Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kaiser pulled him into his room again.  He thought— they were going to talk about what happened the other night.  

The door clicked shut, then thumped when Kaiser pushed him back against it.  He started to say, “I’m sorry.  I’m bad at this.” The words were backwards from what he thought: You’re not very good at sex are you? He still felt, no, knew he should apologize.  You know.  After last time.

Alexis Ness thought this as it started to happen again.  Kaiser sucked hard on his lips.  Ness didn’t open for him.  He was trying to think about breathing.  Then Kaiser shoved his hand down Ness’s pants.  Ness gasped.  Kaiser took advantage.  He bit his way into his mouth.  It seemed like he should have laughed, like he should have been haha I got you without so many words.  Kaiser didn’t even slurp.  He was holding his own breath and his face was all smoothed out with a thought.  What thought?  It had something to do with Ness.  Ness knew this.  Kaiser squeezed his dick.  Not too hard.  His fingers drummed over the skin, wet now in his grasp.

He’s barely bothered with Ness’s dick the other night.  His ruthless attention went there now.  The insides of Ness’s thighs squirmed with the tension drawing over his whole body, just mostly his dick.  Kaiser strummed and jerked, squeezed him like a handlebar.  Ness finally thought to push his pajama pants off.  They were already spattered with precum at the waist.   Kaiser growled.  His tongue curled out of Ness’s mouth and he stared down at Ness’s hurting hard erection, at the juice trickling down his own knuckles.  His grip shifted.  He pulled.  Ness strained up on his toes.  Stars licked the corners of his vision.  

The two of them tilted sideways.  Ness landed on the bed again, also sideways, on his back this time.  Kaiser went to grab him.  He started to argue, “Hey, maybe don’t flip me…” Over this time.  Instead Kaiser yanked him around rightways.  

“Take your shirt off,” he said.  His own hit Ness in the face a few seconds later while Ness was still grappling with the hem.  

“What are you doing?” Ness asked.  He didn’t get an answer.  He had a snap of realization: Kaiser wasn’t hard at all.

Kaiser still swung over.

Their skin rustled at the contact.  His knees knocked into Ness’s hips and he squeezed.  There was one more incidental brush from his hands as he pushed his soft cock down and out of the way.

Kaiser sat on Ness, his flaccid dick hidden between them.  With some sway and flex he got himself into position, the one where Ness’s cock seemed to take the place of his own.  Then he smiled, mirthless about it.  He held his breath again.  His fingers stole over Ness, and Ness shivered.

“What are you doing?” Ness tried again.

Kaiser breathed a few times, so steady, almost meditative.  He gave one little push with his crotch, resting close enough that the underside of Ness’s cock began to itch on the unfamiliar skin.  “How’d you get such a big dick, loser? What do you even do with it?”

It was such a weird question.  “Come?” Ness answered lamely.  

Kaiser leaned into him again, snatching at his cock while he did it.  Ness tried to push up.  Kaiser held him tight enough that pushing only lifted them closer together.  “That’s it? Never fucked anybody stupid with it?”

“Not stupid.”

“I’d be fucking girls all night if I had this thing.  I bet they’d scream.  Did anybody you fucked scream?”

“No.  I was careful.” Though he swallowed on the thought: his partners screaming.  It was awful.  It tempted him in a way he couldn’t place out of the strangeness of whatever was happening between them.

Kaiser squeezed again, hard around the root and working upwards.  

Ness’s cock drooled onto his stomach.

“That’s a waste of this dick,” 

“It’s not like I can give it to you.  Not like that .”

“Yeah.  Not like that.” Kaiser shook his head.  He reached for the nightstand and his phone.  He clicked around for a while, still butting up against Ness as he did.  He texted someone, then pulled up the camera.  Ness saw the flash probe and then go out.  The phone was on silent.  It didn’t click.  All he heard was the rasp of his own breath as Kaiser shifted around for a better angle, then the tap… tap…  tap of his forefinger.  He took at least ten pictures.  He climbed off after.  Ness gasped.  He felt like he hadn’t been breathing.

Kaiser sat on the side of the bed.  He thumbed back and forth between the pictures he’d taken with one hand, lazily dragging at himself with the other.  

“Don’t send those to…” Ness started to say.

“Why would I send them to anybody? They’re for me.”

That left him with his mouth open, no more words in it.  He questioned himself— why would anybody send pics of themselves pretending to have somebody else’s cock around? Then again, why would anybody take photos like that in the first place?

Kaiser was sneer-smiling at him between glances at the phone.  He was finally getting some kind of hard, but he was taking it slow, so much slower than he had, well, the other night.

Ness stared back at him from the sheets.  When Kaiser looked at his phone, Ness looked at Kaiser’s dick, watching it flush between his fingers.  Kaiser pulled his foreskin back earlier than it would have slid on its own just to run his fingers around the slippery margins of his head.  He kept his thumb there as he stroked.

Ness snorted in frustration and smacked his hands on his thighs.  “Are you gonna do anything about this!?” His own cock bobbed when he did it.  That made his balls hurt even worse.  His breath caught.

Kaiser fingered himself for a while before he answered.  He was looking at the phone the whole time having lifted it between the two of them.  “Stop yapping.  I’ll get to you.  You’d think you’d have learned some patience carrying that weapon around.” This went on for a while.  He flicked back and forth between two, sometimes three of the pictures at a maddeningly even pace.  “Who’d you fuck?”

“That’s not your business.”

“Sure it is.  Was it guys, girls? It’s my dick now.  I want to know where it’s been.”

“A couple of girls.  Guy I tried it with didn’t work out.”

This met with a snort.  “That had to be so bad for you.”

Ness groaned, remembering.  There had been lube everywhere.  His cock had been straining and aching the same as it was now, dribbling onto the floor as he’d gritted his teeth, as he’d tried one more time to make it work between them.

Kaiser went for the nightstand again.  This time he got the Vaseline.

Not that.  Ness tried to roll over, face him, tell him: You’re not very good at sex, Michael Kaiser. Even if you are fucking gorgeous somewhere under that dandelion fluff you call your hair.  Even if you sound like you’ve broken at least a dozen girls for fun.  

Besides, Kaiser was on him again.  This time he had his hand on Ness’s dick.  That hand was the one without the lock tattoo and it was cold with the Vaseline.  “I said it’s my dick now.  I’m going to take it the way that works.”

The touch was a slimy mess.  It also felt like heaven.  What he’d said, that wasn’t a promise, that was a threat.  In Ness’s frustration, it was also the sweetest threat he’d ever heard.   His mouth ran hot and wet at the nearness and the sudden implication.  At the same time, it was too much.  He was too much.  Unless Kaiser knew what he was doing— and Ness didn’t think that he did —he was about to hurt himself.

Some dark connection in Ness’s nervous system whispered good .  He hated it.  He loved it.  He hated that he loved it.  If he struggled in Kaiser’s grip it was because he was sparking over with how much he needed.

Besides, now Kaiser was smiling, soft and sincere.  His gaze raked over Ness as he worked him, strummed him once more.  Then he pulled off.  Ness’s cock twitched and the rest of him took a deep breath.  Kaiser reached for the jar, sticking two fingers down the center and coming up sloppy again.  He bent one leg against the bed, not touching Ness, and braced himself with the opposite foot on the floor.  Like that, he brought his body into this weirdly elegant fold, his slick hand crossing back between his legs.

Ness swallowed thickly.  He couldn’t see what Kaiser did after that, but he could hear it.  There were slippery touches, the chappy sounds of Vaseline settling on skin, being gathered up fingers.  Kaiser let out a long breath as he plied himself.  He relaxed as much as he could despite the curve of his back.  Then he just stuck his fingers in.  Something in his spine thrilled.  He still forced himself not to tense up.  His arm flexed subtly under his body.  He breathed in and out, easy on.  There was one hitch after a long strain along the shadows of his arm retreating beneath him.  The slick sounds came again, untimed and uneasy.  Each one hit Ness right in his cock.  He had Kaiser bent over beside him, fingers up his ass because he was going to use Ness’s dick to get fucked.

Ness himself was panting as Kaiser pulled himself upright.  Kaiser looked at his fingers, then wiped them on the sheets.  He swung himself over Ness, up on his knees this time.  His own dick had dipped a little.  He gave himself a couple of yanks before he lowered himself.  Again, he had a hold of Ness’s hard-on, guiding him up to his hole.  Ness felt his pucker settle onto his head, then start on his wild heat.  It made his grip on the sheets stammer with anticipation.  He hadn’t even known he’d been holding them until he started to let go.  Kaiser groaned.  His hips buckled a couple of centimeters in.  He picked himself up again, manhandling Ness’s cock as he did.  Ness ended up at the same angle he’d been at before, but Kaiser eased his hips forward.  He tried to stroke himself again as he went down.  He made it further this time, but he was clenching in reflex by the time he got much more than a little past where he’d been.  Groaning, he pulled up.  His legs were sweating and his lips were all red.  His eyes closed as he sank down one more time.  This time when he started to flinch, he pushed the tension out of his legs and he fell, landing on Ness.  Kaiser made a sharp sound of pain.  This time, Ness felt him squirming inside.  Dammit, that was so good.  That was actually really, really good, better with Kaiser casting around to try to make himself more comfortable.  His own dick had shot straight up now.  The fact he was leaning back, getting used to the girth, made it look so much clearer, redder against his white skin.

“That guy you couldn’t get in can eat shit.  He missed out on this.”

“So, you’re OK?” Ness ventured.

“I will be.  Fuck, it’s like getting stabbed, but it’s nice.” Though his eyes were watering, Kaiser managed to pull an expression of satisfaction, maybe not joy exactly.  “Bring your hips.”

Ness had no idea what that meant.  He pulled his knees up, knowing that didn’t exactly involve his hips.  Kaiser pushed him down, and then himself up.  His hole left a deep sensation all down Ness’s length then and for the first few movements he made.  Ness glanced between his legs to see if there was blood on his dick.  There wasn’t.  Vaseline melted obscenely down his shaft when Kaiser didn’t have it inside him.  Kaiser was all over him, grinding down, pinching him with his knees.  When he got to the top of his riding arc, he swayed with his head so far back in the sloppy sounds they’d come to.  Even after a while he would still start once he passed a certain depth, clenching there, roiling to the place where Ness bottomed out inside of him.  

Ness’s own pleasure in the act was almost too much for him.  Everything between them sliced across his brain, brilliant to a fault— the pressure, the sounds, the sight of Michael having himself on his dick after that awful failure with… the other boy’s name slipped away from him.  He stretched, spreading himself over the bed so he didn’t give into the reflex to thrust.  Kaiser was doing fine on his own.  He shivered electric all over when he bucked down.  His eyes still watered and the drops ran down his nose.  He licked his flushed lips before the moans got out of him and he went on steady, slow, deep and done in, churning there above Ness.

This was so much better than last time.  The idea came to him in a gush of pure sensation, but Ness thought it was still true.  No, it wasn’t quite right to do it like this, and the thing with Kaiser taking the dick pics was weird.  But this was so damn good.  He arched his back the next time Kaiser bore down, reaching up against the headboard.  The heat inside Kaiser took his breath away.

Kaiser’s too.  Kaiser started panting.  It came on suddenly and was cut with clenches in his body.  He paused once, dragging his bangs back with his tattooed hand.  Then, he pitched further back as he went back into the ride.  The angle had him rubbing hard over Ness’s head as he plunged and rose.  Ness couldn’t see his face, but again he could hear him, the breathy come on, come on .  He wasn’t touching his dick, was he? He hadn’t been this entire time.  He was actually going to do it, get himself off on Ness.

He’d better do it soon, Ness thought.  He wasn’t going to be able to hold on much longer.  He was already starting to quake deep at his root, his own breath sputtering sometimes when Kaiser came down hard.

“Ah, shit!” Kaiser called out.  He clapped his hand over his mouth and pitched forward.  He jerked this little up and down to his movement now.  He shuddered, and that started before the cum spattered out of him.  Again, his spunk smelled like some liqueur Ness knew but couldn’t name.  He took the first rope of it on his chin.  There were two more over his torso before Kaiser just poured out onto him.  By then he was done for himself, his skin straining inside Kaiser’s.  Ness grabbed him by one thigh and pushed up into him.  Not that they were getting any closer, but the urge was too much, coming to needful.  Kaiser bounced along with him, ending up shoulder to the wall, stuck on the lift of Ness’s hips as the thrusts blurred together and started to leak sperm.

Ness let out a long, choking sigh when it was finally over.  He collapsed.  So did Kaiser, dragging down the wall.  He lost Ness’s cock along the way.  Stirred up sperm and Vaseline leaked out of him onto Ness’s thigh.

There was still no blood.  Ness took the sheer amount of semen he’d shot in with some interest.  

At least until Kaiser kicked the wall.  “Ugh, I got hair in my mouth,” he said.  He went to reach it out with his right hand, but his fingers were still slippery.

Ness’s hands were clean.  He raked one over Kaiser’s cheeks to make sure he’d freed him.  Then he wrapped both arms around him and pressed him to the wall.  He’d fight him off eventually.  Besides, the bed was a mess.  They really should wash up and get fresh sheets, at least throw the dirty bedding on the floor.

Ness spooned in and held him tight.  He kissed him on the uninked expanse of his neck.  Kaiser’s hair found its way into his mouth too, but he didn’t care.

There was something very wrong with the person in his arms.  It didn’t turn him off.  It didn’t even worry him that much.  There was something wrong with most people.  

Michael Kaiser was apparently his person.  He’d chosen Ness out of so many other boys, chosen Ness to help him.

Maybe not to help him in the way Ness now realized he needed, but Ness would do it anyway.

After all, Kaiser was gorgeous. 

Chapter Text

Something in Kaiser’s eyes reminds him of the raven.  The dead one.

Alexis had been eight when that happened.  There were pairs of ravens all along the Elbe, or at least on the way he walked to the library.  They sat on the streetlights and grawked at him.  He grawked back and they looked confused.  Most people didn’t pay them any attention.  The others muttered— them again .  Since it was never one raven.  Ravens mated for life.  They kept eyes out for the Valkyries and Odin himself.  Some books said they were made of murdered people too or besides.  Anyway, they were very magical.  Alexis loved seeing them.

It was spring, and raining.  Not that hard.  He hadn’t bothered with his umbrella.  He needed his hands to keep his backpack in place.  It was loaded down with books on ancient Rome and a few about fairies underneath.  Alexis had just learned that fairies weren’t little winged girls.  They were a lot scarier than that.  Bigger too. He needed to make sure he knew how to be nice to them because he didn’t want them mad at him ever.  

He found the raven lying on a mat of petals sloughed off from the trees along the street.  She had her wings spread out like one of the Playmobil ravens taking flight.  She looked like she'd simply fallen out of the sky.  

Alexis thought she might still be alive.  He knew no one was reaching for her.  So, he crossed the road and went to touch her.  She was cold and wet and bigger than ravens looked from down on the street.  He couldn’t hear her mate calling for her which seemed like something that should have been happening if she’d just died.  One of her wings tilted as he tried to turn her over.  The other stayed stiffly in place.  There was no blood on the flowers beneath her.  Her feet curled up as she tilted onto her back.  

The street cleaners would get her if he left her.  That, or maybe a cat.  He’d already halfway decided he was taking her home.  He could bury her in the back corner of the bean garden.  She could become the flowers of the new crop of whatever Sister had managed to crossbreed last year.  They were purple and sweet and better off off the bush than boiled to death in butter like Mother fixed them.  

A cat might enjoy her too, but, no, he didn’t want to give her to a cat.

The only problem was she wouldn’t fit in his backpack.  He was going to have to carry her.  Not a big deal.  She only weighed about a kilo.  He scrunched his arms in tight.  Her bones squeaked a little against his jacket.  “Sorry,” he said, even though she was dead.  He couldn’t let his backpack straps slip.  That would hurt.

Walking with her in a big hug was fine.  If people stared? Well, actually a lot of people gave him funny looks, but nobody stopped him.  Rather than be embarrassed, he smiled back at them.  Alexis knew he was doing the best thing.  He knew it with his whole little heart since it was easier than being sad for the raven who had fallen out of the sky dead for reasons he definitely didn’t understand.  

The only person who said anything to him was the neighbor Marnie, but she had something to say about everything.  “Alexis! What are you doing with that thing?”

“Burying it.”

“Oh… I… what!”

“In the garden.  It’s OK!” He’d thought at the time that Marnie talked so much because she wanted somebody to tell her that.  “It’s OK” was his response to anything she said to him.

So, if she kept talking as he headed around the garage and back to the garden, he’d told her that much for the day.  She should be fine.

Alexis laid the raven on the garden bench and put his bookbag by the back door.  He looked for the spade.  It wasn’t where it was supposed to be in the hutch.  Sister hadn’t put it away.  She usually didn’t though.  He tried searching around the beds in case she’d stuck it into the dirt and forgotten about it.  No, it was gone.  Alexis grabbed the big shovel instead and one of the gardening aprons.  He had to hitch that up so he didn’t step on the hem, but then he was ready.

He turned to see Brother and an umbrella hovering over the raven.  “At least it’s not another kitten,” he said, adjusting his glasses.

“I’m going to bury it,” Alexis said.  Brother had snuck up on him, and he didn’t like his sudden attention anyway.  A hex on Marnie for making noise earlier.  

“Why?”

“Fertilizer.” 

“Huh.  You really think that’s the best use for it? It’s an interesting specimen with the weird rigor mortis in the wings.  I think that’s what this is.”

“Sure.  It can grow us more beans.”

Brother hadn’t even heard him.  “No obvious signs of trauma, body intact.  Fascinating.  Like it fell out of the sky.”

“I thought so too!” Alexis added, hurriedly.  “It didn’t want to be alive anymore.” He slapped one leg.  “It should be in the dirt.”

But Brother spoke over him, “Hey, Sis.  Do you care if Alexis buries a dead bird in your bean bed?”

One of the windows on the second floor flew open.  “If he does what?”

“Buries this dead bird in your bean bed.” Brother had pulled aside to gesture.  Rain spotted under his umbrella as it moved.

“Alexis brought home a dead bird?” Laughter twinged her words.  “Well, at least it’s not another kitten.”

“Hey, I just said that.” The two snickered along with each other for a handful of seconds.  

Alexis meanwhile dropped the shovel.  He darted alongside Brother and took the raven back.  Its wings crinkled against him.  Brother reached for him, but missed.  Alexis shot to the far end of the garden.  “It’s dead.  It needs to be buried.”

“Aww, I know,” Brother had crooned.  “But we should examine it first.”

“No.  That’s messy.”

“Science is messy.  Besides, what if it was sick?  What if it’s got something that other birds can catch?  What if we didn’t do our best to find out?”

It was a lot of what ifs strung together into some future that probably wouldn’t happen.  Brother did that a lot.  Sometimes it was more convincing than others.  That day, it felt so fake.  

Alexis looked down at the Raven.  She looked so much like a toy.  She even had the same dim expression as the Playmobil ravens.  He looked at her, and then Brother, “I…” Nothing else came out.

Not of him.  Sister shouted into the house: “Dad, Alexis is being weird again.”

They stood there in the rain, the three Ness siblings and the dead raven.  It took their father a while to get outside.  He must have already sunk his way into the big armchair in the library.  He wasn’t going to like being interrupted if that was the case.  But when he came out, he was still in his lab coat from work.  Father wasn’t exactly a scientist.  He had been once.  None of his medical patents had ever come to anything.  He said it was because people were too stupid to see the advantages of the new micromanipulators he’d invented.  Now he worked at a fertility clinic sorting and testing embryos.  He used other people’s ideas all day.  Sometimes it wore on him.  

He sneered when he saw the raven.  Brother and Sister talked over each other about it.  Alexis didn’t get a word in.  Slowly, Father’s expression softened.  He rubbed his chin— a purely artificial movement that was supposed to make him look smarter.  He glanced at Alexis once, and then spoke quickly with his older two children before addressing his youngest.

“Your brother is right.  It’s our duty to learn from the bird.  Give it here.”

“N-no!” Alexis’s own voice surprised him.  How loud, how wet it was there in the rain.  “I’m going to bury it! That’s why I brought it home.  I found it.  It’s my job.”

“Don’t be selfish.  You might end up burying a lot more ravens.” Alexis didn’t get a chance to argue anymore.  Father reached down, unfastened Alexis’s grip, and let Sister take the bird.  She made a face, and carried it away by its wingtips.  Father hustled Alexis along by his arm.  “Why do you have to be so difficult about the simplest things?”

