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Sascha reaches into the snack bag, withdrawing a candy bar at random and tearing it open. He reclines propped up on one elbow, eating quietly until he pauses to check his phone.

Avery feels every fraction of Sascha’s movements like gusts from a hurricane. He’s never been so attuned to someone, and it feelsweird, but also…

Bracing himself, Avery reclines against the musty blanket, mirroring Sascha so that when he lowers his phone, Avery’s face is only a short distance away. Far enough to not be invasive, but close enough that if they were to lean forward at the same time, something important might happen.

Without breaking eye contact, Sascha slowly returns his phone to his pocket. Or, he tries. He misses the opening, and Avery has to bite his lip against the smile when Sascha gives up and throws the device behind him.

Avery licks over the impression his teeth left in his bottom lip. “So,” he says.

Sascha smiles, playful but not condescending. “So?”

“I… We, um.” The words get stuck. “I thought…”

With that gentle curve still shaping his mouth, Sascha thumbs a wayward curl off Avery’s forehead. “Remember back in the hotel room, when I first asked if I could kiss you?”

Suddenly, Avery’s heart is pounding so hard he can feel it in his teeth. “Yeah, I do.”

“I’m gonna do it again, okay?”

“You don’t need to ask,” Avery breathes, and crosses the distance to press his lips lightly against Sascha’s.

CHAPTER

SIX

Avery

All Avery knows is seconds, inhales, heartbeats. Sascha’s hand resting at the small of Avery’s back. Just there, setting fire to those nerves. Fire that matches the heat in his mouth, which Sascha is exploring without invading. Avery could map out the ridges of Sascha’s bottom lip just from how painstakingly he brushes against him, letting the skin catch before falling apart.

Then he comes back, again and again and again, until Avery is whimpering for him to open up. He flicks his tongue over Sascha’s philtrum, feels the answering smile. Just when he thinks Sascha is ready to deepen the kiss, a ghost of a laugh warms his skin. Sascha noses the underside of his jaw, drops chaste kisses up his chin, worries the corner of his mouth with his teeth until Avery keens with need.

Opening dialogue of the horror film filters through the speaker. The sound crackles over old wires, electricity charging the air until a spark lights inside him, setting that nest of furious hornets aflame. If Avery opens his mouth, his tongue might scorch Sascha’s, but he tries anyway.

Another laugh, and Avery thinks Sascha’s going to furtherdeny what he needs, until Sascha darts in with firm, claiming pressure. Avery gasps, pliant and willing to be rolled onto his back with the hard plastic seat digging into his spine. Finally, his chest a tight line against Avery’s, Sascha meets Avery’s tongue in the threshold between their mouths, curling around it in invitation.

Avery shudders—once, twice. On the third, he pries himself open to take whatever Sascha has to offer.

Cradling Sascha’s face, Avery takes and takes, arching his hips into the empty space above him. Sascha hasn’t fully covered him, but Averywantsit, wants to be stripped of his dirty jeans and fucked in the back of a tiny hatchback while some ghost or demon terrorizes its onscreen victims. Don’t even need to put the speaker back. The screams are more than welcome to drown out his own.

Anything to make him feel human again. Just for a few minutes. At least let him be enough of a human for someone to willingly come inside him.

Before Avery can meditate on the way touch starvation and isolation have eroded his self-respect, he’s distracted by Sascha pulling away to curse under his breath. Confused, Avery opens his eyes just in time to see Sascha grab his head with a soft moan. Blood spurts in a wide arc behind him, an unrealistic, graphic red upon the theater screen.

Then Sascha goes limp.

For a horrified moment, Avery thinks the blood came from Sascha. He doesn’t have time to feel foolish when the shot changes on the screen, revealing an uninspiring slasher villain. More concerning is the very real, very heavy man on top of him, who is not responding to his name or being shaken.

Time was, Avery wouldn’t have been able to do much about being crushed by a body much bigger than him, but the grace of enhanced werecreature strength allows him to heave Sascha onto his side. He tries to be careful as he squirms outfrom under Sascha’s dead weight, taking pains not to let him flop on his stomach or back. Could he be having a seizure? An aneurysm? Avery desperately tries to recall the acronym to help identify a stroke, but just whenF.A.S.T.pops into his brain, Sascha moans softly and blinks his eyes open.

Unsure if touch will confuse or startle him but unable to suppress the desire, Avery brushes his fingertips against Sascha’s cheek. “Hey,” he says quietly. “Are you okay?”

At first, Sascha only blinks at him, pupils dilated and eyes unfocused. Maybe Avery should have spoken louder? A sudden ear-splitting shriek ejected from the speaker grates at Avery’s frazzled nerves. It can’t be good for Sascha’s recovery, either, prompting Avery to hurl the speaker out of the car, leaving it to hang miserably from its coiled wire.

“Sascha, can you hear me? Do you understand?” Avery frets, pawing at his shoulder. “Do I need to call a?—”

“No,” Sascha wheezes. “I’m fine. Sorry. No doctor. Fuck.” He grabs his face, moaning.

“Should I get an ice pack or something?”