Zell was so, so fucking drunk.

Evening had long since fled, night bringing darkness fast on its coattails, and Zell was sure it was close to morning now as he sprawled in the backseat of a stranger's car with a beautiful, black-haired man between his legs and his shorts down around his knees. He groaned and bit his lower lip, trying to keep himself quiet, as the man with him licked a slow trail from the head to the base of his cock. He wanted to explode right then, but he was only half-hard and he was tired, and he should be going home, not staying here with the brunet's pretty, slender hands on his balls. Zell groaned, more muffled now, and tried to thrust his cock against those soft lips that had encased his shaft mere minutes ago. He was desperate. The brunet had been a tease from the first second their eyes met across the room.

Zell didn't mean to get drunk, but that happened when one went out to a bar, where one's friends never showed as they'd promised, and one drowned one's loneliness in a series of harder and harder cocktails, ending with straight vodka. No preludes, the brunet had sauntered - no, sashayed, his curvy hips swaying effeminately in the tight black pants he wore - over to Zell's secluded table. He laid a hand by Zell's drink, leaning down so his long black hair fell from being tucked behind his ears, and asked, "Hey, d'you mind?"

"Mind what?" Zell asked. By that point, he was feeling pretty slurred and good, and totally in control even if he wasn't gripping his glass with the grace he had possessed upon first arriving. But he didn't get what the gorgeous other man wanted from him.

"Mind if I sit here?" the man asked. He seemed to be holding back a laugh, maybe a giggle. That wouldn't have been out of place.

Zell shrugged his shoulders. "Go ahead, man," he said. He took another sip, no longer swirling the drink over his tongue, but just swallowing.

"Thanks."

Zell was supposed to be drowning his sorrows, not thinking about pounding a tight ass into the mattress or the floor or the wall, whatever, but when the brunet sat down, Zell saw his tight black jeans slip down and just reveal the first curves of his milky pale ass. His dick stood at attention and he had to take a hasty drink to keep from licking his lips and dreaming of licking the gorgeous brunet's asshole. Yeah, he was drunk.

He was still drunk now as he grabbed the long black hair and yanked the other man's head closer to his cock. He wanted to feel its head hit the back of that pretty throat; he wanted to rape that hot mouth, then empty his balls - they felt so fucking swollen - into that sexy stomach; he wanted to fuck the creamy white ass till there was a different kind of cream running down those slim thighs, with bruises on those well-curved hips from him digging his fingertips in. Zell was so drunk, and he didn't give a damn. He grunted as the stranger pressed a finger to the spot between his balls and his ass, rubbing lightly. Such a tease. Zell yanked on his hair again, with a louder groan that seemed to fill the car with sound.

The other man sat back from Zell's cock a little bit and said, "Don't do that! It hurts!" He gave the head of Zell's cock a little kiss, then a lick that probed the hole and circled down till he was sucking it, just the head. Zell moaned and let one hand tangle its fingers in the stranger's hair as the other hand dropped to scrabble, clawing, at the upholstery of the backseat.

He was all the way hard now. His body felt like he had rigor mortis or something, whatever that was called - he was that tense from being this hard with no release in sight. As much as he wanted to shoot his load, he wasn't going to do it yet. He wanted his cock in the pretty man's ass. As the other man leaned back down to take his cock all the way into his mouth, tip to root, Zell choked on a moan. He was getting the hottest view of the long-haired man's ass, the crack peeking up out of his jeans, the curves almost like a woman's. Zell moaned, wanting to run his tongue down the crack and fuck the man with his tongue to repay the tongue that was tracing up his cock now. The man was good. Too good for Zell to hold it much longer.

One more press of that finger to the spot between his ass and his balls, and Zell lost it. He ground out a short cry as he came, the stranger swallowing all of it as the cum hit his throat. He pulled from Zell's cock and gave him one final lick, which of course meant that Zell felt hard and wanted more than ever to fuck him. The man smiled and wrapped his fingers around Zell's shaft, using his own spit as a sort of lubricant to make it more comfortable as he began lazily jerking Zell off, stroking him and squeezing at the base of his cock to keep him from coming. Zell moaned and felt himself jerking with each squeeze. He wanted to come down the man's throat, or in his ass, anywhere but on himself. Although, as his hazy mind contemplated it, seeing strings of cum in the thick black hair swishing over the skin of his thighs wouldn't be so bad. The man leaned closer, moving in with each slow stroke.

He swallowed Zell's cock into his mouth in an instant, leaving a gap as wide as a blink between removing his warm hand and replacing it with his hot, hot mouth. He hummed a little bit as he sucked, hard and then weak, and all too soon, he pulled his mouth off and was laving up and down Zell's shaft. He moved again, this time fondling the head of Zell's cock between the fingers of one hand while his mouth drew one of Zell's balls in and sucked. Hard. Zell panted, a breathier moan this time. Nobody had ever sucked his balls for him before. It felt goooood. Zell opened his eyes - when had he squeezed them shut?! - and saw the man's asscrack better now, higher out of his lower-slung jeans. If he looked hard enough and concentrated, he was sure the other man was hard, too, getting off on giving head.

Panting, Zell tried to sit up to get an even better look at the brunet's rear end, but his joints felt much too weak to bend. He stayed on his back, his eyes open and cast down at the spread of silky black hair shifting over his legs as the man's head between his legs bobbed up to lick his cock again. One lick up, one lick down, and he nipped lightly at Zell's cock in a way that threatened to bring tears to his eyes. The pain was sort of exquisite, once Zell got past the fact that he was sensitive there, especially right now, and it was pain, after all. Maybe he only liked it because he was drunk. Whatever. He wanted to come.

Zell's dick hit the back of the stranger's throat, the stranger's index and middle fingers found Zell's mouth, and as he was busy moaning his pleasure, those fingers slipped between his lips. Zell sucked them like the man was sucking his cock: hungrily, breathlessly, with a loud slurp here and there, but otherwise silent. He missed the small sensation of fullness in his mouth when the man took his fingers away. As the man slid up Zell's cock and impaled his own lips again, his fingertips circled Zell's asshole. The index first, then the middle, dipped in lightly. Then deeper, then rubbing Zell's prostate so he shot cum down the stranger's contracting throat. He pulled his fingers out and used them to wipe away a last little bit of cum from the tip of Zell's cock, sucking them off before he pulled Zell's boxers and shorts up for him.

"I would let you fuck me, if you had a condom," said the stranger, "but you don't. I'm reeeeeaaaaally sorry!" And he smiled cutely with a mouth that had just guzzled Zell's cum down with ease.

Zell cursed himself. But then, how could he know he was going to meet a hot brunet at the bar when he left his apartment? He thought he was going out to meet with all his friends. He didn't think he was going to be picking anybody up, much less getting sucked off in the backseat of that anybody's car.

He tried to sit up, but his head had started to throb, the first sign that morning was coming and was going to suck more than the beautiful man's skilled, eager mouth. Zell felt a little bit like his brain was swimming, somehow. He wanted another blowjob or another drink, something to distract him. His dick stirred a little at the thought, which Zell had thought was pretty damn impossible at this point. Two loads and he still wasn't satisfied.

"Sorry," said the other man again. "Can you make it home, or do you need a cab? Or, um, something else?"

"Give me head again?" Zell asked.

The man laughed and kissed him for the first time, his tongue sliding into Zell's mouth to let him taste his own thick cum in the other man's mouth. The fingers that hadn't been up his ass a moment before traced the lines of Zell's tattoo, and once the man had practically bruised his lips, he pulled away. "Nope. You'll just have to look for me around here if you want that again. I'll be glad, in the future. 'Cause you've got the perfect, um..." He blushed. Apparently, for all the experience his pretty mouth had obviously had, he was easily embarrassed. It was sweet. Zell wanted to kiss him again, but he didn't dare ask that favor.

With one last chaste kiss, the man helped him get out of the backseat and, leading him by the hand, walked Zell down to a nearby bench by the doorway of a dance studio that seemed perpetually closed. They were just across the street from a different bar, parked in an alleyway between the dance studio and what Zell was pretty sure was a Korean restaurant. He wasn't sure if those letters were Korean, or Chinese, or what. Normally, he could tell a little, but his head hurt like hell. The man sat him down on the bench and, pulling out a cell phone, called him a cab. Zell could hear a few of the quietly-spoken words, even as he rubbed his temples, halfway regretting all those cocktails.

The man sat next to him on the bench, casually resting his arm on the back, behind Zell's head. He was a few inches taller than Zell himself, and slimmer, not made of muscle, even though he was fit. Zell took a minute from cultivating his misery to indulge in eyeing the brunet's ass. There was that tempting crack again. Zell's mouth watered and his cock, awakening, started to feel tight despite the loose cotton boxers he was wearing. He looked up to see the man's green eyes smiling at him, crinkled slightly at the corners. Zell wanted badly to ask his name. Ask anything he could use to find the guy again, one of those dark nights when he voluntarily came to the bars around here, looking to give himself a hangover.

Here he was, thinking about hangovers again. Zell sighed and managed a weak smile at the other man, who kissed him once more and rose from the bench. "I'll be around," he told Zell, and he went back into the alleyway where his car remained parked. Zell got up and kept himself from stumbling by force of mind alone; it was by the skin of his teeth that he got into the cab safely and told the driver his apartment building's address.

By the time the ride ended, Zell's brain was a mush of green eyes, black hair, a hot, talented mouth and a hot, skilled tongue, and the temptation of curvy hips and a sweet ass. He wasn't sure when he paid the driver and got to his apartment on the second floor, but he was lucky to be standing inside his front door, the bolts locked, looking at his dark, empty living and kitchen area. He shook his head and followed the wall with his hand, wondering how long his hard-on for the sexy brunet would last before he got over the experience. He collapsed onto his bed and fell asleep on top of the covers, his sneakers still on and his dick telling him it wanted some relief. Zell was more concerned with relieving his headache.

He opened his eyes to sun in the one bedroom window - he hadn't closed the curtains last night, he noticed - and eleven thirty-one in red digital numbers on his alarm clock. Sitting up, Zell immediately flopped over onto his side, clutching his head. He kicked off his sneakers and tried again, slower this time, to head to the kitchen medicine cabinet for ibuprofen or aspirin or something. Finding the former, he took three, not the recommended two, and guzzled them down with a full glass of freezing cold water. Maybe he should take a cold shower. If he got to thinking about the memories of last night...

Too late, Zell realized that thinking about last night was like sending a request to the devil to please come to hell forever. He remembered the hot brunet, and he regretted not asking his name more than he regretted all the drinking.

The phone must have rung while Zell was in the cold shower he needed after putting himself through the agony of recalling last night. He got out and was in a clean pair of boxers and clean shorts, toweling off his hair, when he came out into the living room and saw the answering machine light blinking. He pressed the "play" button and went to find a clean shirt from his meticulously folded and organized drawers.

"Zell, it's Squall. I hope you're not gone yet. I just wanted to make sure you know we had a change of plans. Selphie said she called you, but if you're still there, we're not meeting at the Orchid Room. We're going to have to meet at the Lotus; Seifer and Quistis won't go to the Orchid Room anymore. I don't know if I'll get you... Call me."

"Goddammit, Squall!" Zell swore at the answering machine, stopping the message before Squall could recite the number that Zell already had memorized and had known forever.

Refusing to call any of his friends, Zell hoped they would feel a complete guilt trip when they discovered that he must not have gotten Squall's message and had gone to the wrong bar. They all knew that Zell didn't carry a cell phone, didn't even own one of the number one causes of public displays of bad manners, as Quistis referred to them. He would have no way to call them if they were late showing up to the bar he thought they were supposed to meet at. What a crock of bullshit.

Zell read a martial arts magazine, or meant to read his copy of Combat, if only it hadn't had a spread of how-tos, featuring a tall man with shoulder-length black hair and eyes that could be mistaken for green if Zell wanted them to be. He creased the magazine open to the pages with the best pictures of the model's face and bared chest, setting it on the coffee table, and unzipped his shorts. He fetched his stiffening dick out of his boxers and gave it a few pumps, smearing the first traces of precum down his shaft. Zell tried to keep his gaze and mind fixed on the man in the magazine, but his thoughts drifted to the man who had been between his legs last night, sucking his cock with those desperate slurping noises and those hands on his balls and those fingers up his ass and -

It didn't take long for Zell to come, spurting up onto his clean t-shirt and a little onto the hardwood floor. That was the quickest he'd come in months, probably over a year. He was usually slower, even when he was reaming an anonymous guy in the bathroom somewhere, or fucking a different anonymous guy against a wall in the back of one of the more notorious gay bars downtown. Those quick fucks had gotten fewer and farther between, though, and for the last eight months, Zell had satisfied himself with his hand and his Combat magazines as best he could. Damn him if it hadn't been hard, pun there unintentional. Damn him if he hadn't wanted to go out and find somebody to pretend he loved or to rough up for half an hour. But he was proud of himself for not giving in and letting his baser instincts grab him by the dick and lead him somewhere he shouldn't go.

