his arms. Okay, he had gotten the worst of it off, but there were still streaks and discolourations that simply refused to budge despite his best efforts. He seemed to recall seeing a bottle of bleach under the sink, though, maybe he could try that.

"Casey?"

He couldn't stop the flinch, which was followed immediately by the usual procession of symptoms...Heart, lungs, hands, there they all went like clockwork while a sleep-rumpled Sasha winced sympathetically.

"Sorry. Startled you, huh?"

Startled didn't cover it. Bewildered and astonished might just...because Sasha sounded and looked exactly as Sasha always did, as though he really liked the person he was talking to and looking and he wanted to convey that liking with his every word, his every gesture.

"Casey, what are you doing?"

"C-cleaning — the wall."

"You didn't have to do that..."

"It won't come off."

Sasha crouched next to him and examined the wall for himself. He said, like he was talking to someone dangerous, "You got most of it. No one will notice it unless they're looking."

"I should..."

Sasha put his hand on top of Casey's and insisted, "How about you just leave it now?"

Casey relinquished the sponge. It wasn't doing him much good now — and he could always try the bleach later.

"Now this doesn't mean that I want you to give up on helping with the housekeeping, you understand." Sasha smiled as he telescoped into a standing position, then headed for the kitchen, adding, "You can wash dishes as much as you like. Wash dishes, mop the floor..."

"Where's Zeke?" Casey asked.

He hadn't intended to just blurt that out, even if the question had been at the top of his list of worries since unfurling himself carefully from Sasha's warmth this morning and stealing to the door of their apartment to verify that Zeke's backpack was gone. That was supposed to mean that Zeke was at the university but supposed to didn't mean it necessarily was — so he had gone and peered out his bedroom window to the alley below. The Mustang was still there — but that didn't have to mean what it was supposed to mean either. He had thought about waking up Sasha to ask him, but that would have been absurd. Sasha needed his sleep, and Casey already knew the answer to his question. He had no faith in that answer, but he knew it.

That was really the crux of it all. He knew how he was supposed to behave, what he was supposed to think, and while he was capable of formulating those thoughts, he just couldn't believe in them. He did understand the whole bit about friends going the distance for each other, and sure, Zeke and Sasha might act like they weren't fed up with him...but perhaps they didn't yet appreciate how completely terrible he was...or they did and they were just trying to spare his pitiful feelings.

Sasha halted his trajectory, turned, and regarded Casey for a moment without comment before saying, "Zeke's at school, Casey. He'll be back later...Come and sit with me, okay?"

Casey let himself be led to his usual place on the couch, while Sasha sat in his chair. He was near but not next to Casey, looking at him steadily, with nothing but patience and kindness. Even so, all of Casey's organs continued to trip over themselves in fear of whatever it was that Sasha was going to say today.

It started with, "How are you this morning?"

"Okay," Casey gulped.

"I'm glad to hear it." Sasha coughed. "You know...I'm very proud of you."

"Don't — don't say that."

"Why not? You told Roy off, you told him to leave you alone...I heard you giving him hell, Casey, why wouldn't I be proud?"

Casey closed his eyes, struggling to formulate something other then imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry... He remembered screaming and smashing and holding two people hostage with his little tantrum. "Can we — can I — ?"

"What, Casey?"

"Buy a new phone today?"

"That's really not necessary, Zeke can look after it. Or I will."

"But I broke it. I broke it, I...just need to go to the bank and check if my dad put money in first is all — "

"Casey, we understand you were angry, it's fine — "

"I was the one who broke it, I should fix it!" Sasha looked at him quickly and he realized that his tone had arrived as screeching hysteria. "Please," he said, trying to sound calm. "I want to go get a new phone — I need to call — that clinic."

"Okay, kit — " Sasha said. His eyes fell. "Casey."

...sorrysorrysorrysorry...

"Do you really not like it when I call you ‘kitten'?" Sasha asked.

"No...I...yes, I do, I mean..." Casey put his feet on the couch, bringing his knees up and holding onto them. "I don't know why...I said that."

"Maybe you've had enough of pet names."

"No — I haven't really, Sasha — really..."

...sorry Zeke hates him sorry Zeke can never trust him Zeke left him Zeke can't get what he needs Zeke can't go to school sorry the last three days have been so bad sorry for every time he doesn't make lunch or wash dishes or left everyone else to make excuses for him sorry he never called that relaxation place and doesn't go for walks and throws up everything he eats just about sorrysorrysorry he told Sasha he hates him...

Now there was a warmth and weight beside him, and a hand rubbed his shoulder. "It's okay, kitten. Calm down...breathe...there, that's it." Sasha removed his hand but not his careful gaze. "We still love you."

"How...you can't...?"

Somehow, Sasha smiling. "Oh, we manage."

"But I told you — I said I hated you."

"I forgive you, kitten. We all make mistakes but they don't have to live on forever. I made a mistake too, but I'm way past it so you should be too."

"I — I don't know — "

"Just try, okay?" Sasha squeezed his shoulder this time. "You're easy to love, Casey." Getting off the couch, he said, "Now, just let me grab a shower and get pretty, and then I'll go shopping with you. Won't be long."

Trembling, Casey watched as Sasha sauntered off to the bathroom. "Just fucking stop," he whispered to himself. "Stop it, stop it." He chewed on a finger, biting down hard until the surge and crash of feelings receded enough that he could think — somewhat.

For a start, he would not think about Roy anymore. He couldn't afford to. It wasn't entirely clear in his head, but he seemed to remember telling Roy to leave him alone, and he didn't have any energy to squander on Roy now. He must not dwell on the fact that Roy could easily track Casey down now if he wanted to. Casey didn't think he would, not after last night...last night when he showed the two people who meant everything to him exactly what he was...he was a very fuckable body but there's nothing there, not real, nothing whole or real or stopstopstop...he had to give Sasha and Zeke something, he had to make amends.

He couldn't give them normalcy, that was fairly well established by now. Maybe, though, he could manage to give them routine. The simple, mundane routine that you could count on so that your life runs itself when you're breaking down. If you had routine then maybe the chaos inside you didn't have to be everyone's chaos — which was where the phone-shopping came in. For routine, you needed a phone. You needed to call various people to make appointments and then attend those appointments and if you did that, if you were on track, then Sasha would feel safe enough to call that waiter from work and make a date with him. If Sasha had a life of his own, then he would be happier and Zeke could get what he needed from Casey so he would be happier too.

It had to start whether he was ready or not, because Zeke and Sasha couldn't exist like this anymore. They were going to protest and claim that they were happy to keep picking up his slack indefinitely, but he knew it wasn't so. Zeke was breaking, and Sasha was breaking. They would never say so, but they were. So it had to start — he had to start.

Where and how, though, were another matter. There was the phone, yes, but that was just cleaning up his own mess. There had to be something Casey could do now to surprise Sasha, signify to him that Casey was serious about this whole routine thing. Something that Casey hadn't done before, something just for Sasha...Coffee. A coffee from Zorba's just down the street that would say I'm sorry I'm such a mess but I'll stop now, or if I don't really know how to stop at least that doesn't have to be your problem anymore.

So he would get a coffee for Sasha, apologize again for what happened yesterday, go phone-shopping — check in at the bank, of course. Then once they were home and safe again, he would phone for an appointment at that relaxation therapy clinic, and he would call Dell or Gateway so they would soon have a computer and Zeke could use it to write his papers which meant that Casey would be contributing something to the household.

Down the hall, the shower was still running. Casey heard Sasha warbling one of his jazz tunes...Nice work if you can get it...and you can get it...if you try.

The plan had just one flaw: He didn't want to do any of it. His quivering body said he wouldn't survive it even though his head insisted otherwise. Well, his body would just have to get with the program. His head knew he was supposed to do these things and supposed to would just have to forget about like to.

He went to their living room window and looked out, almost able to see in the front window of Zorba's. It was grey on grey out there — but not raining yet. He could go out and be back in five minutes and barely get damp. And he still had a few bucks from yesterday.

He put his half-empty cup on the table and went to the door, not making a sound. He put on his fleece, shivering already. The money and his new ATM card were still in his pocket. He needed to get a wallet. Normal grown-up types owned a wallet; even Zeke, who was fairly abnormal, had a wallet.

But he wasn't quite getting out that door, was he? Five fucking minutes. He would only have to be lucky for that long. Five times a count of sixty which really was a very long time if you thought about it. If you weren't thinking about it, though, if you fucking tried, it could pass just like that.

He opened the door. A blast of chill, autumn air. Hadn't it been summer yesterday? It seemed like it had. Casey tugged on the fleece's zipper, making sure it couldn't go any higher. He stepped out on the metal stair.

Getting down the stairs wasn't so bad. He concentrated on the simple expedient of moving one leg and then the other, setting down this foot, that foot. At the bottom of the stairs he stopped, frozen in place. People passed the entrance to the side alley, some walking briskly, others meandering. One stopped and put down several bags of groceries she was carrying, resting her arms and hands. She looked directly at Casey and nodded at him once before resuming her journey. The nod seemed cordial enough.

Not that it meant a fucking thing. Of course the ones who couldn't be trusted would look identical to the ones that could.

One foot in front of the other. That was the only thing that would do. A bit of that and he was on the sidewalk. He turned left and started to walk. He took a step, and two more, and stopped again before Wellth's front display, his legs trembling, leaning against the window. Every time someone passed by him he pressed a little harder into that glass wall, which naturally didn't give at all. It was hard and unyielding, and so was the cement under his feet and the grey sky.

He couldn't do this. It wasn't doable, he had to go back. He was in the open, completely exposed and the whole world was out there. It all looked like it should, but that didn't count for shit. Someone had to remember, someone had to be vigilant. If they assumed they were safe, fate would be forced to bite them on the ass. It was complacency that nearly got everyone the last time and if they were here, if it wasn't safe, then complacency would certainly finish them off.