They cleaned the work table.  It was a familiar ritual for the children.  They had all done it since they were tall enough to reach it by tiptoe.  The familiar saccharine smell of the disinfectant filled the lab, then there was the sourness of nitrile, the metallic twang of lab equipment.  The halogen spot overhead burned hot on the back of Alexis’s neck as the sample tubes came out.  They were going to have to send bits of the raven away for testing.  Father was on the phone about what parts as the three children readied their experiment.

What was to experiment on? The raven was dead.  

Sister got ready to take notes.  Brother described the condition of the raven, things they all already knew, but someone else might need to know, he said, he insisted.  He didn’t wait for Sister to catch up writing before he grabbed a scalpel.  Having scraped the feathers aside, he cut.

The raven jittered in his grasp.  She let out one last honking scream.  Her eyes shot open.  There was no fear in her.  She was pure reflex, crying because she wanted to live, and even though that was impossible.  Alexis didn’t think she really saw anything in that moment.  She looked inward to her instincts.  Then she died for real.  

The raven lolled back, her beak open and her black tongue spilling onto the white work table.

Father took samples as the man on the phone directed him.  He asked to see her reproductive tract, since that was the only part he could speak to with any authority.  She was full of unlaid eggs.  Alexis would never forget the sour smell, the feel of them lolling around in her open torso, or the way her bones slipped around once they’d cut the tendons apart to get a better look at how her joints fitted together.  Her tongue seemed to twitch as they worked to extract the contents of her lower body for a “fun” specimen, as they cut out her heart because it had some unusual spattering of golden fat around the ventricles.  This almost looked like a skin graft, or so Alexis came to realize sometime later in another medical book.  That would have been impossible for a wild raven.  The same went for all of her ever being together again once Father had rushed the specimens of her to a courier service.

Of course nothing came of them.  She was a raven who had died of “unknown” out on the streets of Hamburg.

As for Alexis, he burst into tears as Sister shoved what was left of the raven at him to bury after all.  Because he cried, he didn’t get dinner.  No one said goodnight to him, but his mother yelled at him to turn the light off in his room once it passed nine.  Alexis stayed up, his face throbbing from the tears.  He stayed up until midnight.

Just before then, he let himself out the front door.  He did it the right way he’d heard one of Brother’s girlfriends talking about.  He did it the same as he would have during the day.  That way, the sound wouldn’t be strange.  Probably Brother had done it a lot to go do boyfriend things with that girlfriend.  Alexis didn’t know or care that much.  

He left the fairies a paper cup of milk, a muskazine from the good pastry shop and one of his mother’s favorite Trifari earrings that she had a habit of leaving on the vintage moustache stand the family kept by the door to hold incoming and outgoing specimens.  There was still some feather fluff there when Alexis took the earring.  He choked up when he saw it.

There was nothing in the yard the next morning.  His mother was apoplectic about the missing earring.  She grilled all four of them— even Father —about it until they were late for work and school.  She even hit Father a few times, but she did that.  She said it was her right as the one who’d allowed him to carry his genetic line on through her.  

Alexis said nothing.  He wept a normal amount for being screamed at for something he hadn’t done.

Over the next week, Sister sprained her ankle, Brother got a case of food poisoning so bad it sent him to the hospital, and his mother hit his father again about the earrings.  Alexis tried to tell her that the memory of the earrings was important, even if one was gone now.  He got sent to his room again.

But that wasn’t the magic part.

The specimens from the raven were missing when his siblings went for them a few weeks later.  The whole family tore up the laboratory looking for them.  Everyone swore they’d seen them the day before, but they were gone.  Mother had been so mad about it she’d refused to fix dinner.  Father and the children had made fleischsalat with leftovers in the fridge and they’d eaten it on toast while Mother called her mother to talk about how worthless they all were.  Alexis had known better though.  He’d known he was magic.  And apparently, fairies liked him.  

In the present, lying awake in Michael Kaiser’s filthy bed at Bastard München, Ness wasn’t sure anymore that he believed in fairies as a species of concrete physical beings.  More like— they were manifestations of magic.  They had to be.  Something took the raven home.  That something was magical, and not anyone in his family suddenly feeling remorse.  Remorse was not a thing they learned about, no matter how hard they studied.  He could admire that in them.  It was possible to live that way, to act and stay certain.  To never ask for permission, and then screw the apologies unless there was no other way out.

Kaiser seemed to be built that way too.  Ness could see it now, feel it in the hot marks still lingering from this night and the one before.  He was never going to get an apology out of this person, but alright.  No one had ever apologized to Alexis Ness, not ever.  After so much denial of that simple, human gesture, it had stopped being something Alexis Ness needed from the world.

It also meant he was perfect for him.  Michael Kaiser had chosen well.

Ness wished, hard, that he knew the magic way to Kaiser’s heart.  But, no.  That wasn’t the kind of magic he’d found in the world, or any that he knew how to do.  It might be possible he’d learn.  Maybe he could turn the sex into some kind of magic?  Leaving milk out for fairies wasn’t going to do anything this time.  Neither would returning a magical being to her place in the world.  Besides, the opportunity to do that only came along once in a lifetime.

Which one of those— again, if they were real —would even claim Kaiser? It seemed like if one ever had he’d slipped through their fingers a long time ago. He was alone.  Rather— he’d been alone until the other day.  

He had Ness now.  Ness would go down the dark, long way to him.  He would find him, trapped like a princess in a castle.  He knew he could do it, even if that wasn’t his magic.

It was something Ness longed for, so hard his heartbeat ticked up at the thought.

A quest for the heart of someone he’d only just met.  Could it be any more magic, any more romantic?

Meanwhile, Kaiser drooled onto his bicep.  He’d landed there while he was tossing in his sleep.  

Ness’s thoughts were effervescent with him, with the quest.

Even after the other night.  He remembered again…

Chapter Text

He’d noticed him for the first time when they were getting sorted for the Bastard München entrée scrimmage.  But, he’d seen a lot of people in the couple of days that had compromised tryouts.  So many of them were handsome.  Then Gesner had said hello to him and he’d immediately forgotten half of Bastard München’s names even if he’d been studying the team for years.

Erik Gesner was very much Ness’s type physically, but he used small words when he talked.  That said, he was awfully friendly for someone who had a reputation for trash talk.  He seemed easy enough to get along with, easy as a small dog that thought it was a wolf.  Ness could see them coexisting.  Being friends, maybe not.

So, the scrimmage.  The current Bastard München assorted with the eleven remaining hopefuls.  Noa and the other coaches sat aside to observe.  Noa had a little bottle of Orangina like he was watching a tennis match in France.  Aust looked like he’d been up to something, but he had when Ness had met him and this wasn’t news to anyone anyway.  

Ness knew he’d get in.  He knew it in his bones.  His magic would see him through.  To him, this game was ten people playing for one spot.  So, a 10% chance for each of the others unless one of them also knew how magic worked.  This was possible.  The world was full of magic, just especially that afternoon, and especially in his personal sense of the sunlight, the far distant traffic noise, the smell of the torn up grass suffusing the complex. 

There was something blue passing the corner of his eye.  He glanced that way, then set his attention shot back to the center of the field.  His mind’s eye processed what he’d caught sight of.  One of the other candidates had a tattoo.  It was blue and black.  Ness took it for a sea serpent.  

He’d seen that guy before, he absolutely had.  It was hard to miss him with all that scraggly hair.  But Ness hadn’t really seen him until then.  He was striking to say the least, now that Ness freed enough brainspace to make the assessment.  Besides, the guy with the tattoo— one of Bastard München’s players had been talking to him, but he hadn’t bothered to answer.  He’d only looked ahead to his own place on the field.  He’d done this with singular intent.

Ness swallowed the flutter in his chest.  He turned himself back to the game that was about to start.  His mouth hurt with his smile and he was trying not to think about anything, definitely not how his legs were sore from all the proficiency and exhibition work he’d put on the past few days.  

The whistle blew.  He moved. 

Things were going OK at first.  The other players were aware of him at least. He could taste them sizing him up.  Damn— everybody from Bastard München was fast.  And that was great.  That might actually be a challenge in a good way.  He hardly felt like he was playing with Anlage Hamburg anymore.  More like he’d been going through the motions and watching the other teams waste away since nobody got goals past Anlage Hamburg’s Falk Schäfer, not even his boyfriend in a practice match.

Ness hadn’t gotten a real thrill off of football in so long.  He was maybe pulling flourishes as he moved, wheeling in and out of clusters of boys already sweating in the adrenaline and warm air.  What a rush.  Even the ball hitting his shoe felt different and so good.

But the rush was to his detriment.  That and the fact he was sore.  He started overthinking.  The moments of this match couldn’t be all that golden perfect.  He tried to pass.  One of the black-kitted boys took the ball right from him.  Another two minutes and the black kits had scored.    

The next time Ness had the ball, two of them went right for him and he tripped.  He ate so much dirt.  There was grass in his teeth.  He had no idea what had just happened to the ball until someone made a shrill finger whistle.  Erik Gesner had just stolen from him and made another goal.  Fine.  Everything was fair in sexual attraction and football.

Ness’s right knee was definitely bleeding.  It stuck to the ground when he tried to move.

He’d fucked up.  The first real thing he’d done was fall.  That was going to look so bad.  Did he have the magic to fix his situation? He didn’t think so.  All the magic left in him stuck up his throat and soured.  Why was it still in him instead of being magic? Because he’d fucked up.  He’d fucked up so bad.

He could hear his whole family crooning their weird insults down at him. You’re alright at math.  You really don’t get chemistry like I do.  Why don’t you be rational about this.   Then, himself saying: It should be in the dirt .  Except, no, it went: I should be in the dirt because the dirt is all I’m good at if I can’t even stand up during a real match.  He hated it, hated it so much.    

Something went still in front of him.  Things weren’t supposed to just stop in football. 

It was the guy with the tattoo.  Ness saw more clearly now, saw the thorns winding up his arm, saw that he had the bluest eyes.  Those flicked to him, two points of sightless instinct.  (He recognized that afterwards.  In that shatter of his despair, all he’d known was awe.)

The guy spoke.  It was almost like he shouldn’t have.  He was too much of a vision there with the sun over his shoulder.  “Hey, loser.  You wanna see something impossible?”

If Ness had answered, it was in sounds that maybe could have been mistaken for language.

“Just now, the thought of giving up flashed through your mind.  Am I wrong?”

He’d nodded.  It was only a little.  He couldn’t take his eyes off of the guy with the tattoo.

“That kind of thinking is a curse.”

That got to him a little, as true as it felt at the time.  The refrain of his family’s voices rose until his ears were thrumming with the memories of their words.  Then the words went out, all at once in small sparks.

The guy pressed on through the other stillnesses that had spread across the field.  “The moment you believe something’s impossible, it’s really impossible for you after that.  You’re programmed to give up.  It’s some kind of survival mechanism.”  

People were staring.  Ness knew, but he didn’t recognize the information as meaning anything.  He pushed himself up onto his elbows.  His knee throbbed.  

“Or it was.  Now it’s just a weak man’s thought process.  You can only protect yourself so much before you choke off your potential.  And I’ll hate you.  I hate trash that wastes their life.” He kept a stellar vacuum kind of calm despite the fierceness in his words.  He glanced away too when he got to the part about hating.   “Look, the other team’s good, but they’re not doing anything that takes thought.  None of them could hold their ground against somebody with an actual mind.”

His eyes were back on Ness.

“You’re different.  You’re not just thinking, you’re imagining the plays one, two, three steps ahead of the rest.  But nobody gets you.”

A strange way to talk about what Ness thought of as magic.  Ness could feel that itching in his hands.  He wanted to give his magic to this person, but it was still stuck.  He was halfway giddy with the storming backup.  He kind of wanted to puke.

“I do.  I’ll make all your ideas real.  They won’t have to shrivel up and die.  They’ll live.”

And then.

Then he held out his hand.

No one had ever held their hand out to Ness.  He’d always been told to get up on his own or stay down.  “And so will you.  That’s what I can give you.  So get up, loser.  Let’s do this.”

Ness did not trust this person to pull him to his feet.  The sensation of that happening between them caught him deep in the thudding bottom of his heart.

The magic shook free.  

What happened next was the most beautiful bloodbath.  Nobody else scored except for Michael Kaiser.

Ness hadn’t known that was his name until coach Aust called it, and his.  Along with welcome to Bastard München. 

He’d done it.  Just like he knew he would.  Seeing the outcome and being there when it became true were two entirely different things.  Besides, hadn’t Noa and the others stopped to consider, well, anybody else?

No, this was as it should be.  The magic had spoken.

Kaiser didn’t even smile, but the sun caught him and he was gorgeous now, not only striking.

The other members of the team hustled in close to clap and to smack shoulders and call them newbs.  But before any of them came too near, before anybody else touched him, Michael Kaiser took Ness’s hand again.

He pulled him to him, grabbed him by the cheeks and kissed him.

Forget puking.  Ness wondered if he might just die.  If the medical examiner would be moved to poetry by his death: his heart was so full of joy, it exploded.    

The kiss didn’t last very long, wasn’t intimate, smacked in the end.  It was any playful victory kiss.  Then Kaiser said, “You guys left him.  He’s mine now.  Don’t forget.” This mostly met with laughter.  There were a few requests though, people asking to borrow Ness.  Pretty please, Kaiser! Just for one shot sometime. / What if I buy him dinner first? / C’monnn like once?   Kaiser waved all of this off.  Finally, somewhere in the crush, he laughed.  He sounded for all the world like he’d just pushed somebody off a cliff.

Well, judging from the pair of raging tryouts being escorted out by their armpits, maybe he had in a way.

Ness remained dazed.  So much went by in a punch-drunk clamor.  At some point Kaiser let go of him.  People were taking his picture even though he was all sweaty.  They were asking silly first date questions: what’s your favorite movie, are you allergic to anything weird, how bad do your feet smell.  OK, maybe not normal first date questions.  They didn’t stop until he blurted out needing a shower.  Then they gave him and Kaiser a royal escort to the locker room, where the two of them got bucket baths with horse shampoo and rubber ducks circling the drain.  Ness additionally learned that the rubber duckie song was a meme, and that someone had made a techno remix of the German version.  This blasted from a speaker in a plastic bag that got shoved against his ear at some point.  Ness laughed so hard he sputtered.

The first brush of evening found him in his official Bastard München pajamas, barefoot in Noel Noa’s office, still snickering at nothing sometimes on and off.  He was alone with the coach and a lawyer who didn’t seem inclined to speak unless spoken to.  

Noa broke out of the usual formalities with careful deliberation.  His accent was more marked in person, his words sibilant in odd places.  “So, you’ve never met Kaiser before today?  Not even in passing?” He said “Kaiser” more like “Kay’z Air”.

“No, sir,” Ness replied.

“That was unreal, the two of you out there.  Don’t get me wrong.  An intuition can take place only in so far as the object, or occurrence, is given to us, but no one has ever given me this occurrence.” Looking almost like he might smile, he leaned back in his chair.  It wasn’t an office chair, Ness noticed.  More like something that belonged at a kitchen table.  Noa perched it on the two back legs, briefly facing out the window to the empty field.  He said, under his breath, “Maybe there’s something to what Jinpachi was spewing.”

“Jinpachi Ego?” Ness interjected.  A second later he realized he probably hadn’t been meant to hear that.   “Excuse me.”

“Not at all,” said Noa.  “I was talking to him earlier.  He’s gotten eccentric.  I’m sure you know that.”

“I’ve read a few things, yes.”

“You and Kaiser make me think about a story he tells.”

Ness sat forward, indicating his attention.

“There was a disagreement in old Japan about which of two swordsmiths made the finest weapons.  To settle the matter, each man brought his best blade to the river, and placed it upright in the water.  One of the swords cut every leaf that drifted into it in half even in the slow current.  No leaves drifted into the other sword.  They all went around by some quirk of probability.  Do you know which sword was judged superior?”

“The one the leaves passed by because it had spiritual power over the leaves.  That’s not rational at all.” But he’d heard this story, offhand somewhere, in a book about magic he wasn’t supposed to have been reading.  If it wasn’t rational at all…  Ah— and neither was he.  Noa was going to find that out sooner or later.  Perhaps he already had.  

“But it produced results the observers found valuable.  Your results today will be very valuable when you repeat them.  This team is a means to an end before anything else.” 

“I might feel a little bit differently right now, but I can learn that.”

“Not on an empty stomach.  We should talk about your contract over dinner and not in this stuffy office.  What are you hungry for?”

“Kaiser isn’t coming?” It was impossible to hide the fall in his expression when he heard that.  He cleared his throat after and tried to shrug it off.  “Like I said, I just met him.  I should probably get to know him.”  

“He’s with Sander another team of lawyers somewhere with small tables.”

“Right,” said Ness.  Then, “Is there a nice Indian place around here?”

Noa raised his eyebrows, but then.  Then, he did smile.  “It’s going to be more casual, but yes.”

“That’s fine.” Secretly, Ness was relieved.  He didn’t exactly own a lot of good clothes and most of them didn’t fit him quite right.  Besides, he’d stuffed everything he’d brought in a weekender bag.  Nothing was in the best shape despite visits with the hotel iron.

“Anybody you want to invite?” 

“Ah. No.” Ness said that shyly, heard himself.  He took another second or two, readying a point of his own.  “Noa, I have some things to tell you about my family that you might not like.”

“They won’t be the worst I’ve heard,” Noa assured him as he clacked his chair back into place and he stood.   He made sure his eyes were on Ness’s though for the part he added next.  “The same goes for what you’re going to say about your old team.  Don’t be embarrassed.   Anlage Hamburg didn’t fight to keep you, so they don’t get you.  They have only their inaction to blame.”

Ness gave him a weary smile.  “You’re not wrong, I guess.”

“I know I’m not wrong.  The fremdschämen is tout .”

Ness laughed, at least once more for the evening.

Chapter Text

Ness got back to Hamburg early in the morning of the day after next.  He spent the money for part of a cab ride.  He had the driver let him off at the last cross street and walked the rest of the way.  It was nice out and he needed to stretch his legs.  The knowledge he’d be getting his contract to Docusign in the next day or two turned his aches, and the sensation of the sunburn nibbling on his nose, absolutely sweet.  

He crossed one quiet street and then another.  There were people chatting in a back garden near the duplex— the hausfrau book club by the sound of it.  They were talking with a lot of jargon he didn’t understand.  Had they read science fiction this month? It sounded like it.  Well, a few other people had branched out lately then.  Ness smiled for them.  

The duplex was an old-school modernist building with the hard-sloped roof and way too many windows on the back side.  His room in the garret was probably already an oven.  He was just going to have to see for himself once he got past, well, anybody inside.

Ness pulled the key from his pocket.  It didn’t fit in the keyhole when he tried it.  On second glance, that keyhole was a lot shinier than he remembered.  There were screwdriver scratches around it.  

Ness sighed.  The garage was closed, so he couldn’t tell if anyone was in.  The lights were off, but the downstairs got enough light in the morning that no one would have needed to turn them on.  He decided to knock.  If Falk wasn’t home, maybe his mother Mrs. Schäfer was.  She might even listen to him.

He knocked three times, twice in a row, waiting in between in case anyone was in the bathroom.  He thought he heard a scuffle, but he didn’t see any movement.  With a swallow, he called, “Falk, it’s me.”

And knocked.  And waited.  And repeated himself— “Falk! I just want to get my stuff.” He could have asked to talk, he supposed.  The lock being changed told him that wouldn’t get him anywhere.

Dammit.  He’d tried.  He’d really honestly tried to talk about the whole Bastard München tryouts thing and Falk just… Didn’t hear him.  Forget listening .  It went so far beyond that.  Ness didn’t appreciate being pinned in a corner with a finger waved in his face over it either.

What do you want to go to that place anyway? That’s not real football! That’s a bunch of corporate bullshit.  

Ness had been listing the reasons why he wanted to go when Falk did that.  Remembering the trapped sensation he’d known besides sent a shiver up his spine.

He got another when all of a sudden there were footfalls in the duplex.  A familiar groan traced up the stairs.

“Is it OK if I get my stuff?” he called.  

A window above him slammed open.  A few chips of paint rained down from the sheer force.  “It actually is fucking not! I told you not to go! You sold out, you little bitch!”