He had to get up and change t-shirts, though; he wasn't about to sit around in a shirt splashed with cum and reeking of sex. He washed his hands after he had changed shirts and put the other in the laundry basket he kept by his bedroom door. Grabbing a paper towel, Zell wiped up the floor and put the stickied-up paper underneath a grocery store plastic bag already in his kitchen garbage can. He was the one to empty the garbage here, not his ma, but the habit was still ingrained in his head.

He watched old Bruce Lee movies for the rest of the day, to put his mind off last night and off the murder he wanted to commit when he finally decided to call Squall back and give his best friend a piece of his mind and a piece of his fist. All he had to concentrate on was turning away when the women threw themselves at Jim Kelly in "Enter the Dragon," and pretending that he was paying attention to the fight scenes that normally captivated him. He tried to keep his mind on Bruce Lee and Colleen Camp in "Game of Death," but that, too, was futile. Zell wanted to call somebody, maybe Quistis, who wouldn't be disapproving the way Squall would be, to talk about his newfound fixation. But Quistis might turn her nose up at him if she found out that this wasn't Zell's first experience with anonymous sex. She might lecture. Zell made a face; he could hear her words now.

"But Zell, as enjoyable as you found it, this world is not one in which anybody can afford to be unsafe anymore. You have to look out for STIs - you can ask all you want, some people will lie to you. Some people won't use a condom. I can tell you didn't use a condom when you were having sex with this most recent man, and you haven't thought of whether he had, say, herpes," the Quistis in his head said, starting off on a tirade that scared Zell. But he kept imagining what she might say: "Suppose you had something and he got it -" He shut out the imaginary voice and turned up the volume of the movie he was on. He was almost through his Bruce Lee collection, and it was six o'clock.

No longer could Zell put off calling Squall. He picked up the cordless phone and dialed his friend's home phone number as he put four hot dogs in a scorching hot cast iron frying pan, one of his ma's gifts to him when he moved out to go to college here in Esthar. "Hello, this is Irvine, what can I do you for?" said Irvine's easy Southern drawl after five rings.

"Kinneas, you'd better give Squall the phone, or I'll make sure you can never bang him again," Zell said by way of a friendly hello.

"Hey, there, Dincht," said Irvine. "Hold on."

Zell poked at one of the hot dogs with a cooking fork, enjoying the sizzling sound it made, picturing the charred lines appearing on it as appearing on Squall's head. The jerk, he should have known to talk to Zell sooner about the change of plans! "Hello," Squall picked up the phone. Zell swore he heard Irvine snickering softly, most likely at Squall's expense, in the background.

"I want a damn good reason why I waited at the Orchid Room for three hours last night with no word from any of you! And that message doesn't count, Leonhart! You called at seven o'clock, and you told me to meet you guys at seven thirty. Yeah, right, I was at home! You know I like to be on time! You fuckers, I'm so pissed at you, I could punch your lights out!" Zell shouted. His neighbors would love him for this, not that they weren't all college students with plans of their own for this evening.

"We headed over to the Orchid Room after two hours waiting. We didn't find you there. Irvine and I waited for an hour after the others left, but you didn't come back, and nobody Irvine asked had seen you. Either you're exaggerating about how long you were in there, or you're bad at lying," Squall replied calmly.

"Yeah, right, Leonhart, I was in there for three hours!" Zell protested.

Squall said nothing for a few second. Then, "Really," he said dryly.

"Squall!" said Zell in a loud growl.

"Look, would you like to come over to my father's house with me tomorrow? I'll pick you up at your building at noon. We can talk about this then. Irvine and I are about to go out for the night and I don't want to put our reservations in danger," said Squall.

"Dammit, fine, keep your stupid date!" Zell said. "Bye!" He slammed the button to hang up the phone, hoping that Squall could hear his rage. Looking back to his hot dogs, Zell cried, "Dammit!" again.

Two were burned completely black, and the other two were starting to form blisters beneath their charred skins. He turned off the heat and forked them one by one into the buns he had out on another plate. Zell dolloped ketchup and mustard over them and ate all four, in spite of the taste of ashes lingering in his mouth and the faint smell of smoke and burned meat clinging to his clothes.

Zell went to bed early, nine o'clock. He was out of Bruce Lee movies, and he didn't want to break into his reserves of more obscure 70s Hong Kong kung fu flicks. He saved those for more special occasions, like when Selphie came over to watch them with him. Out of all his friends, she was the only one who could stand to watch the subtitled movies and who got enjoyment out of them. Squall didn't like the quality of the acting and the film, Irvine didn't like the lack of sex and romantic action, Seifer didn't think they were bloody and violent enough, Quistis didn't think the dialogue and plot were intelligent, and Rinoa hated anything that involved fighting, period. Selphie, though, thought martial arts movies were great for their violence and cheesy dialogue. Zell tried to think about that violence as he fell asleep. But thinking of Selphie meant thinking of green eyes. Emblazoned on his eyelids right before Zell remembered falling asleep was a pair of sultry, sparkling green eyes shadowed by thick black eyelashes.

He woke up at eleven thirty again on Sunday and decided to hate himself for ignoring the alarm he had set. Luckily, he was the master of the five-minute shower and of styling his hair up in its usual crest in a matter of minutes after blow-drying it. In twenty minutes, Zell was downstairs, standing just inside the first set of doors into his building, watching for Squall's car. At the first sign of bright blue paint, gleaming in the sunlight, Zell left the building and climbed in the door that Squall had opened for him. "Hi," said Squall.

"I still haven't forgiven you, asshole," Zell said. "And why your dad's house?"

"I told my father I'd come visit him this weekend. He says he's 'lonely.'" Squall rolled his eyes as he accelerated away from the curb and darted into the left lane, the fast lane. Zell settled down and tried to feel comfortable with his best friend's demented speeding habit and love of fast lane changes that felt more like he was trying to jerk the car away from a giant boulder in the road than getting ready to make a left turn.

"Maybe because you're mean to him," suggested Zell.

"I'm not mean to him. He loves to cause scenes," said Squall. "Look out for melodrama when you meet him."

"Okay," Zell said, holding back a laugh. He was picturing Squall's dad as an older version of Squall, squealing and throwing fits like some of the more melodramatic, histrionic girls he knew. A Squall with the personality of somebody more like Selphie...it provided for an interesting mental image to carry Zell through the drive with less of a murderous attitude toward his best friend.

They reached a fancy neighborhood in the hills, where houses probably cost a million dollars and were built into the hillside, with very little backyard but elaborately decorated, meticulously cared-for front yards and flower gardens. The last time Zell had come here had been when he first moved into Esthar from home in Balamb, an hour's drive away at the coast; he was scouting out the terrain, figuring out which areas were where and which areas he should avoid. He hadn't seen houses this rich in his life; he hadn't seen this many three-car garages and this many Lexuses and Mercedes in his life, either. Even the woman they passed, walking her labrador dog, was dressed in a designer track suit that had probably cost several hundred dollars. Zell wanted to vomit at the waste of perfectly good money and perfectly good material. Something about people this filthy rich irked him, and he wondered why they were here if Squall himself had gotten scholarships to pay for his college education and had worked part-time since he was sixteen years old to buy his own car and take care of his own, very minor, frivolities.

Near the top of one of the hills, Squall turned into an empty two-car driveway that led to a garage set beneath a three-story white brick house, its bottom floor built out onto the slope behind it. Zell blinked when Squall stopped the car. "Your dad lives here?" he choked out.

"Yeah," Squall said. "I did, too, you know."

"Except I know you aren't a rich snob," said Zell.

"Neither is my father. Come on, just get out." Squall got out and headed up the curving flagstone walk to the front door. Zell climbed out and followed him, feeling his stomach twist into knots. Selecting a key from the several that dangled from his ring, Squall unlocked the front door and stepped into a hall with curving stairs on either side. He made his way down the hall, toward the back of the house, where Zell saw sunlight pouring in from what looked like the dining room or the kitchen.

"Squall? Is that you?"

Zell stepped back, his back hitting the cold wood of the front door that Squall had closed behind them. The tenor voice calling from upstairs could only belong to one person, unless they had a family butler of whom Zell had never heard tell before. Zell was about to call for Squall to come make the introductions and rescue him from awkwardness, or so he thought, before a pale, excited face peeked down at him from the landing at the top of the stairs. Someone came rushing down the stairs and stopped midway with a confused look on his face, easily taken for a look of shock and horror, too. Zell wished he hadn't backed into the door; now he couldn't find the handle to let himself out and hide in the car till Squall was done talking to his dad.

The man came a few steps closer, and Zell blanched. Or maybe he blushed. But he felt freezing cold all of a sudden, except for one part of his anatomy, which was stirring in excitement and remembered ecstasy. The man's long black hair was tied into a loose ponytail; still, Zell would know it anywhere. His green eyes weren't so sparkling, but likely that was out of his confusion. His jeans were still tight, but a little bit higher on his hips, just barely covering all the curves of his hips and narrow waist, and he was wearing a different shirt, unbuttoned at the neck so it revealed his collarbone. Zell swallowed hard and tried to form words.

"How'd you find me?" The question came from the same lips that had been wrapped around Zell's cock the day before yesterday.

Squall chose that horribly astounding, uncomfortable moment to come back down the hall and remark, "Zell, I see you've met my father. Dad, this is my best friend, Zell Dincht. Zell, this is my father, Laguna Loire."

Zell couldn't move. Frozen to his spot against the door, he felt his heart beating somewhere in his throat, fluttering quickly with fear. He wanted to say something, maybe something witty, to cover up his horror at meeting the gorgeous brunet from the bar here. And that gorgeous brunet being Squall's dad, and living here, and having teased him and kissed him and given him head and sucked his balls and all but wriggled his behind to show off his ass, which Zell still found he wanted to fuck, and swallowed his cum like it was sweet candy...

"Um," said the brunet - Squall's dad - Laguna.

Zell's cheeks reddened when he noticed that the man - Laguna - was looking directly at his crotch, where his hard-on was undoubtedly visible as a tent in his shorts.

Looking between them in utter confusion, Squall said, "Is something wrong?" with very little inquiry in his voice. He was astute enough to know things were screwed up when they were royally, royally screwed.

Zell wanted to shrink down to nothing when he thought those words. If he hadn't been thinking about Laguna's ass and his mouth and what his cock must look and feel and taste like, he was now, and vividly. He wanted to know what it would feel like to kiss Laguna, to caress his bare sides, to pull his hair loose from that ponytail as he sucked his nipples...what it would feel like to have his cock buried in Laguna so his balls slapped Laguna's ass with every thrust... Oh, shit! He turned his back and, after a few painful minutes of fumbling at the doorknob, he got the front door open and could flee to the safety of Squall's car to lock himself in.

A few minutes later, Squall came out after him, keeping a deceptively leisurely pace. Laguna stood in the doorway, one hand on the doorframe and the other resting against his hip. Zell wanted to run his hands up the curves of those hips, trace the curves with his tongue, follow the curves till he found different curves, the curves of Laguna's pert ass. And there he went again, having deviant sexual fantasies about Squall's father, of all people! Zell looked away deliberately, trying to distract himself with the cheerfully bright pink roses in the next-door neighbor's garden. All he thought of then was the pink of Laguna's tongue against the blood-flushed red of his cock.

Squall opened his door and got in, but didn't start up the car and kept the keys away from the ignition, clutched in his left hand, probably to prevent Zell from snatching them and trying to take off. "What's going on?" he asked, point-blank. No frills about Squall; he wanted to know, and he would know.

Zell said nothing. He was afraid that if he did, it would be, "I want to fuck your dad!" and not something more appropriate in this situation, no matter how true a statement it would be.

Once he closed his door, Squall tried again. "Zell," he said, "is this because my father lives here? Is rich?"