Dammit, it was the same sidewalk as the other times when he had Sasha or Zeke or his father with him. The same fucking sidewalk, no extra danger just because he was alone. No monsters under the bed suddenly because the lights were out when they hadn't been there before...but they were there, the monsters. They had always been there, that was the whole point...Poor little Newt in Aliens was right when she said, My mommy always said there were no monsters no real ones but there are...Maybe having someone with him out here helped him to not think of it, but he was alone and he was thinking about it now and he would zone out and be standing here helpless, no fantasy that, it had happened too many times before —

"You're okay," he muttered. "Go...just fucking...go."

He gulped for air, forcing the thoughts to be on pause. He was staring though the windows, right at the woman behind the cash register. She was Stokely's friend...Tina...Tara, that was her name. She was looking at him, her brows drawn together. Perhaps wondering if there was someone she needed to call.

Running seemed like the thing to do. He scurried for the coffee shop, chanting under his breath, "You're okay, you're okay, you're okay..."

He came through the door at Zorba's so abruptly that every person on that side of the coffee shop looked at him, including every person in a really unmanageably long line- up of three plus two employees and several people sitting at tables and it was a Monday morning didn't these people have jobs or something? And what was so interesting about him anyway, you'd think they'd never seen a crazy person before. In his mind he screamed at them all to fuck right off but what if he said that out loud, what if his mouth just opened and it came out and then they really had a reason to stare at him and follow him stopitstopitstopitstop!

He took his place in the line, leaving a couple feet of space between himself and the person in front of him. He jittered from foot to foot, so that everyone would get the message that they were to leave a wide margin between themselves and him.

"...okayokayokay..." he breathed.

Fuck normal.

"...okayokay...."

Not doable, not. Living in the apartment, staying there and never leaving, that was doable. He didn't really have to go anywhere if he got everything set up the way he wanted. It could be done, people did it, all he had to do was decide. He could do school on-line and have groceries delivered. Like the lady in Copycat, Sigourney Weaver again, living in a completely self-contained world writing books and consulting for a living —

"May I help you?"

The question was abnormally loud, expelling Casey from a better world that he didn't happen to live in. A gangly young man with long hair was waiting, most likely having asked his question once or twice already.

Casey stammered, "Um....uh..."

"Yes?" the guy prompted.

There was a wall of impatience behind Casey. And in front, too, coming from the coffee guy. "A c-coffee," he got out.

He only heard half of the response: "What kind of...like...have Alaska...and... today."

Clenching his hands together in front of his belly, he tried not to imagine what it would be like if someone touched him because he would run away shrieking. "Y-you...you pick," he said.

The face and tone of the guy came through the anxiety haze with perfect clarity. "Well, do you like a full-bodied taste or something lighter?"

What was that about, did he like his coffee how? He didn't... it wasn't... "I don't know...It isn't — f-for me," he blathered, feeling desperate tears welling up.

The guy shifted his weight and blew exasperation out of his mouth, his eyes flicking over Casey with disinterested pity — which was not so bad he supposed, it could have been fascination, that fascination that people sometimes had for the freakish when it was right in front of them. "Okay, I'll pick. Most people like the Venetian. Milk and sugar?"

Casey drew a breath. "I don't know," he whispered. He should know, he did...He knew the pattern on Sasha's favourite pajamas and his birthday, and that he liked his beef rare and his pork medium. He should know this. "I don't know."

The coffee guy rolled his eyes and said acerbically, "Do you know anything?"

"Rob," said a warning voice from behind him. It was accented and that was all Casey could make out just then; at another time, a more rational time, he would probably have been able to identify the type of accent. "I'll bet Geraldine would like some feedback about your customer service skills. Is she around?"

"No," said Rob the Coffee Guy.

"Is there a suggestion box?"

Rob moved from impatient to sullen. "I"ll just put milk," he said to Casey. "Is that to go?"

Casey was capable of a nod.

From behind him, the stranger with the accent advised, "Bring a few packets of sugar with you. That way chances are you'll get it right."

That crisp, analytical voice somehow suggested compassion, and plain old- fashioned helping-ness. Casey made himself turn and look. Its owner was a black man, roughly in his forties. Tall and broad shouldered, he was a towering structure that easily could have been intimidating, but something about the way he held himself...wasn't. He wore a perfectly tailored suit in a deep shade of teal blue. His shirt was mustard yellow, his tie a brilliant pastiche of Africana in reds, oranges, yellows.

Even in his current state, Casey easily recognized the charisma in front of him and was slightly bewildered that it should take time from its own day to help him. Casey knew he should say thank you — but it wasn't a good idea to engage in any kind of extended social interaction, even if the person appeared completely human and trustworthy.

"Nasty weather," said the man, with a slight smile.

"Uh...yeah..."

Thinking ahead to the impending ordeal of paying for the coffee, Casey dug some money out of his pocket and promptly dropped several coins on the floor. The man in the teal suit bent down and retrieved them.

"Here," he said, handing them to Casey. His hand was big, calloused and warm. Casey finally identified the accent as something Caribbean; he lacked more specific knowledge than that.

"Th-thank you," he said.

"It's not a prob — "

"Casey!?"

Zeke's voice, it was Zeke's voice, it was...that was Zeke which was so unthinkable that Casey felt the panic swell to a new level as Zeke came hurtling at them, Stokely close behind. The people standing in line parted easily before Zeke, who took Casey's arm in a very firm grip; not as firm as last night but still a good, secure grip that overlapped the fingerprint-shaped bruises that were already there.

"What are you doing?" Zeke demanded. His eyes did a tour of Casey's benefactor and didn't like the view one bit. He tugged Casey a little closer to his own body. "Where's Sasha?"

"H-home."

Rob the Coffee Guy announced gleefully, "That'll be one-seventy-four."

Zeke must have decided to notice that there were other people around, people who might be looking at them; he let go of Casey and glanced down at the counter. "You're missing a quarter," he told Casey.

He gave the man who had been helping Casey a fixed, meaningful stare.

Casey groped for a coin with a hand that shook to the point of paralysis. His fingers scrabbled over paper, paper, paper...He couldn't find anything remotely like a small disc-shaped piece of metal. He wanted nothing so much as to run from the store crying but some mysterious emotion was keeping him from doing that. It couldn't have been pride.

Zeke casually pulled some change from his own pocket and put it down. Then picking up the coffee in its paper cup, he directed Casey with a hand on his shoulders to a more open space out on the sidewalk. Stokely was already out there, waiting. "Sneaking a little java?" she asked, trying for a smile.

He shook his head. "It's for Sasha," he answered, appealing to Zeke for understanding.

"Does he know you left the apartment?" Zeke asked, humourless.

"No, I..." A tear snaked down his face, catching him by surprise. He swiped furiously at it. "I wanted — wanted to surprise him."

"Well, I'm sure that you accomplished that."

Casey's answer, the answer he thought of first was No, I was supposed to get back before he knew so there would just be coffee waiting but that won't be happening now thanks to you... but that was a little bit of a lie, the truth was it took him ten minutes to cross the street and by the time he got in here he was broken and it actually felt really nice to have Zeke standing here next to him being completely masterful and in control.

Coffee in one hand and Casey in the other, Zeke marched home. Stokely trailed them as far as the door to Wellth. She said something about maybe seeing them later.

Sasha was in their doorway, with a face of stone. He was bent over, putting on his shoes.

"Oh, oh, oh!" he cried. He crushed Casey against him, mashing Casey's face against the buttons on his shirt for a few seconds before he released him, taking in his current condition. "What did — where the hell did you go?"

"Wanted to — to g-get you a coffee."

"We have a completely functional coffee maker and we have those ground up beans that you put in it and one of those newfangled water taps that water comes out of."

"I wanted — "

"Do you appreciate the kind of terror I feel when you do these things?"

"I — I was — was going to — get back — before —" Casey stuttered and that was as far as he got before a heavy misery bore down on him and silenced him

In a much-preferred reality, Sasha sipped on a fragrant hot beverage, content in the knowledge that he had helped his friend heal to the point that he could do this simple favour for him, while Casey congratulated himself on his first solo outing and Zeke sat in a lecture hall and chewed on the end of his pen, thinking up brilliant retorts and firing them at the professor in even bursts, thinking happily about how he and Casey would have the apartment to themselves later because Sasha was going out on a date.

In the reality Casey was settling for, Sasha had processed Zeke's presence and said, "And you? What are you doing here anyway? Did you skip class again?"

Zeke shot back, "Don't try to be my mother, Sasha. I have one already and I don't like her."

"But I thought when you left this morning..."

"I couldn't go, not with..."

Not with the Casey-monster around, the one who broke things and stopped people from doing things, from having a life. Who could go to school when they were living with a lunatic and worrying about the lunatic doing lunatic things when they weren't watching him?

Unexpectedly, Sasha lifted his cup and said, "Kitten...Thank you for this, I appreciate it." He took a taste. "Milk," he said thoughtfully, not quite managing to suppress a grimace.

Because Sasha drank his coffee black. He always said if he wanted milk in his coffee he would have a latte, but the rest of the time it was black black black. Casey knew that but he hadn't known it when he was in the coffee shop because fear had grown holes in his brain.

Now the holes had closed up and he could remember things again and feel and say and think sorrysorrysorry but it was getting to be too much to say, too much to be redeemed from, the tally against him getting longer and longer...Sleeping with Roy being helpless making endless drama that got everyone worked up and worried being completely useless every difficult day since. That mess on the wall. Breaking the phone. And now screwing up a simple attempt to do something for someone other than himself — not that it was truly selfless. If he were selfless he would just stay put and obey all orders, never stray far from anyone's direct gaze.

"I'm...sorry," Casey said, trying to dam up the oceans of salt water behind his eyes. If they weren't standing there trying to recover from his latest escapade, he could have lain down on the floor and bawled.

"Hey, it's okay, kitten. I'll live. And — I'm happy that you got me this." Sasha patted his arm. "I'm almost ready to go."