Ness took a few backwards steps.  He tried to hit a place on the walkway where he could see Falk, but Falk was hanging back from the window itself.  All he could glimpse were his fists, the backs of them glinting with blond hair.  “Yes, well.  I went.  And that’s over.  I got in, by the way.”

“Who’d you blow to make that happen?”

“Nobody, thanks! But they did stuff me full of lamb saag after.” Falk always, always, complained when Ness wanted to order lamb.  Lamb was cruel.  Lamb was too fatty.  The curry would make Ness’s dick taste weird.  Why were they getting Indian again? Indian food was all thick soup.  Ness had heard it all.  At first he’d done his best to respect Falk’s opinion on the matter, but then that opinion started to remind him of his mother’s, only without the (very unscientific) too-many-spices-are-bad-for-you rant.  

Presently, Falk roared.  There was a clatter, plastic hangers colliding.  The one dress shirt Ness had left behind sailed out onto the grass.  Ness picked it up, and dropped it again.  The armpits had been cut out.  The same went for the next shirt.  And the shirt after that.  Ness’s good plaid trousers came down shredded.  Falk had always hated those.  Ness’s other pants only had the crotches sliced out.  Only a few socks hit.  One was clearly full of jizz– gross.  Ness laughed in spite of his disappointed horror.

It set Falk off again.  There was a bang.  A crash.  The window latches groaned and gave way as something too wide for the frame got shoved through.  Whatever it was crashed to the ground, followed shortly by the window, frame and all.

Ness stood staring at the wreckage for a few seconds.  Had Falk actually…?

“And take your bullshit Nazi altar with you!” Falk screamed.  

He had smashed up and tossed Ness’s entire votive altar.  The one Ness had built by nailing an oak plank to the moulding on either side of the bottom of his closet.  Some of that moulding had come up with the right side.  It tilted back and forth in the aftershocks.

Ness wasn’t exactly Ásatrú, and he certainly wasn’t that kind of Ásatrú, but that altar had meant something to his stunted spiritual self.  Seeing it destroyed should have made him snap.  Then again, he had no doubt his attachment was why Falk had ruined it.  So he didn’t cry.  He didn’t get angry.  Shaking, he reminded himself— the altar was just a collection of things.  Magic didn’t need things.  The whole world was full of magic.  If the place where he’d knelt to connect with the magic outside of himself was ruined, he could always build another.

He still went to it just to make sure it was all really gone.  He had a flash of hope that Falk had missed his ruby glass crystal ball.  Half a second later, Falk whipped that onto the sidewalk.  It bounced once, twice, and shattered.  The unburned candles started coming down.  The feathers after were all broken.  Ness was pretty sure Falk had pissed on the altar cloth.  He chose not to root around and find out.  The knife was bent and the offering dish cracked in half.  His backpainted glass portrait of Freya— gone.  Only the frame hit.  The flowers had been crushed.  Underneath them though he spied something dark gray and familiar.

Ness had kept a spread-winged Playmobil raven on the altar in memory of the one he’d tried so hard to help.  Falk hadn’t bothered to break it.  Ness snatched for it, thinking as he did— Falk had also missed the chalice.

That came hurdling at his face after a few more candles.  Ness caught it with his off hand.  It had a big dent in the lip.  Because of course it did.  

Ness clutched it and the raven.  They wouldn’t break.  He could squeeze his emotions into them and worry about purifying them later since that seemed like something he was going to have to do anyway after all this.  He faced the empty window hole and called, “I want my other pair of shoes.” Just about as calmly as anyone had ever asked for any belongings that were going to be pitched at them.

“You told me you got rid of it!” Falk sneered back.  He, at least, was still back at the altar, and probably proud of the mess he’d made.

Ness had been in love with him once.  That had passed over him a while ago.  Now he felt nothing for him, not even hate.  Falk didn’t deserve any emotion from him and he wasn’t going to get one.  “You said it was fine.  It’s not my fault you changed your mind.  Shoes!”

Falk raged about that some more.  Ness took the opportunity to grab the biggest piece of his crystal ball.  It wasn’t strictly necessary for an altar, but he liked having it.  Also, it hadn’t been cheap.  Apparently red glass never was.  The woman he’d bought it from had talked his ear off about that, how it was special because of the gold dust in the pigment, how she’d already blessed it under the moon and was he sure he didn’t want a blue one since he was a Pisces?

He would keep it for that memory alone.  It would live in a tissue in his pocket for the time being.

“Fuck you and your shoes!” screamed Falk.  The shoes came down.  Falk must have forgotten about them until then.  Ness’s good black leather ankle boots were fine.  Just fine.

The same absolutely did not go for his underwear, his Bette Midler concert DVDs, or any of his books.  

Maybe he should have walked away, but after the hope he’d be getting anything else in one piece faded away, Ness dodged the rest of his possessions in the interest of taking inventory of what he’d be replacing.  

That and Mrs. Schäfer, who’d finally gotten involved, was right.  Somebody was going to have to clean up the mess in the yard.  She had a bad back.  She couldn’t possibly bend over so much, son of hers.  And who was going to pay for the window? Not her, she was on a pension.

The entire yard was covered in junk by the end of the tirade.  Ness stood in the middle of it, unscathed and no longer caring that the junk in question had once been his stuff.  The book club had gone quiet a while ago, so the only sounds were Falk panting in the dim distance of the upstairs hallway and birds singing a couple of houses down.

Ness felt light, now that it was over.  Light, but not without weight.  Before he turned to leave, he called, “Hey, Falk~.”

“Get lost!” 

“You have a tiny dick~.”

“Fuck you!”

“It never got me off~.”

“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!”

“No.  Not ever again.  I already found somebody else who wants me.”

“He can have you.  GO AWAY.”

Ness turned and walked off of the yard.  He did not look back, not to the duplex, not to the whispering neighbors, not to the road that could have taken him to his parents’ house if he’d felt like trudging up it and he didn’t .  He walked to a little park with a fountain in the middle, and sat beside the water so it would cover up his words if anybody tried to listen in on the call he was going to have to make.  

He simmered with his situation for a while, and considered buying some groceries so at least he’d have a bag to put his other pair of shoes in.  He could always just buy a bag too.  That was doable, but he was going to be buying a lot of things in the next few days.  Did he need a canvas grocery bag? Probably.  He needed underwear more.  The pairs in his bag were still sweaty since he hadn’t gotten to wash them.

What had he even been thinking?  Of course Falk would be done with him after he’d ditched him like that.  But they’d been done anyway.  Ness wasn’t going to miss him much.  Just the splashes of good memories they’d made together.  His big hands, his big bed.  The time he’d dumped Ness into his big bed while it was covered with shed blossoms from the tree outside the window.  Their first game together.  The last time Ness had seen his parents from the passenger seat of Falk’s car.

Ness leaned back to watch the clouds.  Birds were singing here too.  Somebody had a game of Frisbee going on the far side of the fountain.  

Then he sucked it up and called Bastard München, asking for Noa.  He figured he’d get a callback.  Instead, Noa greeted him in a couple of minutes.  He sounded serious and that was expected.  

“My housing situation changed while I was away,” said Ness.

“Are the police involved? We might have to talk about your contract if so.”

“No.  No, ah… My roommate decided he took exception to my religion.”

There was a pause, followed by an actual flicker of concern behind the slippery pronunciation of the words.  “I’m sorry to hear that.  Especially after you were so open about it to the lawyers.  I can’t imagine you were anything but with a roommate.”  

“Some people are sensitive about it.  I try to respect that, but…”

“But Schäfer was…” Noa said something in French.  It sounded rude.

Whatever it was, it made Ness laugh a little.  “I was wondering if I could move in early.  That’s probably awkward.”

“It’s not.  I’ll call maintenance now.  Come around the back side of the building when you get here, and put your things in my office.”

That was admittedly more of a plan than Ness had thought of.  It was also a good plan.  Well, leave it to coach Noel Noa to clean up off the field too.  It was so very reassuring.  Ness sagged on the bench.  At least one of his worries had left him.

“Do you mind spinning this that you moved early because you were excited?”

“I am excited.  But I might need some help posting.  My phone’s a little…  Yeah.” Yeah meant five years old and temperamental.

“I’ll get you a new phone too.  It’s not a problem if your first paycheck is short?”

“No.”

There was a pause.  Noa spoke to someone on the other end, something about a change of plans and he needed one more minute.  What for, Ness found out shortly.  “You know, they had something like this happen with one of our brother teams in Japan.  Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried at all.  I’m just tired.” Emotionally tired, but the point stood.

They talked for a little while, mostly about how Ness was doing, before Noa hung up to go set things in motion.

Ness made a game attempt to check the time on his phone.  The corner where it should have displayed on the home-screen was cracked and the big display insisted he had no signal.  He Googled “current time Germany” from the search bar.  This worked somehow.  He realized he could probably make the 11 o’clock train back to Munich if he hustled.  

That was how he marched himself out of Hamburg: heartsick and heartsoaring, carrying a touristy canvas bag full of nonsense: ankle boots, a silver chalice, a pack of brand new underpants, deodorant, petroleum bandage liners for his knee, a candle and a feather he found trapped on the sill of the shopping center door.  

#

It was about eight by the time he reached Bastard München complex.  The sun was still kind of up.  He didn’t feel like he’d left.  Falk might as well have been a weird dream he’d had on the train.  His ass hurt from sitting.

He forgot that last part as soon as he saw Kaiser waiting for him.  He had his hair tied back, sort of, and a slick summer business jacket over his t-shirt and jeans.

Kaiser said, “Heard them cleaning the other room in our quad.  Figured it was you.”

“Umm, yeah,” Ness answered.  “Roommate situation.”

“That sucks.”

“It could suck worse though.”

“No.  I’m not in the mood for optimism.  Let’s go get drunk and wallow in your misery.”

Ness stared at him, a confused smile tugging at his mouth.  He didn’t think he had enough misery to wallow in himself, let alone a second person inviting himself in.  Ness ended up saying, “Let me put my stuff away.”

Kaiser snatched both of his bags.  He carried them inside, kicked open the door to somebody’s office (which was dark, but not locked).  Then tossed the weekender aside, but stopped before doing the same to the tote bag.  He took the chalice out, turned it over twice, and put it back.  

Ness waited for the questions.  They never came.  

Instead: “Come on.  There’s a place up the street that gives us half price drinks if enough of us show up.”

Up the street was a handful of blocks in the evening air.  Ness hadn’t come this way from his hotel, but it seemed familiar.  He realized after they passed a little Italian place with wrought iron around the outdoor seating that he’d seen bits and pieces of this street on the Bastard München Instagram.  It wasn’t that different up close, just the usual busier, dirtier where pictures masked a certain amount of people and grime.

The bar he definitely knew.  It was a little, gold-tinted place with a glass cabinet of liquor running along the entire wall behind the bar.  The bar itself was sand-colored stone, but the tables and chairs were the metal and plastic kind that went up for parties.  The walls had murals of beaches and there were seashells dangling from the hand-blown bubble lamps overhead.  A single neon palm tree towered over the sign for the restroom.  Lawn flamingos occupied the corners, each lovingly markered with a name.

Bastard München had shoved a bunch of the tables together.  Most of the players, as well as Malibu the Flamingo, were there.  They stood when Ness and Kaiser came through the door, applauding.  Some of the patrons drunkenly joined in.  

Ness went pink under his sunburn.  Kaiser had to nudge him through the doorway and into one of the open chairs along the center side of the Bastard table.

“So,” said Ali, who seemed somewhat in charge of the group.  “We got you one drink, two straws.”

The drink was enormous, pink, and swirling in a hurricane glass.

“We thought it was appropriate after the way Kaiser swept you off your feet,” snickering followed

Ness didn’t know what to say.  There were finally tears pricking at his eyes.  He hardly knew these people and they’d done this for him? All jabs aside.

Kaiser, meanwhile, swung into his seat.  “I already kissed him.  You think an indirect kiss is gonna bother me? Idiot.”

“Oh, Kaiser’s in a good mood tonight,” Mensah commented.  

After another round of laughter, Ness sniffled once, then wiped his face on the back of his hand.  He realized he smelled like train and Hamburg grass.  The drink mostly tasted like pineapple despite the color.  Kaiser wrinkled his nose up as they sucked on their straws, but didn’t comment on the taste.

Ness could smell him over himself at this distance.  Something expensive.  CK1, maybe? The one that kind of whiffed like leather.  He savored it as he sipped, and sipping took him some time as a consequence.  

“Thanks, everybody,” said Ness when he was finished.

A little while later, he put his head down on the table.

And he slept.

He didn’t remember anything else about that evening until sometime after midnight when the team started arguing about who was going to carry him home.  He was pretty sure Erik won.  Whoever did it felt like he was riding a bear through the woods.  They were much less steady than Falk would have been.  And ah well.  Ah well to all of that.  

Chapter Text

He didn’t see Kaiser much for the next week.  Pictures of himself sleeping on the table at the Palm Bar on the other hand, all the team’s socials were full of them.  He ended up making a best of reel for his Instagram with some help from Fritz and Max.  It got him more hits and likes than anything he’d ever posted before.  Noa left a croissant emoji, which, despite being baffling, was still Noel Noa commenting on something he, Alexis Ness, had put online.  How cool was that? Especially since it would keep happening .

Anyway, Ness was on an orientation schedule, but Kaiser didn’t seem to be.  Ness got implications that Kaiser had been at Bastard München for a while, possibly a long while.  This was pretty unorthodox, but then again, he didn’t know why he’d expected anything less about Kaiser.  The whole thing stirred questions though, like why and if the scrimmage had really been all that fair.  If Kaiser had been living here, integrated here, the fact he’d become part of Bastard München had been a given. 

Yet, what Ness did see of Kaiser– he seemed so out of place.  He’d been accepted, but not with acceptance .  Kaiser talked to people.  He sat in the common areas.  He went through the motions of belonging and then no one said goodnight to him when he left the common rooms for the evening.  The last part reminded Ness of being let out of that ritual back at his parents’ house.  

Kaiser also slept in the grass under Bastard München’s one substantial tree in the afternoon.  He didn’t watch television or play video games or talk about those things.  He went to his room a lot and got more deliveries than made any kind of sense.  That said, when people asked him questions, it was usually about academic topics and he always had an answer.

Aloof didn’t quite cover him.  It went deeper than that, to some fundamental disconnect between him and the team.  Maybe more like him and the world.  Ness found it both charming and off-putting at the same time.  Then again, if Kaiser's mode was in any way intentional, it was probably supposed to come off that way.  

Ness couldn’t tell if it was put on or not.  So, one night he knocked on Kaiser’s door even though it was getting late.  The two of them were in the same quad— four rooms around a small sitting space, so it was only a couple of steps to go ask to see him.  Kaiser might have a few minutes to chat before he turned in.  “I’m reading,” Kaiser had said through the door.  “What do you want?”

“Ah, nothing,” Ness had admitted without meaning to at all.  “I just hadn’t seen you much today.”

“You will after tomorrow.  We’re being initiated.”

“Huh?”

“I probably wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”

“Too late now.  What are you reading?”

“ Guns, Germs and Steel .”

“Is it any good?”

“It’s not a book that’s meant to be good or bad.  You should get in your bed, Ness.”

Ness nodded, not that Kaiser could see him, and went back to his own room.  On the short way there, he caught a sound of frustration.  Faint, but there, and definitely Kaiser’s.  The book must have been really bad.

In his own, bare room, Ness lay awake for a while staring at the ceiling.  He wondered what more of an initiation they could possibly need after that rubber duckie business in the showers.

#

Ness found out after practice that initiation happened at dinner.  Everyone was supposed to rest and come to the cafeteria in formal clothing.

Ness still hadn’t had a chance to go shopping for clothes.  He did what he could with what he had and his ankle boots. 

Max and Mensah had already left, racing each other down the stairs like a pair of kids.  That left Kaiser waiting for him in a slim cut black suit.  His hair was tied back, sort of and mostly.  He had a flat silver chain with a square blue stone pendant in place of a tie.  It didn’t match the diamonds in his ears.  Ness hadn’t realized his ears were pierced.  

“Oh,” said Ness.  “I don’t own a tie…”

“Neither do I,” Kaiser replied, and waved Ness after him.  As soon as they hit the landing, Kaiser looped his right arm around Ness’s left.  They took the rest of the way to the dining hall in promenade, Kaiser looking ahead, Ness trying not to look too hard at Kaiser.  Something smelled sumptuous up ahead, but the CK1 from Kaiser’s shoulder was hitting Ness right in the crotch.  He wanted to bury his face in the crook of the neck.  Smell him, kiss him, lick him, do all kinds of filthy, overly intimate shit to him that barely would have flown with a boyfriend, let alone a teammate. Nevermind that he was probably, definitely reading too much into the kiss from Kaiser.  It was hard not to though with the guy being the way he was.  Inscrutable.  Gorgeous.  Weird.  Telling him, “Your heart’s pounding? Don’t tell me you’re afraid.”

“It’s just anticipation,” Ness let his next breath out slowly.  “I don’t know what happens next.”

“You really don’t, huh?” Something like a smile flickered over Kaiser.  He squeezed once more, pulling Ness against his side as they swung through the doors to the cafeteria.

A dais had been set up on the far end of the room.  On it was a small table set with a white tablecloth and two medieval-looking crystal chargers.  The regular tables were fixed this way too, and shoved out in a half circle around the dais.  The players and the coaching staff, all dressed to the nines, had been milling around chatting.  When they saw Ness and Kaiser, they paused to applaud, then pulled aside to let Noa escort them to the table on the dais.

If Ness hadn’t already been part of a scene with Kaiser, the situation would have hit him a little harder.  Under the circumstances, it was actually nice to be able to see everybody, smile at them, show off how pleased he was with himself and his situation.

Noa stood off to the side and he talked.  He had a story: he, Snaffi, Moon and Ego had ended up having 48 hours together in New York.  Moon had gotten them tickets to an underground event.  Possibly, Moon had thought this involved gambling.  Anyway, the event had turned out to be a “beefsteak dinner” and it had been meant only for locals, namely older locals.  So that was four soccer stars intruding on dowagers and bodega owners and a couple of stock brokers who’d grown up nearby only to send their children out of the city.  This made the gang four famous football players surrounded by tiny ladies in furs at a rickety old table in the basement of what had used to be a restaurant.  They’d stood out to a comical degree.  Noa had thought they’d be asked to leave, or ignored.  Instead, they were treated with “as much grace and beer” as everybody else.  Snaffi had gotten invested in a Jewish grandmother’s cat rescue and Ego talked chess with a jazz musician.  Moon had the servers laughing with how much he drank.  And Noa, Noa had taken in the whole thing in fascination.  “In the end, no one cared who we were or how we’d gotten there.  They cared that we showed up alongside them.  To eat beefsteak.”  

Kind of a funny way to put the sentiment, all that seriousness on beefsteak of all possible things, but Ness loved it.  So did the rest of the team.  Everybody cheered “BEEFSTEAK” and lifted their hands.

Onto the initiation part, it was Kaiser and Ness’s job to ring a bell anytime anyone below them wanted another plate.  No one was allowed to stay hungry.  The new guys had better do a good job, or they were off the team.  (No, not really.  Everybody laughed too hard for that to be true.) Kaiser gestured after you about the rope for the bell.  Ness pulled a little harder than he’d needed to and the dishes came out.

They were identical: four tidbits of black butter steak on a slice of brown bread, three celery sticks with a pour of sherry or a mug of beer.  Kaiser chose sherry and Ness did too.  Ness had never drunk sherry before and was pleasantly surprised.  It was sweeter than he thought, smokey and not too strong.  He tasted it before his diner, so he went into the first slippery bite with that still on his tongue.  

Or he would have, except he didn’t seem to have any flatware.  Neither did Kaiser.  Neither did anybody .  All of Bastard München was digging into their feast fingers first. Coach Aust had already dropped a bit of steak to the shirt.  No wonder– the steak was slippery.  Squeezing the tidbits made them leak juice down Ness’s hand.  Some were so tender they slid apart.  He tried grabbing them up by the bread, but the bread was soaked with butter and steak grease.  It got both of his hands dirty and then he couldn’t hold his sherry glass.  He’d only made it halfway through his first plate and his napkin was already a mess.  How was he supposed to eat politely next to Kaiser and when this was what he had?