"No," Zell said.

"Then what is it about?" asked Squall.

"It's nothing. I wanna go home," Zell said. He was still looking at the pink roses, their dark, almost soft-looking green leaves, at the grass that looked a brighter green from the moisture of an expensive automatic sprinkler system. He wasn't thinking about the green of Laguna's eyes as that hot gaze had promised him delicious things as Laguna unbuttoned his shorts and nuzzled his hard, throbbing cock through his boxers. He didn't want to feel Squall's dad's ass clench around the girth of his shaft, didn't want to hear what Laguna would sound like when he hit his prostate again and again. No, Zell was not thinking about fucking Squall's dad, or how Squall's dad had given him two blowjobs a night ago.

Squall sighed. "Let me talk to my father for a minute." He got out of the car again, taking the keys with him, and went over to talk to Laguna. His door was still open; Zell caught words of their conversation, phrases here and there. "...won't answer...I'll take him...sorry, Dad, I know you wanted...tomorrow?...okay, bye," from Squall, and, "...what's?...well, don't be mean...call me here...I'll see...byyyyyeee!" from Laguna, who waved after them as Squall climbed into the car and started it up.

On the drive back to Zell's apartment, Squall was quiet. He drove a bit slower, too, as if he were trying to give Zell time to make a confession. At last, when Zell couldn't bring himself to say anything that wasn't totally sick, wrong, and inappropriate on every single level, Squall sighed for the second time and said, "We don't have to talk about it."

"Good, then," said Zell.

"But I'd rather."

"That so," said Zell.

"That's so," Squall replied, the barest hint of annoyance draped over his words like a thin veil. "Zell, you've never met my father before. He thinks I told you lies about him, or blackened his name. Have I said anything to make you -?"

"No, no, just drop it," Zell said. "It's nothing you did. It's nothing to do with anything."

Squall fell silent again. He passed the turn that would take them to Zell's apartment, headed instead for the rented house he shared with Irvine, within a ten-minute walk of the campus. Squall pulled into his own driveway and ushered Zell out, going so far as to open the door for him and take his arm to lead him up to the front door.

Irvine came to greet them, low-slung jeans and high-cut shirt revealing the cut lines of his belly and the abs that served as proof that he and Squall were fond of visiting the gym. He smiled warmly to Zell and pinched his cheek, gave his butt a squeeze, before he whispered something in Squall's ear and they tongued each other right in front of Zell. There was no other word for it; "kiss" didn't seem right. This kind of kiss was sloppy and wet, their tongues dancing visibly between their mouths and Irvine's hands cupping around Squall's shoulders, tracing down his chest. When they were done practically slobbering all over each other, Irvine said, "Hi, baby. Howdy, Zell."

"Hi," said Squall, shoving Irvine lightly, playfully, out of his way.

"Awww, darlin', is that any way to treat the man who let you on top last night?"

"Twice," Squall said, "and yes, it is. Move it."

Irvine pantomimed shooting himself in the chest, which normally made Zell laugh and Squall roll his eyes. The latter did happen; the former, however, did not, as Zell couldn't bring himself to any displays of mirth. To his chagrin, Irvine noticed, and asked, "What is wrong with you?" He leaned down and peered into Zell's eyes, as if trying to analyze his soul through his pupils. "Damn, baby, what'd you do to him?"

"I took him to see my father," said Squall, "which, oddly enough, worked him up."

In more ways than one, Zell was still worked up, and was worse off at the merest thoughts of Laguna returning. For a few minutes, he could think about how sickening it was that Squall and Irvine were so all over one another and so open about it. He didn't envy their neighbors, the people on the other side of the townhouse they rented, but then again, knowing many of the people around here, the neighbors probably had audio tapes of Squall mewling while Irvine pounded him. Yes, Zell had been present once as the two banged each other and thought they were being quiet. Unfortunately, it was during a trip up the coast to Fisherman's Horizon during spring break, and the three of them were sharing a double hotel room. Squall and Irvine were loud when they were being quiet, and probably deafening when they wanted to be loud.

Zell shook himself mentally. He didn't need thoughts about his friends' sex life on top of thoughts about what he could do with his own; he wasn't sexually interested in Squall or Irvine, but he was still a man, and they were good-looking. He admitted that, at the very least, as much as Selphie wished he would confess to something more sordid.

"Mmm," Irvine hummed as his reply. He kissed Squall's forehead and plopped down on the couch, patting the spot between his legs. Squall sat down beside Irvine, the picture of primness, while Zell blushed over the implications of Squall being between his boyfriend's legs. And over the memories, of course. He hadn't gotten over the sexy brunet who happened to be Squall's dad just yet, and he felt as though he never would. "So," said Irvine, "you gotten lucky lately?" He winked at Zell.

Zell spluttered. "What the -? Me?! No way, man, I mean, I haven't been going out with anybody, so -"

"Mmmmm," hummed Irvine again. "I'd say you look guilty, Dincht. Been into the bathroom stalls at the Flame Club recently, or am I making a drunken assumption?"

"I haven't been to the Flame Club," Zell answered. "I haven't done anything with anybody, not any quickies or anonymous sex or hiding things or trying to pick somebody up. I'm totally innocent, Kinneas."

"Yeah, and the slut here is a virgin," sniped Squall, patting Irvine's leg. Irvine pinched Squall's nipple through his shirt and got a dirty look for his retaliation.

"I'm serious! What is with you guys and trying to unearth my secret sex life?!" Zell demanded.

"What's with you and trying to hide the fact that you're pitching a tent and look like you're shocked out of your mind? You been punishin' yourself lots, darlin'?" asked Irvine, with all the ease that Zell was thankful Squall could not muster.

"So what if I have," said Zell, more a statement because he didn't care what these two thought of his habit. He could jerk off anytime, to anything, if he wanted to - he wasn't the one who stocked dildos and vibrators for when his boyfriend was gone for a stretch of more than twelve hours, unlike certain individuals who were probably about to dry hump each other before his very eyes. He was a grown adult. At least he was, with the exception of night before last, responsible and safe.

"So what if you've gotten some," said Irvine, also more of a statement.

Zell glared at him, wishing Irvine would burst into flames, or remember that something in the kitchen was about to burst into flames from being in the oven too long.

"Did you get lonely on Friday night?" asked Squall, a trace of bite left in his voice.

"I got drunk, not laid. I have self-control. I don't go out and screw random people, or let them screw me," Zell said. He turned his glare on Squall now, trying to turn both of them into piles of ash left sitting on a scorched couch.

"Depends on what you call a screw," Squall commented. "Is it only screwing if dick meets ass?"

"Baby, I love it when you talk dirty," purred Irvine. He pinched Squall's nipple through his shirt again, this time not earning much more than a soft intake of breath from Squall, who was focused single-mindedly on tormenting Zell. It was like elementary school or junior high all over again, except worse. Now, it involved his sex life, not his sexual orientation or some other factor that Zell considered a bit less private than who had been licking his dick like it was a lollipop last night.

"N-no," said Zell, his palms feeling faintly sweaty with anxiety. He was standing before the tribunal, and he had no chance to defend himself against these two harshest of judges. Unlike the others, even Quistis, as perceptive as she was, Squall and Irvine knew how to pick up on the subtleties of Zell's denials. He was sure that to them, it was obvious he was lying. "Look, I'm leaving."

Squall sighed and Irvine arched an eyebrow. "Well, I'm going to be at my father's house tomorrow," said Squall, "if you want to call me there to discuss this further. Irvine has a test in Social Psychology." He got up from the couch, amidst protests from Irvine, and returned with a scrap piece of paper with a number written on it. Zell studied the number, then put the paper in his pocket.

"I'll just walk home, then," he said. "I'm not getting stuck in a car with the Spanish Inquisition."

"I'm only one-sixty-fourth Spanish," Irvine informed him.

"Cute," Zell said. "Bye, guys."

"Bye, darlin'," said Irvine, while Squall said nothing, his typical silent self all over again.

The walk home took Zell past other rental houses for students, including the one that Seifer and Quistis shared, a block away from Squall and Irvine's place. Seifer's car was gone from the street; he was probably in one of his classes over at the culinary school campus, on the other side of the regular campus. It was Sunday; Zell remembered Seifer mentioning Advanced Pastry on Sunday afternoons. Or maybe they were out to lunch in Seifer's car. Zell put his hands in his pockets, one hand fingering the paper with Squall's dad's house number on it, and went on, quickening his pace. He wanted to get home and try to do something productive. He should be studying, but he didn't really feel like doing anything related to school, his real life, just yet. He could go to the gym, but he didn't much want to do that, either. Working out was too much like sublimating.

Zell moped. At home, he stared at his ceiling for over an hour, lying on his bed. He got up and reorganized his dishes, then put them back how he had them. For all he wanted to avoid sublimating, there he was, doing it. Back in his bedroom, he tried to read an issue of a fitness magazine, resorting to reading a trashy novel he'd picked up at the grocery store two weeks earlier when he couldn't keep his mind on the articles. The pictures in fitness magazines were too distracting. Zell blamed it on that, not on the fact that he was quickly becoming obsessed with a man he hadn't truly met until today.

He studied the piece of paper, Squall's dad's phone number on it in Squall's neat, angular writing, which turned the ones into spikes and eights into hourglasses. After one look, the numbers were burned into his retinas, branded there forever, or so he swore to himself as he examined the paper till his head swam. He wanted a drink.

Never a problem drinker or the kind to frequent bars, Zell had no idea where any bars were, with the exception of the Orchid Room. He walked there, avoiding the trains in the evening after watching too many scary movies about stalkers and fights on trains. Zell arrived when the bar was still relatively empty, most of the regular types there, but nobody who might be out to meet friends or have a good time. Sunday night was, he imagined, the slowest night of all, bereft of all customers except the people who showed up all the time - the alcoholics. Zell contemplated simply ordering a beer, but he'd always hated the taste of beer. He hated alcohol, really. It was cloying and it took over his body, made him feel weak when he'd spent most of his life in an effort to be powerful.

The first time Zell drank, he wound up dancing wildly on the back of a couch - he heard the whole story from Selphie and Rinoa, who had been at the same party - waving his shirt above his head like he thought it was a lasso in a cheesy rodeo cowboy performance. The kind of thing Irvine might do, Zell had thought when the girls told him. They didn't have to tell him what else happened. Zell remembered waking up with a sour taste in his mouth, a sticky tongue that seemed rougher than sandpaper, and a stranger rubbing his cock through his shorts. "Hey," the guy - a brunet, he remembered, but a brunet with brown hair, not black - had said. "Wanna fuck?" Zell panicked and left the party, strewn with sleeping bodies like it was a crime scene. Rinoa and Selphie, luckily for them, had left the night before, around one, when things got "too stinkin' rowdy" for even the dancing queen's sugar-high tastes, and when Rinoa insisted that her father would find out. Zell wished he had some kind of insurance like that, but his ma had been away for the weekend. She didn't know what her son did while she was gone. She never found out what kind of party it'd been, just that he'd been to a party. Nor did she ever learn that Zell had had possibly his first sexual experience in a drunken stupor. Zell didn't consider that guy his first lover, though, not by a long shot.

As Zell entered the Orchid Room, where the only light came from the purple neon around the tops of the walls and the blacklight behind the bar, backlighting the collection of vintage liquor bottles, he did his best to think of old lovers. The first guy he slept with, the first guy who fucked him, was a boy from Balamb High's soccer team. Bartz. Zell hadn't known his last name during high school, and even now, it was no big deal to recollect exactly who Bartz had been. Just a blond who winked at him once in the hallway, eyed him on several occasions in chemistry class, and wound up pounding it into Zell's ass one evening after a soccer game. The circumstances of that fuck had been chance, pure chance. Zell went to watch the game, dragging Selphie with him. She was the best one to take places, provided she didn't spoil the fun by overdoing her part as his "fag hag," as she referred to herself starting in tenth grade, when Zell first confessed that he had a crush on the editor of the newspaper, Nida. Selphie went to talk to Bartz, who was also on her dance committee, and she managed to drag Zell with her. Zell wished he could ignore how stupid he'd been. He stayed to talk to Bartz when Selphie left to pull her car around, and the two of them wandered into the locker room. Everybody else was gone.