"Where are you going now?" Zeke wanted to know.

"Casey and I are going to get a new phone."

"I can do that," Zeke said immediately.

"No, you're going to the library to catch up on your reading and then to your class at two."

"Sasha — "

"Do you want to fail out of college?"

"I won't."

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure."

"Well, go anyway."

Zeke turned an uneasy look on Casey.

"I'm okay," Casey said. "I — I want to. I broke it."

Which sure the fuck didn't make much sense. He just babbled and babbled and they wouldn't get much of use from him, just like Roy didn't last night even though he had tried to say it all and got too overwhelmed and confused and Roy yelled at him but he could stand here with Sasha and Zeke and hope please go because if you don't everything, every last thing, will be wrong, go and say it's all right, please, even though I may never see you again.

"All right," Zeke said, not entirely willingly. "I'll go to class. I...um, I thought I would stop by the movie place on my way home. We could order pizza for supper and make a night of it. How's that sound?"

"Excellent idea," Sasha chimed.

"Any movie requests?"

Sasha said, "No gore."

"All right, no gore."

"Something fun," Sasha added. "I'm just going to finish my hair, I'll be a sec, okay, kitten?"

Still wearing his shoes, he walked down the hall and into the bathroom, leaving Zeke and Casey still standing in the foyer. "How's that sound?" Zeke asked.

Zeke was nervous, and Casey was aware that it was the first time they'd truly been alone since the bedroom scene of last night — which he didn't entirely remember. There was the say my name and hands biting him while his head thundered the youdontsaynotome so the face in front of him blurred into someone else's and he was asked the one question that was impossible for him to answer. Then he was dropped, the floor rushing up to hit him, and his vision finally cleared, showing him Zeke's back as he fled.

"Good," Casey remembered to say.

Zeke smiled a tender, almost shy smile that immediately brought Casey's insides to a full quake, shivering with nerves and acid. Casey saw Zeke's hand reach for him and he met it with his own grip, bringing Zeke's hand to rest on his jaw and rubbing his face against it as he stepped in. An arm slid around him. Casey put his cheek flat on Zeke's chest, using one finger to trace a seam on Zeke's shirt. Closing his eyes, he laid his palm flat over Zeke's heart, felt it lobbing itself into his palm.

"Zeke..."

"Case, I'm..."

"...so sorry."

"...sorry for making a scene in the coffee shop."

"I'm sorry for scaring you."

"Sorry for — for holding you so hard last night."

"Sorry for what I did...sorry for hurting you."

"I'm — no, I'm...no more now, I'm done, just...Who was that man you were talking to?"

"I don't know. He helped me."

"Hmmph. With no ulterior motives, I'm sure. Not that I don't trust you, Case, it's just...I know I'm not entirely objective but it seems to me that you're pretty damn irresistible."

Casey didn't know where he found the will to be playful when it was the last thing he felt. He murmured, "So any man could just snap and attack me?"

"Something like that."

He sent his gaze upwards, into the dark furnace of emotion above.

"Do you want to attack me?" Casey asked softly.

In answer, Zeke's mouth claimed Casey's. Not hard, but possessive and powerful and everything Zeke. Let me live here, it said, and it will be okay, all this other crap won't matter. Stay in or go out, I don't care as long as we stay just like this, me inside you. I'll make you safe. Show me how you want me...show me...show me...there you are....Now I have you.

Zeke drew back with a set of tender kisses along the outside of Casey's mouth, his cheek, his closed eyes. Casey opened his lids slowly and let Zeke fill his world. Zeke was holding both his hands against his chest and he was all that Casey could see, eclipsing everything.

Someone cleared their throat.

Casey shifted against Zeke so he was standing beside him, hoping that the throbbing heat in his crotch wasn't completely obvious.

"I'm ready to go," Sasha said, trying to pretend he wasn't flushed or upset at catching them at that moment. "And as much as I'd like to stand here and ogle, we all need to get going. Did you eat yet today, kitten?"

"Breakfast." Casey pressed closer to Zeke, hating the university and phones and empty stomachs and clinics and the need for all of them.

"Well, believe it or not, a lot of people eat three times in a given day. Sometimes more." Sasha moved past them into the kitchen. "I'll slap together a sandwich for you. Were you about to go, Zeke?"

Zeke let his arms fall, stepping away from Casey. "Yeah, I'm going. See you later." He kissed Casey once, a matter-of-fact peck on the mouth, and left, casting a smoldering look back over his shoulder.

Sasha was throwing the bread on the counter. He slammed the fridge door a bit harder than necessary, his lips pressed in a tight line.

"I could — " Casey started, leaning up against the wall.

"Don't even."

"But I could do that."

Sasha opened his mouth, drawing a sharp breath, then closed it. He continued what he was doing and said, "Casey, listen to me now. I want to take care of you. I like taking care of you."

Casey wrapped his arms around his chest and rocked into the wall. "Don't you — you must get tired of it."

Sasha's mouth was getting thinner and thinner. "Must I?" he said. He dropped a slice of ham on the floor and cursed, "Fuck!"

"I'm sorry," Casey said quickly.

Sasha shook his head in visible frustration, bending over and retrieving the escaped pork and throwing it out. "No, don't apologize, kitten, it's not your problem. All of a sudden it bugs me when I see you and Zeke together like that and that's my problem." Two more slices of meat were put between bread and cheese. Sasha cut the sandwich in half diagonally and yanked a sheet of paper towel off the roll hanging over the sink. "I don't want to be worried. I'm a romantic, you know that. I would much rather go ‘ooh' and ‘aah' when I see you two in a lip lock. It's my natural inclination — but I can't not worry. As far as I'm concerned, sex is the last thing you need right now." Handing the sandwich over, he said, "There. I've said it, now I'm going to shut up. I just have to figure out a way to keep my distance and keep an eye on you at the same time."

Casey took a bite. Ham and Swiss, and he was hungry despite the nerves dancing with joyless abandon in his gut. He chewed, swallowed and said, "Maybe you should, um..."

"What?"

"I know that — that you — you like taking care of me but maybe you need a break....just...something more fun to think about."

"Like what?"

"A d-date?"

"Hmmph." Sasha tilted a suspicious look at him. "Trying to get rid of me, kitten?"

"No," Casey said, putting on his most innocent face.

Sasha laughed. "Yes, you are! That's okay, I won't take it personally, I guess. Well, if you want me to go anywhere we'll have to get that phone, and I'm not setting foot out there until you finish that sandwich."

Casey obeyed, even if he did fear that the sandwich wouldn't be staying in his stomach. Not that he wouldn't try. He wanted to be capable of shopping and digesting at the same time. There was always Xanax, but today, this afternoon, he wanted to try to go without. He had been taking the pills almost every six hours the last few days.

Inevitably, the five-minute walk to the bank and then the remaining ten to the Radio Shack in their neighbourhood left him a quivering wreck who didn't give a fuck about the tools of modern communication anymore. His stomach was churning, his head was aching, his limbs were covered in cold sweat. He felt himself on the point of crying or screaming, the only thing holding him back being uncertainty as to which he should do first.

And in an amusing quirk of destiny, the salesperson who helped them could have been Casey himself. Just out of high school, short, nerdy, and far too interested in gadgets. Casey wanted to take him aside for a heart-to-heart and tell him where he was going to go wrong, but he knew that the moment he opened his mouth he would vomit.

"There's the KX-12, that's perfectly serviceable but if you're looking for something more — "

"Um," Casey said, interrupting him. "That one."

He pointed at one model of cordless phone, something reasonable both in price and in technical complexity. He pulled out the cash he had just removed from his bank account and shoved it into Sasha's hand.

"Do you have a b-bathroom...could use?" he said around clenched teeth.

The Casey-alike nodded. "Just go through there and look to your left."

He ran for the door with the sign "Employees Only" and emerged minutes later, shaking and chilled. Sasha was standing at the cash register, looking sad and worried while he waited for the saleskid to finish bagging their purchase. Casey went over and stood as close to him as he could. Confused terror swirled in his head, blanking out all the reasons why he was here, why he had not brought the little bottle of pills with him when the bottle was singing to him from home... Should have taken us with you...never leave home without us, should have taken one...idiot idiot such an idiot for not bringing Xanax with you.

Sasha didn't have anything to say as they walked home.

Once inside, Casey went directly to the shower, his trembling legs barely keeping him upright. For half an hour he stood under the spray, the heat turned up just to the point of scalding, just barely able to keep down the desire to smash and smash and smash his fist into the hard tiles until it shattered and sprayed blood and bone. He would watch it all go down the drain and laugh and then he would do his other hand, and then maybe his head.

There was a cup of mint tea waiting for him on the kitchen table when he came out, and Sasha was sitting there as well. "How about trying that new phone out?" Sasha asked.

"Huh?"

"Don't you have some calls to make?"

Casey grunted and sat down in the chair across from him.

"I didn't hear you," Sasha said, in his stern-schoolteacher-with-a bun-on-top-of- her-head voice.

"What's the point?"

"You know what the point is. If nothing else, you don't want to get into trouble with Dr. Chakri."

Casey took a sip of tea and found the taste quite palatable. It settled his stomach at least — hooray for insipid, discoloured water, it was perfect for him as it turned out.

"Maybe you should stop being so hard on yourself," Sasha suggested.

"Why?" Casey said to his cup.

"Kitten, this is the same problem we had yesterday. You're trying to force yourself to act like everything is hunky-dory because you think that's what Zeke and I need."

"It is."

"No, it isn't, Casey, it...What we need is for you to get well on your own schedule. It's not something that can't be forced."

"You make Zeke go to school."

There was a pause across from him, but he didn't want to look up to interpret its meaning. "That's true. But school is Zeke's job now. You don't see me not going to my job. Going on dates, though...that's something else. I'm not capable of enjoying myself out on the town when I'm worrying about you, so stop trying to make out like I could. I love that you want to do that for us, but please don't — don't hurt yourself over it."