The bell rang.  Kaiser’s doing.  Gesner had absolutely inhaled his plate.  Butter streaked down the corner of his mouth.  “I’m king! King of Beefsteak! Feed me, weirdo!”

“We’ve been over this, Erik,” Kaiser sighed.  “Say my name!”

The whole room said it.  Beer suds went flying with the toast.  “Kaiser! Kaiser and his hound!”

Had Kaiser and the rest of the team planned this? It didn’t feel like that to Ness.  Especially not with Fritz calling from the back, “I never got that money for my shirt, oh King of Everything But Beefsteak, ‘cause there’s no way you can out-eat Gesner.”

“Liar.  I paid you,” Kaiser said, smarmy sweet.  “Say the hound’s name too!”

So that was all over on meaty breath.  Ness.  Alexis Ness.  “Praise him with great praise!” From one of the assistants, one wearing the kind of earrings sold as a tie-in with the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies.  

That was onto the second round though.  People were slurping and smacking and sliding around to talk to their friends in the semicircle of tables.  Glasses and tidbits got dropped.  People tried to trade celery for more beef, only to be rebuked.  By the fifth round and this had turned the other way, people begging for something crunchy after all that soft, succulent meat.  Ness tried to eat at a reasonable pace, but it was hard.  People kept making him laugh.  The sherry wasn’t helping, and neither was Kaiser conspicuously whispering into his ear, “You see, even if they don’t like me, they know what we can do.”

“I thought that was the point of Noa’s story?”

“Yes, well.” Kaiser plucked up the soupy remains of Ness’s latest slice of bread.  He pressed it to Ness’s mouth.  “That was before.  It’s our story now.  Do you like it so far?”

Ness took the bread from Kaiser’s fingers.  Kaiser tasted like char.  Ness had to chew furiously to answer.  “I do.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been thinking it’s missing something.  And it’s kind of cliché.” All of this was offered in a conversational tone of voice, something more like Kaiser had been saying he didn’t know the weather report for the next few days.

Ness stared at him for a moment, then noticed Max and Ali had hoisted Fritz into the center of the room.  Fritz, who was pretending to be dying of thirst despite the drunk sheen to his eyes.  Ness rang the bell and wondered.  

The night went on like that.  Ness’s ear closer to the bell started to buzz because of the constant ringing.  There was one small food fight.  Beer and butter and drunk sweat flew everywhere.  Everybody’s fingers turned glossy with grease.  So many mugs and glasses broke, but they got swept up right away along with stray bread globs, and somebody’s boutonniere that had wilted onto their shoes after getting beer spilled on it.  One table had a brief funeral for the flower, and then asked if that would maybe get them extra steak on the next round.  It did not, and Kaiser chided them for spoiling the mood, even though they really hadn’t.  

Ness ate five plates before sitting back to watch the continuing chaos.  Kaiser stopped at four.  He propped himself sideways in his chair, watching too and fiddling with a lock of his hair that had come loose and which was now butter-black against the pale blond.  Ness thought of running his fingers through the stain, but that would be too much.  Soccer kisses were different.  He kept telling himself that.  It wasn’t working so well with all the sherry in his system.  Then of course somebody gave him another pour while Fritz and Max did a Lady and the Tramp with an extra long piece of celery.  It ended with Fritz pulling away before they quite touched, yelping, “You have the worst beer breath!” As if that didn’t go for most of the team.  

Things started to wind down after that.  People backed off of requesting more plates.  Noa, Coach Sander, Gesner and Max all reached ten servings.  Noa surrendered after that.  The rest moved to the center of the room.  Max said, “You barf, you lose.” They made a spectacle of themselves, pausing dramatically, pretending to have trouble swallowing, eyeing each other like duelists over their empty plates.  At twelve, they all stripped off their shirts.  The audience did the same.  A table was emptied to hold the sudden barrage of laundry.  There was something so freeing about sitting there in his dribbled-on dress pants while watching the show.  Ness held the rope.  Kaiser leaned onto his fist.  He looked thoughtful.  Ah, what was going on in his head.  Ness wanted to know so badly.

His wanting turned into an idea.  He caught Noa’s attention, and leaned to the side of the dais to whisper with him.  Noa ended up nodding and going himself to get what Ness had asked for.

He was back in time to see Erik Gesner polish off his fourteenth plate, then lick it as he stared down at Max who had crumpled to the floor, moaning in what might have been real agony.

“ALL HAIL THE KING!” cheered the team.

“And the new guys, I guess,” Ali added with a sarcastic sigh.

Kaiser and Ness got one more toast with what was left in everybody’s glasses.  

There wasn’t going to be a cue for Ness to say what he wanted to, but he saw that was as perfect a moment as he was ever going to get.  He stood and spoke just a little louder than the crowd.  “Everyone.”

Noa stood too.  He offered him an ice cold bottle of mead.  The mead was some fancy kind with more than honey to it.  It was almost Bastard München red.  

“I’d like to pass one more drink around, if that’s OK,” said Ness.

There was a murmur of interest.  People stepped forward, tightening into a ring.  The tables were all lost causes at that point, besides askew.

Mensah piped up with a question. “Is this a thing to you?”

“Yes! But it’s also something people did to get to know each other a long time ago.  It’s not, ah, so formal.”

Ali had also been hanging back with a scowl.  This faded.  He shrugged, smacked Mensah on the shoulder, and pushed both of them forward, somewhat to Mensah’s chagrin.  “Cool.  We’re in.”  

Sachs briefly consulted his shoes, then clasped his hands and spoke to the ceiling before following.  

Ness nodded.  His smile was hurting his face again as he tried to talk through it.  “It goes like this.  I’m Alexis Ness and I…” He paused even though he knew what he was going to say.  “I’m very happy right now.  It would be my wish that all of you were happy too, but you can tell us if you aren’t.” Then he raised the bottle before taking a sip and handing it to Noa

Noa faced the crowd as he spoke.  “I’m Noel Noa.  You should probably know that.  I’m happy right now, not that you can tell.  I don’t remember the last time a newbie started a toast, and you know what, close enough.” With applause from the assistant coaches, he drank and he passed the bottle along.

It went like that through the whole team, the coaches, and the lawyers.

“I’d be happier if I hadn’t eaten so much.”

“My anxiety is through the fucking roof.  What the hell’s going on with football lately? I meant really? Things are getting wild!

“It’s my first time attending one of these.  It’s way more entertaining than I thought.  If you want to call that happy, sure.”

“Hail me, King of Beefsteak, and I’ll be happy!” (There was one more hail for Gesner.)

And finally, to Kaiser: “I’m Michael Kaiser.  Soon, everyone will know that.  I’m on my way to making sure of it.” The bottle returned to Ness’s grasp.

Everyone’s going to be so happy when they do, Ness thought as he took the last spitty swig of the mead.  Maybe he looked a little too long at Kaiser when he did it.

Maybe.

Chapter Text

All of everybody’s nice clothes went to the laundry.  Bastard München’s entire team filed off through the halls in their underwear.  Or less.  Fritz was threatening to rub his junk on the furniture somewhere in the fading background.  

Ness hadn’t been too drunk before he’d taken that last slug of spit-mead.  Now he felt like he was floating.  It must be the magic, he thought.  He’d drunk everybody’s feelings.  Slurp, and they were in him now, stirring up his own self.  They were part of him.  The team was all each other’s.  He loved them and their goopy backwash.  All of them.  So much.  He should yell it from the top of the stairs.  

On second thought, he wasn’t that drunk.  

But he did drift at the place where he could have done it for a long while before heading back into his quad, and to his room.

Kaiser grabbed him by the forearm before he would have touched his doorknob.  “Ness.”

Ness hummed and started to snicker.  He was not about to finish the evening by having a moment with Kaiser.  His little slice of the world could only contain so much wonder.

Then Kaiser gave him a yank.  It wasn’t gentle.  Ness came out of it facing him.  What a funny half-lidded scowl Kaiser was wearing.  It didn’t go with his shorts at all.  Neither did the clipped way he spoke.  “You’re supposed to sleep in my room.  Do I have to spell that out to you?”

Apparently he did.  Ness squinted like something bright had hit him in the face.  He was still looking at Kaiser and wondering if he’d heard right.  For some reason, he replied, “I don’t want to sleep on the floor.” 

“You’re not sleeping on the floor .”

And this was not happening.  Ness’s squint tightened and then went away somewhere between his breaths.  He still stood in the quad with Kaiser. 

Kaiser was breathing through his teeth.  His pupils were blown in the low light.  

“You, ah, want that from me? I mean, the answer’s yes.  I’m easy and I’m not ashamed of that.”  Ness thought that was one of the nice things about being gay.  Guys didn’t mind if he was honest about wanting sex.  “I mean, I know it’s a little not OK since we’re teammates and maybe I just misread this really badly.  We had a lot to drink and…” 

“Shut up,” said Kaiser.  He kissed him for the second time.  His mouth closed on Ness’s, pushing into him with a cool slick of neediness.  Kaiser tasted him all through, rubbing in close one way and then pushing his tongue the other.  It left Ness with his own mouth half-open and trickling spit when they parted.

Ness stared back at Kaiser through the slip of space between them.

This was not happening.

Except it had already started to happen.  Ness’s whole body slammed inside, all hot, sticky mayhem.

Kaiser licked his lips.  He pulled on him again.  “Now,” he ground out.  He sounded desperate.

Ness empathized.  The weirdness in his insides had hit him hard this time.  If these were butterflies, who in the world had decided to call them that? It felt like somebody was rooting around in there, and only kind of in a good way.  He let himself be dragged into Kaiser’s room.  He even thought to kick the door closed.  “You could have asked,” he mewed at Kaiser and his sticky lips once they were alone, night leaking through the open window and somebody blasting trap music on a nearby street.  

“I wanted you to come to me begging,” Kaiser growled.  “That would have been such a turn on.  You ruined it.  I can’t take you anymore.”

“You could have asked,” Ness repeated.  Tentatively, he skimmed his hand downwards over Kaiser’s chest, then to his stomach.

Kaiser grabbed his wrist and pushed Ness’s grasp down his shorts.  He was good sized, maybe half-hard.  Shaved too.  Shaved completely bare.  The tension in him was unreal.  Even the small muscles of his thighs were hot and hard.

Obligingly, Ness took him in his hand and began to pump.  The material of Kaiser’s shorts creaked on his knuckles.  Kaiser himself made a low and angry noise.  The same one Ness had heard the night before.  Ness started to talk.  He got kissed again instead.  

Kaiser was all over him after.  There wasn’t any part of Ness he didn’t touch.  He took greedy handfuls of his chest, his thighs, his hair.  There was something about having Kaiser's big, thin hands on his head that hit Ness like lighting right in the twisting nonsense of his organs.  He made a strangled sound, almost of pleasure, when it happened.  Kaiser jerked back to give him a sneer, then did it again.  It was that thumb on his skull back behind his ear that got him.  The pressure made it hard to think as he toppled to the bed.  

“You’re unreal,” Kaiser was saying.  “It’s like you’ve never been touched.  But I know that’s not true.”

“Not like this,” Ness managed.

“Never been touched like this?” There was such music in his mockery and the tips of his fingers.  He squeezed.  Ness dripped spit onto his bed.  Kaiser squeezed again, shifting this time as he did.  His teeth came down on the space between Ness’s neck and shoulder point.  The bite was savage, pain twitching deep into the muscles.  It made Ness’s fingers flinch and his thighs shudder.  He made some choked off sound and he turned, facing the mop of Kaiser’s hair.

When Kaiser lifted his head, he had a little streak of red on his mouth.  Ness gazed at it before he leaned in to kiss it away.  Of course Kaiser pulled back and licked.  Ness tried to say something about no, you give me that , but he was bent against the side of the mattress, dazed and wanting.

Besides, Kaiser went back to working him.  He bit and scratched and licked, his tongue in Ness’s curls like they were a pair of cats mating and not two humans fucking because they felt like it.  He chided Ness for tasting like soap behind his ears as he scratched his thumbnail up and down his flank.  He bit him again too, in the wound that was still throbbing.  Ness buried his face in the sheets so he didn’t cry out, but Kaiser pulled him up again, hand on the back of his head.

The fingers on his backside happened right after.  Kaiser prised at him dry with his thumbs, then his knuckles.  He got one fingertip inside of him that way, testing his way over the pinch of Ness’s ass.  Ness moaned, not because it hurt all that much, but the want tripping up inside of him had taken control.  The sherry wasn’t helping.  Jerkily, he reached behind himself and spread his cheeks.  He had to shove himself down on the mattress to do it.  The springs hissed under him.  

Kaiser made a few appreciative hums.  He worked his finger a little deeper, still testing, still toying.  Then he pushed hard.  

Ness’s dick juddered.  He leaked precum and blotted the bed with it.  “Please,” he managed.  “I’m really horny.”

“I can tell,” Kaiser said.  “How do you think I feel after you held out on me?”  To that, he brought his dick to bear, resting along Ness’s crack.

Ness’s asshole squeezed needy on nothing.  He moaned.

There were tsk noises behind him.  Kaiser moved away, standing over him briefly before he grabbed Ness by the thighs.  He dug his hands into him as he pushed him up on the bed— crosswise, so Ness had to hunch up not to hit the wall.  This put his ass in the air.  Kaiser gave him a smack on one cheek, and not a playful one.  Then there were slippery noises.  Ness took a deep breath.  He forced himself to relax.  Well, forced the part of him that needed to take Kaiser to relax.  The rest of him vibrated with sweet tension and way too much to drink.  His mouth was still running.

Kaiser gave him another slap and jabbed his dick in.  All of it at once.  The Vaseline he’d used to do it was cold.  The pain was wild.  Ness felt like he’d pulled a muscle.  He had in a way.  The sensation made him clench up again, to a distant oof from Kaiser.  Ness tried to reinterpret his senses.  He hadn’t just really… All of Kaiser’s cock at once.  But then Kaiser started to move.  He felt him slide out, the sucking pressure of his own body spreading and snapping.  There were hands on his hips for the next thrust, jerking him back against Kaiser’s length.

Ness’s eyes watered.  He kind of wanted to scream, but he couldn’t seem to make any noise besides the obscene slish and smack of Kaiser shoving him into the sheets.  He hurt so bad, but he was harder than ever.  Somewhere in the searing burn there were these little licks of pleasure, enough to keep him from inching away.  Still- he needed some kind of stimulation or he was going to do something stupid.  He was that drunk, there beneath Kaiser’s roving hands, the sheer weight of his body seeming to rest on Ness’s hole.  

That turn of thought caught him in a shot.  Like he didn’t just have Kaiser’s words sealed into himself, he had his body too even if it was taking forever to get used to the intensity.  It still fucking hurt.  Ness managed to push himself up and make some kind of sound about it.  It came out as a thready moan though.  Kaiser had picked the same moment to push down hard with his cock.  Ness’s nerves sang out once again.  It was good there for half a second before another slam.  “Kaiser, I…”

“Don’t tell me you need a reach-around.  That face you’re making.” He hardly stopped to grab the camera.  There were three shots and he held the screen out so Ness could see himself.

His face was all red and wet.  His tongue was only kind of in his mouth.  Something jerked in his brain seeing his own image like that .  He gasped and he squeezed and he said, “I do.  Please.” Then he yelped.  Kaiser had smacked him again.

“Fine,” Kaiser said.  He didn’t only take hold of Ness’s cock.  He curled himself around Ness, fastening the two of them together in his arms.  One hand skimmed over Ness’s stomach.  Slow, it was too slow and then all of a sudden he had Ness in his fist.

Kaiser stopped, hilted in Ness.

Ness sucked in a breath. 

The hand on him squeezed.  Kaiser breathed, “The hell…” He pulled out, and shoved Ness until he was on the bed on his back, his weepy, red cock twitching on his stomach.

Ness wasn’t much to look at soft, maybe a bit bigger than average.  Hard was another matter.  He’d never had the guts to measure himself.  Frankly, he didn’t want to know.  “It's kind of big,” was and would always be less intimidating to potential partners than the actual size of his penis.

He probably should have said something.  

Kaiser’s expression was purely appalled.  He hung there above him, mouth open for what felt like forever.  “What?” he finally snorted.

“It’s… Yeah.” Ness halfway wanted to cover himself up.  Then maybe he could stagger out the door in fifteen minutes when they were done being embarrassing about each other.  The fact his balls were starting to hurt made this prospect sound particularly awful.

Kaiser shook his head.  He gave himself a cracking loud slap across the face.  Then he grabbed Ness by the knees and ploughed into him again.

The pain stretched thin now, but it was still there, hanging on the edge of all the other sensation; still there when Kaiser took him in his hand again.  He pumped Ness along with his own movements, wringing juices and sweat from him.  He was harsh about that too, but Ness took the rhythm and one of Kaiser’s pillows to bite since he couldn’t stop the sounds breaking in his throat as he slid closer and closer and tensed and shivered and finally just spilled out screaming through the tears.

It took Kaiser another half a minute to finish fucking him.  He came inside with the most luxurious groan, stooping over Ness so Ness could watch him close his eyes and lash his tongue.  He had a really pretty O face.  Of course, because he was gorgeous.

Then Kaiser took his damn time pulling out.  Once he had, he sat between Ness’s legs, poking at his flaccid self, stretching some of the Vaseline remnants through his fingers.  “Oh, that’s blood,” he said at length.  “I thought you shit on me.”

Ness sat up.  There were splats of blood and bloody lube all over the sheets.  The bite on his shoulder had caused most of it, but he had definitely popped a crease on his asshole.  He could feel it stinging now.  He fingered himself lightly.  There wasn’t any more streaming out of him and it probably looked worse than it was, the blood being whipped up with the Vaseline and all.  

Kaiser watched all of this with the calmest expression.  “I know I wasn’t your first,” he said.  “Unless you’ve got something weird to tell me.”

“No,” Ness said back sourly.  

“But it looks like I took your virginity.”

Ness groaned.  “Kaiser, I need a shower after that.”

This seemed to puzzle Kaiser.  His eyes went a little bit wide.  Finally though, he sagged to the side in some post-coital cigarette pose.  “So we’ll take a shower at fuck all o’clock in the morning.  Say we still smelled like dead cow.” He stood then.  Again, he held out his hand, “Or do you want to puke first? You’ll feel better if you puke.  I’m thinking about it.”

“It doesn’t count if you throw up!” How that came out of him so angry, Ness didn’t quite know.

Kaiser shook his head.  “That’s nothing I care about.  Get up.  I’ll walk you there.”

He was true to his word at least.  Ness shambled to the showers, floating between one side of Kaiser’s grasp and the other.  He didn’t leave a trail and that relieved him.  There was still a lot of blood drying on his chest and whatever had happened to his ass wept when he squatted.  He’d been bruised badly besides.  

At least he wasn’t alone.  Once Kaiser had finished shoving his finger down his throat, he sat beside him in the spray, gargling tap water with baking soda and spitting it down the drain.  

#

Ness hadn’t been able to sit for three days.  Using the bathroom on the first left him with wet eyes and snot running into his mouth.  Some of his warm up stretches hadn’t been fun either.  The bite throbbed when he moved certain ways.  

Kaiser didn’t treat him any different on the field.  It was as much of a relief as it was maddening.  They still had the magic, but underneath it all, Kaiser had wrecked him and he knew it .

It was probably the point of everything he’d done: claiming Ness.  

Ness loved the bite once it started to settle.  He loved the red hickey over his shoulder blade and the brush-burn scratches on his side.  But he also loved being able to sit.

Rough hadn’t been his style before, not in anything.  Then again, he had fond memories of Falk holding his hands over his head in the locker room.  If Kaiser had taken anything from him, it was something Ness might not have minded giving.  

It still didn’t surprise him that Kaiser wouldn’t approach him again in the evenings for a few days.  Kaiser wanted him to beg this time.  He was going to make him do it.  Or maybe Ness just wouldn’t.  Maybe this would all fade away.

Kaiser jerking him into his room did come as a shock.  Let alone what had happened after: Kaiser pretending Ness’s cock was his.  Spread that all soft on the memory of the raven and Ness didn’t know where he stood in any of this, only what he himself longed.  He couldn’t quite put that into words that would have made sense to anyone but him.