"You know I watch you," the other boy had said. Zell thought he nodded. His memory wasn't good enough to know what he had done, just that it involved no words. At the time, he wondered if it was because they shared an intimate, world-shaking connection that implied the existence of soulmates. The Zell of the present, a bit more jaded and far, far more fixated on Laguna than he ever had been on Bartz what's-his-face, snorted and ordered a rum and Coke. The voice of Bartz in the past said, "Let me fuck you, just once." Zell had said, "Yeah, okay. You have any lube?" Not a condom, as he should've asked. That was unbelievably stupid. He hadn't thought of it then, but every possibility had stated that Bartz was infected with something and could have ruined Zell's life right there, with that mutual indiscretion.

The bartender put his rum and Coke down before him and Zell left to find a table for himself. He avoided the bar itself at all costs, afraid of looking like a desperate hack or somebody trying to make a pass at everybody else in the room. The several others who sat there all looked pathetic in one way or another.

Sitting down and taking a sip, Zell moved his brain away from his first fuck to all the guys he'd done on one-night stands, most of them stupid, few of them stupid in the unsafe sense. He insisted on condoms. Twice, he'd made the other guy lose interest when he said, "The only way you're getting this is with a rubber, man." The other times, it was fine. Everybody knew about HIV. Everybody saw commercials for herpes medications promising to decrease outbreaks, and everybody realized that syphilis was on the rise all over again.

"Hi!" said a cheerful voice across the bar.

Zell perked up. It was as if his ears had pricked at the sound of the familiar male voice. Inside his shorts, his dick had reacted, too, telling him that if Laguna was back here, he had a chance at getting a piece of the other man's ass. He looked over as slyly as he knew how, making it look like he was studying his glass when he was, in fact, ogling the narrow sliver of pale skin between Laguna's shirt and his jeans. They were low again, Zell saw, too low to be appropriate on a man whom he now knew was a father. The father of his best friend, specifically. But there was the first view of the night of Laguna's ass.

He wanted to say, "Yum," or vocalize his appreciation. Talk about inappropriate.

Laguna was chatting with the bartender, leaning on the bar and waving one hand around as he spoke. The bartender smiled warmly at him in a way he'd never smiled at Zell, giving Laguna a wink and setting down a glass filled with something technicolor green. Probably a martini of some kind, heavily sweetened and highly flavored to mask the alcohol - what Seifer always called a fag's drink. Zell nursed his rum and Coke, feeling suddenly inferior. He couldn't even dare to drink something unconventional, just ordered one of the few drinks he knew off the top of his head. The easy way to get drunk to try to forget about the same man who was laughing easily, now sipping at his martini, now waving to the bartender as he left the bar and headed in the direction of...fuck, towards Zell's table.

He looked away and examined the wood grain of the table, hoping Laguna would ignore him and go make a pass at somebody else, allow Zell to forget about him and look at him as a total slut. For all the brunet was Squall's dad - Squall's hot dad whose hips had that sexual sway about them as he continued in Zell's direction; okay, it was time to stop sneaking glances - Zell would prefer to let him go by bastardizing him. That was fine with him. And maybe Laguna was a slut who'd suck anybody off. Certainly, that was a great explanation for his skill at it, and his willingness to go down on Zell after maybe half an hour of conversation over what equaled rivers of alcohol in Zell's book.

Laguna poured himself into the chair across from Zell and grinned at him with a mouth that made Zell think of satin sheets stained with sweat and cum from a whole night of loud, hot sex. "Um, I hope you don't care that I'm invading on your space again," Laguna said. He took a delicate sip of his martini, swirling the glass with slender fingers. Zell was transfixed by his mouth, by those same fingers and the fact that they'd probed his ass night before last. "Hello?"

"Sorry," Zell said with an apologetic grin to match. "I was distracted."

Laguna's grin broadened a little, looked a little more predatory. That was before he set his glass down and laid a hand on the table, right next to Zell's hand, and shook his hair lightly over one shoulder. "I bet you were," he said.

With a start, Zell took his hand off the table and set it on his thigh, where it sat uselessly adding heat to his already miserably hot condition. He had a fever or something, or that was what it felt like. The air conditioning was broken in here. "Sorry," he said again.

"Don't be. I mean, I should be sorry. I scared you yesterday, didn't I?"

"Not really," said Zell, dragging out his words so they might fill the silence and prevent Laguna from talking.

"You run from people for no reason?" Laguna asked.

Zell shook his head and took a long, long drink. He tried to sound casual as he replied, "No. Yeah, I was freaked out that you were - are - Squall's dad. But I wasn't scared of you."

"Not scared of me, he says as he avoids looking at me," said Laguna. He downed the last of his martini and licked his lips with the tip of his tongue only, tracing every delicious curve in a way that spelled out everything he would do if things went as they had. Zell almost shivered, watching that talented pink tongue. His cock definitely hardened to diamond status.

"Not scared at all," Zell said.

Laguna looked puzzled. "It's supposed to make you want to sleep with me when I lick my lips," he said, point-blank honest. "Are you okay?"

"Trust me, I want to sleep with you a little too much." Taking a horrible risk, Zell grabbed Laguna's hand and placed it over his erection, already straining against his boxers and his shorts. As soon as he realized how much of a come-on that was, he shoved Laguna's hand away and added all in a rush, "It's not gonna work. I want - I don't know what I want. I better go." He left the dregs of his drink on the table and turned his back on Laguna's horrified expression, trying to maintain his composure till he could get out of the bar and run.

The night air on his face was like a slap to both cheeks, waking and invigorating Zell after the veil of sloth the rum had pulled over his eyes. He sprinted up the street and turned sharply at the next traffic light, hoping it would put Laguna off his scent if he weaved away from the direction of his apartment. A few blocks from the Orchid Room and farther away from home, Zell realized that the brunet didn't know where he lived. His heartbeat slowed by a few beats per minute and he slowed to a loping jog - the best imitation of one he could muster, in any case. Being short sucked.

Zell got home in time to lock all the bolts on his door and collapse onto his bed. His legs were dangling over the edge, kicking at the box he kept underneath there labeled "for emergencies only." The dull thud of tennis shoes hitting cardboard became too much for Zell; he kicked his shoes off and tried to stop himself moving. The nervous energy, it would seem, wasn't about to wear off. Zell growled and brought his feet up to drag his socks off and throw them in the direction of the door. When his feet next dangled back over the edge of the mattress, they hit cool, smooth cardboard. He traced lazy patterns on the side of the box with his big toe. For a long time, Zell closed his eyes and thought of everything he knew to will his hard-on away. Rinoa putting a happy expression on Angelo's face in an unconventional way, the college's middle-aged president naked, President Kramer getting some from his wife for what would probably be the first time in a decade...yuck, Zell noted silently.

None of his usual tricks worked, not even thinking about Selphie's latex fetish when applied to actual sexual situations, which usually killed erections in under a second. Resorting to his final measure, Zell slid off his bed and pulled the box out of its indiscreet hiding place. He opened it up, reached to the very bottom, and pulled out the goldmine of emergency solutions.

It wasn't often Zell used his dildos, but he was in the last throes of fucking desperation, and they did the task. He shucked off his clothes with a speed that belied his need, which made him feel about five times worse that he was about to resort to fucking himself. He grabbed the Astroglide from his bedside table and squeezed a shamefully liberal amount onto the bright purple fake phallus in his other hand. He worked the lube over the plastic, coating it so it was nearly dripping with his expensive lube, the stuff he had hoped to save until he bagged a guy he wanted to bring home with him. Too late now for regretting that such a thing hadn't happened.

Zell used his lube-slicked fingers to penetrate his own ass, positioned in a pseudo-doggie style with his chest down on the bed, putting his weight on his knees to raise his ass in the air. He scissored his index and middle fingers inside, but not after giving his prostate a good rub that made his cock twitch and ooze more precum that threatened to stain his covers. Not that he couldn't wash them a few times or buy new ones. His room could probably use redecorating... Zell swallowed hard and added his ring finger. He concentrated on keeping his fingers away from his prostate, on stretching himself properly. This dildo was his favorite because it was thick and ridged like it had engorged blood vessels in it, a heavy weight in his hand, but it played hell with his ass if he wasn't meticulously stretched out. Zell contemplated using his pinky or his thumb, too, but he held back. With one last, triple-scissoring motion, he pulled his fingers from his ass and licked them off. The lube wasn't foul-tasting, at least, but it wasn't pleasant to taste that slippery nothingness filling his mouth.

The cold plastic pressed against his anus wasn't supposed to be comfortable, or to be truly desirable. It was cathartic, though, when Zell penetrated himself. The deeper he slid the dildo - the head was all the way inside him, then the ridged shaft that gave him a sense of inhuman fullness, then his fingertips were brushing the ring of sensitive muscle wet with Astroglide - the more cathartic it became. Soon, maybe too soon, he was plunging it in to slam against his prostate. Zell's mouth fell open to let him pant into the heavy covers. He tasted cloth in his mouth as his tongue lolled out, brushing against the quilt, and he imagined he was seeing stars. He wanted to be able to claim he saw them, but it was more like he was pretending someone else's weight was crushing him down, hips pressing against the cheeks of his ass, someone else's hands holding his narrow hips. Zell groaned, pretending now that green eyes were slitted with lust, watching him sweat and writhe with each penetration. He wanted Laguna to fuck him like he fucked himself on this dildo. If Laguna could see him now, if anybody saw him now, they'd know how wanton he could be.

Zell rammed his dildo all the way inside his ass and held it in a painfully hard rub against his prostate. His other hand, supporting some of his weight, slid out from under him to grab his cock and run his thumb over the head. It was wet with warm precum, like the shaft of his cock had a slick trail of lube that had leaked down from his ass, tracing over his balls to rest there like it knew how hot he felt when he had something to help him jerk off. He stroked his cock fast, not slow and idle like he usually preferred. Grunting with the strain of fucking his own ass and stroking off, Zell felt his cock give another twitch, a final shudder. Like death throes as cum splashed his stomach and his chest, what felt like a hot fleck of it smacking against his neck.

He dropped the dildo from his ass and fell on his stomach, naked, sweaty, faintly aroused even after all that, and not at all relieved. Mentally, there was Laguna, always on his mind, damn him.

The clock told Zell it was seven fifty-six when next his eyes flickered open. His alarm hadn't gone off, and his curtains were still closed from yesterday, so there was no sun to tell him it was morning. The only thing that felt like morning was that the clock also said it was Monday. Zell wanted to roll over and puke onto the floor. He had class tomorrow. He was supposed to call Squall at his dad's house today, to talk more about what'd happened on Saturday.

Zell didn't bother to shower, climbing out of bed and finding his shorts from yesterday to pull them on commando. He picked up the phone from where he'd discarded it on the kitchen counter. In his pocket, he could feel the piece of paper burning Laguna's phone number into his upper thigh. He pulled it out, although he didn't need it. The number was, after all, burned into his retinas. Zell dialed and waited, chewing softly on his tongue in his nervousness. Secretly, he was praying that no one picked up, that Squall had stayed at home and had Irvine's cock buried in his ass so he wouldn't possibly remember that he had something to discuss with Zell. Squall got forgetful when Irvine was there to distract him. Sometimes he did. And all the time, a distracted Squall worked to Zell's advantage.

"Hello, Loire residence, this is Laguna," chirruped a perky voice.

Wishing he hadn't put any clothes on, Zell croaked, "Laguna?"

"Wait a sec - who is this? Squall's friend? Zell?" Laguna asked, still perky, but with an undertone of puzzlement.

"Yeah," Zell said.

"Ohhh," said Laguna. "Well, Squall's not here just yet. He'll be over after he goes to class today. Did you realize what time in the morning it was when you called?"

Zell studied the clock on his microwave with mild interest, as boring as it was compared to his cock begging him to jerk off and relieve himself. "Sorry for calling you so early," he said.

"At least you're eager. You wanna know what?"

"What?" Zell asked.

"I'm totally hard for you right now," Laguna said, his voice husky and growing hushed. "I could unzip my pants and jerk off just hearing you talk to me."

"Ohh, God, you can't say that on the phone," murmured Zell. "I'm hard, too. You're making it worse."

Laguna had the traces of a wicked chuckle in his voice now, too, on top of everything else, all the other promises it held. "I'm unzipping my pants. I can feel my cock now - it's getting wet from all the precum. I'm gonna jerk off, Zell, you wanna jerk me off?"