"You told me, you said...you said guess what happened to me I got asked on a date but I can't go because I have to worry about you."

Sasha's mouth fell open.

"So I'm the reason you can't have a life."

"That's not what I said."

"It's what you — meant."

"Are you arguing with me, Casey?"

Casey stared at his tea.

"I'm not saying don't argue with me...I'm just surprised is all."

He should never have spoken because he was out over the edge now, without words. There was a great, white, quivering nothing in his head now.

"Yes," Sasha elaborated, forcing the conversation to limp forward, "I was thinking that I had to stick around all the time to watch you and Zeke, but that was yesterday and now I've decided I'm not going to do that. It's not right for any of us. So tell me to butt out of your sex life, Casey, and I will. I have to anyway, but it would help if you said it."

Sasha's tone was even and calm. There was no sign of anger.

"It's okay. You can say it, I won't be offended. Do you want me to butt out?"

They both waited. Casey had no idea what was going to happen, what he was going to say.

"Yes," he heard himself whisper.

"There, see how easy? You can tell me off, kitten, and I'll still be your friend."

Casey gripped his teacup, thinking about the mess he had made on the wall yesterday. Surely things like that never went away, no matter how hard you tried. People said they didn't notice, that it was gone and behind them and they meant it too, but that discolouration was always there, a tinge of something that was so subtle it could pass for invisible.

Thankfully, Sasha kept talking, filling the silence. "Now I'll make you a deal, kitten. We'll give the new phone a few hours to charge up, and then you call this relaxation therapy clinic and make an appointment. After that I'll call Jerry and see what he's up to."

Casey nodded, not daring to disagree. In fact, he was going to make it his life mission to never disagree with anyone again.

The lecture hall was nearly full, but there was an empty seat next to Winona that she had probably been saving for him. He couldn't comprehend why she was so determined to have him as a friend. Not that he disliked her especially, but he felt no real need to socialize with her. He had never seen the value of aggressively pursuing relationships the way that some did. Like Delilah. The sheer volume of energy that Delilah poured into her social life had always amazed and humbled him.

Winona waved. Undoubtedly, she had seen him see her so he had no choice but to sit next to her unless he wanted to snub her, which he wasn't particularly interested in doing.

"I missed you last Friday," she said once he was settled.

"Oh. Well, I...I was busy."

Now that he was sitting, it was difficult to think of anything that didn't have to do with Casey. Casey and how he had looked up at Zeke just before, with his eyes such a deep shade of blue they were nearly solid through the pupil, with that particular tincture of desperation and hope and welcome that slammed him back in time. Three years ago, a heavy stare, sleepy eyes — and then a furtive kiss that he had made himself forget

"...So then I tore off my clothing and climbed the Space Needle like Spiderman."

He blinked at Winona. "Huh?"

"You're off somewhere. You haven't heard a word I said."

"No," he admitted. "Sorry."

"I'll forgive you, I guess."

He quashed his annoyance. She was in no position to forgive him. She barely knew him.

"You can borrow my notes from Friday if you like," she offered.

"Um," he said, thinking that the last thing he wanted was to trust someone else's interpretations of the course material but he would be polite. "Thanks."

"No problem." Winona sighed. "Wouldn't it be nice if the professor didn't show?"

"Yeah." Zeke groped for more than a monosyllabic answer. "He isn't the most exciting lecturer."

"That's an understatement." Winona paused, her expression just a little scheming, to Zeke's eyes. "So, Zeke. I have the feeling you pretty much understand this stuff."

"What makes you think that?"

"Just a few comments you made here and there. I was wondering...We have our first paper due in a couple of weeks and I'm nervous. I know it's only five pages but it's my first paper in college and I'm afraid I don't really get Plato, so, um..."

"Yeah?"

"Could you tutor me a little? I mean, just you and I get together and talk Plato a bit? Maybe you could look over my paper too, after I write the thing. I'd offer to read yours for you but you probably don't need it — "

"I've never written a paper for college either." That was the truth, although he had no way of knowing what sort of critique she could deliver. "Okay. I guess we could do that."

"That is, if your boyfriend lets you out of his sight long enough?"

He turned a long, flat look on her.

She shrugged, her mouth forming a slight smirk. "Just teasing."

"Don't." He noted the professor walking in with relief. "Maybe I'm not the person you want to help you study."

Winona didn't answer and she didn't get a chance to as the lecture had started. Zeke listened with half an ear, occasionally writing something down, thinking about later, how he and Casey might contrive to get some time alone. Tomorrow it would happen for sure, because like it or not, Sasha had to go to work.

Winona tapped his arm. He looked over at her pad of notepaper that was lying in easy view. It said I'm sorry, I'll never say a word about the boyfriend after this. I'd just like a study partner so I don't feel like I'm out on my own here. I'm really not a bad sort.

Zeke scribbled, Okay.

So when do you want to get together?

He remembered Casey's appointment. Don't think I'll be here on Wednesday. Tomorrow at one?

She gave this proposal a checkmark and they parted amicably at the end of the lecture. Zeke moved on to his next assignment, which was to get a movie for tonight.

The rental place that Casey preferred was called Video Now and Then. Zeke knew that Casey liked it because, in addition to all the newer, mainstream offerings, there was a decent selection of older and lesser known titles. The owner of the store tended it himself and had seen the three roommates come in together enough times already that he recognized Zeke right away. Zeke received a cordial nod when he walked in, and he nodded back.

After several minutes of perusing the shelves, Zeke had to admit that he was drawing a blank. He had not appreciated what a weighty undertaking it could be to choose a movie by himself, without direction from Casey. The regrettable truth was that most of Zeke's knowledge of movies was derived from reading magazines and novels rather than direct consumption.

"Can I help?"

The shop owner was standing next to him. He was stocky, with beefy shoulders and arms; he looked like an ex-boxer to Zeke, which seemed incongruous and somehow appropriate at the same time. "I dunno," Zeke sighed.

"Did you have a particular theme in mind?"

"Um...something to cheer up my friend."

"That would be the short one, right? With the eyes?"

Zeke decided not to be concerned that the man had noticed Casey. That was going to happen more frequently if Casey began to traffic with the world outside their apartment. And to be fair, only a blind shopkeeper wouldn't have figured out by now that of the three of them, it was Casey who was his star customer.

"Yeah..." Zeke said. "So what movie do you recommend for cheering up depressive movie addicts?"

The man didn't blink. He just put on a thoughtful face for a few seconds, then shaking a triumphant finger at Zeke, said, "Hold on."

He walked around to the other side of the store, grabbed a DVD and returned, handing it to Zeke.

"Singin' in the Rain?" Zeke said, disbelieving.

"Yup."

"Aw, come on..."

"Trust me on this." The man cocked his head. "You've never seen it?"

"I don't think so. I might have and just don't remember."

"Oh, I think you'd remember if you'd seen it."

"I don't like musicals."

"Neither do I, but this one's pretty good. And you did ask..."

"Okay...I'll try it."

Zeke followed the man up to the front to take care of the financial and administrative details. He fell into a light trance while the man ran his phone number through the computer and punched in the rental fee. He tried to imagine how Casey looked to this man, what it was about him that stood out and did he notice Casey the way Zeke noticed him....the short one with the eyes...eyes like dinner plates, sometimes...eyes like a lesson about blue...

"Here you go...what's your name, then?"

"Zeke."

"Here you go, Zeke. And what's your friend's name?"

Zeke hesitated, but the man seemed harmless. "Casey. And the tall one is Sasha."

"My name's Anton."

"Thanks, Anton. I'm sure we'll be seeing you again."

At home, Casey was right there waiting by the door and he launched himself into Zeke's arms, wrapping his legs around Zeke's waist, forcing him back against the door. It was not particularly comfortable when one wore a backpack full of sharp-angled books, the edges of which were finding all the soft spots in his back — but he ignored that, manoeuvring his bag off his shoulder while holding Casey and staggering into one of the kitchen chairs. Casey was in an almost manic state, smothering his lips with one tremulous kiss after another. "Missed you," Casey said in a breathy whisper.

"Missed you, too....okay...need oxygen now, Case."

Casey had put his feet down, straddling Zeke's lap. "Guess what?"

"What?"

"Sasha's got a date."

"Really?"

"We got the phone and he decided to call...his name's Jerry...and I called that relaxation therapy place."

"When is the appointment?"

"They don't have appointments, they just kinda do orientation sessions. The next one's Thursday."

"So the phone-shopping was okay?"

Casey put on a coy expression, and began to nuzzle at Zeke's neck. He murmured, "I freaked out like usual."

"Freaked...?"

A moist tongue drew a trail up his throat, ending with a nibble on his Adam's apple. "Are you mad?"

"No," Zeke gasped. "Why would I...Of course not."

"What movie did you get?"

Zeke dodged Casey's next oral assault, twisting sideways. "Casey, I want to know what happened."

Casey backed up, sliding off Zeke's lap. Standing in front of Zeke, he wore a distinctive hybrid of a pout and a scowl, one that made Zeke want to cuddle and molest him at the same time. "Nothing," Casey said sullenly. "I got scared. Alert the media."

"Why is that suddenly nothing?"

Casey's eyes got suspiciously shiny.

"I won't ignore it if I think that you're hurting, Case."

"I'm not hurting I'm great now, I'm at home and you're at home so let's stop fucking talking about me!" Casey was shaking now. There was a wet trail on one cheek. "What movie did you get?" he asked again, brushing at his face.

Zeke was left staring and trying to figure out how to interpret this — oh, fuck it, any way you wanted to parse it, this was anger. Casey had a lot of anger, it was finally unleashed, and some of it was going to be unleashed on Zeke.

"Singin' in the Rain?"

Casey's whole demeanour changed in an instant. The scowl disappeared and a smile suffused his face. "I didn't think you liked musicals."

"I don't, really. Anton recommended it."

"Anton?"

"The guy at your movie place."

Sasha appeared from the hallway, no doubt having heard the last bit of this exchange. "What did Anton recommend?" he asked.