He had to do something.  He also had to start from somewhere mysterious.  So he did as magicians would, and he went to another of his kind for a vision or a word or whatever Noa was going to offer.  All the aching uncertainty in him almost felt like some kind of excitement.  Then again, everything felt out of place around him— the slants of sunshine in the hall, the unfamiliar music on the lounge TV, the way the quiet lawyer nodded to him as he passed him leaving Noa’s office.

Noa still didn’t seem surprised to see him.  He stayed stone-faced as Ness told him, well, not everything, but more than enough.  He shot from one screwed up topic to another and the story, if it was that, turned out of order.  He guessed he sounded like a kid trying to explain something he absolutely didn’t understand.

Well, he might be a magician, but he was also that in his present situation– out of his depth.  

He even ended on that note.  “I really don’t know what to do, but I have to do something.”

Noa nodded.  He sat for a while.  He did not tilt his chair this time.  His monstera rustled even though the air was still.  “I appreciate you bringing your concerns to me.  First, I want you to know that I will not be sharing this discussion with Kaiser or anyone else.”

Ness nodded.

There was another pause.  It felt heavy and sharp.  Noa seemed to be plucking at a particular decision. 

Ness didn’t believe he would like it, but he was set to hear it either way.  

“Second, I want to tell you more about his situation, but I’m obligated to hold that in confidence.  It’s alright if I say you have something in common.  You could take that any way you like.” Those words came with a long, hard look.

It didn’t hit Ness all at once.  The realization came up eager, but slow.  It twisted and it shone, bright and yes, it was sharp as the silence before.  It had been waiting there and now here settled into him.  He hadn’t only thought of the raven because he saw her memory in Kaiser’s eyes.  He thought of her because what had happened to her was the moment he’d realized he didn’t love his family.  That he couldn’t.  There was nothing in them for him to love.

Kaiser had a family like that too, huh? The thought made him so sad.  Nothing else.  Just.  Sad.  Ness swallowed hard and looked away from Noa.  He’d been thousand-yard staring for a while, he realized.  “I understand.”

“I have no doubt you do,” said Noa.  “My next concern is what you do with that information.  You’re not a psychologist.”

“That’s true.”  

“It’s not your place to act that way for him.”

“Does he have one?”

“I can’t tell you that.  But don’t worry.” That meant yes… Maybe.  It was less clear than the other implication.

“You’re saying there’s nothing I can do,” Ness chanced.

“I’m saying it is what it is.  You said it yourself.  There’s something wrong with most people.  What’s wrong with Kaiser feeds his strength.  It’s not pretty to see that in other people.  Especially people you care about.”  That seemed a pointed way to put things.  It was also different from the Noa Ness knew.  Noa didn’t really put ‘care’ and ‘people’ together, and not in hypotheticals he made to his players.  The rest of it was skirting poetic.  What’s wrong with Kaiser feeds his strength.   That was a fairy tale of a line coming from coach Noel Noa.

“Which you obviously do, or you wouldn’t be here.  So, I’ll admit it.  Some of Kaiser’s behavior was disturbing to me at first.  You’ll note though, that he does operate on a logic.  It’s– I think you would use the word ‘esoteric’ –logic, but it’s there.”  

“Are you trying to tell me Kaiser is forbidden magic?” 

“I’m expressing my findings to you in a way you can easily process.”

Though there was nothing easy about the situation whatsoever.  “I think I get it,” Ness said.  He’d have to dwell on what he’d learned before he got half as far as he wanted to with any of this.  “He’s not in danger, is he?”

“Not more than the rest of us.  But Ness?” Noa gave him a particularly intense sort of attention.

“Yes?”

“If you don’t want to take care of him, on or off the field, you need to tell me.  Because right now, the best strategy I see for us moving forward is you and him and everyone else backing the two of you up.”

“No, I do want that,” He didn’t hesitate to say that much.  He’d already decided.

Noa’s half-sighed, “It won’t be easy,” didn’t even touch his resolve.

Ness shrugged.  His shoulder twinged again when he did it.  He felt the sensation through most of his frame.  That must have been what put the motion into being, how he snagged the collar of his shirt and pulled it aside.  “It hasn’t been,” A shudder coursed through him, but it landed as a smile on his lips.  His kiss-aching lips that Michael Kaiser had bruised all up.  

He might get kicked out of Bastard München for this.  It made sense too that he, Alexis Ness, was the kind of person to throw away his football career for a few kisses.  It sounded like something his romantic side would have done.

Noa blinked hard in surprise.  The clinical bend returned to his expression almost at once.  Slowly, he reached out and ran his finger over the big, purple bite on Ness’s shoulder.  Ness clenched his hands as he did it.  If he hadn’t had a sensitive spot there with Falk, somehow he did now with Kaiser.

Then, Noa pulled his shirt back into place.  He lightly smacked the material as if that would make it stay in place better.  “ Très bien ,” he said.  

Chapter Text

Ness didn’t see Kaiser the day after that.  He wasn’t in the cafeteria, didn’t show up at practice, never manifested in the weightroom.  It was peaceful without him and Ness had time to think.  A lot of those thoughts were about how Kaiser’s absence was somehow his fault, how he might have messed things up more than they were already messed up.  

Still, it didn’t feel like anything was over there in Bastard München.  Kaiser would be back.  He’d be annoyed that he’d missed the group video analysis session.  

Everyone sat in the small theater while Noa played and replayed clips of their movements.  Sick burns flowed among the very valid criticisms they had for each other.  Ndaiye, who didn’t tend to speak up in groups, had a very long discussion with Gesner about his checking movements being too predictable.  Gesner took him seriously, nodding along and folding his lips in to absorb the points being made.  “Dammit, you’re right.  Can you meet me on the field tomorrow after regulars?  I wanna work on this.” Ndaiye agreed and nobody else got bonked with the butt of Noa’s laser pointer.  That seemed to be reserved for excessive laughter, which was to say Fritz.

They ate dinner and split off into the sitting spaces in their quads.  With Kaiser gone, Ness found guests in theirs.  Besides Max and Mensah, Fritz and Grim had also showed up.  The four of them were playing some cell-shaded shooter on a cluster of beat up old laptops.  There were cords everywhere.  The game sounded like it was making its own combat quips, and then there was something about a meat bicycle? Ness wasn’t interested.    

Not in the game, anyway.

Max’s real name was Reinhold von Lorenz-Fassbender so nobody argued about calling him Max for obvious reasons.  Fritz Hahn on the other hand had gotten tired of the dick jokes (somehow– he made enough of them himself) and so was more or less always Fritz.  Fritz and Max had bonded over their name situations and the fact they spent downtime racking up kills in Call of Duty.  Ness wondered if their synergy was better or worse online.  They out-aggroed each other on the field sometimes, but then would bandage each other's knees.

(Ness also wondered if Kaiser would let him bandage his knees when it came to that.  He dearly wanted to do it.)

Yoofi Joseph Mensah went by YooJoKing absolutely everywhere online.  He was a little loud for a quad mate, but that was because he laughed a lot.  Ness liked having him around.

Then everyone knew who Grim was.  You could smell the product on his hair from yards away.  It smelled like melodrama and Subway to Sally.  Even his plays were over-the-top emotional.  That said, they were also effective.  He had this weird tendency to interject with comments that weren’t about anything, which was something he did between the meat bicycle business.  “I didn’t know Kaiser was Florenzi.”

“Was what now?” grumbled Max.

“Gay.”

That was a massive side-eye from Max.  “Then why’d you say Florenzi?”

“Because I could.  Anyway, maybe he’s taking what there is.  He’d do that, don’t you think?”

“Oh yeah,” said Fritz.  He elbowed Max so that Max would agree with him.  

Mensah meanwhile looked at the ceiling, and then at Ness, who’d been standing in the entryway for a few minutes by that time.  He pulled a sorry, man kind of face.

Ness thought for a moment, then chanced, somewhere beneath the hail of bullets and trash talk, “You… You caught on I wasn’t kidding Kaiser back about the kiss?”

“You didn’t want us to find out? Sorry, it’s obvious,” said Grim.  He looked up from his screen briefly to do it.  

“We don’t care,” Fritz even shrugged.  

“But, if you want to grope me in the shower, I’ll take a heads up and warm hands,” snickered Max. “What were we talking about before?”

He got another elbow for this. “How your mom’s a whore.”

“Shuttup.”

Ness had no input into anyone’s mom situation.  He sighed and headed for his room.

Mensah lifted his head as he passed by.  He said, firing all the while, “You should look out for Kaiser.  He threw schnitzel on Fritz and he bites like a damn dog.”

Well, that explained why Ness’s quad included Max and Mensah, not Max and Fritz.  Although, Fritz was kind of a slob as in currently sitting on an empty can of some energy drink rather than bothering to throw it away.  Kaiser wouldn’t have put up with that.  But had that really been worth throwing schnitzel on the guy?

Ness’s confusion must have percolated into Mensah.  He did some special move that put a homunculus-looking monster into a purple bubble, shot it, and held up his hand to the others.  He then whipped out his phone, spun back in his camera roll, and presented Ness with a picture.  

That picture was of Bachman grabbing Kaiser from behind.  Kaiser had his foot on Fritz's face.  Fritz had what appeared to be schnitzel in his hair.  Max was trying to pull Fritz away.  The image had been shot at a low angle.  Mensah must have been flat on the floor from the look of it.  Also, Kaiser wasn’t wearing shoes.  That bothered Ness.

“I felt bad when I took it,” said Mensah.  “Since, I mean, Kaiser’s clearly not OK.  But now I have it to show you.  I guess things worked out.”

Ness gave a tentative nod.  “What started that?” He felt a bit bad for asking.

“Ask Kaiser.  None of it made sense to us.  Not OK was as far as any of us got.”

“And by not OK, he means fucking insane,” scoffed Max.

“Belongs in an attic mad,” Grim added.

Mensah scowled at them.  

And Ness sighed.  “I mean, this is arguably an attic since we’re on the top floor.  But, more importantly… What if I said I thought I could help him?”

“I’d say: Please, God.  Let Alexis Ness accomplish this miracle. ” The sincerity of this remark took Ness aback.  Mensah on one hand really wanted this to happen, but on the other seemed to think it would be tragically difficult. 

Well, Ness had realized that himself by then.  He moved on to another question.  “So how long has Kaiser been here?”

The four exchanged glances, then shrugs.  

The answer fell to Fritz, “A year, maybe?  He showed up in a black town car in the middle of the night.  It was spooky, man.”

Max decided to add, “We think he might be some kind of genetic experiment.  The perfect footballer, except somebody turned the violence up to eleven.”

“I don’t think that,” scoffed Grim.

“That’s dumb,” Mensah said flatly.  “Nobody’s out there growing guys in tubes.  He’s not OK and he bites.  That’s it.”

“And sometimes he disappears.”

“Yeah, he’s doing that right now.”  Fritz took this opportunity to stretch out on the couch.  The empty can crackled under his ass.  “So, here I am, back in the old hometown.”

“I’m sorry he’s been a problem,” said Ness.

The others all looked at him, varying degrees of surprise and sympathy on their expressions.

“Dude,” Max finally said.  “Why are you apologizing for him?”

“Hah.  I just am.” It felt right in a way, even though Ness understood Max’s unsaid point.  Kaiser shouldn’t be his responsibility.  Yet and then again, he was.  Ness had chosen this.  “Thanks, guys.”

“For ruining your little romance? Don’t thank us for that.  We despaired over how to do it.” Grim crossed his arms over his chest like he did.  

“We actually did not,” said Fritz.  “But we were planning to break it to you over a drink or something, not a LAN party you’re not even in.”

“I’m really OK with this,” said Ness, and he meant it.  “And you didn’t ruin anything.”

“Cool.  Anyway, wanna play? We got like five more laptops.”

Max dangled a controller Ness’s way.  

Ness thought for a moment.  “Can I watch?”

There was no answer, but Mensah adjusted himself in his chair so Ness could sit on the arm.  Ness did this, and the carnage resumed.  The game once again made its own trash talk.  The four players were pretty quiet now— understandable.  

Or they were until Fritz piped up. “OK, so if we didn’t ruin your romance…” He trailed off, grunting as he slapped the fire button.

Max picked up the sentiment for him.  “Fuck.  Was that weird thunk in the wall the other night you two?”

“Yeah,” said Ness.  He snickered.  “The, ah, biting wasn’t news to me.”

“Damn, dude.”

“You mean all Kaiser needed all this time was to get laid?” Fritz said that very loudly.  His voice even broke about halfway. “‘cause he’s been like 28% less feral since you moved in.”

“I told you,” Grim said under his breath.

Mensah again looked genuinely pained.  “Thanks for taking one for the team.  We owe you our schnitzel.” He held his hand up for a fist bump.

Ness gave it to him.  This was a lot less drama than he’d been prepared for.  

#

The others played and played and played and then started to fall asleep where they sat.  Ness drooped into the chair beside Mensah.  The two of them squished together.  Mensah tucked an arm around him.  Ness heard, “I know you won’t take this the wrong way,” and was out.

He awoke several hours later.  There’s been a whisper.  Someone telling him to get up.  There was nobody there.  He couldn’t remember the exact words.  The lights were off in the common room, but one of the laptops showed what Ness had learned was a skill tree.  The highlighted item said “Embrace the Pain”.  Ness stared at it for a while as his eyes got used to focusing in the bleary dimness.  He wondered how Mensah and Fritz had both ended up on the floor.

He heard the voice again.  It wasn’t outside of him, but somewhere in his magic.

This had happened before.  But he’d been awake before.

He relaxed and he listened.  Well, if there was a better term than listening, he didn’t know what it was.  So he listened, and then he knew what to do as certainly as if Noa had told him.

Ness grabbed his sneakers, put them on without socks, and stole outside.  

It was darker than he would have expected.  The nearby streetlights were timed out or off.  He could almost catch moonlight if he got out from the shadow of the complex.  A neon sign flickered somewhere up the way to the Palm Bar.  The night air was warm and clear.  

A black town car came around the corner.  The sight, the sense of it filled Ness with a soft dread.  There was something big in the car.  A big magic.  Bigger than he’d ever felt.

It pulled to the strip of sidewalk where Ness stood, the back passenger door in front of him.  The door opened.  Ness reached inside.  He had no doubt that this would put Kaiser in his grasp.

Kaiser had raven eyes again.  His veins seemed somehow to be trembling under Ness’s touch.  He didn’t speak.  His smell was gone.  Not only the CK1, but any scent at all.  Ness got him slouching into his arms and held him tight as he peered around him to see who else had gotten out of the car.

Ray Dark stood on the dew-damp Munich street.  He gazed at Ness and he reeked of magic.

“Is this him?” he said after a while.  His voice was all syrup and grime.  

Kaiser took a moment to answer.  “You fucking think?” This took none of them aback.  

Dark spoke again, this time to Ness, “Why are you here?”

Ness didn’t know what to say.  He wasn’t going to tell him that the magic had brought him.  That wouldn’t be right to put on the still night air.  And what would Kaiser think? Besides, the question went deeper than that.  It wasn’t just about the three of them outside in the night.  The weight of the words had changed between that and the person who had had put them to him.  

Ness had to answer carefully and not thank anyone.  “I came out to bring Kaiser back,” he ended up saying, realizing as the words left his lips that he hadn’t specified back from what .

“Good,” said Dark.  He looked pleased.  It was oddly alluring despite the sheer pressure of his presence.  

Ness shuddered.  Kaiser grabbed onto him, clenching at his waist.  

“He’s fine.  Give him some water and put him to bed.” Dark moved back towards the town car.  “I’ll see you again.” He didn’t look at either of them for the last part.  He simply stepped out of view.

Ness stood on the sidewalk with Kaiser until the town car was gone in the city, and for some minutes after that.  Kaiser felt like bird bones in his arms.  Ness might have been imagining that part.  He wasn’t though about the smell.  Kaiser had no scent.  None at all.  Not even laundry soap.  Ness put his nose right in the crook of Kaiser’s shoulder to make sure.  It wasn’t there.  

Kaiser’s breath hissed.

“Are you OK?” Ness asked him.  “I want to hear it from you.”

“No.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

That time, he shook his head.  

It must have taken so much out of him to do that.  So much of his carefully cultivated pride.  So much movement when he felt painfully tired. 

Ness didn’t say it was going to be alright.  He wanted that lie undisturbed between them.  Besides, he didn’t know when, let alone how, that would be true.  He just knew Kaiser needed water and a bed.  Not even something like Ray Dark would lie about that, let alone with such subtle command in his voice.  Ness shook again.  He would worry about that part later.  For now, he eased Kaiser back inside, up the stairs.  Kaiser made his way steadily enough, more steadily than Ness had after the first time Kaiser had fucked him.  He barely even seemed dazed once he touched onto the rhythm of walking half-slung onto Ness’s shoulder.

Ness liked having him there.  He wished it was in other circumstances, but he had to acknowledge the little pleasure of it.

Laptops still littered the coffee table in the quad, but there was nobody there to trip over wires besides the two of them.  Nobody to explain things to.

Ness got Kaiser to his door.  Once it was open, Kaiser lurched away.  He took the few steps to the bed by himself, and fell there, face down.  A frustrated growl bled into his pillow, then he lay there, breathing heavily, every hair on his body on end.  

Ness tried to pull his shoes off.  They didn’t budge.  Kaiser had his toes clenched.  His fingers had bitten into the sheets.  Ness didn’t want to leave him like this, but Dark had said he needed water.  So, Ness patted Kaiser on the calf and ducked into the bathroom.  It was too far to the kitchen and the stuff out of the sink wasn’t too bad.  Of course, the only cup he had was the chalice.  It would more than do.  Ness filled it with the coldest water he could get out of the sink and carried it back to Kaiser’s room.  He knelt beside the bed.

Without lifting his face from the pillow, Kaiser groped for the water.  Once he found Ness’s arm, he slid his way down until he had touched the chalice.  He took this by the rim to pull it close, slurping from the top before he drained it.  He went back to the pillow afterward, and he sighed.  Ness considered trying to get his shoes off again.  He was almost ready to move and to do this, when there was a murmur at his side.

“You ratted me out to Noa, didn’t you?”

“About what? The sex? That was going to come out anyway with all of the…  Ah…” Things clicked together in his mind.  He cringed at the sudden implication.  “Did you get a lecture from Ray Dark about not screwing your teammates?” No amount of explaining why he’d gone to Noa was going to get him past that if it had happened.  For a stringy few seconds Ness lived in that terrible thought.  

Kaiser shifted where he lay.  It took Ness a moment more to realize that the tension had evaporated from him, all at once like fog being bitten up by morning sunlight.  He sagged into his bed.  The bed creaked around him even though he’d gone so loose and so suddenly.  “You’re ridiculous,” he said and he turned his face out of his pillow.  There were eyeliner stains on the case now, black and blotchy.  Lip stains too, something marsala that didn’t even look the color of Kaiser’s mouth in the half-lit room.  “The most ridiculous person I’ve ever met.” 

Ness couldn’t help it.  He wanted some of this out-of-place contentment for himself.  Besides, Kaiser with his lips apart and that almost dreamy expression in his eyes.  He kissed him like he’d wanted to do to welcome him back.  He still had a taste, salty and sharp, with a bitter note tonight for whatever he’d put on his lips.  He went “hmph” in the back of his throat as Ness pulled off of him. 

“I’m reacting to whatever’s going on here,” said Ness.

“Which is nothing.  What if Dark’s my friend?”

“He’s not.  Not after how you looked getting out of his car.” He shook his head.  “But… He sees something in you.  It’s different from what Noa sees, and a lot different from what I see.”

“That’s one way to put it.” Kaiser moved again.  His hair streaked over the tattoo on his neck.  “Did Max tell you his football men in tubes theory?”

“Yeah… Umm.” This was a strange change of topic.  Ness’s face crinkled.

Kaiser reached out to flick him on the end of his nose.  “I’m sure he got that from a video game or five.  Anyway, it’s crap.  I used to be Dark’s.  Not like that.  Take it out of the gutter in your mind.”

“You used to be his.” It was all he could do to repeat the words.  Ness’s whole mind had banked off-kilter at this point.  Kaiser had been so nonchalant when he said them.  And the part about the gutter? That made things so much worse.  

Kaiser tipped back, a little closer to the pillow.  He sighed.  “We decided to stop because I want sex and he doesn’t.  It wasn’t a happy discussion, but we’re happy for each other.  Do you understand?”

“Well… Yes, I get the last part.  You’re going to have to give me a while on the rest.  That’s.  Umm.  A lot to process.”