"Fuck, yes. I wanna lick all that precum off your cock, suck your cock dry. I'll get you wet with something else so you can fuck me if you want to." Zell had never had phone sex before, as much as he had been intrigued by the mechanics of it. As weird as he felt, saying these things, he owed it to Laguna for running off last night, and to himself for not jerking off already to take the edge off his morning glory.

"You like my cock?" asked Laguna. Zell heard him moan and he knew, as if he were standing in the room with the other man, that he was busy pleasuring himself. He got his own cock out of his shorts and gave it one drawn-out caress.

"I love your cock," Zell said. "I've got my shorts unzipped and I'm jerking off just thinking about tasting it, deep-throating you so when you come, I can swallow all of it."

"Mmm, suck me off. I'll jerk you off while you do it for me, okay, baby? You can blow your load all over me, your cum all over me. Would you like that?" Laguna moaned again.

"You're so hot, I wanna come right now just so I can lick my cum off you and see you writhe while I do it," Zell murmured, joining Laguna with a moan of his own. "I feel like I'm close."

"You can't come yet. You have to suck me off first," Laguna commanded. "I can feel my cock hitting the back of your throat. I can feel your tongue on me, about to make me come."

Zell panted and almost dropped the phone as he reached completion himself. He fell back against his counter while a steady stream of cum hit the hardwood floor, the last spurts hitting his stomach right above his waist. "I'm - I'm coming," he grunted. "I'm coming thinking of your cock in my mouth."

"You're gooooood," groaned Laguna. The groan became a sobbing noise, a moan combined with him hitching his breath. Zell was worried for a few seconds before it became clear to him that the sobbing, whimpering noise was Laguna coming. To punctuate his epiphany, Laguna cried, "I'm coming!"

"Let me fuck you," said Zell.

"No, I'll fuck you. Oh, God, you've gotta bend over, let me slide my fingers into your ass. You're tight, I know you have to be really tight."

"I'm bending over. I've got my cock in my hands and I'm stroking myself off. I'll spread my legs so you can finger-fuck my tight ass all you want." Zell blushed to think that now he was using his own cum, wiped off his belly, to slide his index finger up his ass, wriggling it around for the perfect fit, deep inside him and not far beneath his prostate. "I can feel your fingers close to my prostate. Are you gonna fuck me hard?"

"Yeah," Laguna muttered. "Yeah, I'm fucking you hard with my fingers, but I'll fuck you harder with my cock, if you want me to."

"Sure as hell, I do." Zell pressed his index finger further.

"Okay, I'm pulling my fingers out of your ass now, shoving them in your mouth so you have to lick them off and taste yourself on my skin." Zell groaned himself at the thought of Laguna being rough with him. He imagined how it would feel, those slim, long fingers rubbing over his tongue to wipe away leftover lube and the taste of his own skin, his own ass. He panted and tried not to hurry himself as he jerked off. This whole phone sex thing was going to make him lose control completely, and soon, if Laguna kept talking in that tone that dripped of sex and promised him that the next time they met, neither of them could escape it. They were going to fuck, and not just on the phone. Zell suddenly wanted Laguna's cock in him so much, he felt an almost physical pain surge through him, intensifying the pleasure that shot up his spine when he managed to brush his prostate with the very tip of his finger.

"I can feel your hot cock pressing into me, filling my ass. You're going to fuck me hard, so hard I know I have no choice but to scream. If you're lucky, I'll scream your name as I come," Zell said. He blushed a little more. He felt more than a little bit like a whore of some kind.

"That'd be hot... I mean, yeah, I'm penetrating you slowly, making you wait while I feel how tight you are, how hot your ass is. You're slick from the lube and you feel soooooo good." Laguna panted for a few minutes into the phone, resulting in a soft whimper that sent shocks through Zell's raging hard-on. "I'm thrusting into you, slowly at first, but I'm gaining speed. I'm thrusting so hard that your hips are shaking, your whole body's shaking."

"I feel you gripping my hips, hard enough to leave bruises from your fingers," Zell gulped down an extra loud moan; he was getting really into prolonging the rough fantasy. He did want to feel Laguna bruise him, claiming him in a way that few people could see, but everybody would sense on him. "Your cock is hitting my prostate every time you thrust into me. I want you to come. Are you gonna fill me up with your hot cum, make me yours so when you pull out, it runs down my legs and I can wipe it off and lick it up?"

"Mmmm," moaned Laguna. For a long time, there were just more noises like that, more of him whimpering and saying, "Mmm, yes, Zell, you're so tight, you're so hot. Let me fuck you a little longer."

"I'm ready," Zell said. "Make me come?"

Laguna made that sobbing noise again, louder this time, so it was probably deafening in his huge, empty house, wherever he was in that mansion of his, naked and jerking off, thinking of fucking Zell. The mental picture that penetrated Zell's head as deeply as his own finger penetrated his ass in place of Laguna's cock was enough to send him over. As Laguna finished his orgasm, Zell shot all over the kitchen floor again, adding fresh, hot cum to the cooling, sticky gobs already there. "Laguna," he breathed, "Laguna, I want more."

"Zell..." Laguna said, back to his original husky tone, "Sorry, you're going to have to wait. I'm going to work in an hour. I want to fuck you all day, but I can't."

Zell tried to hide his disappointment by saying, "That's all right. As long as you think of fucking me all day long at work, driving your big cock into me just one more time, I'm happy."

Laguna sighed. "I'd love that," he said.

"So would I." Zell smiled into the receiver, as if Laguna could see how elated he was, how sated and how delighted that his lust was returned equally. "I should call you in the morning more often."

"Someday, you could just come over," Laguna said. "Bye!"

Zell tried to say his own goodbyes, as upset as he was that Laguna wasn't willing to continue the conversation any longer, but the phone clicked and on came the dial tone. He hung up his own phone and looked down at the kitchen floor with a sigh of his own on his lips. He held it in and, pulling off two squares of paper towel, wiped up the cum from the wood and threw the mess into the garbage. Catharsis had never felt so good and left him with such a furious storm of emotions inside, punctuated by the churning of his stomach as it reminded him that as hot as it was to have phone sex with Squall's dad - shit, Zell had almost gotten that off his mind, too! - he needed to eat breakfast. After that strenuous night and a strenuous morning, he needed all the energy he could pack in.

The phone ringing jarred Zell out of his quality time with six slices of sugar-sprinkled French toast and a small tub of whipped butter, as well as reminding him of what that phone had now borne witness to. He fought down the flush that rose to his cheeks and picked up. "Hello," he said, perhaps overly cautiously. Squall detected his timor right away.

"Zell, it's Squall," he said, "what are you doing that has you spooked?"

"I'm trying to eat my breakfast," Zell grumbled, spreading butter in a thick, rapidly-melting glaze over the top slice of toast. "You're interrupting."

"So sorry -" Squall clearly wasn't "- but I wanted to tell you that my class was cancelled today, if you want to get together."

Zell shoveled French toast into his mouth, swallowed. "You make it sound like we're going on a date." He took another bite and tried to take his time so he might have a small passage for air to pass through his esophagus in case of choking emergency. When he had chewed thoroughly and swallowed, he laughed. "Where would we go?"

"Probably my father's house. I think he's offended that you ran off," Squall said.

"Dammit, I was hoping you would lay off. It's nothing," said Zell, with another bite halfway to his mouth before he could finish speaking. He glanced over his shoulder at the refrigerator, wondering if perhaps he had some sausage patties left in the meat drawer in there. Maybe later, like for brunch. Or maybe for supper, if he bothered with supper tonight.

Squall must be driving home from his cancelled class, for in the background, Zell could hear traffic noises like the brief blare of a horn, albeit distantly. "It's not nothing," he said simply.

"You're not one to talk about feelings. You don't have any right to lecture me on revealing my heart and soul to everybody around me and their dogs. I said it's nothing. So it's nothing!"

Acknowledging silently that he had no right to explode at Squall, no more right than Squall had to lecture him, Zell took several bites while Squall remained silent. He felt guilty for turning this into a miniature crisis and taking out his instabilities and bemusement on his friends, yet he wanted an outlet more than his punching bag. Zell, quite honestly, felt shitty when he was fantasizing about Laguna. Not because he hated to fantasize, or found it filthy. More like he was horrified at himself for turning Laguna into an obsession, the focal point of his life. Ever since Friday night, nothing had been about Zell himself, as an individual, as an independent person. Ever since about an hour ago, his whole life had felt stilted and mired down in the muck of routine. Zell growled as he tore into his French toast whole, spearing it and ripping at it with his teeth instead of cutting a bite.

He knew Squall sighed; it drew Zell back into the present, away from the dangerous territory of his mind, where crossing the street meant a sure collision with a thought that might be the end of his sanity. "I want you to please come with me," Squall said. The word "please," coming from him, sounded like an unkind epithet. "I can't stomach my father by myself."

"And Irvine?" Zell suggested. Honestly, for such an inseparable couple whose lives revolved around each other in a manner that was blessedly un-codependent, they were tragically separated. Irvine had all his psychology classes, eating away at his time, and Squall was the most miserable half of a happy couple whom Zell had ever seen.

"Irvine's in the library, doing research to study up for his social psychology exam later," Squall explained, speaking slowly and patiently. Like Zell was a five-year-old who couldn't understand why his mommy and daddy went separate places during the day, or why they couldn't be at home with him all the time. Zell wanted to snort at the image of Squall and Irvine as mommy and daddy. Put that in one of those feel-good commercials and try to sell a product - rather than rising, sales would plummet from Squall's lack of maternal warmth and instinct. "Zell."

"Leonhart," said Zell, as coldly as he could muster.

"As a favor to me," Squall said.

"As a favor to myself, I really wanna decline." Zell finished his second piece of toast and moved into the third without pausing for so much as one-fourth of a beat. He continued eating, leaving Squall in another silence to ponder his words. "Can I eat in peace yet?" he prompted when Squall was quiet for a tad too long.

"No. I'm coming by," announced Squall, and he ended the call.

With annoyance building a sturdy wall inside his mind, designed to block Squall and other closet nosybodies out, Zell scarfed down the rest of his breakfast and managed to take down a glass of orange juice to chase it before his buzzer went off. He pressed the "talk" button and asked a question to which he knew the answer: "Who is it?"

"Squall," said the voice at the other end. "Come on."

Glaring at the speaker as if Squall himself were staring out of it back at him, Zell said, "You'll have to wait while I get dressed."

"You mean you're waltzing around in your undergarments? I'm thrilled, Dincht," Squall said dryly. "I'm coming up, then. I know you and your preening."

"Hey!" Zell protested.

But he did buzz Squall up, and he let Squall in, still wearing nothing but his shorts when he opened the front door. To his credit, Squall's face bore a less chilly expression than his customary morose, "I hate this" look. The minor change in temperature told Zell that he meant to be apologetic for barging in like this. To Zell's disgust, however, Squall was impeccably dressed, wearing a long-sleeved blue t-shirt that had likely been pressed over artfully frayed Diesels. His shoes matched his four belts and his watchband was silver to match his belt buckles. Sickening. Zell had always prided himself on looking less like a stereotypical gay man, and he felt that pride swell slightly, thinking of how obvious Squall must be to outsiders.

"I'm getting cleaned up," Zell said, "watch the Playgirl channel or something."

"You get it?" asked Squall with a raise of his eyebrow.

Zell snorted. He wasn't about to spend twenty dollars to watch an hour of pornography that meant nothing to him. All the channels he could order were straight, anyway. He wasn't into watching women's augmented breasts bounce around. "Yeah, right. I get all my porn in the mail. Dig through the drawer in the coffee table if you're that intrigued. And be quiet. Clean up after yourself. I like it to stay tidy in here."

"Obviously. I smell cleaner and potpourri," Squall commented.

"Shut up!" Zell said.

He took a shower, turning the water as freezing cold as it would go. Zell barely silenced a yelp at the discomfort of what felt like bullets of ice pounding down against his skin. He was shivering when he got out from under the steady stream of freezing rain and could grab his fluffiest towel. This was worse than the time Irvine dared him to go swimming in the ocean in January, the day before they all got back from Christmas break in sixth grade. Zell got a cold that became bronchitis; he had his break extended by a week when he stayed home in bed, wallowing in a carpet of tissues and spending his evenings coughing up brightly-colored phlegm. He hated cold water; it was almost a fear for him. Extenuating circumstances, he told himself, made people act like idiots. Here he was, thanking God for the hottest setting on his blow-dryer. He blasted his hair with it, his head warmer than the rest of his body when he was finished drying and styling his hair.