Zeke sighed. "Singin' in the Rain."

"Ooh, that's one of my favourites!"

"Biting my tongue..." Zeke returned.

Sasha smirked. "Don't hold back on my account." He turned a more genuine smile on Casey and said, "Can't wait to watch it."

At this Casey looked extremely perplexed, and Zeke asked, "Don't you have a date?"

"A date? I invited Jerry over here to hang out with us." Sasha's eyes flickered uncertainly between Casey and Zeke. "If you can call that a date. I'm not going anywhere tonight," he finished, directed at Casey.

Casey was doing something jerky and painful-to-watch with his hands. "You said you would go."

"I did not. I thought we got this sorted out."

"You said you would call."

"I did call. This was the outcome, which I didn't get to tell you just yet because you were asleep until a few minutes ago."

Zeke was close enough to Casey that he could see his mouth forming shapes and sounds that were barely words.

"Kitten, I thought we learned our lesson yesterday about trying too hard."

"Not trying too hard," Casey choked out. "Just trying. Just fucking trying!"

"And so I called Jerry and invited him here to do pizza and a movie with us. That's the best I can do. If you really want to do something for me you'll accept that I want to stay here, because if I go I won't have a good time, I'll just end up worrying all night."

Zeke put a hand on Casey's arm, thinking of offering simple comfort. "Don't be upset, okay...maybe you should — "

Casey flung Zeke's hand off. "I don't want a fucking pill!" Almost before the words finished reverberating off the walls there was the switch-up, Casey's expression making another sudden transformation, from rage to horror. "I'm sorry!" he whispered. "Oh, god, I'm — I'm —" He broke and ran to his and Zeke's bedroom.

"It's been like this all day," Sasha said tiredly. "Everything's getting to him just that much more."

"That's okay by me," Zeke challenged, keeping his voice low.

Sasha scowled at Zeke. "Of course it's okay! I love that he's arguing with us...but it's scaring him to death."

Zeke nodded hurriedly, not wanting Casey to hear them discussing him. "I'll talk to him."

Casey was face-down on their bed, shoulders heaving. Zeke sat down as slowly as he could, giving Casey plenty of time to notice his presence.

"You can't expect us to stop worrying about you, Case."

Casey didn't move, speaking into the dark little place he had made for himself inside his arms. "But it's... always the same thing every day every day scared to go out scared to be alone...couldn't even get coffee, couldn't get my money out and the guy was – was really mad and everyone behind me was mad and looking at me thinking poor fucked-up kid, poor mental case... Then this afternoon I couldn't...Sasha had to do it..."

Zeke had resorted to stupidly petting Casey's shoulder. "But look at what you did today, you should be proud — "

"Don't — say that. Don't use that word...please."

"Why the hell not?"

"Just don't."

"Okay..." Zeke said, being as upbeat as he dared. "But you know, things are settling down. I'm starting to feel like a student...I did go to my class this afternoon and I'm getting ready to write a paper soon. In fact, I'm meeting with a class-mate tomorrow to discuss it with her."

Casey's shoulder remained stiff under Zeke's hand. "Her."

"Yes, her. Someone I met in class. Winona." Zeke teased Casey's hair. "You can't possibly be jealous."

After a pause: "No."

"Can I see your face, then? Maybe get a kiss?"

Casey rolled over and peered up at Zeke with wet eyes, looking every bit of a beautiful mess. Zeke snagged a tissue from the box on the nightstand and handed it to him. Casey used it, then curled his body so his head and shoulders were lying in Zeke's lap.

"Come on," Zeke said, stroking his hair. "Sit with me in the living room. I've been looking forward to crashing all day. Besides, we need to be in position to heckle Sasha's date when he gets here."

This earned a half-giggle, and Casey was on his feet momentarily, looking much calmer if still rather teary. Without a word he stepped into Zeke's embrace, laying his head on Zeke's chest.

"You'll be okay with this guy coming over?" Zeke asked him.

He felt Casey nod, perhaps not as enthusiastically as he would have liked.

"Tired?"

Another nod.

He tilted Casey's face up with a finger under his chin. "You're brave," he said softly. "Did you know that?"

Casey shook his head, flushing.

"You are. I meant it before and I mean it now. You've taken some big steps lately, whether you want to hear it or not."

Casey hid his face against Zeke. "I wish today was over," he said.

"It's just pizza and a movie. Hanging out, having fun...you know, fun?"

"I've heard of it."

Zeke angled sideways, trying to get a glimpse of Casey's eyes. Finally, Casey raised his head, and he was smiling a little. Zeke snagged himself a kiss, and took Casey's hand, leading him back to the living room.

They watched the Comedy Network together for an hour or so. Occasionally, Casey laughed at a gaffe or some particularly witty bit, and Zeke tried not to feel too euphoric over such little things. He put his brain on hiatus, hoping that he would feel refreshed when their guest arrived. His fatigue had worn a comfortable groove into him now, and he was ready to carry on to the end of the day, albeit with the pleasurable anticipation of hitting his bed. He heard Sasha moving around in the other side of the apartment, going into the bathroom, then the shower running, and then the hair blower followed by a long silence while Sasha performed his cryptic rites in privacy.

The Simpsons came on, and the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it!" Sasha hollered.

Then, unexpectedly, he showed up in the living room. Zeke had the uncomfortable suspicion that Sasha was checking on what they were wearing, that they were suitable to receive company. Sasha's ensemble was several notches above what one would normally wear for hanging around the house, and his hair was looking perfect, falling in longish brown waves.

"Casey...you sure you're okay with this?" he asked. "Because we don't have to do it. I can just explain to Jerry and — "

"No," Casey interrupted. "I'm okay."

To Zeke's ears he wasn't completely convincing, but Sasha nodded and hurried off to answer the door. Zeke caught a waft of Sasha's scent; it was sweet and spicy without being in the least bit cloying.

Zeke turned down the volume on the TV so he could eavesdrop. He heard, "Hi, Jerry...Come on in...Welcome to our humble abode."

"Very nice," said a moderate, tenor voice.

"Wait until you see the roof. Here, I'll take that."

"I brought dessert."

"How lovely! Pizza and cheesecake, it doesn't get much better than that."

Zeke cringed. He heard a nervous little giggle from Casey.

"I'd introduce you to my roomies," Sasha was saying as their voices came nearer.

"This is really a great place..."

Now Jerry was in viewing range. He was a man of non-descript good looks and average height. He looked like he worked out but he wasn't bulky. His hair was brown, cut short and rather conservatively styled. Perhaps near Sasha's age, and with some of Sasha's interests, but that was all Zeke could see in him at the moment. He didn't seem like Sasha's ideal.

"This is Zeke," Sasha said, indicating him.

"Hey, man." Zeke lifted one hand in a wave.

"And sitting next to him, that's Casey."

"Hey," said Jerry.

Zeke had the impression that Jerry gave Casey a much longer look than was polite for just meeting someone. Meanwhile, Casey didn't say a word. His hand tightened on Zeke's until it hurt.

"So it's a double date, huh?" Jerry said, evidently struggling to fill the gap.

"Yep," Sasha answered. "Go ahead, have a seat. Do you want something to drink? We have beer and some wine."

"I'll have a glass of white if you have it."

"Oh. Sorry, no. Just red."

"That's okay, I'll just have a beer then."

Sasha went to fetch Jerry's drink, and the only sounds left were Homer's antics in the background. Zeke wasn't in a mood to attempt conversation for conversation's sake, but he could feel Casey's growing unease beside him. Right now Casey would be scanning this person for signs of alien activity, watching for any indication that it wasn't safe to have him here, priming himself for a leap over the coffee table. Zeke felt some obligation to demonstrate to Casey that this person was harmless — and if he wasn't harmless then Zeke would deal with him.

"So...Has Sasha mentioned us at work?" Zeke asked.

Jerry smiled. "Um, yes, actually."

"Really. What does he say?"

"I don't think you want to know." The smile widened, and Zeke suddenly had an idea of what was attractive about Jerry.

"It couldn't be that bad." Zeke felt reasonably trusting that Sasha was not sharing the intimate and more provocative details of their lives at work.

"Um...I think he said that his friend Zeke was a college student."

"Nothing but the truth," Zeke said. "But there must be something else?"

"That you're brilliant and you know it," Sasha supplied, coming in with a tall glass. He handed it to Jerry. "One beer up."

"What do I have here?" Jerry asked, taking a tiny sip.

"Heineken."

"Hmmm..."

"Is that okay?"

"Oh, yeah, great..."

"You could serve me a beer," Zeke suggested to Sasha.

"Or not!" Sasha rolled his eyes.

Zeke considered putting his arm around Casey and asking a second time, so that Sasha would get the message: He was not going to leave Casey alone with this man for one instant, not until he had finished making his own assessment of Jerry's character.

Instead, he asked, "What else did Sasha say about us?"

Jerry glanced at Casey. "Nothing much..."

Sasha cleared his throat. "I said I had a blue-eyed kitten at home..." He waited for Casey to retort or otherwise participate, and when there was no response he clapped his hands together softly. "So! Are people hungry?"

"I'm starving," Zeke said.

"When aren't you?"

Jerry proposed, "I was thinking we could order from this place I know, they do these amazing sort of gourmet pizzas. Not the typical thing at all."

"I'm kind of fond of the typical thing," Zeke said. As far as he knew, Casey was a traditionalist when it came to pizza, and so was he for that matter.

"Okay, then," Jerry said. His comic-book thought bubble said, I'm in the company of unsophisticated rubes. "Pizza Hut it is."

"I don't like Pizza Hut," Sasha objected.

A few minutes of intense negotiation followed, at the conclusion of which they finally agreed to call a local pizzeria and get two large, one with just pepperoni for Casey and Zeke, and another with roasted garlic, chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, olives and feta for Sasha and Jerry. By then, Zeke had decided it was safe to get himself a beer. He deliberately didn't look at Casey when he got up; upon his return he found that Casey had moved into the corner of the couch farthest away from Jerry, and appeared to be expecting tentacles to burst from Jerry's mouth at any second.