“It’s really not.  You’re reading too much into it.”

“I must be.”

“And you’re going to make me wait to ask you to be mine now.” This was accompanied with another sigh.  Besides, Kaiser reached out once more, and scritched his fingers through Ness’s hair.  It was almost, but not quite, edging towards one of the squeezes he did.

Ness’s whole self squirmed at the sensation.

“Well, you don’t have to say yes, until, I don’t know, next week?  And I might accept a condition or…”

“Let me participate in the sex.  It’s really frustrating when you don’t.” The words clattered out of him before he knew what they were.  They were more than a little bit angry.  They probably would have pissed off most people.

Instead, Kaiser gave him the eyeroll of the century.  Then, he laughed.  It was a lot lighter than the sound he’d made at tryouts.  “Did you rip a hole in your Ich to say that? It sounded like a car backfiring.”

In fact, Ness did have this weird sensation in his throat, like a bandaid tearing off.  It washed back into his brain as he replayed the last few seconds of his life, then got worse as he pulled himself back to now, the now of Kaiser watching him.  He thought, once more and briefly, of Falk, and the last few months of frustrated agony he’d felt from his ass to his heart.  Ness put his hand over his mouth.  He muttered, “I think I did.”

“Well, that’s three of us chewing on our freshly exposed Ichs tonight.  Come here.” Kaiser did not beckon Ness to bed.  He grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled.  

Ness got into Kaiser's bed.  He was the one trembling now.  Just a little— it was the fast flutter of why all around him.  Why had Kaiser belonged to Ray Dark? Why was Kaiser like this— there had to be so much more to it. clearer in the moment, why hadn’t he ever said to Falk that he wasn’t, and never had been, satisfied? Why had it been Kaiser instead who broke this out of him in two bizarre, unsatisfying fucks?

He had the terrible thought that Kaiser might trust him, but instead he said, “We both still have our shoes on.”

“I do not fucking care,” said Kaiser, smashing himself in close against Ness’s chest and leaving more eyeliner prints there.

Chapter Text

Kaiser’s situation wasn’t stranger than Ness had figured, but it was strange in ways he hadn’t been prepared for.  How had Ray Dark of all people gotten involved? (He did not question that Ray Dark had magic.  Anybody could have magic.)

Ness felt like he’d missed something.  He needed to ask around some more, and not to Noa this time.  Noa might have assured Ness that anything he said stayed in confidence, but after Kaiser’s easy crack about getting ratted out last night? Ness decided not to trust Noa anymore.  Not about this.  

Then again, it had been a long time since he’d trusted other people with any real problems of his own.  It even still stung that he’d managed to blurt out what he had about the sex.  He was definitely going to have to keep being cagey about exploring Kaiser’s circumstances, maybe even for himself.  Also, he should probably get out of the shower before he worked himself into a mood.

Ness had work to do.  Some of it was fine, secretive work and some of it was way too many leg extensions on the machine or else.  He could have done that outside with no equipment, but Noa was Noa no matter the angle of view or what secrets he maybe hadn’t kept.  

Ness’s teammates were also themselves, going about that with impunity now that they were on for their midday break.  Sachs sat in a hall window, strumming his guitar and sometimes caterwauling to the people outside on the sidewalk.  Grim was ostensibly trying to write something, but most of that something had turned into tweets about how his muse had abandoned him.  Fritz and Max were bothering him about it on the app, which only added to Grim’s public procrastination.  

Mensah had uploaded one of his sketches where he pretended to be a nun while facing the right and himself while facing the left.  Mensah asked the Mensah-nun (wearing a towel as a wimple) for help about something absurd and, as Alexis had learned, loosely based off of happenings in the complex.  Today it was my friends can’t decide who is the dog and the conclusion was that they both needed Jesus.  Everybody always needed Jesus in these sketches.  Ness had a chuckle about it being his turn.  

He reached the cafeteria, finally.  Only about half the team had gathered there.  Plenty of people were still stuck in shower liminality.  He got to the counter for his tray to the sound of guffawing behind him— as it should be.

Ness liked the food at Bastard München.  True, it was all kind of odd.  The infamous schnitzel had hardly any breading.  Sausages came split and grilled instead of boiled, the hackbratten so dense that the team joked about it absorbing all light from the cafeteria.  At least vegetables were fresh and the bread was made on site to some dietician’s specifications.  That included the croissants.  There were almost always croissants.  Except they wouldn’t have passed as croissants in France, being made with some high protein concoction instead of plain flour.  They tasted a little bit like a hamburger chain smelled.  The team had taken to eating them with curry ketchup, of which there was a limitless supply.  

Kaiser sat by himself.  He looked up at Ness once Ness had his tray.  He wasn’t alone shortly after.

They ate together in silence for a while.  The group that had been laughing realized that they’d never picked up their lunches and went to go do that.  Sachs fell out of the window for a change.  The windows weren’t meant to be sat in, but Noa was going to put him on a slackline for trying one of these days.  

Kaiser had a funny way of eating, beefsteak dinners aside.  He took oddly-sized bites, cramming them into his mouth, sometimes with his fingers and sometimes with his fork.  If he used his fork, he usually chewed on the tines before he pulled them out all covered with spit.  Today’s lunch was rindsgoulasch, which meant this behavior looked bloody on Kaiser’s part.  It wasn’t so much disgusting as it was fascinating.  Like some spiritual part of him objected to food even after how hard he’d run himself that morning.

”Aren’t you going to drink your milk?” Ness asked after a while.  The milk now, the milk was fantastic.  Barely pasteurized, fatty enough he had to shake the cream back into it.  Weirdly good with the warm and spicy rindsgoulasch.

Kaiser scowled.  “I hate milk.  Yoghurt soda.  Any white drinks like that.  Except.  Well,” Despite how much the mere mention of milk seemed to have annoyed him, he still managed a meaningful sideways glance at Ness.  It was the kind of look that usually intimated forks were going to be crossing plates.  Kaiser though kept to his own.  He stabbed.  He bit.  He took the fork out of his mouth this time, but then covered his lips with the side of his finger when he swallowed.  He looked somewhat more thoughtful than usual, but it was kind of hard to tell given how oddly he ate.

“OK,” said Ness.  He made one more quick assessment of the current mood, decided he had relatively little to lose, and leveled his questions. “Is milk part of why you threw schnitzel on Fritz?”

Kaiser sighed.  “I knew you were going to bring that up.  Did you see Mensah’s Pulitzer prize-winning ass shot too?”

“Yeah, I did.” 

“Fritz overstepped.”

“He’s Fritz.”

“Don’t make excuses for him.”

“I’m not.  I’m just saying.”

There was a growl beside him. 

Some part of Ness wondered if he was about to be wearing rindsgoulasch.  He took another bite of his own lunch while he waited to find out.

Kaiser kept eating.  He chewed on his fork hard enough that Ness could hear it.  Then he sucked on the tines before putting it down and turning to Ness.  He dipped his head and spoke just above a whisper.  “I’m not used to people being nice to me.  It makes me uncomfortable.  Not as much as it used to, but.” He stopped talking and popped his fingers into one of his dumplings.  He slowly tore it in half.  One part got shoved in his mouth as he fingered the other through the stew.  

“But you mean that,” Ness chanced once Kaiser had swallowed.  He didn’t want to make him feel like he had to talk with his mouth full, which, Ness had to say, sounded like something he might do.

“Don’t look at me that way,” Kaiser answered.  “It’s not… It’s fine.  Just like what happened last night.”

Someone at the laughing table whistled.  It might have been for the two of them.  On second glance, everybody at said table was looking at them.  That was what they got for having relationship discussions in the cafeteria, but Ness was not waiting until evening, not with so many juicy questions reeling in his mind.  

He started with, “You don’t want me to be nice to you?”

“Don’t be stupid.  Because you aren’t stupid.” This sentiment was accompanied by a thwack to Ness’s shoulder.  Right on the bite mark. 

Ness dropped his fork.  His dick made itself known to his sense of himself, but thankfully didn’t do more than that.  “It’s not stupid to ask questions.”  

“Yeah?”

“So, am I your boyfriend now?”

“It’s not that deep,” Kaiser looked almost comically exasperated, but spoke calmly.  “You’re mine.  Much easier.”

“So like… a slave?”

“I said it’s not that deep.  What are you not understanding?”

“I never had anybody say that to me before.” 

“Because you’ve never been anybody’s.  Poor you.” When he said that part, he half-smiled and without the pity the words should have carried.

It hurt a little bit, strafing along some of Ness’s old suspicions, namely the one where he must be fundamentally cold-hearted if he hadn’t grieved his family rejecting him.  It was— why should he? Except everyone seemed to think he must .  Kaiser was right though, maybe, probably, even if he didn’t know how much so.  Ness spoke anyway, “You’re mine usually has something after it.  Like you’re my friend or you’re my brother.”

“Some people live more simply than that.  Ness?” Kaiser laid his fork aside.  He very purposefully turned on his chair, facing Ness with his back straight and his lips curled.  His eyes gleamed now as he reached out between them.  His hand came down on Ness, squeezing his knee.  “You’re mine.”

The absolute thrill of it left him stuck for a moment.  You’re mine (and nothing else).  It was sudden to hear something like that.  They were young and they’d just met.  There had been a spark at first sight, that was true.  True for both of them.  True for Kaiser once too, back before, with Dark.

Kaiser had been on the other end of ‘you’re mine’ once, though Ness had to imagine the circumstances were a lot different, say, not in a cafeteria where someone was playing a YouTube clip of a woman hitting her nosey neighbor with a color powder cannon.  He gazed into Kaiser’s eyes for a long, sweet while, cut gently with a backbeat of “Bro… Bro remember yesterday?”

Eventually, Kaiser patted him and turned back to his food.

Ness followed, murmuring, “If I’m yours, can I have your milk?”

This was shoved his way.  “Don’t drink too much.  You’ll get the shits.”

“I won’t.  How do I be yours better?”

Kaiser hadn’t expected this question.  He paused for a few bites, giving his food the same considering look he usually only shared with books.  His expression shifted subtly with what turned in his mind.  There came a sly kind of mischief in him, but that only lasted half a breath.  Then— a faint scowl.  “Stop arguing about sleeping in my bed.”

(Someone at the other table went ‘huh’.  It might have been unrelated.)

“I wasn’t arguing.  The bed’s small for two people.”

Kaiser speared his other dumpling, then dropped the fork so he could rub his chin.

Ness had not realized this was such a complex problem, a fact that was about to cause a certain degree of chaos in his life.

Finally, Kaiser said, “Would you sleep on a Japanese bedroll if I got that? Then we can make the whole room a bed.”  

“I’ll go half in for a set,” Ness decided after more milk.  He had no idea where the whole ‘Japanese bedroll’ thing had come from, but it sounded fun.  Like— camping inside.  Not that he’d ever been camping.

“No.  You’re mine.  You’re my responsibility.” Kaiser nodded as he said so.  Then, he picked up his fork and began to nibble on his now soupy dumpling.  Ness could see his mind working again even before the mutter of, “And the beds here suck.”

Come to think of things, Ness hadn’t slept very well since the table at the Palm Bar, and that was pretty damning of the beds.  He’d chalked his difficulties up to being in a new place and sputtering in his own excitement.  But then again, the beds were a lousy texture, both too soft and too hard.  The way they sat on the frames with their thick side seams made them hard to climb out of in the dark.  Or get shoved against by an over-excited Kaiser.  Well, hopefully that last part wouldn’t happen again.  “We should say something about the beds.”

“Are you talking about a revolt against our most holy football benefactors over beds?" snickered Kaiser.  He might not have been serious

Ness hadn’t been serious either, but he was now.  Not only would this get him a much better place to work his sex magic, but it would help set Kaiser as the crown prince of the team.  Especially if it worked, which it might not. He was, he realized, too giddy to stop the nonsense.  “Yes.  So we can fuck in yours,” Ness said, and then leaned in.  “If you start it, everybody might forget about the schnitzel.”

“No.  The schnitzel’s a meme,” Kaiser snickered again.  “Not even your magic undoes memes.”  

“I’ve never tried to use it for that.”

“Don’t waste it.  We have a papacy to overthrow.”

Which they were starting on right now.  Kaiser pulled out his phone and opened Slack.  The team had a group chat without the coaches, though it was somewhat ostentatiously marked: Bastard München REAL TALK and then a no symbol over a picture of Noa in a bear kigurumi that Ness wanted to know about, but just did not have the time to ask right then.  

Kaiser typed: It’s come to my attention that some of you are finally sick of the shitty bed situation.  Why not all of you? Fucked if I know.  Meet me in the gym @ 2 to discuss.  

He sat back and stretched afterwards.  “Now we see if anyone shows up.”

#

2PM rolled around, then passed.  The gym was gloomy and quiet.  Kaiser spread himself along the bottom of the narrow stands, pretending not to yawn.  It was his nap time.  Ness had gotten him some coffee, but it didn’t seem to be helping.  

If they hadn’t been waiting for other people, Ness would have taken advantage.  Kaiser liked to sit with his knees as far apart as they would go.  It was so tempting.  Ness wanted to blow him like he’d wanted to go outside after school when he was a kid.  It was exactly the same drive for movement and sensation, not even sexual.  It was also going to overtake him soon if something didn’t change fast.  

At 2:05PM, Kaiser’s phone dinged.  He read the message, sighed, and replied.  

“Hm?”

“They want to know if you’re here.  I told them not to be stupid.”

The doors to the gym swung open.  Almost everybody marched in.  This included Bachman, despite Bachman being about as sociable as a honey badger.  

Gesner was glaringly absent, but Max explained this.  “Gesner’s on the way.  He’s taking a shit.  He gave me his cleats so I could vote for him too.” These were filthy and also obviously Gesner’s given their sheer size.  “In case the shitting thing doesn’t work out.”

“Wait, we’re voting?” Ndaiye didn’t seem pleased with the prospect.  

“Yeah, I thought we were just here to lick Kaiser’s boot,” grouched Sachs and his brand new window bruise collection.

Kaiser wasn’t actually wearing shoes at that point.  He held up his bare left foot and beckoned with his gym floor dirty toes.  “You’re going to get used to that sooner or later.  Suck up some spit.”

Ali raised his hand. “For the record, I’m OK licking boot if it gets us better beds.”

“Me too,” said someone else.  That someone had uttered the angriest “me too” Ness had ever heard.

Mensah sighed his way into the discussion.  “Yeah, do you actually have a plan here?”

“We have to reason with Noa,” said Ness.  “We were thinking something about there not being evidence that spartan beds do anybody any good.”

A couple of people started googling on their phones.

“We’re going to tell him to stop referencing 300 ?” Fritz asked, puzzled.

“Wait, he does that?” was Ness’s reply.  He hadn’t heard anything like that from Noa.  Not that he’d been having particularly normal conversations with the man, but still.  

“Yeah, that or Silence of the Lambs .  You have to get a few in him before he goes all fanboy, and not drinks.” Fritz made a smoking gesture.

Ness made it back, confused.

“We’re pretty sure he’s been hanging out here so much so he can smoke a big, fat one every Friday.  He’s like… honorary off-season coach or something? Because Ego talked him into it? Did we all just forget that?”

“Anyway, we also have dirt on him for leverage.”

“If dirt’s what you call it.”

“And you have me,” Kaiser said, preening where he slouched, his toes still aloft.  

“We noticed,” Mensah said.  

“I’m not just here to score goals.  I have my own reasons for everything I do.  None of you need to know them, but today we all want the same thing.”

“A California king waterbed!” declared Gesner, storming into the room with his fists upraised in a fury of enthusiasm.  

“That won’t even fit in your room!” Kaiser whipped his empty paper cup at Gesner.

Who, being Gesner, caught it on his instep before he bounced it into his hand for crushing purposes.  “Don’t fuck with me.  I didn’t sleep last night.  I’m three coffees, no lunching this.  I’m MAD.”

“That’s good backup if Kaiser and the hound crap out on us,” Ali remarked.  “Can you keep that energy going?”

Gesner growled.  “As long as nobody mentions crap.”

Kaiser started to say something.  Since it was probably about crap, Ness clamped his hand over his mouth.

#

They found Noa tending to the monstera in his office.  It was considering fruiting, maybe, possibly, sometime in the next year or two.  Noa stared into the slippery green leaves, as if this might communicate his opinion on the matter to the plant.  

He had also left his door open, which was how Ness got in without knocking.  He put his feet down extra hard so he didn’t startle him.  “Ah, excuse me, Noa.  I’m sorry, but…”

Noa shook his head.  “Don’t be sorry.  You had a rough time getting here.  It’s understandable you’re having trouble settling in.”

“It’s not that.  But thank you for your understanding.  Actually, the team has something they’d like to address with you.”

Noa looked at Ness.

Ness tried not to smile that way .

Noa hummed.

Ness nodded.

Noa stood, and walked past Ness.  There was no way the entire team would fit in his office.  If he expected to meet them in the gym rather than the hallway, well, they were in the hallway, flanking Kaiser, who’d found an actual soapbox to stand on.  Not his shoes though.

Kaiser declared: “We, Bastard München, are sick of our shitty beds!”

“Yeah!” Came the answer from the crowd.  

Oh fuck Ness, sideways.  Kaiser was eating this up and it was hot .  “We reject the ascetic principles on which we were given shitty beds!”

“THEY ARE DUMB!” This had been chosen as the answer because a few people had trouble pronouncing ‘fuck asceticism’ to Kaiser’s standards.

“If this is a team that operates strictly on logic, what is the logic of you denying us good beds?”

Noa facepalmed.

“We don’t see that there is any! Sleep is a biological necessity! We, Bastard München, should get good sleep and lots of it.”

“YEAH!”

“If you’re trying to deny us the other things that happen in beds, some of us just want a quiet place to read!”

“YEAH!!”

“But what’s wrong with us fucking and sucking and jerking and gooning on beds!” For better or for worse, Kaiser’s enthusiasm for this point was gloriously sincere.  And not just because he made a jerking motion with his left hand.

The team flew with it.  “TAKE THE LAUNDRY BILL OUT OF OUR CHECKS! WE WANT GOOD BEDS!"

Noa finally looked up from the prison of his own fingers.  “We’ve asked you nicely not to bring girls back here for liability reasons.”  

“Do the thing where you switch the liability over to each of us personally,” Kaiser said as if this did not, in fact, involve several reams of paperwork. “Sex is also a biological necessity!” That was a hip thrust.  An I screw people silly on the regular with this very motion hip thrust.

“Kaiser, stop ,” said Noa.

“For us, it is! Do you really want us humping each other on the field out of pure frustration?”

“Reductio ad absurdum.  We’re talking about beds.” 

“We’re talking about you getting us new ones!”

Noa looked about ready to facepalm again.  He caught himself though.  His right hand briefly squeezed into a fist.  He looked Kaiser dead in the eyes, challenging, even though he spoke to the team.  “So, you all want futons like Kaiser.”

(Kaiser must have brought this up with him before.  Ness didn’t mind that the idea predated his arrival.  He cared about not barking his knees on the current bed frames.  He had plenty of other things to bark his knees on.)

Meanwhile the team talked amongst themselves.  There were some attempts at whispers.  None of them worked.  To no modicum of surprise, Ali presented their decision.  “Actually, we want hybrid box spring memory foam, extra firm, with two pillows each.”

“Big pillows!” Fritz insisted.

“And the ability to opt out of the standard bed for weirdos like Kaiser and Gesner.”

“Waterbed!” roared Gesner.

Noa stepped forward, and brought his fist down on Gesner’s shoulder.  “No waterbeds,” he told him, grim and serious.  Then, it was back to the crowd.  “Fine. Let’s sit down with the other coaches and talk about this civilly.”

Cheers, perhaps a bit premature, erupted from the team.

There was though one last word for Kaiser.  “You’ve made your point.  I’m mandating that you not talk until we reach an agreement.  Ness can speak for you.”

”Ooooooo,” snickered a certain contingent of the team.  Ness simpered at them.

All of them marched back to the gym

#

It took about an hour to reach an agreement.  The hype did not die down in that time, besides being a lot more than Ness had expected.  He and Kaiser really were doing something good for everybody based on this reaction.  Ness liked it.