Outside in the living room, Zell could hear Squall. It wasn't that Squall was noisy, or doing anything like blasting the television; Zell was attuned to every tiny creaking noise in his apartment, not to mention unaccustomed to having somebody else at home with him. He fumbled as he dug through his organized drawers to produce clean boxers.

"It's too cold," Squall said when Zell emerged from his bedroom, dressed in baggy denim shorts and a navy blue shirt, unbuttoned over one of the white undershirts he seemed to always wear as his bottom layer. "And you can't wear your tennis shoes with that. It won't match."

"Fag," said Zell good-naturedly, pulling his socks and sneakers on by the door.

"Irvine's the one who needs to be on that 'Queer Eye' show, not me," protested Squall. "He has a better flair for fashion. He has this interior design book that he uses to consider color combinations - carries it with him when we go shopping sometimes." Squall rolled his eyes.

"That explains his dumbassed penchant for calling colors shit like 'caffe mocha brown.' It's just brown," Zell said. If anyone could immediately be pegged for a gay man - and yet, inexplicably, have women all over him, asking for dates and begging him to come over to help them study for tests - it was Irvine.

"There are differences," said Squall. He looked like he wanted to tap his foot impatiently as Zell locked his door behind them, but he did nothing, his arms loosely crossed over his chest and his posture perfect. Squall looked like the poster boy for military academy stance. There had to be a titanium rod shoved up his ass and through his spinal column, holding him straighter than a skirt-chaser all the time, even when he was supposedly relaxing.

"Shut up," Zell repeated.

His heart was pounding in the elevator, thinking of ways to keep Squall distracted with trivial banter like this. Squall knew how to escape the small talk subjects and skip to meaty details, the kinds of things Zell tried to cover up as if he had been caught having an orgy with fifteen women. Ugh, the simple thought of it made him want to wash his mouth and have another shower, this time a scalding hot one. Zell didn't hate women; he just never wanted to see them naked. He regretted the one time he had been talking with Quistis in her room, all of them getting ready to go to the beach the July after junior year, and she had asked him, "Is it all right if I change?" Zell had said, "Like I care about seeing you naked, Quisty. I like men. Dark-haired men." Quistis, nonchalant in a way that only Quistis could be about stripping off her clothes while trying not to reveal anything, had taken off her cool sheath dress without trouble, but Zell looked back at her too soon. She opened her bra and he looked away at light speed, halfway snapping his neck to avoid the sight of her bobbing breasts. Seifer could look at those. He didn't want to see them, not on Quistis or on any other girl.

"I might pay a penny for your thoughts, if I thought you had any in that skull of yours," Squall's voice shattered the memory of topless Quistis, and Zell smiled in quiet relief.

"Asshole," he said, "I'm just remembering the summer we all went to the beach and I had to put up with being around a bunch of girls in bikinis for a week."

"Seifer liked it," Squall said mildly.

"If not for Quistis, Seifer would fuck anything with a vagina and a skinny waist," Zell said. He didn't dislike Seifer as he had when they were kids, when Seifer used to make fun of him and shove him over into the mud just to laugh when he rose, sputtering and crying, to throw himself at Seifer in rage. But he couldn't respect Seifer's views on women overall. As much as Zell hated the prospect of scantily-clad or naked women, he respected women on the whole. There was nothing wrong with them. They were people. Seifer said things like, "Yeah, if I didn't have Quistis, I'd be out there training a bitch right now. You're so well-disciplined, Quis," pinching Quistis's cheeks and laughing harshly, with all the mellow tones of a jaeger seabird, and yet Quistis hadn't dumped him. Zell would never dream of those remarks. The only person he talked dirty to was...well, recently, to Laguna. He was foul-mouthed with a few other men in bathroom stalls, but that hardly counted.

"True," Squall said. He didn't have to concede; he knew, like everybody knew, that Seifer was a sort of chauvinistic asshole. "But that isn't why we're here. Are you trying to distract me?"

"No." About that time, Selphie and Rinoa would be giggling and shrieking, "Liar!" at Zell, trying to trick him into a hot blush that would spread from his cheeks to his ears and set him to protesting in vain. Without them here, Squall merely arched an eyebrow delicately.

"Yes," said Squall. "Either you tell me what your issue with my father is, or you discuss it with him." He opened Zell's door for him as they reached his car, closing it after Zell in a manner that suggested he was trapped with Squall until he made his confession. Zell could strangle himself for making a fool of himself on the phone earlier with Laguna. Squall's FATHER. The more often he screamed that fact at himself, he might remember it every time he thought of fucking Laguna, or Laguna fucking him.

"I'd sooner tell him," Zell said coolly when Squall had climbed in and was starting up the engine.

"Do that."

They were silent, each stewing in his own thoughts on the drive from Zell's building toward the hills where Squall's father lived in his mansion, with the same Lexus in which he'd given Zell head on Friday night parked in his garage. Or so Zell assumed; it could very well have been a rental car, when he ignored the smell of fruity shampoo and heady cologne, the smell of the same person driving it regularly, and the knicknackky violet yarn octopus dangling from the rearview mirror. He was positive that the Lexus was parked in Laguna's garage, really. He wanted to have his doubts, though. He wanted to pretend that nothing had happened, or convince himself that Squall's father was a terrible person, a tyrant in his own right, a man who would kick puppies and steal candy from children. The sort of person whom everybody in his or her right mind crossed the street to avoid. Zell had seen with his own eyes that it wasn't so. Laguna was friendly and well-liked, popular, even. He had chatted with the bartender at the Orchid Room like they were old friends getting together for the first time in several years, and he was kind to call a taxi for Zell when he was too drunk to go home on his own.

"This time, swear to me that you'll be more respectful, Dincht," ordered Squall. He put on the emergency brake and turned the car off to look earnestly at Zell. His pretty mouth - had he inherited that from Laguna? - was set in a hard, unforgiving line, and his gray eyes had every bit the rigidity of solid steel.

"No prob." Zell's throat constricted after he said it; he pictured himself, trying to say hello to Laguna and failing, and Squall taking that as a sign of utter disrespect to his father. Knowing Squall, not using the correct greeting would be a sign of disrespect. And Squall, who routinely slagged on his dad, seemed to be in the mood to take a slight on Laguna as a slight on him.

The rosebushes next door hadn't changed, nor had the flagstone walk and the wide front door that faced him. Squall unlocked it and there he was, for the second time, standing behind enemy lines, with a machine gun trained on his forehead in the form of Laguna peeking down from the top of the staircase. Zell had hardly taken an anxious step backwards when Squall locked the door and called up, "Class was cancelled for today."

Laguna bounded down the stairs, far more composed than Zell himself. He, like Squall, was wearing expensive jeans - Guess. Zell was sure they were Guess; his jeans last night had been Guess, too - but he looked even gayer than Squall, in a light, floral-print shirt that was unbuttoned from the neck down to the middle of his chest. Zell thought, for a few seconds, that he might be choking on his own tongue, or drowning from the drool building up in his mouth. "Squall!" Laguna greeted enthusiastically, hugging his son. Squall had all the warmth of a block of dry ice, standing unfazed as his father threw his arms around him and invaded his personal space. Next, Laguna turned on Zell and smiled. He winked and gave Zell a saucy raise of one eyebrow that went straight to Zell's dick. "You said your class was cancelled? That's great! Kiros is taking over for me today!" He went right back to talking to Squall, ignorant of Zell's arousal.

"Actually, it's not. It's another class I have to take later on and face more cramming for exams," Squall said. He had turned sulkier here than Zell had seen him in the last several weeks, far sulkier than he'd been when Selphie insisted on going out to meet at a bar. "Not everybody enjoys a slack-fest."

"Not everybody wants to spend a gajillion years in school, either," Laguna beamed. "Come on, have tea with me. Or do you want coffee?"

"Tea," said Squall.

"Coffee, please," said Zell. It was the first thing he had said to Laguna that didn't relate to sex or what they had done together. Somehow, it felt more sexual that he was here, deliberately dodging the subject and refusing to meet Laguna's eyes. He was walking directly behind Laguna, and each sway of the older man's hips was driving him wild with the sparks of interest that engorged his cock even more than it already was. Laguna had to be doing it on purpose. Or maybe he had always walked with that girly swish, and Zell was sexualizing it, like he did everything unimportant. Laguna reached up to gather all his hair and shove it over his left shoulder, and Zell turned that into a sexual gesture. Laguna's shirt collar was riding a little lower on his neck, a bonus of having it so unbuttoned and loose. Zell felt like he was getting a mini-private show.

Laguna put teabags and hot water in two mugs, one with a black cat sticking its paw into a goldfish bowl, the other plain lavender, and set the cat mug in front of his son on the island. He poured water from the kettle and swished his way over to the coffee maker. "I know Kiros said I should get somebody to help me out, to clean this place and take care of making the food - all those chore things - but I'd rather have the house to myself. It's nicer this way. You're never here, so of course it's really, really lonely, but it's better to have all my memories caged in with me. I don't have anybody here to tell me to throw anything out," Laguna was chattering as he poured coffee for Zell. "Sugar? Cream? Oh, hey, do you want any flavored syrup?"

"Cream, please," said Zell. He blushed. Squall, seated in one of the tall stools at the island, was fiddling with his teabag. Taking advantage of that brief distraction, Laguna proceeded to give Zell a significant glance, bedroom eyes and all. Zell's cheeks were on fire, if they hadn't been before.

"Kiros was over here last week, and he told me to toss out that mug you have, Squall," Laguna went on, setting Zell's mug before him. "I hope that's enough cream for you. There's plenty where that came from if you want more. Anyway, Kiros thinks it's healthy to get rid of things that are too old, but I don't agree. That mug was your mother's. She had her earl gray from it every morning. I bet you can see a few of the stains left in it, rings from when it sat on the table too long while she was just reading the paper for a long time and she forgot it was there." Laguna played with the string attached to his teabag now, swirling the bag around inside his mug. He wasn't looking at the teabag, though; his gaze slid from Squall to Zell, trying to catch his eyes. Zell looked away, out the window at the view down the hill on other rich people's houses and expansive lawns full of bright flowers. "And I realize that I don't have to do all the vacuuming and scrubbing the toilets by myself. Kiros said so. I just like knowing that I don't rely on anybody else to get things done," Laguna said. "How is it, Zell?"

"Perfect," Zell said. "I don't know how you knew to put the right amount in. I didn't say anything."

"Oh, that's just how I drink my coffee. Well, not really. I put three sugars in, and whipping cream, so it's thick and it's hardly like coffee anymore. But I might drink it that way," said Laguna.

"Dad, don't be such a painful idiot, please. Zell doesn't need you to try to demonstrate your intellect," Squall interjected, before his dad could continue. "You're making yourself sound like a hermit stuck in his tower."

"I'm not a hermit, though. I have a life," Laguna said.

Squall dunked his teabag in and out of the mug, poking at it with his finger and licking that finger off to tell if the tea was steeped enough yet. It was possibly the only nervous habit that Squall Leonhart had allowed himself to display in his life. "What would that be? Going to the gym five times a week, grocery shopping at the place that has the florist's shop attached so you can buy all those flowers you don't need for all the vases you don't have?" Squall asked.

"Don't be derisive," Zell stage-whispered scoldingly. He felt defensive of Laguna.

"I like flowers," Laguna said, haughtily rising from his seat with the offended air of a cat splashed with water. He threw his teabag away and sat down once again to take a sip. "Ew, bitter." Two tablespoons of sugar later, he smiled and took a long drink from the mug, as if it weren't still steaming hot. "Ouch. And I know you don't have as much of a life outside class. Irvine is a neglected boy."

"I take Irvine out," Squall said.

"Uh-huh." Laguna was laughing, but Squall seemed to be genuinely upset about something that Zell had yet to pick up on.

Squall threw out his teabag and drank his tea in sullen silence from that point on, throwing darts at Laguna's face with his eyes. Secluded from what looked to him like an age-old argument, one that they'd kept up off and on for years, Zell sipped at his coffee. He wanted it to last long enough that Squall got over the urge to stay here and irritate himself by being around his father. He wanted to go home and jerk off over a picture of a man who looked as little like Laguna as possible. Maybe a blond, although blonds didn't do much for Zell, not even when he was a teenager and he thought he was willing to take anything as long as he had a boyfriend.