God, how he wished the day was over and he could go to bed. The afternoon nap had done him little good. His legs were aching deep in the joints as though he hadn't slept in days. His thoughts were whirling this way and that, to no identifiable pattern — except at the epicentre of the maelstrom, there was a single nugget of data.

Zeke had met someone. No, not a someone. A woman.

Couldn't think, mustn't think about...Zeke deserved better than a whiny, suspicious bitch of a boyfriend. Casey wouldn't imagine what might happen, how Zeke might remember that he was not actually gay...oh, that was not fair either. Zeke had not wavered once since Herrington, to Casey's knowledge. But then, Zeke hadn't really been tempted and how could he be when he was constantly with Casey, always embroiled in Casey's problems, he hadn't even had a chance to do what he had come here for yet which undoubtedly included talking to people of the opposite sex so don't think, just fucking don't.

Or think about something else, like how he did not like Jerry. Jerry was not elegant like Sasha. He was too bland-looking except for his teeth, which were uneven. He obviously had no hesitation about sharing his opinions, of which there were plenty. He was a snob, too, Mister I'd-Prefer-A-White-And-What-Beer-Is-This-And-Why-Do-We-Have-To- Get-Ordinary-Old-Pizza. He even turned up his nose when he heard what movie Zeke had rented. Obviously his vast knowledge of most things didn't extend to the world of film, or he would have known that Singin' in the Rain was widely considered one of the great ones.

Casey could have forgiven Jerry all this if he had demonstrated the care and attentiveness appropriate to a first date with Sasha, but that was nowhere in evidence. Jerry was not besotted and agreeing with every word that fell from Sasha's lips like he should be. And worse, there was stuff going on in his head that he wasn't sharing. Zeke and Sasha must see that, surely. It might be nothing, but then...well, Casey would forgive a lot of things if he could just be certain that the man was what he appeared to be — as in, human. Casey would have been much happier with Jerry just standing out on the metal steps or up on the roof or out on the street, but here he was, having penetrated all the way to the living room, and since Sasha was trying very hard to be hospitable and Casey had insisted on having him here, he would have to try his very best not to care that this was a stranger, a complete stranger.

The pizza arrived and was consumed over a lengthy discourse between Jerry and Sasha about Pizzas We Have Known. Casey chewed on his mundane pepperoni and cheese and watched Jerry's jaw flap up and down until he couldn't watch anymore. It seemed like forever before they finally put the movie on; at that point Casey was more than ready to fade into it.

"You know what I think about Gene Kelly?" Jerry remarked, after the first song and dance. "I think he had a high opinion of himself...I mean, look at the way he's always mugging for the camera."

"I like him," Sasha said. "And not just because of the way his ass looks in those tight pants."

"Uh...I like that he's more — masculine — than you expect a dancer to be," Jerry allowed, squirming.

"He seems very athletic," Zeke said, and nudged Casey, no doubt expecting that Casey was in possession of some information on the subject. "But then most dancers are."

Casey folded his arms and stared at the screen. It was fine for Zeke to strike up a conversation, Zeke didn't mind arguing with people and people got used to it, from him. Zeke barely saw an argument as conflict; to him, it was just a way to exercise his brain.

"I always found Astaire kind of wimpy," Jerry said.

Sasha warned, "Casey's going to give us all detention pretty soon."

Jerry made a face and said to Casey, "You take your musicals that seriously?"

It seemed like he was trying to be amusing, but Casey found that he was shaking. Zeke must have felt it, for he tightened his arm about Casey and said, "Less talking, more watching."

It was okay for a while. Jerry was mostly quiet, although he did laugh at the right parts. Casey had almost managed to submerge himself in the gorgeous Technicolor of it all when Debbie Reynolds sang her first number and Sasha joined in unexpectedly with, "All I do, the whole night through, is dream of you..." To Casey's inexpert ears, Sasha had always seemed an okay singer, but as that was the only line he knew, he quickly fell back on "Bwa wa wa, bwa wa wa..."

"Fuck," Zeke said.

"What?" Sasha protested.

"Can you not sing?"

"Actually, no. I can't help myself, it's irresistible."

"I can assure you it is."

"Casey doesn't mind me singing, do you, kitten?"

"He minds," Zeke decreed.

Casey focussed on the screen with every bit of his attention, shutting them out, and it seemed that they took the hint.

For a few minutes. Jerry kept up his commentary, offering his perspective on each musical number. "Make ‘em Laugh" was "hyper" and "cool" and "Moses Supposes" was "just an excuse for a tap dance." Then when the three protagonists sang "Good Morning, Good Morning," Jerry declared, "That's the stupidest excuse for a song I've ever heard."

Casey heard himself say, with a kind of numb terror that had absolutely no power over his mouth, "Maybe you'd like to leave so you won't have to put up with it."

"Casey!" Sasha gasped.

Zeke made a choking sound that resembled a laugh.

Jerry was red in the face. "I beg your pardon, I didn't think anyone would feel so strongly about a silly musical."

"It's not, it's..." Casey started, and stopped himself, biting his tongue.

"Yes?"

He couldn't stand it. "It's a great film," he finished.

"According to who?"

"Roger Ebert, for one."

"Oh, well if Ebert says so it must be true."

"And Pauline Kael. And just about everyone else."

"Hey, hey, hey!" Sasha intervened. "We're all friends here, right? Just getting together to share some pizza and admire Gene Kelly's ass?" He gave Casey a begging look.

"I'm sorry," Jerry said. "Really. I'm sorry, Casey. Let's watch the movie, and I'll keep my mouth shut."

He did, too.

It was too late for Gene and Debbie, though. Casey couldn't get Sasha's pleading face out of his head and he felt sick, so sick that he couldn't face Gene stomping about in the rain. He couldn't even look at the screen. Once he managed a glance in Sasha's direction, and he was pretty sure that Sasha was staring disapprovingly at him. In fact, Sasha was probably wondering why he had ever agreed to live in the same apartment or the same city with him and was wishing that Casey would be the one to leave...Never mind that Casey had been right, but he shouldn't have talked, he shouldn't have argued...and that was just how it worked, right, they used your weaknesses, they turned people who supposedly were friends against you so they could get to your friends and when you tried to warn them no one believed you...

Someone grabbed him. He yelped, tearing his hand away and making everyone look...realizing only after it was too late that it was Zeke, trying to soothe him. But he was tired of being soothed. It really was this dangerous out here, strangers were especially dangerous, and he was tired of being the only one who did the remembering.

As the "Broadway Melody" ballet started, he ran for the bathroom, making a point of locking the door. Kneeling beside the toilet, he heaved and heaved until he was sure that on the next heave it would be his stomach lining coming up.

"Case?" came Zeke's voice, with a knock. "Unlock, please."

"No." He considered the shower. It would be his second time today, but the heat, the lovely, blissful heat on his skin...

"Casey, I want to talk to you."

"No!" he sobbed. He drove his fist sideways into the tub. It hurt like a fucker, maybe he even broke something — or if not, maybe he would get lucky this time —

"Casey!"

"No!"

"I want this door open."

"There was no deal!" Casey yelled. "You said that's the deal but there's no deal!" There was a long silence.

"Casey, please," Zeke said, at length.

He sounded tired, like he couldn't be bothered to come up with a better argument or even to just break the door down. Casey's head and his hand throbbed, and he wanted Zeke but he couldn't think, just couldn't think through this thing. He did trust Zeke, and Zeke was mere inches away and offering comfort — but it was two nights in a row and all day that Casey had been so terrible. He couldn't face Zeke, he couldn't face anyone and he wasn't going out there when that other was inside with them, he wasn't going to expose himself not knowing what that Jerry was under his skin, they just didn't know and he was in their home...

Casey slid down onto the floor with his back to the door, making himself small. He closed his eyes and let everything float.

Then it was Sasha's voice sidling under the door and around the cracks. "Casey...Casey...Do you hear me?"

His body was stiff and cold, a sure indicator that he had tranced out. He moved, untwisting his limbs, knowing they would hear it. "Yes," he said. The taste in his mouth was beyond disgusting.

"Will you come out?"

He wanted his bed. He wanted Zeke. Mostly, he wanted to be safe. "Is he still here?"

"Jerry? No, he's gone."

"Just...a sec..."

He had to brush his teeth, first. He did that quickly, then unlocked the door and stood before the two of them with his eyes on the floor.

"We didn't want to finish the movie without you," Sasha said, his voice so very gentle.

Casey almost started sobbing but managed to shove it down and back. He didn't deserve an expression of remorse, it was only one more thing for them to deal with when they'd already had enough. The only thing he was entitled to do, really, was to just exist and hope that didn't cause anyone any trouble.

"I'm...I'll just...go to bed," Casey stammered.

"No," Sasha said, sternly now. "It's still early. I want you to finish watching this movie with us."

Casey edged a look towards Zeke. Inexplicably, Zeke was grinning. "I don't know about you," Zeke said, "but I'm dying to find out how it ends."

And Sasha laughed, a full, hearty Sasha-laugh. Casey wondered if he had finally and truly lost his mind because this was not how they should be reacting, something was wrong. Suppose Jerry had done something to them and he had just left because he had finished doing what he had come to do...

"It's okay, Casey," Sasha said, suddenly, the mirth dropping off his face. He reached out, rubbed Casey's shoulder. "Everything's okay. We're just a bit giddy, is all."

Giddy? As in, happy? No, it had to be giddy as in shock, giddy as in still reeling from what Casey had managed to wreck this time.

"Come on, kitten."

He let himself be marched to the living room, where they re-settled, in their same positions as before — minus one stranger, Zeke throwing an easy arm around Casey's shoulders as they sat on the couch together. Zeke started the DVD over at "Good Morning, Good Morning."