Up until the point where the team, lost in the victory adrenaline they hadn’t been able to thin with any running or kicking and or additional screaming, decided to celebrate.  They did not get into the beer stores.  Instead, a wave of destruction crashed across the complex.  Mattresses in various states of dishabille sailed out onto the quad and the field.  They looked like pieces of industrial equipment and not beds at all once stripped of their sheets.  Ness had to wonder where the administration had even found them. Regardless, none of them were old.  They had that scummy, industrial newness to them 

Ness didn’t join in the impromptu games.  He’d had quite enough of people throwing things out of windows.  Enough for an entire lifetime.

Besides, it had started to rain after lunch.

That night, Ness slept in his bed with Kaiser curled against him.  Just and simply slept.

It was the only bed left at Bastard München.  It sucked, but it felt so good.

That was getting to be the state of them, he realized as he drifted off.  

Chapter Text

​Noa and Sander kept them on the field until evening the day the beds were delivered.  They didn’t say anything about making the team appreciate the beds, but that was very much the implication.  Anyway, it was a hot, blue night even with the breeze from all the open windows.

Ness loved sleeping in the bedroll.  Kaiser had insisted on tatami mats to go underneath it.  They smelled like a meadow.  The bedroll itself was firm but so squishy too.  There were two quilts— one for winter and another for summer.  The summer one felt cool to the touch and stayed that way even when Ness buried himself in it.  The stiff pillows were going to take some getting used to, but they didn’t make Ness’s ears hot if he landed on his side.  He was a surprisingly erratic sleeper, position-wise.  Being in bed with Kaiser made it worse.  Kaiser slept on his left side, but how that applied to Ness changed, sometimes several times a night.  Luckily, Ness didn’t have any trouble falling back to sleep now.

Kaiser woke up first the next morning for a change.  It was their rest day.  Ness lay in the bedroll watching Kaiser whisper to himself in the mirror he had bolted into the swing range of the door.  Whisper and flex.  Ness didn’t even care if Kaiser was being ten more kinds of bizarre with whatever he was trying to do, it was a treat to watch until that last grin he gave himself before rounding on Ness, “I’m going shopping.  You can carry my bags.”

“You going someplace with shirts?” Ness murmured.  “I still haven’t done shirts.”

“Well, that’s sloppy.  We are now!” Though ‘sloppy’ was a hell of a thing to hear from somebody whose next action was to storm into the quad sitting room while bare-assed naked.  The mix of “Mornin’” from Max and “EEK” from Mensah made Ness smile though.  

It was muzzy and buggy out, even in the city.  Kaiser bought them breakfast from a North African place where “whiskey” meant the juice and vinegar runoff from the tomato salad.  Kaiser did two shots.  Ness did one and choked on it while Kaiser laughed at him.  Then they passed two entire department stores before Kaiser hauled him into a tailor without the least bit of warning that they’d been headed to a tailor in the first place.

Ness had never been measured by a tailor.  He was not prepared for the thorough assessment he got, or Kaiser bluntly telling the lady who did it “You should give him extra room in the crotch”, let alone the fact nobody laughed at this.  Kaiser held a display book of fabric on his lap, but had watched the whole production rather than seeming to choose anything.  When Ness, rattled, sat down beside him, he pushed the book between them and flipped right to several materials he wanted to show Ness.  Ness liked most of them.  He did not like that his bill had already come to 1,600 euros for five shirts.

“What are you upset about?” Kaiser scoffed.  “I’ll pay.  You don’t even have an account.”

“You need an account to shop here?”

“Yes.”

“You know, I’d be fine with things from Galeria!”

(The woman who’d measured him silently shook her head.)

“I’m not fine with that! But if you insist, we can stop there for some t-shirts and jeans.”

Ness did insist.  The price of insisting, however, was him learning how to put suits together.  He’d have drowned in the details if the staff hadn’t been so patient.  Kaiser didn’t let him see the prices for said suits.  Ness needed a winter and a summer one just like the bed needed two quilts.  There was a list of accessory vendors to visit to make sure they came out just right when he wore them. He got a recommendation for amethyst earrings to “pick up that violet cast in your irises”.  Ness didn’t even have pierced ears.  He hadn’t worn any jewelry since the purple plastic ring he’d gotten out of a machine when he was five or six.  

Once that was over, and Ness had chosen to stop thinking about how much money had turned into a handful of clothing, Kaiser pulled him outside.  He then gently shoved him up against the outside wall of the tailor’s, leaning in close and fixing his eyes on Ness’s.  “They are a funny color in the sunlight.  She’s so perceptive.”

“They’re brown,” Ness insisted.

Somebody whistled at them.  Kaiser flipped that person off.

The trip to Galeria was a lot more familiar and did not require a membership.  Ness went through the usual routine of throwing one shirt on and then another until he’d narrowed his way down to a reasonable amount of said shirts.  It didn’t take that long since it was all tees this time.  Or it wouldn’t have, but Kaiser threw a handful of mostly casual button downs over the door of the changing room.  He didn’t even say, “I thought you might like these.”  Just.  Clatter.  And there were more shirts.  This happened two more times before Kaiser let Ness out of the changing room.

Kaiser looked between the yes pile and the no pile.  He nodded, pleased to see how many of the shirts he’d picked up had ended up in yes.  He followed Ness to the checkout, and not only didn’t try to pay, but dumped several items of his own into what was now their collection.

Ness liked this bill a lot better.  He didn’t mind paying it, or carrying the bags.  

This time when they got outside, Kaiser stretched and sighed.  “It was weird to be in there and not steal anything.”

“Ha,” Ness replied.  

“You’ve never stolen anything from Galeria?”

“No?”

Kaiser just looked at him for an uncomfortably long while. 

They went back to Bastard München, Ness’s room in particular.  The sky was still misty with a few thin streaks of blue.  Now and then Ness’s standard issue bed came into a sunbeam.  That bed had one incidental ass print on it from where Ness had sat on it to put on his shoes earlier.  Present Ness decided it would be easier to clip the tags off of his new clothes if he sat on the floor.  He had started to do that when Kaiser slid into the room, took one look at the bed, and claimed the sunbeam.  He stretched out on his stomach with his book on Ness’s pillow and his feet scratching lightly over the top sheet as he read.

Ness had to stop and take the moment in.  Nobody had ever wanted to sit quietly with him before.  Just sit.  And be there.  While they were themselves.  It made his heart throb a little.  He almost said something, but that would have broken the silence to bits.  Besides, he’d never seen anyone actually read Sigmund Freud.  He didn’t imagine it was something meant to be interrupted.

He got done snipping the tags, sorted the new shirts for the laundry service.  He added his existing laundry, and then Kaiser’s to the piles.  He smiled and continued to say nothing.  He only sniffed Kaiser’s sweaty workout shorts a little.  How could he resist?

Then he sighed.  It was tempting to lie back on the floor and stretch for a while.  He could even steal one of Kaiser’s books to read himself.  He was about to do that when he remembered he had one more thing to take care of today.  Since the closet was emptier now than it would be for a while, now was the perfect time.  Ness had grabbed an antique painted footstool for his new altar.  He’d already left it, and the few surviving trinkets, outside for the moon a few nights ago.  He had some fresh candles, and Noa had given him a note to exchange for mead in the cafeteria.  Ness waited until the space was mostly empty to make the trade, then scurried upstairs with the bottle.  It was more of the red stuff.  American, he noticed this time around: Drake Brothers Scarlet Sunrise 2016.  He had a whole case of this at his disposal.  The magic had given Ness a very nice congratulations gift if he did say so himself. 

He almost wanted to take a taste now, but he’d save it for when he had something to say to the magic.  

For now he arranged what he had.  A taffeta napkin on the bench, the ruby glass, the crow, the feather and his dinged up chalice.  It looked a lot less dreary than he’d figured once he got it altogether.  He would learn to live with the dent in the chalice, he decided.  It meant something.  For right then, he ran his thumb over it.

“So whose blood do you put in that anyway?” asked Kaiser.  

“It’s for mead,” Ness replied.

“Ah.” Kaiser closed his book.  He leaned onto his fist as he faced Ness, hair tangling into his armpit.  “So you sit in the closet and drink mead to honor the old gods.  I’ll take that over Catholic mass, but it’s still weird.”  

“No.” Ness thought about it in the pause that came after.  “OK, yes.”

“The weird is finally getting to you.  I’m glad I was here to witness this.”

“I just always put my altars in the closet.  They don’t get stepped on this way.”

“What kind of life have you lived that people stepping on your altar was an ongoing issue?”

“The kind where I’ve never stolen from Galeria.”

“Stop making me pity you.”

“And you know people associate this with some bullshit .”

Kaiser snorted.  “All religions have bullshit stuck to them.  Maybe don’t be so sensitive.”

“I’m not.  But this is here for me.  Not bullshit.”

Kaiser didn’t even have to say anything.  The tender mockery was all about his smile.

It almost made Ness laugh, even though it was meant for him.

“Anyway, don’t wait for me to say I’m interested.  I’m not.”

“Sure.”

“Unless the old gods gave you that huge cock.”

Self consciously, Ness looked down at his fly.  Dammit.  He hadn’t picked up any jeans.  Or belts.  He needed belts to wear the suits Kaiser had ordered him with extra room in the crotch.  “I don’t think that’s how that happened,” he managed.  “They’re not supposed to talk back.”

“So, that thing about being crazy if God talks back is true?”

“You know, if it’s too big for you, we can work on that.”

“Ness, that’s stupid.”

“You’re stupid for missing out on drinking mead in my closet!”

Kaiser flopped onto his back with a huff and starfished on the bed.  The silence after stretched between them.  

Ness started to stammer.  “I thought I was being too nice to you? And maybe I made you uncomfortable.  That’s why I just snapped at you.  I figured it would help? Maybe.  I guess it didn’t.”

“No, that was funny actually,” Kaiser had a small, snorting laugh about it.  Then he sighed, shoving his book away as he did.  “But the fact is I wasted your cock the first time.  That thing’s for…” He then made the most uncomfortably sexual gasp he could have without the involvement of any genitals.  “But I just bent you over like some ordinary guy.”  

“That was rough,” ventured Ness, keeping his tone even.  “I know we were drunk and things happen different when you’re drunk.”

“I’m disappointed in myself.”

“Well, maybe you should be.  How’d you miss it until we were almost done?” Despite managing to hold his tone, Ness nonetheless tipped his knees apart so the finger guns he aimed at his cock came off even more obvious.

Kaiser certainly had his attention there when he answered.  “My Ich doesn’t want to let me bottom.  It’s a personal problem, OK?”

“Why not?  That’s so good when it’s done right.” Ness hoped the implication leaned more to “I’ll do it right” than “you did it wrong”.  He seemed to be headed that way.  Kaiser's attention was getting kind of dark in the eyes, kind of a little too thoughtful when it came to certain parts of Ness.  “Tell your Ich to shut up.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Maybe don’t be so sensitive.”  

“Ingrate.”

“Yes.  What else do you have to say for yourself?”

Kaiser groaned.  “I thought about your dick too hard.  Can I have it?”

That was… OK, that was actually perfect.  Ness felt himself flush with possibilities.  He was grinning too.  He slid over to kneel at the side of the bed.  His fingers stole down the curve of Kaiser’s neck.  He ran his touch there, and into a few loose strands of his hair.  “Sure.  It’s been a little while since we really got to it.”

“ Two whole days with no sex,” Kaiser sneered and then laughed again.

The two of them had managed a soapy grind in the shower late one night while the beds were in the way.  That had turned out very fine, both of them eager and about the same height, but there hadn’t been time for exploration or room for magic.  

Now there was.  “Two whole days,” Ness echoed.  Then he put his lips on Kaiser’s tattoo, kissing him open-mouthed there.  He kept expecting him to taste like blue raspberry there, but he was all boy’s skin and the faint sour flush of the moisturizer he used to keep the lines sharp.  Ness licked and nibbled his way up his jaw and to his mouth.  He swallowed before he kissed him.  Kaiser didn’t like the flavor of the moisturizer much and Kaiser always kissed back so hard.

Like he did right then.  Ness choked gently on his own breath as they slid together and apart, as they sucked on each other’s tongues.  Kaiser got nippy, trying to keep Ness inside of him.  He was oh so slowly snaking one hand towards the waist of his jeans.

Ness pressed him back into the pillow and grabbed him there himself.  He gave him a good squeeze from the outside before undoing his belt and pushing inside.  The top button of Kaiser’s jeans snapped on his wrist.

“Hey,” said Kaiser.

“Let me do it.  Let me work some magic on you.” 

They looked at each other wide-eyed.  Then Kaiser nodded.  He slid his tattooed arm around Ness, hauling him against the side of the bed.

The butterflies weren’t so excruciating this time.  Ness was glad there hadn’t been any anticipation, no time to get nervous, no way to overthink things.  His part of the magic was so much better this way.  He let it slip into the shape of the moment there along with the rest of him.

He felt over Kaiser for a lazy while, until he was thick, but still soft.  Then he took his hand out of his pants.  His own skin smelled like him and summer sweat.  Ness put two fingers in his mouth, reaching for the thick spit on the back of his tongue.  The liquid stringed when he pulled it out.  He folded his hand so he didn’t blot too much off as he reached between Kaiser’s legs.  Kaiser’s hole was sweat-damp too, silky to the touch.  It only took some gentle rubbing to open him up on the spit.  

Kaiser went after his mouth again, sitting up and dragging on Ness’s hair as Ness groped into him.  It made Ness tilt a little more forcefully than he’s meant to.  Kaiser’s breath hitched.  His stomach squirmed as he tried to settle himself.  Ness arced in slowly, but he went as far as he could.  

Kaiser’s hips flinched again.  He pulled out of the kiss.  “Do you actually have your hand up my ass while my pants are still on?” 

“I kinda do~” Ness answered.  He liked the idea of the two of them being hung up like that while they were dressed.  It might get a little messy, but after the first two times? Ness wouldn’t think about that too much.  This was looking forward, drawing in, sliding them closer together in every way he could.  He pushed against Kaiser, stroking deeply into his heat, the fine details of his anatomy.  He hadn’t gotten to feel it before, but there should be a tender spot up and towards the front.

It was lower than he figured.  He rubbed it deep on the way out.  Kaiser jerked all over when he did.  “Oh, God!”

“Ah.  There we go.”

“Ah, what? That one got me right in the dick.  I didn’t suddenly start believing in a higher power.”

Ness thought for a moment.  He did not hold still.  Instead, he flexed his bottom knuckles in tight, as tight as he could go.  There were thin noises of want all around him as he spoke.  “OK.  From now on, ‘Oh, God’ means ‘do that again’ when we’re fucking.” He was mostly joking.  Joking came with more slow-beckoning thrusts.

Kaiser rode out the first without crying out.  The second one snapped another one out of him.  “Oh, God!”

Ness smiled.  He’d actually gotten Kaiser to say it.  He also felt that he might have turned a little manupulative there.

If Kaiser minded, he didn’t show it.  He was riding Ness’s hand right along with any motion Ness gave him.  It was also more foreplay that he needed.  His dick had shot up and was nudging at the waistband of his shorts now.  He was already getting all pink in the face.  Ness leaned into kissing him more, coasting his lips along his lashes and over the point of his nose.

He probably could have gotten him off like that, but Kaiser had asked for his dick.  It was only his second time getting into a guy, but he could see the act flowing out from where Kaiser lay even before Kaiser pushed his pants down with a plaintive sound.  

Ness eased out of him so the emptiness wouldn’t shock.  Kaiser let him go, though his dick shuddered.  He jerked his head to one side to come back to himself, and started to undress.  Ness stripped himself one-handed, the fingers he’d had inside Kaiser rolled into fist so they’d stay warm.  He was mostly hard himself and the handful of seconds he took to look over Kaiser brought him the rest of the way.  He was a sigh there snagged in the sunbeam, all his play bruises and his wild hair, his alabaster skin.

Meanwhile, Ness reached into his nightstand.  He didn’t have anything special— some extra thick water-based stuff that anyway wasn’t Vaseline.   Kaiser glanced at it, then cast around on the sheets, trying to decide where he wanted his hips.  Ness made the decision for him, hooking one arm under his knee.  Kaiser got the hint and settled himself on his back.  He was crosswise on the bed how Ness had ended up their first time, though they were facing each other, the sun catching on Kaiser’s lashes like sparks.  He shifted curiously in Ness’s grasp.

Ness kept a hold of his knee as he leaned against him.  He squeezed more lube than he could hold down his cock, and caught the runoff, twisting it between his fingers before he put those back into Kaiser.  The push was much easier, and he got to the place where he could hold him inside with the excess gel sliding down his palm.  Kaiser squeezed.  His other knee went up and his breath caught so needy between the two of them.  Ness fingered him for another little while before he pulled out and swiped his hand on his own thigh.  That should give him enough grip for the tricky part.

The new bed wasn’t at a great height for sex.  Ness pulled himself into what was almost a lunge to get his crotch level with the side of the mattress.  Kaiser sat up a little, still trying to watch.  He ended up pulling himself closer to the edge of the bed, leaving a trail of hot lube on the covers.  His hole was flexing as he breathed.  The sight filled Ness with such a hunger.  He came down slow, resting what weight he could on Kaiser and the bed.  Since he was still holding his knee, Kaiser went sideways and Ness maybe missed the first thrust.  Ness caught why quick though, and brought his still a little slippery hand up next time, easing in, slowly now.  He was still panting himself by three inches.  That thought about making people scream had turned into a drive somewhere in the intervening days.  Except— the only person he wanted screams from was Kaiser.  Kaiser, who was trying to get his feet around Ness for leverage.  Ness chuffed at him, surprised at himself for not making a single real word, then at Kaiser who leaned back since he must have understood.  He was shivering inside though.  Hot and shivering as Ness pushed on, testing for resistance, waiting for some chance where he might have gone too far.

Instead, they both sighed when he hilted him.  Sighed and kissed.  Kaiser arched his back against the bed as Ness began to move, yes and already.  His stomach was wet where he’d dripped all over it.

It took a lot of concentration to not just fuck him.  Ness was so absolutely thankful he had the magic, for that reason and that little extra hitch of pleasure it brought him.  In it, he could see where this was going.  He was going to make Kaiser come with his dick.  Maybe scream too.  In a good way.

Once he was sure they had a good slide going, he grabbed Kaiser’s other knee.  “Up we go!” he said.  He stood.  Not too fast, but it caught Kaiser off guard.  It had also put him at an odd angle, splatted on the bed with his hips in the air, his legs slung to Ness’s waist.  Ness hadn’t quite expected the pressure the angle would put on his own cock.  It felt good, but also heavy. He could imagine what Kaiser was getting out of it, what gravity was putting to his sweet spot at his angle.  Ness had to push down to fuck him from here.  The movements shook both of them at first.  Kaiser went a little bit limp to ride the first few out, then groped his way over the covers to a better space for himself.  They were moving together this time.  And just— the absolute sight of him, his body driven up against Ness’s own, his absolute exposure down to every inch of sex flush spreading over him as Ness fucked him.  The lip-bitten whimpers of pleasure that came on each side of a stroke.

“Isn’t that better?” Ness asked him.

“Yes, dammit,” Kaiser gasped.

“I’m glad.” He didn’t see a reason to bother him with more words than that.   He held him tight and brought himself into Kaiser.  Kaiser squirmed after the pause, even if it had been brief.  Soon he was rolling back against the bed, trembling when the pressure really struck him.  Ness could feel it not only in Kaiser’s thighs and innards, but the space of his own skin at the base of his cock and all of his pelvis.  It was so subtle and so good.  He wondered if Kaiser knew it was happening, or that it reached so far.  He would tell him, he decided, but once they were a little more used to fucking each other.  And the sounds he made, the huffs and groans.

Ness’s breath was catching too, he realized.  There was sweat on his upper lip when he licked it.  Kaiser’s breath went stilted at the sight of his tongue.  His tattooed hand briefly went to his mouth.  Then he moaned it again– Oh, God.  Ness licked his lips, picked up the pac.  Kaiser started panting off rhythm.  His belly tensed again.  It might not have been even kind of perfect, but it was so good even through the crash at the end.  

Kaiser screamed with his teeth clenched when he got off.  He pushed back so hard with the little leverage he had and he spattered all over himself.  His legs churned in Ness’s grasp and then he was sighing so hard.  Ness tried to take in the pure sight of him, but he’s also gotten the clench from his orgasm.  He pulled Kaiser up to him, harder, just a little bit sideways and blissed out above him a few seconds later.  He did it so hard there was spunk and lube splashing Kaiser before he’d even pulled out.  When he did, then it was on the floor, this big wet splat from Kaiser’s still-open body.