"I'm going to the bathroom," Squall announced. He deposited his mug in the dishwasher and left the kitchen, headed down a hallway that was only lighted with thin rays of sunshine from another room at its end.

After the bathroom door closed, Laguna put his mug atop the counter over the dishwasher and leaned across the island to Zell. His expensive jeans slid down his hips, his expensive shirt riding up to show more skin than ever, and Zell unconsciously licked his lips. "We're alone," Laguna said. One of his hands, dangling over the edge of the island dangerously close to Zell's crotch, brushed against Zell's shorts. There had been no real heat in his touch, but to Zell, his thigh beneath the denim was aflame. "I could bring you off while he's in there, if I really tried. Want me to suck you off?"

"I don't think -" Zell started to say.

Laguna silenced him by leaning over further across the island to press their lips together. He sucked Zell's lower lip into his mouth and nibbled it lightly. With a last nip and a hard suck, he released Zell's lip and sat back down so he was kicking at the rungs of his stool when Squall reemerged from the hallway with a less cranky look on his delicate features. He was just sitting down across from Laguna again when his cell phone rang, a loud burst of tinny Mozart filling the kitchen. Squall pulled the phone from his pocket and said, "It's Irvine. I'd better take it." He got up and left the room again, back down the hallway from which he had come seconds ago. On his way, Zell heard him pick up and say, "Hi."

Finishing off his coffee, Zell followed his best friend's example and put his empty mug in the top rack of the dishwasher. He turned around to see Laguna eyeing him with sparkling eyes. Zell had never been one to let somebody else take the lead, yet he wasn't about to resist when Laguna grabbed him and dragged him through a few open doorways into what had to be the living room. Laguna's lips were everywhere, tracing wild lines up his jaw to his ear to bite and suckle his earlobe, nibbling his neck, sucking hard all down his throat. There would be marks there, hickeys all up and down his neck when Laguna was done kissing him. Zell didn't care. He felt his back hit something soft, but he was more occupied with kissing Laguna back. He took the initiative now, kissing Laguna in that wet and sloppy way that said he didn't care what they did, as long as they did it. Zell's tongue caressed the roof of Laguna's mouth, the sides of his tongue, the bottom of his mouth behind his teeth. He sucked on Laguna's tongue like it was a miniature of the other man's cock, wishing he could taste that cock about now.

Laguna mewled into Zell's mouth; it took Zell a couple seconds to open his eyes in mild surprise and see that his roaming hands had found Laguna's ass and were squeezing, kneading the curves of his butt and hips. His fingertips found Laguna's crack through his tight jeans and traced it, pressing hard into it with the promise that Zell would gladly fuck him the minute those jeans came off. "Your shirt," Laguna panted. He was trying to unbutton it with clumsy fingers. It was like he'd already covered his hands in lube and they were too slippery to keep a grip on anything except maybe Zell's cock, which his other hand was rubbing through Zell's shorts. Zell reluctantly removed his hands from Laguna's ass and unbuttoned his shirt all the way, peeling it off to discard it on the coffee table. The buttons clicked faintly against the glass top before it fell to the floor with a rustle. His undershirt followed, and his sneakers, along with his wadded-up socks, thudded gently against the plush carpet at the other end of the couch.

With Laguna still on top of him, Zell could easily return to squeezing his ass. He was occupied with memorizing Laguna's curvature till he felt warm, soft hands gripping his cock. Zell's eyes shot open and he groaned deep in his throat, close to a growl. Laguna had unfastened his shorts and was sliding them down, all the way off his legs and onto the floor next to his shirts. He deprived Zell of the chance to keep squeezing his ass and running fingers along the shallow dip of his crack, pulling away and crouching his chest closer to his knees. His ass was raised high in the air now, shirt riding up and jeans riding down, tongue swirling around the middle of Zell's shaft. He licked a sloooow path up to swipe away the bead of precum at the tip of Zell's cock with his tongue. "D'you like that?" he whispered, his cool breath against Zell's hot cock made cooler by the remaining traces of his spit.

Zell nodded with a rumbling groan. "Yeah," he muttered.

Of their own accord, Zell's fingers combed through Laguna's hair, only through the grace of God avoiding pulling on it or grabbing Laguna's head and shoving him down all the way onto his dick. Its fleshy tip was bumping artlessly against the inside of Laguna's cheek, the brunet's slim hand wrapped around the base and squeezing Zell there softly as he hollowed his cheeks sucking forcefully on the head. Laguna made a little grunting noise in his throat that reverberated into his mouth. It drove Zell fucking crazy. He bit his bottom lip to keep the noise down, in case Squall heard them and came to investigate, but Laguna didn't seem concerned. He nipped the spot right beneath the head of Zell's dick, eliciting a hiss-turned-moan. Zell was close. All it took was Laguna removing his mouth and giving his cock one last, long lick, following the thick vein from the very root all the way up the underside of Zell's hard-on.

Harshly, and more than a tad too loudly, Zell let out an embarrassing squawking, pleading noise and lost his control. Laguna recoiled. Not in time to keep his face and hair from being splattered with thick, creamy gobs of Zell's cum. As if he were stemming the flow, Laguna put his fingertip over Zell's slit, corking him so his cum had to spurt out sideways. Laguna licked off his fingers afterwards, the fingertip of every single finger. He smiled while he did it; his eyes, brighter than jewels and no longer bearing any of their former vague cheerfulness, never left Zell's. Zell didn't dare look away. He was held captive, seeing Laguna's eyes sharpened to lustful points.

"So," Laguna said, "it's your turn to fuck me. For real," he added. Quickly, yet without losing the seductive air, he shelled off his shirt. He took his time with his jeans; he must've seen what the smallest glimpses of his ass did to Zell, or he wouldn't waste their precious time like that. Underneath the denim, Laguna was naked, his cock so hard that it slapped against his stomach when he freed it from his restrictive jeans. Those, and his shirt, he tried to toss onto the coffee table. They ended up on the floor.

He wiped a dangling rope of cum from his long bangs and, rising up on his knees, leaning his weight forward, he speared himself on his two cum-anointed fingers. No introductions, no dallying, just two fingers shoved roughly up his ass with a keening whine. He clenched his eyes shut for a second, but that was the extent of showing his pain. While Zell wasn't hard to impress or anything, he was damn well impressed, seeing Laguna drive his own fingers into his ass without any lubricant except some extra cum. He swiped another splash of cum from Laguna's cheek, right beside his swollen lips, and smeared it up the whole length of his own fingers.

Laguna was tight. Both their index fingers and both their middle fingers crammed inside his ass made him seem tighter, maybe, than he was. But Zell was positive that Laguna was always tight, notwithstanding. "Zell," whimpered Laguna.

Zell wasted no time in scissoring his fingers where they were pressed against Laguna's unmoving fingers. His thumb rubbed behind Laguna's balls, trying to relax him by giving him some pleasure to tide him over. It worked, at least a small bit; Laguna smiled at him, a shaky moan escaping between his teeth. He wriggled his fingers, too, stretching them to press against his prostate, then moaning quietly.

"I'm ready," he said. His breath hitched, probably because both sets of fingers were tickling against his prostate, teasing him. Zell knew that feeling, and he hated enduring it. He wasn't about to inflict that kind of crap on Laguna. He kissed Laguna's bruised lips and gave his cheek a fond peck, withdrawing his fingers at the same time. Laguna followed suit, sucking off his own fingers with a relish that stole more blood from the rest of Zell's body to make his cock twitch harder.

"Do you have anything?" Zell asked breathily. His fingertips glided across Laguna's buttocks, trailing up to grasp his waist gently.

Laguna leaned down to where his jeans lay on the floor, floundering and scrabbling to find the right pocket. He sat back up on his knees with a triumphant smile, dampened only by the lust overriding it in his eyes. "This time, yup," he answered. He handed Zell the condom, adding, "My fingers are a little slippery."

Zell swallowed hard and ripped open the package, still faintly warm from being in Laguna's pocket. He was tempted to ask how long it had been in there, waiting for him to arrive with Squall, and how Laguna had known he could be coming. Now wasn't the time. He pulled the condom out and handed it to Laguna. "Do the honors with those slippery hands, why don'tcha?"

Last night, had anybody told Zell that Squall's father, the man he had met in a bar and who'd had phone sex with him, had all the skill of a slut with putting on condoms, he'd've snorted and said, "Yeah, right." Zell could see where the analogy would come to mind, though, if he was honest with himself. Laguna pressed the condom against the very tip of Zell's cock and worked it down slowly, unrolling it as he went. He wasn't shy or prissy about anything; his fingernails were subtly scraping down Zell's length, and when he reached the bottom, he gave the base a tight pinch. Zell hissed and tried to keep his eyes open without them watering too much and betraying him.

"So you don't come as fast," explained Laguna, maybe a little wickedly, "but I will. You're pretty big."

For a few seconds, Zell's body could spare him the blood to have the grace to blush. Then Laguna was easing himself down over Zell's cock with a weak moan echoing deep in his throat, smiling a little down at Zell, who couldn't help gasping at how tight Laguna was. His ass was strangling Zell's cock, ready to milk him of every drop he had. Suddenly, Zell was sorry for remembering a condom, as horrible as it seemed. He wanted to pump Laguna's ass full of cum and know that it was his doing when some of it slipped out, down Laguna's pretty thighs. He rocked his hips up, driving his cock deeper. A saccharine smile spread over his lips as Laguna's knees gave, impaling him all the way. Only Laguna's hands on his shoulders, which became Laguna twining his slim around Zell's neck, kept him from being slammed down too hard. Laguna moaned and writhed, throwing his hair back over his shoulders and mouth lolling open as he tipped his head back.

He swayed his hips forward, one hand grasping the arm of the couch above Zell's head to give him support when he let out a high whimper. Zell felt like Laguna's ass was swallowing his cock in a way his mouth couldn't, and he loved every second of hearing Laguna whine above him, rising a few inches to slam himself back down on Zell's cock. For the first time, Zell heard the light smack of Laguna's asscheeks hitting his thighs. Laguna rose, shallower this time, and dipped himself down. It took all of Zell's control not to grab Laguna's hips and start jackhammering into him till Laguna's ass was too sore to walk and he was screaming Zell's name loud enough to carry into next week. He gritted his teeth and watched Laguna ride him, rising and falling with animalistic, primal rhythm. Laguna panted and gasped, whimpered and moaned, with each press of Zell's cock deep into his tight ass.

Being inside Laguna was like being in a vice grip that felt like hot, slick heaven. Zell threw his control to the winds, sat up, and dragged Laguna down onto his cock. Their chests were flush against one another, pressed close. Each time Laguna rose, each time Zell helped lift Laguna off the spear of his hard cock, skin rubbed on skin, Zell's nipples instantly hardening further. Moving one hand from Laguna's hips, where he had a near-bruising grip, Zell pinched and tweaked Laguna's right nipple. He covered Laguna's cry with his lips, kissing first the corner of Laguna's mouth, then snaking his tongue inside the brunet's mouth.

"Nnn," said Laguna eloquently.

Zell grunted against Laguna's lips and wrapped his arm around Laguna's slim waist, drawing him closer and lifting him off his cock all the way. Only the very tip of its head stayed inside, and then Laguna plunged down of his own accord. He let out a muffled cry into Zell's mouth. "Shh," said Zell. He kissed Laguna again and started thrusting more shallowly. He wanted to get close. His balls felt too tight from too long of wanting to come, and he was sure Laguna was in a state. The hand that had been worrying Laguna's nipples in turns took tight hold of Laguna's cock, stroking it in time with his fast, short thrusts.

Again Laguna tried to scream, and again, a second later, when Zell's cock bumped against his prostate in a full-on kiss. Zell kept his mouth over Laguna's in preparation for each cry and breathy wail. Lightly, timidly, he brushed his fingers against Laguna's balls. When he got a hot puff of breath against his lips, a high moan following it, he cupped Laguna's balls in his palm and rubbed the soft sac with his fingers, making nonsensical patterns. Laguna humped back against his every thrust, almost too loud to be silenced anymore. He wasn't good at being quiet. Zell tried to kiss his neck, suckling at the spot where Laguna's jaw ended and his throat began, but he quickly darted his mouth up again to brush his tongue over Laguna's lips. The other man was being too noisy, so Squall was sure to notice any second.