Perhaps this was his punishment, to be forced to watch an upbeat, MGM musical with its hyper-real colours and its relentless charm. Casey stared at Debbie Reynolds's bright, smiling face and hated her. No one could possibly be that cheerful. She was wearing a stupid hat, the kind that had miraculously been in style in Hollywood in the forties. And it was a stupid song, Jerry wasn't wrong about that.

The next scene was the famous bit. Casey didn't want to watch. Every other time he had seen it, he had ended up with a huge, goofy smile on his face. He didn't want to be coerced into feeling happy. He was in a mood, see, he didn't want to be consoled or cheered, and this damned scene was like a narcotic. Whether or not he smiled was out of his control; it was cause and effect, it wouldn't mean anything.

"Ah," sighed Sasha as Gene closed his umbrella. "Magical."

Casey couldn't quite look away this time without seeming defiant. He looked, he saw, like he always did, so much joy in the dancing, in every move, every expression on Gene's face. The things he did with that umbrella, the way he became progressively more soaked as the dance went on, and the final, apparent abandonment of choreography to just splash about like a child.

By the end of it, Casey was smiling. He couldn't help it, and it quickly disappeared once the scene was over. At the conclusion of the film, Sasha uttered another great sigh. Zeke switched off the DVD player and the TV.

"That was good," he commented. "For a musical."

No one spoke for several seconds.

"Can I go to bed now?" Casey asked.

"You can do whatever you want, Case," Zeke said.

Casey stood up. He took a few steps away from them. He stopped, and spoke with his back to them.

"I'm sorry I'm so fucked up," he said. "I'm sorry I do this to you. Every day I...even...I try to make it different and — and — it only ends worse and..." He was almost crying now despite a desperate desire not to. "I can't change."

Not expecting to hear anything in response that he could actually survive, he all but ran for his room. He gobbled down a Xanax, because he knew he would never sleep otherwise and he didn't want to be awake when Zeke came in. Once his eyes closed, he heard nothing, felt nothing.

He woke lying towards the edge of the bed, very much on his own with his back to Zeke. He rolled over and saw that it was still early, only seven-thirty. Zeke would need to get up for class soon. He was on his side facing Casey, sleeping deeply it seemed. There were creases and shadows on his face that Casey didn't remember seeing before. In fact, Zeke had looked very tired yesterday but Casey had failed to notice it. He had failed to give anyone anything that they wanted or needed. Instead of routine, he had given them a farce.

Routine was still the only option, though.

The problem was not with the theory, but the theorist. It was the theorist who made everything screwy, trying to get from inspiration to practice. That Heisenberg had really known what he was talking about. The idea of something was inviolable, but the moment you touched it with your clumsy humanity, you mucked it up. Of course, Heisenberg didn't quite put it that way but —

Zeke's alarm clock went off. It was just the radio and not very loud, but Zeke pounced on it instantly.

Casey squeezed his eyes shut and made like he was sleeping. He heard Zeke breathe, envisioned him twisting around to see if Casey had been disturbed. Imagined him taking a long look, trying to unravel what the fuck had been going on in Casey's head last night. Then Zeke's weight pressed down for a second as he got onto his feet. Casey lay quietly, listening to the sounds of Zeke moving around in the apartment...Zeke shaving, Zeke taking a piss, Zeke getting dressed...Zeke going out the door.

Zeke meeting with this Winona person so he wouldn't be home immediately after school. The name was having a displeasing connotation; he kept picturing a petite woman with huge brown eyes, like a certain actress.

"Don't," he whispered to himself. "Don't think."

He had to focus for a few minutes here, if he could manage that much. Thank fucking god for Xanax. Xanax made it possible for him to wake up and get a glimpse of what he needed to do and set himself to it before everything went off the rails.

He got up, got dressed. He went to the kitchen and found the coffee filters easily. And the coffee, it was in the freezer where Sasha always kept it. He started the coffee-maker, and watched the black ink brewing with wistful satisfaction. It smelled so good, like morning and breakfast. He wanted some.

Instead, he boiled some water for tea while the coffee-maker burbled invitingly. So far they only had peppermint and chamomile...He chose chamomile. Taking it to the living room, he turned on the TV and watched the Today Show. He flipped channels for a while and when he got drowsy he closed his eyes for a bit.

"‘Jessica, your bid...?'"

He cracked his eyes open to Bob Barker's pure white coiffure. It looked very distinguished on him, kind of right, just like his suits and that funny little microphone that looked like a rod with a tiny bulb at the top that apparently was used only by Bob Barker.

"‘And Tod, your bid, please...?'"

"'One dollar'."

Roy had mocked Casey's occasional habit of watching The Price is Right. He had suggested that Casey was really a housewife in drag, that all he needed was a vintage 1950's flower print apron. He had said it with a small laugh, the kind that people used when pretending that they were kidding, and Casey didn't explain that he liked this show because it was familiar and mindless, that the rhythms of Bob's lines, exactly the same every day, were comforting.

"‘And the actual retail price of the bar set is...'"

Roy wouldn't have cared what his reason was, though. He only cared that Casey was behaving in some manner that would give himself away, and thus give Roy away. Once, when they were in a gallery and Casey was talking animatedly about one of the artists, Roy had suddenly taken his hand and pushed it down against his side, holding it there for several seconds like he hoped it would stick and not spring up again of its own volition.

God, he had screwed up that phone call. He hadn't said nearly enough. He hadn't gotten around to You absolute fucking coward! or Fuck off and die! and he wasn't going to get another chance. If he tried again, he might end up breaking some furniture.

"‘I need you up here, Tod — ‘"

"Hey, Casey."

He jerked into an upright position, saw Sasha standing nearby in his pajamas.

"Startled you again," Sasha lamented. "Sorry."

Casey sat up straighter. He wanted to speak, but couldn't think of a place to start.

"Is that coffee I smell?"

Casey nodded.

"And what is that you're drinking?"

"Tea."

"Black tea?"

"Chamomile."

Sasha nodded, satisfied. He got up, and Casey heard him pouring coffee for himself in the kitchen. Seconds later he was back with his favourite mug, sitting down next to Casey. He looked over at Bob Barker. "The Price is Right?"

"Yeah," Casey said. "I just like it, okay?"

"You don't have to justify it, kitten. I've been known to watch it myself."

They sat and watched the last fifteen minutes of the show together. Casey wondered if maybe Sasha didn't want to hear any talk about yesterday. Maybe Sasha would much rather he didn't do what he was apologizing for in the first place.

"Kitten..." Sasha began suddenly, and stopped.

"I don't know what to say," Casey whispered.

"You don't have to say anything."

"But I ruined your date."

"Nothing got ruined." Sasha put his mug on the table. "I told Jerry that we're working through some family problems and asked him if he and I could just start fresh and he seemed fine with that."

Casey hung his head. "I could call him and apologize."

"You really didn't like him, did you?"

He really wished that Sasha would spare him that tendency of blurting out the most uncomfortable truths, because it didn't much help him participate effectively in the conversation. "Um...I..." he stuttered.

"It's okay, you can tell me. But he isn't like that most of the time. I think he was nervous is all."

"Nervous because of the weird roommate," Casey grumbled.

"No, Casey. Nervous because you and Zeke both had him in your scopes from the second he came in. Usually on a first date a guy doesn't have to satisfy three people at once. But the good news is, he's had a full taste of my life now and what's important to me and he hasn't run away." Sasha reached for Casey's hand, gripping it warmly. "So you were really doing me a favour last night."

Casey dared a little grin. "By putting him through the ultimate test."

"Yes, exactly," Sasha smirked. "That must have been your plan all along."

"Oh, yeah...you bet."

"Good work, then. You put him through his paces all right, but he did pass." Letting go of Casey,'s hand, Sasha patted his knee. "Thanks for taking care of me, kitten."

Casey scanned that statement for evidence of irony or bitterness and found none.

He thought he was doing well at not crying until Sasha said, "Aw, don't cry, kitten, or you'll make me start crying too."

"I'm not."

"Oh, I see." Sasha rubbed his knee once more, then sat back and resumed watching the television for a few minutes. Then he said, "Do you want to go for a little walk with me later? Just to the store — and we can return that movie."

Routine, again. Except, after yesterday Casey didn't feel quite up to venturing outside so soon. He would be so fucking happy to just stay in all day, look forward to Zeke getting back...but he knew better than to consider Sasha's request a mere request. It sounded like a request, but if Casey declined, it would keep coming at him in different forms...wheedling, begging, ordering, threatening...until he surrendered.

So he would go to the grocery store and the movie place. He would probably live through it, although he was making no assumptions at this point.

"So," Winona said, "Basically, Plato was a sexist pig."

Zeke coughed. Another student who was sharing the common room with them twitched slightly. No doubt a grad student, sighing to himself over the pretensions of the latest batch of freshmen.

"I think that's a bit of an oversimplification," Zeke replied. "He did believe that all creative energy was inherently male, yes. To him women represented simple undifferentiated Matter. Matter equals earth equals dirty...It's a very Western concept, and so is the idea that everything can be divided into two...like Form and Substance. Somehow I doubt Plato was entirely responsible for it. I'll bet the idea was floating around for a long time before that."

"He had a huge influence, though."

"Yes, of course," Zeke said, making an effort to not feel impatient.

He glanced at the clock on the wall across from them. Just after three. Sasha would be leaving for work, so Casey would be alone now. Zeke was anxious to get back and reassure him that everything was okay. No doubt Casey had spent most of the day flogging himself for his outbursts last night — which, up to the point when Casey freaked out and locked himself in the bathroom, had been positively thrilling. To hear him bitching with Jerry over something that was important to him had been the best ten or fifteen seconds of Zeke's day. Once Sasha got over his shock at Casey's outburst, he had seemed every bit as happy about it as Zeke.

And Zeke had been pleasantly surprised by Jerry's reactions when Casey ran out of the room; extreme remorse went a long way towards changing Zeke's mind about the guy. Jerry kept saying, "I had no idea...I had no idea..." until Sasha managed to reassure him that he had not done anything criminal and he switched to tentative offers of help, revealing a considerate, even gentle, side. He didn't appear at all upset when Sasha asked him, very straightforwardly, if he would mind leaving. On his way out the door, he had promised to call Sasha.

So in the end no harm was done except what Casey had done to himself. He had left the bathroom with a face so desolate, he had to have been expecting to be executed on the spot. And then later, his speech to them...remembering it made Zeke's stomach hurt.

"I'm going to do Plato's theory about women for my paper," Winona declared. "What about you?"

"I don't know yet."

"It's only five pages, I know, but it feels like twenty. I haven't written a paper since high school and that was a few years ago." Winona sighed. "I'm so nervous."

"Don't be. Professors are people too."

"Yeah, people with Ph.D's."

"Doesn't mean they're too smart to give you a good mark."

"I wish I was as confident as you."

"Oh, it's all an act," Zeke assured her. He stacked his books up. "I'm going to have to get going."

"Home to the boyfriend, huh?"

Zeke furrowed his brow in warning.

"Sorry. I'm just trying to get a picture of what this person might be like who's so incredible you can't wait to go home."

"It's not so much..." Zeke started to say and trailed off as recognition took hold.

"Yes?"

"You're right. I can't wait to get home."

"I noticed."

"I'm madly in love."

"Well," Winona said, smiling oddly. "I'd like to meet him. Maybe one day soon we can study at your place."

"Maybe." Zeke was putting his books away, zipping up his backpack. "Nothing against you, it's just a bit complicated."

"Don't tell me. You've got him locked in a tower and he only sees you."

"Something like that." Heaving his bag onto his shoulder, Zeke said, "Bye."

"See you."

A short while later he ascended the steps to their tower; opening the door, he met with disaster. The kitchen was filled with smoke, and Casey was removing something completely blackened from one of Sasha's best pans. He spun at Zeke's entrance, holding a spatula in one hand. One big tear shimmered in each eye as Casey said mournfully, "Wanted to make supper."

Zeke had to work hard at not smiling. "There's a fan in here somewhere," he said, dropping his backpack.

"Oh...right." Casey found the switch on the stove and pressed it. He put the spatula down on the counter. "Sasha's gonna kill me."

"That seems a bit extreme. What were you cooking?"

"Grilled cheese and soup."

Zeke noted a pile of charred sandwich shapes. There was a pot on one of the back elements, containing what was trying to be cream of mushroom soup, but consisted mostly of large, glutinous lumps. He took the liberty of turning off all the burners and said, "Er...how about we go across the street to the diner?"

Casey moaned, "He's going to kill me."

Zeke recalled that Sasha had made quite a fuss about getting his kitchen gear — which of course had been abandoned in Cincinnati — packed and shipped to him in Seattle. Sasha had spent several hours on the phone from Herrington, trying to wheedle one of his friends into doing it for him, and the cost had been far from negligible. The kitchenware had filled six or eight large boxes.

"It's just a pan, Casey," Zeke declared.

"I know, but...but he probably paid like a thousand dollars for it."

Zeke couldn't resist the urge to just step in and wrap his arms around Casey. "I know he values you more than that."

"You don't know," Casey said into his shoulder. "He wranged on Roy one time for washing his cast-iron skillet with soap."

"I'll protect you from Sasha. Okay?" Zeke swayed their two bodies from side toside. "The dictator-chef shall not lay a finger on you."

Casey sighed, going with the rocking motion. "Zeke."

"Hmm."

"Don't want to go out there."

"I seem to recall they have grilled cheese on the menu."

"I don't want to."

"Have you been out yet today?"

"Yeah...with Sasha...went to the grocery store, and...we returned the movie."

There was a world of exhaustion behind those words. Zeke resolved not to ask.

"Okay. I'll walk over and see if I can get take-out." Parting from Casey and stepping back, Zeke saw an expression of perfect wretchedness. "What is it?"

"I can't do anything right."

"Oh, Case, come on. I'll buy a replacement for the fucking pan if it means that much to him. It's minor. Really." He was about to open the door and head out to the diner when inspiration took him and he blurted, "The thing is..."

He stopped.

Casey had turned back to the pan and was regarding it sadly. He had placed it in the sink and filled it with soapy water, no doubt hoping to hide it from Sasha for as long as possible. "What?" he said, distracted.

"The thing is you say you can't change — but you change every day. Just about every hour, in fact. I'm never going to give up on you because I'm dying to see who you're going to be in another minute."

Casey didn't say a word. He just stood there, looking stunned.

Zeke swallowed hard, willing himself to continue. "I never get tired of looking at you. I can look at you for hours. I want everyone to see you and realize how insanely beautiful you are. I want them all to come here, or you to go out there so they'll look at me and think what a fucking lucky bastard that guy is."

A slow but genuine smile had begun to curve Casey's lips.

Zeke shrugged. "I can't sing and I can't dance, but I can talk."

"Thank you," Casey whispered.

"Any time," Zeke muttered. "Um...yeah."

He thought he had better get out of there before he started kicking the floor and uttering words like "shucks" and "darn" — but he wasn't going anywhere now because Casey had him by the collar; his hand slid around Zeke's neck, gently but insistently tugging his head down while he strained up, sending his entire self by mouth. A million more words that Zeke couldn't quite speak went kamikaze on all his nerve endings, clumping up together in a big mush of feeling. He got a hand under Casey's ass, rejoicing in the hard heat that he felt against his own swelling cock, and then his other hand went where the first had gone, cupping Casey's buttocks and lifting him as he bore them a few steps backward, pressing Casey against the wall.

Casey moved from Zeke's lips to his ear, where he now had easy access. "You talk real good," he whispered, and ran his tongue down along the inside of the shell, biting the lobe gently.

The ear-to-cock connection was doing mad things to Zeke's head, driving all his thoughts in a southerly direction. "I've been told," he gasped. "I have...a real talented mouth."

"You do...could...get off just listening to you..."

Zeke squeezed his hands down between them, undoing Casey's jeans. "Talking's not all I want to do, though," he said hoarsely, which was an extreme understatement. Ever since the other night when he saw how he could make Casey respond to him, he had needed to do everything, try everything. Repeatedly.

As he slid a hand down Casey's groin, he felt his body leap and arch against him. Inexplicably, Casey put a hand on his wrist, like he wanted to stop him, maybe about to say something about the fact that they were going to make it right here in the hallway. It was not much of an attempt though, and Zeke easily brushed that hand aside. He found Casey's aroused cock, stroked it almost reverently, ecstatic when Casey moaned and undulated between him and the wall. That erection had been an ephemeral thing between them, but now it was hot and real in Zeke's hand. Zeke hooked his thumbs around Casey's jeans and underwear and pulled, following them down so that he was kneeling in front of Casey. He lifted Casey's feet one at a time, gently slipping his clothes off and pushing them off to the side.

So here he was, face to cock. An aroused cock, balls, a light thatch of groin hair, all within reach of his mouth. Three months ago he would have laughed or punched anyone who suggested he might ever be here, and he didn't care. Parts were parts were parts, and this was one part of Casey that he was going to enjoy right now. His only anxiety was that this was trickier than it always felt from the receiving end. The anxiety did nothing to diminish his own excitement, though; his own erection was trying to fight its way out of his pants.

"Zeke — " Casey said, putting a hand near Zeke's shoulder as though to stop him from what he was going to do. "I don't — need — you don't have to — "

Zeke was going to ignore that — until he looked up and saw the genuine dread on Casey's face. He stroked Casey's thigh, teased his cock with a few fingers to keep him hard and watched all his body clench and arch slightly.

"No fear, Case."

"...but...don't have to."

"This has nothing to do with have to...except I have to...know everything I can do to you. I've gotta see the look on your face when I do...this."

He breathed on the tip of Casey's cock, tentatively circled it with his tongue, and then trained his eyes again on Casey's face. He couldn't get a glimpse of Casey's eyes, as they seemed to have rolled up towards the ceiling. Casey's hands stuttered somewhere in the vicinity of his chest; a few choked sounds emerged from his throat.

"Interesting," Zeke murmured.

He plunged down, took as much of Casey into his mouth as he could and sucked, moving back along his length, noting that it didn't taste strange or different; it only tasted like Casey would if all of Casey were hot steel and silk.

Zeke looked up just in time to see Casey trying to crawl backwards up the wall crying, "Fuck! Oh — fuck!"

Had he ever been hesitant to do this? If so, he was a complete fucking idiot. Just the sound of Casey's voice, and knowing that it was Zeke's, that he had made it, the absolute fucking power...

Zeke put his hands on Casey's hips and forced him flat against the wall. He turned all his concentration to his quickly developing skills, wanting to call forth every possible contortion from Casey's body. He found it was very difficult to take an entire cock into his mouth without gagging — but maybe with practice he could do it. In the interim, just applying suction to the head and alternating that with some creative licking was getting a steady procession of moans and choked little noises that made Zeke shiver to hear. Once or twice Casey almost writhed from Zeke's control, but he brought him sternly back with the grip on his thighs. When Casey's knees began to shudder, Zeke placed his hand flat on his belly and commanded, "Stay where you are."

"Zeke..." Casey's voice cracked, breath coming and going frantically. His stomach and thigh muscles were quivering. "Zeke."

Zeke heard a particular note of desperation and knew it was not the night to linger and practice his technique; Casey was in no condition for a sustained encounter. "It's okay," Zeke murmured, and moved in to finish, his hands creeping around to hold and squeeze Casey's buttocks while he increased the pressure with his mouth.

"I...I...oh! Fuh — "

Zeke made an extra effort, using a finger to stroke between Casey's buttocks, and to just caress his opening. He was looking forward to doing more, but then Casey came with a strangled sob.

It would be a nice gesture to swallow, Zeke thought — but the taste shocked him and his subconscious sent up an abrupt message, reminding him of Casey's caution the othe