Miraculously, Laguna came without a sound. He tore his lips from Zell's and arched his back, mouth open in a soundless O, a silent scream ripping from deep within him. The arms around Zell's neck and shoulders tightened frantically, clutching him close. His cum splattered between them, coating both their bellies and leaving flecks over Zell's chest. He swore that some hit against their chins, too, but he wasn't about to look. He rested his cheek against the heat of Laguna's shoulder and dug his teeth into the flesh there to hold Laguna still, force him to keep his legs spread and stay on Zell's cock. One hand remained cupping and caressing Laguna's testicles while he pushed his livid red cock up. Zell gnawed first on Laguna's shoulder, second his neck, biting down on all the skin he could reach. Laguna mewled when he bit down especially hard, though part of that could've been surprise that Zell's cum was hitting against the condom in an abrupt, molten hot flood.

Zell's climax came with more force than a hurricane, more force than anything else in the natural world he could imagine. It ripped from his cock and wrung his balls of every drop of cum they had. The condom prevented him from filling Laguna's ass, but it didn't make his orgasm less explosive. His eyes clenched shut, or perhaps they rolled back into his head, leaving his vision black but the world in his mind painted white from the burst of stars behind his eyes. He collapsed against Laguna, releasing his teeth's death grip to kiss the bite marks. Zell opened his eyes and saw, to his delayed, even vague horror, that he had drawn blood. He licked it away and murmured to Laguna's shoulder, "I'm sorry, Laguna."

Laguna smiled. "Don't apologize," he said. He wiggled his ass suggestively, a promise of what they could do if they didn't have only a few more minutes to get dressed and feign innocence for Squall. Zell longed for Squall to go away, leave him alone with Laguna here for a week. His mind couldn't process how much damage they could do to each other, given that time. He was too sated and sleepy from orgasm to give a shit about much but his slowly softening cock being buried in Laguna's ass. "Zell, I -"

"What the fuck?!"

Later, Zell wouldn't be able to say what happened first, or which of them looked up in sheer terror at Squall's shellshocked face. Through his dreamy haze, he felt his cock fall limply against his leg as Laguna jumped from him and let out an, "Unnnngh!" of pain that sent him slouching to the floor, crouched above his discarded clothes. Laguna deftly yanked the condom off while he pulled his jeans on, hiding his nakedness from his son. Zell sat up straight on the couch, blinking at his best friend still standing in the doorway, his cell phone on the floor in front of his left foot. He tried to grab his boxers, tried to get them back on, tried to look away. Nothing worked. Squall's mouth contorted into a sneer.

"Dad, I had no idea you were that much of a skank," he said, "and Zell, I could kill you. Get the fuck away from him! Sick freak, what makes it okay to you to fuck my father?!"

Flushed with shame, Zell didn't register what Laguna was saying in protest, crying out for Squall to please listen to him; that was all Zell could hear, and it was mostly censored by the sound of his heartbeat filling his consciousness. He got his clothes on, all but his shirt, which he carried under one arm as he fled for the front door. Behind him, there were sounds of a scuffle between Laguna and his shirt, trying to get dressed all the way.

"Zell!" Laguna called after him, right before the front door slammed, but Zell had too much momentum to turn around and go back. He ran a block, then wheeled around right in front of an oncoming car. The woman driving honked, gave him the finger, and went back to chatting on her cell phone, which helped a few notches with pulling Zell out of the clouds surrounding his head. He felt like he was out of a fog as he strode back to Laguna's house.

Squall had no right to dictate Zell's sexual habits, or whom his sexual partners might be. He was the only person in the world, in this universe, who was allowed to tell himself what to do. As much like a pussy-whipped moron as he felt when he was around Laguna and the older man was murmuring delicious suggestions to him, he had the capacity to control his life. Nobody told him what to do; Laguna could play his games, but in the end, it was Zell's choice. He'd made the choice to go with Laguna the first time, when Laguna was only a stranger to him, someone who technically didn't matter. He wasn't supposed to matter. But he did, he mattered a lot now that Zell had obsessed over him for days and found it insurmountable to get the hell over him. He mattered as much as anybody else with whom Zell shared his life and his own damn time, which he didn't dole out to every single person he found attractive and appealing. Laguna chattering away about nothing made it clear; he was a person, and he was like a north pole to Zell's south, magnetic and fascinating. Zell had the right to go after what he wanted, and what he wanted was Laguna, who, in spite of being Squall's father and old enough to be his own, by that token, had plenty of secrets to share with him. Zell wanted to hear them all. If that was what he wanted...

He slammed Laguna's front door open; it bounced off the doorstop, but Zell didn't bother to look back and see if the force had closed it behind him. He stormed into the living room where Squall was still standing, glaring at Laguna, who was glaring back with his hair in disarray. He stood at Laguna's side and shouted, "It's my Goddamn life, Leonhart, and I'll fuck whoever I want as long as they say it's okay! Laguna said it was okay! That's our choice!"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," Laguna added, more quietly, but with an equal amount of force veiled away in his impassioned words.

"None of this changes that Zell, you fucked my father, and Dad, you allowed my best friend to fuck you," Squall said obstinately.

"Your feelings are important to me, Squall, but this isn't about you. Not everything can be convenient in your life," Zell said. He felt strangely calm, for all he was sure he could destroy this house in under a minute with his bare hands with the power surging through his veins like overmuch electricity flooding its circuit. That was it; his circuit breaker had flipped, shutting off his ability to scream and make a maudlin scene here in Laguna's living room, siding with Squall's father against Squall. His best friend since he was what, five years old? It was too maudlin as it was, without his help.

"I don't want to alienate you," Zell heard himself going on, "and I don't want to lose you. You're my best friend in the world. Nothing, not hell, high water, and certainly not this, is gonna change that, not ever. But this is one time I don't give a flying blue fuck in my own mother's bed what you think."

Squall opened his mouth, but Laguna cut him off. "I wanna say something, too," he said. "You called me a skank, and I resent that. I've made my share of stupid decisions, but to me, Zell is not a stupid decision. You don't have the right to dictate what I do; you're an adult, and while I'm your dad, I can't even dictate what you do. If you aren't interested in me treating Zell as the consenting adult that he is, you'd better leave."

"Dad," Squall said, "shut up." His face relaxed by a nano, enough that Zell detected it, even though his mouth was thinned and his eyes were narrowed with what passed for dislike - the closest Squall got to resentment or hatred. "I'll get used to it, but...I never want to see that again. Ever. And you're not going to fuck each other over."

"Wha -" Laguna started.

"I want to see you guys have a real relationship if I'm ever going to accept what you're doing - what you've done," Squall said. "What have you done, anyway?"

"Today was our first time," said Laguna. When Squall looked at him dubiously, Zell saw it as his chance to jump in and prevent a different kind of shocking scene.

"I'll explain it to you later. For now, I'm going to stay here, if you don't mind going home without me," he said.

Squall shrugged and, without saying another word, without a backward glance or any sign that he might be considering saying goodbye, he left the room. Half a minute later, the front door clicked closed after him.

Laguna sank down on the couch, his hands combing nervously through his hair, which he had gathered together to trail over his left shoulder. His green eyes, missing the sparkle that Zell found so captivating, met Zell's questioningly. "What do I do?" he asked, and his voice was weak, the voice of a man who'd been defeated and kicked around in the mud for good measure.

"Nothing. We can't do anything," Zell replied. He sat down beside Laguna to wrap his arm around his lover's shoulders, patting Laguna's forearm.

"Except wait."

"That's all right. Ever since you shook that ass of yours over to me in the bar three days ago, all I've been doing is waiting," said Zell. He kissed the side of Laguna's mouth closest to him. Laguna, to his relief and delight, turned to return the kiss. "I've been obsessed with you," Zell went on, between kisses that made his tongue feel leaden and his hands itch to rove over every centimeter of Laguna's satin-smooth skin.

"Really?" asked Laguna, sounding excited. He sat back from Zell for a minute, then, as if he'd thought better of it, bit at Zell's earlobe and settled down to rest his head on Zell's broad chest.

"Well, yeah," Zell admitted, now feeling the first traces of embarrassment. Was that the kind of thing he was supposed to admit to Laguna? For all he knew, Laguna would be put off when he heard just how obsessed Zell had been, to the point that all his normal life functions had been put on hold while he daydreamed and mooned over a man he meant to be a meaningless fuck. "I don't know what it is about you, but I'm stuck."

"That's so sweet," Laguna said. "I mean it when I say it. And it's a relief, 'cause I've been sort of obsessed with you. That's why I was all ready to have phone sex with you. To be honest, I'd never done that before, and I was afraid you were going to laugh at me and tell me to go be an insect."

"What? Insect?" Zell blinked.

"You know, bug off or whatever it is," Laguna said dismissively. "Anyway, I'm really curious about you. I want to know everything; we've got to make this work, or I might get killed, like the cat who got too curious." He smiled to himself, probably less about his remark than about something else private in his head that Zell ached to know.

"We'll work," Zell said, "just so I can lord it over Squall that I'm dating his dad."

Mortified, Laguna cried out, "Don't say that! It makes me sound old!"

"Oh, you two are the perfect example of disgusting," said Squall.

Wait just a minute - Squall?!

Standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, was Squall, no real trace of amusement visible on his lovely features, but evident in his voice. Before Laguna could speak a word, Squall raised his index finger, where he twirled his keyring. Rising to stand straight, he said, "I hope you weren't so caught up in your conversation that you didn't realize that I never started my car and left." When Zell cleared his throat and looked at the floor - how could he not have noticed? Now that Squall mentioned it, he felt like the perfect example of a fool, too - and Laguna squirmed, he said, "Oh, you did? How precious."

"You have no room to talk. You're the one who's going to give us your blessing!" chirped Laguna, bounding up from the couch to give his son a warm hug.

"I never said that," Squall muttered.

"You implied it!" Laguna tightened his arms and swayed back and forth, patting Squall's head as he withdrew to sit down on the arm of the couch. Zell scooted over to fill the warm spot that Laguna had left, not quite ready to say anything to his friend. All the rage had left him, taking with it all the worries that Squall would return and show his disapproval with one curl of his lips. However, he felt betrayed that Squall had had to stop and think about it at all. To him, it was natural to accept people's decisions, as much as he was willing to leap in and give those same people flack about their stupidity.

"I have the most fucked-up family. Zell, ever since you called me on Saturday, I knew something was up, but I never thought something had happened between you and Dad," Squall commented, his casual tone making the words sound more casual than they were. "Idiot."

"Apology accepted," Zell said, and he quirked an evil grin. "Does this mean I can call you my son?"

"Shut up, Dincht. Before I remove your hot dog and feed it to some innocent person on a stale bun."

Looking satisfied, Laguna slid down from the arm of the couch to land comfortably sprawled in Zell's lap. He grinned broadly. Zell grinned back, less evilly now that he had a sense of contentment easing into his veins as if he had been injected with some quick-acting serum. He felt calmer than he had in his life, very relaxed and easy. Of course, there was still the matter of this huge, forbidding house, and what he would say to Squall to explain the circumstances of his, um, relationship with Laguna. But in perspective, everything was small in comparison to his happiness ever since Friday night. He wouldn't go so far - and so cheesy - as to say that it changed his life in the course of two blowjobs, but it came close. Maybe too close to be able to ever explain fully to Squall what it meant to him to be this fascinated by somebody. And maybe, over the course of a few years, this would pan out; maybe it wouldn't. Zell was realistic.

All he wanted for now, though, since he had always been one to live in the present to the best of his ability, was to kiss Laguna and see how Squall glared when he did it. Squall's face was priceless, as was Laguna's thrilled laugh. Zell leaned back in and kissed Laguna again, tongue tracing the seam of his lips to ask for entrance prior to exploring each part of Laguna's mouth, their tongues meeting to dance between their mouths. The messiness didn't matter. It wasn't even the point anymore to see Squall look horrified at the sight of his father kissing his best friend. It was all about the feel of Laguna's slick tongue on his, Laguna's arms around him, the tickle of Laguna's soft hair against his cheek.

"Yuck," said Squall, quite maturely, when Laguna panted for breath, his lips remaining so close to Zell's that they shared the oxygen between them to pant and gasp. Zell didn't lick his lips to replace Laguna's spit with his own. He just smiled at Squall and widened it to a grin for Laguna.

"I can think of better things to do with that mouth," Laguna giggled.

"Oh, yuuuuuck," said Squall, louder now.

Zell let out a laugh that could only be described as a cackle.