They’d wrecked the cover.  

Ness eased Kaiser down.  

He’d done it.  He’d fucked a guy and gotten him off.  That was wild, dawning on him there.

Kaiser meanwhile took a moment to catch his breath.  He then buried his flushed face in Ness’s pillow.

Ness let him lie there through his afterglow.  He was still making thick sounds after kind of a while, but they weren’t wracking him, didn’t seem to hurt.  His shoulders were a little tense too.  He looked more choked up than he sounded.

Ness sat down on the bed after he’d wiped his dick off.  He was going to need a towel for the splat.  He stroked Kaiser’s hair where it was all sweat-damp and stuck to his neck.  “You OK?” he asked softly.

“No,” Kaiser moaned.  “You fucked my brains out.  Go find them for me.”

There was a temptation in him to ask what color are they .  Instead, he let the quiet be, Kaiser simmering in whatever the magic had brought him.  Whatever he was feeling.  Hopefully something besides sweaty and buttsore.

He looked up from the pillow when Ness brushed his fingers through his bangs.  “What was that about you not being good at sex? You fucking liar.”

Ness had never been quite so happy for anyone to call him that.  He beamed.  “Mm, maybe I made some bad choices and it just seemed that way.”

“I’m making a good choice for both of us right now.  We’re having more sex like that.”

Somehow, his smile got even wider.  “I can make that happen.”

Ness made that happen at least once a day for the next week.

No one was surprised when they got called into the coaches’ office. 

Chapter Text

Noa (and Aust and Sander where Aust looked ashamed of existing and Sander sat with his arms crossed, radiating displeasure) sat them down to talk in the evening.  He wasn’t mad, just disappointed.  Not that he said as much, but he had the look.  That disappointed dad look, otherwise known as the way Ness’s father had approached most things, most of the time.  Anyway, it was still hot out, so the five of them had one shirt between them.  Ness’s back stuck to the visitor chair as soon as he sat down.  The old bite on his shoulder was still visible, and he had a new one interlocking it

Kaiser sported tatami burn on his forearms.  He also had a popsicle and Ness for the life of him couldn’t figure out where he’d gotten it.

Noa began.  “So, I’m not bothered about you two being whatever you are.”

“He’s mine,” Kaiser asserted straight off.  “Why do I have to keep explaining this? Did some other guy call him? In that case I want a fist fight.  Winner gets Ness.”

“Nobody’s having any fist fights,” said Sander.

That was about as much as Noa let him get in.  “We don’t need you on the field with a black eye.”

“Why not?”

“No.” One of those implacable waterbeds or strippers nos that not even Kaiser argued with.  Noa moved on quickly.  “We would appreciate it if you toned down whatever you are down on social media and in general.”

Kaiser slurped.  “Again, why?

“Because there are girls out there who think they have chances with you.”

“I bet there’s even more girl-jerking it to the thought of us fucking on AO3.  Have you seen the Men’s Football: RPF section? There’s like 40,000 posts in there.”

“Why were you looking at that?”

“I wanted to see who they shipped you with.  I thought it would be funny to bring that information along.”

“We’re getting off topic.”

“You’re sure you don’t want to…?”

“No.” Noa didn’t look too horrified.  It occurred to Ness that maybe he knew.  Maybe he had seen for himself.  Maybe he had glanced at the highly competent but nonetheless disconcerting MPreg about him and Julian Loki.  

Anyway, there weren’t really fics about Ness and/or Kaiser yet.  The English Kaiser/Reader had been pretty hot though.  Absolutely worth re-enacting despite Ness not having a vagina.

Noa reiterated, “I’d be making this request if either of you had a public girlfriend you acted this way with, so you’re aware.”

“Oh, that’s good to know, actually,” said Kaiser with his lips still wrapped around his popscicle.  Ness scowled at him.  

“I asked nicely.  You can listen to me, or I can turn off the hot water for the whole team.”

“You’d do that anyway.  Doesn’t suffering build character? Wasn’t that your whole excuse for cheaping out on the beds?”

The three coaches seemed to be thinking about this somewhat seriously for a time.  Aust scratched his head and then stared at the tangle of black hair that had pulled out along with this gesture.  Noa leaned forward.  His chair clacked and he folded his hands.  “The beds were an error in corporate judgement.  If you want to try and make the higher ups apologize, feel welcome.  But while we’re here, if you order any of the things you ordered on Lieferando again, I’m going to take the app off your phone.”

“I need them,” said Kaiser.

“I understand that.  There are less obvious ways to get them.”

“Amazon doesn’t do one day here for some reason.”

“Cultivate some patience.”

“Why are you saying that to me and not Ness? He’s the one with the perpetual half-on.”  Kaiser bobbed a thumb towards Ness’s crotch, because of course he fucking did.

“Because what the hell is wrong with you!” Sander blustered.

Noa went on as if this hadn’t happened.  “Ness took the time to ask what was the best day to set up his weekly deliveries.  You made a throne out of your boxes when you moved in.”

“That was almost all books.”

“Enough,” Aust said, decisively.  “I had to make the last Lieferando driver sign an NDA.  Don’t make me do that again.”

Kaiser smiled around the dregs of his dessert.  It had turned his lips devilishly red.  “Fine.”

Noa (and Aust, maybe not Sander) accepted this as enough of an agreement.  He then reached under his desk and pulled out two shopping bags.  That would have been plenty enough to drive home his point, but they were followed by a ribbon-festooned bottle of liquor so green Ness gave it a double take.  That was a drink that belonged in a sci-fi show, not out and about in Munich.  “Here are your things.  Don’t drink that all at once,” Noa concluded.

He and Ness exchanged some pleasantries as Ness gathered the bags and Kaiser sucked his popscicle stick clean.  Noa even smiled at him in this watery, but thankful, kind of way.  Ness could only beam back.  It looked like he was in for some fun.

He was so, so glad Kaiser had come around on the sex.  They still had a lot to learn about each other, but that journey was part of the way to his heart.  Ness knew it wouldn’t be this sunlit easy the whole way, but this part working out after all and so far?  Perfect.  Just the start he needed. A start Ray Dark couldn’t do anything about from his high tower in the distance.  Ray Dark didn’t do sex— which was fine, but also not conducive to sex magic.  

Then again and once they were back in Kaiser’s room, Ness had to wonder about several of the purchases.  That was a lot more padlocks than he’d been expecting.  A couple short lengths of chain.  A collapsible spreader bar– interesting.  Part of him expected to find a collar waiting for him.  Ness was not ready for anybody to collar him.  He didn’t feel he was part of that lifestyle.  That would have been a whole other conversation, but fortunately, it wasn’t one he’d be facing in the immediate future.  He might start it himself in time given the accessories Kaiser had purchased.  And after he found out what Kaiser wanted to do with the fancy, imported hemp rope.  

To say nothing of the fetish-sized Japanese enema syringe.  “I’m not letting this one go without a comment,” Ness said, thrusting the package towards Kaiser.

Kaiser was sort of in the process of undressing for bed.  He’d been fingering over his tattoo in the mirror, no words this time.  Just touching himself with this faraway candor to his whole body.  This lingered for a few seconds as he looked at the box.  He said, “I thought it might be fun if you made me hold one.”

Fun wasn’t the word Ness would have used.  “OK.  I was not expecting that.  I’m not, ah, grossed out.” He was a little grossed out and also sure Kaiser could see right through him.

Chief source: Kaiser’s subtle smirk.

“But if you really want to do that, we need to get a hotel room because I am not walking around outside your room holding this.”

Kaiser covered the bottom of his face with his tattooed hand though and he thought.  “I don’t mind throwing up in the shower toilets at 2AM.  Do you really think it’s that different?”

“You know you’re gonna be stuck for a while after I do it? Enemas aren’t poof, over.” 

Kaiser had very clearly not known this.  His confused expression was both adorable and unsettling.  It didn’t seem to belong on his face.  Ness wanted to pinch it off by squishing his cheeks in his hands.  He was also trying very hard not to laugh.  “We can look up how to do it if you really want to, but we’re also going to leave that alone for now.” He paused, and changed the subject.  “These are really nice blindfolds.” They were, in fact, silk and scarf-like.  Not the slippery sort of silk, but the kind with texture.  One was black and one was dark blue.  They would probably work as wrist ties too, Ness realized.  “I like that you got one for each of us.”

Kaiser huffed, but recovered himself.  “It’s basic bedroom equipment.  I figured yours must have been destroyed in the Great Window Hurling of Hamburg.”

“Yeah,” said Ness, even though he had never owned a blindfold, not even a non-sexy one.  In conclusion, he decided he wasn’t going to address the giant tub of Vaseline.  Well, not now and not with words.  He was just going to have to keep trying on the lube front.  If Kaiser still went for the Vaseline in the end, well that was hardly a deal breaker.  

Ness put away the sex shop haul in the cedar chest Kaiser had in the back of his closet.  The thing must have been more than fifty years old, but it was in pristine condition and still had a resinous, toasty smell.  Kaiser kept a beat up old football in it beside a locking fire bag of papers that Ness really wanted to open, but barely dared to touch.  Anyway, Kaiser’s closet was very full, so the chest was the only option.  Ness leaned through a jungle of dry cleaning bags as he arranged all of their new toys.  His hair was full of static by the end.  Then the enema syringe didn’t fit in the chest, so he stuck that back behind the dress pants and hoped to never see it again.  He checked that the lockbox for Kaiser’s jewelry was still tethered to the hanger bar, and came back out, scrubbing the curls out of his hair.

Kaiser had unrolled the bed in the meantime.  He was sitting on the side of it, down to his shorts and furiously typing on his phone.  Ness gave a quick sweep of the room to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.  Arguably not, but he wasn’t sure what to do with the liquor.  “What did you get to drink?” he asked by way of getting to that.

“Chartreuse,” Kaiser answered.  He scooted over to his desk and opened the bottom drawer.  The bottom drawer clanked and sloshed.  “More Chartreuse.  Some kind of amaro.  Black Seal.  Whatever the shit this is.” Whatever was bright red and might have had a label by the bottom, but that was so artsy as to be unreadable.  

“No beer?”

“Beer is bread water.”

“Also, how did you get all of this in here?” One bottle wasn’t all that surprising.  Ness had his mead, after all.  But a whole clanking drawer of it? 

“I asked for it on Instagram.” The reply was so very unbothered.

Which just made things more baffling.

“Do you want something?”

“Ah, could I get some Wolfberger Kirsch, maybe?”

Kaiser stopped swiping on his phone and looked up at Ness.

Who explained, “My parents had a bottle.  They used to, um, taunt us with it? They said they wouldn’t open it unless we were published in a journal sometime.  Like they wanted to be.  I knew that would never happen for me, so, ah…” 

“Now you want to drink your trauma.  That’s productive.” Kaiser had only laced the barest hint of sarcasm into the words.  He went back to typing, adding.  “Take your clothes off and get in bed.  We should have your kirsch sometime tomorrow since it’s expensive.”

It was pretty early to be going to bed, but going to bed had stopped meaning going to sleep a week ago now.  A week that was absolutely worth any upbraiding from their coaches.  

Ness pulled off what little he was wearing and slunk up under the bottom of the duvet, something that would have taken some doing on most regular beds.  Here, it was perfectly natural.  Once Kaiser had finished typing for the moment, he asked him, “Can I try the Chartreuse tonight?”

“Yes.  You need to,” said Kaiser.  He opened another drawer in the desk and pulled out a pair of drinking glasses.  Ness was starting to understand why Kaiser kept his books on the desk rather than in it.  More to the present, the glasses weren’t like anything Ness had ever seen.  They were small and stemmed, but thick all over and richly textured with stars and… Ovals? Stylized moons!  They were also bright aqua, so the Chartreuse looked more like crème de menthe once Kaiser poured it.  

“These are so cool!” said Ness, taking his.

“Dark got them for me.  They’re hard to break.” 

Heavy too, but that was expected.  Ness also would have been waiting for a wisp of sentimentality in Kaiser come to his former… person.  But there wasn’t any, just him lifting the glass to his lips.  Just him holding his still so-red lips there as he waited for Ness to take a taste.

Ness nipped at the liquor.  It was strong .  The first flavor was pure heat from the alcohol.  Then it was like he’d sucked spring in through his mouth.  He tasted the wet dirt and the blooming air, the new growth and the old, so many herbs he could hardly pick them apart as they rushed in.  He felt warm and oddly green all over just as soon as he’d swallowed.  

“You like it?” Kaiser asked.

“No,” said Ness and took another tiny sip, much to Kaiser’s amusement.  

They sat like that for a while until Ness was swaying on the alcohol and the evening traffic sounds dying down in the distance.  Kaiser turned the lights down, but not off, stripped off his shorts, then swung into bed.  Ness slid up to him.  

Kaiser’s skin wasn’t flawless.  He had little marks all over his body, shiny streaks on the fair matte.  Some came in fans or dashes, like something had burst against him.  Some were thin as razor edges and others made heavy zig-zags that matched the curves of his bones.  There were a lot on his shoulders and his back.  One cluster on his right arm looked like it might have been from surgery.  There were some under his hair too and one small one in the right corner of his mouth that you had to be staring at his lips to see.  Ness kissed him there while he was thinking about it.  Kaiser kissed him back with a snicker, and then coaxed him down his torso.  

He felt, Ness realized, about the same to the touch as the silk blindfolds– just enough texture, just enough to lead hands all over him.  

Kaiser also had no body or facial hair.  He had sugared every scrap he could reach on his own body, then paid somebody else to do the rest— his balls, his asshole, the backs of his hands.  All of it, ten rounds and a few electrolysis sessions for some places.  He’d said he didn’t want nasty, gray curls if he got old, so why not get rid of it while he was young enough to enjoy being “really naked”?  That said, he objected to Ness’s pubic hair not at all.  In fact, he seemed to like to scritch conditioner into it if they were alone in the shower.  Getting rid of his own must have been a very personal choice then and Ness was glad he had made it for himself.  

It was so strange to snuggle up between his thighs and find no fuzz, but strange in a good way.  Ness ran his tongue over Kaiser’s skin, savoring the smoothness, sucking up a little nip and sliding up from there.  Kaiser also happened to smell really good.  Not only because he was fastidious about that “really naked” body of his, or because he always whiffed at least a little of some sweet leather cologne— he had several.  He just: smelled really good.  The scent was bodily and all his own.  It didn’t sound good when Ness tried to find the words to describe it.  So, maybe put it this way: Kaiser stank .  But in a nice way.  It was every bit as complex as the Chartreuse, and wore that too, underneath, if he was turned on or sweaty.  

Ness poked his head out of the blankets to attempt to finish his glass.  He got maybe half of what was left before his sinuses went full of so much spring he couldn’t take another drop.  Kaiser was still typing on his phone, holding it over his head.

“Who are you talking to?” Ness asked.  

“My boyfriend.”

Ness stared.  Was he joking? He had to be joking.  Kaiser was the one who’d said it: I live more simply than that.  A guy he would text while he was in bed with another guy? That was so complicated.  Wait, unless it was Dark. No, it couldn’t be.  They’d gone over that.  Dark was something else.  So this was… 

Kaiser shot him the biggest grin.  “What? I told you I don’t do boyfriends.  He’s some pervy guy I met on LINE.” He then handed Ness his phone.

LINE was a messaging app of some description.  Kaiser’s most recent discussion with user “TechnoPussy” went… 

EmperorK: The puppy says orgasmic enema shits aren’t real. 

TechnoPussy: any shit is orgasmic if u do it right (≖⌣≖)

EmperorK: Fuck off.  You can’t embarrass me.

TechnoPussy: Yeahhhhhhhh but I did almost make you shit cause of me UNF UNF UNF
（￣ε￣ʃƪ）

EmperorK: Fuck all the way off.

TechnoPussy: yes master lololololol

“He makes me laugh,” said Kaiser after what he had deemed an acceptable amount of reading time.  

The discussion was arguably funny.  Ness didn’t know if he quite found it that way considering his role in what had led up to it.  But he was awfully interested in the fact Kaiser had a friend.  There must have been more to it than enema-based attempted con-jobs.  “Is this normal for him?”

“He likes messing with people.  So yes.”

“Wanna mess with him back?”

“Of course.”

“Let’s send him a video of me sucking your dick.” Part of that was Ness wanting to test this person he had no tangible way to reach.  The other part of it was wanting to know how Kaiser would react to the suggestion.

Kaiser smiled even wider, showed his teeth, looked almost luminous there against the silk pillow covers.  “If that’s how you say hello, puppy.”

This time it was, Ness decided.  If this LINE guy got freaked out by a little oral sex between two guys, well he clearly wasn’t as cheerfully perverse as he claimed to be.  Nevermind that Ness had made his own mouth water at the thought.  He hopped out of bed just long enough to grab his new blindfold.  Kaiser made some appreciative noises, tied it for him, then nudged him to his chest.

Feeling his way down Kaiser’s body was a joy.  He could taste the little scars, the different textures.  The skin of his belly was so soft despite the hard muscles beneath.  Ness felt his way across him, straying downwards.  He’d have liked to have taken Kaiser’s shorts off with his teeth, but they were already gone.  Instead, he went to his navel, and dipped his tongue there.  He hadn’t been expecting as much of a reaction as he got— namely Kaiser fluffing the quilt, framing him.  There was a quick slow down a sec .  And a laugh.  Ness felt him shift and settle beneath him.  He also felt Kaiser’s half-hard cock stirring at his shoulder.  

Ness faced where he thought the camera would be.  He smiled too.  Kaiser told him, “Do that again,” and Ness did, slower this time, sliding sexier, he hoped.  He felt that Kaiser had an extra little scar on the foreparts of his navel, a thick slip of skin that was maybe just right to suck.  Ness stuck his tongue into him and did that.  Kaiser stretched all over and he sighed.  Ness would have lingered on him there, but his cock was so close and he smelled so awful good tonight.  Totally like Chartreuse now that Ness knew.  

Ness licked and nibbled his way down the bare skin between Kaiser’s belly button and his dick.  He did this cradling that dick in one hand, squeezing upwards and slow to try and get some precum out of him sooner.  Kaiser only gave up a little at first.  Ness licked root to tip, encouraging more.  Kaiser still had a way to go before he was absolutely hard.  Ness toyed with him, lapping to the juncture of his crotch, fumbling into the crease that marked the space between his torso and his thigh.  He was so warm there, besides stirring up in Ness’s fingers between the other licks.  Ness felt him huff, and closed his lips around him sideways.  Finally, Kaiser dripped.

Ness pushed up on him, licking his lips before he caught the precum on his tongue and he pushed.  The tip of him slid into Kaiser’s foreskin.  He circled slowly, skimming him back just a little bit early.  Kaiser liked that, taking care of his own exposure.  Had he figured Ness was going to do it for him sooner or later.  Like— now? Anyway, Kaiser moaned and his hips stretched so tight.  Ness gave him a few more licks over his slippery head, then sucked him down.

Ness knew what it was now, that complicated bitterness that leaked out of Kaiser when he was hard.  It was body-transmuted Chartreuse.  Also a choice on Kaiser’s part or at least the result of his choices, even the ones he was making right then.  Ness thought he heard him sipping too, there before a heavy breath.  Then his long, thin hand was in his hair, skimming down along his jaw to tilt him up, just a little.  Ness wasn’t too keen on that idea.  He wanted that sweet bitter dick in his mouth.  But then again yes, he also wanted TechnoPussy to see this.  Hear this.  Ness slurped as he pulled off.  Some of that was for the camera.  Some he couldn’t help.   Kaiser made him drool when he was in his mouth, or close to it.  Ness mouthed on him from the angle Kaiser had brought him to.  He put the whole bed of his tongue to the underside of his tip, drooling down his frenulum and then sucking everything back up and into the hollow of one cheek.

Kaiser hit the pillow hard and groaned again, though with some hint of amusement now.  “He says he’s beating off to us.  It’s annoying his teammates a lot.”

Ness slurped again before he answered.  “He should tell them to suck it for him~.”

Ness knew that if the situations had been re-sorted, if TechnoPussy had showed a video like they were making right now to Kaiser while Kaiser was in the locker room…  If Kaiser had demanded a blowjob— it wouldn’t have mattered if they were attached at all.  Ness would have blown him as soon as they’d chased down some privacy.

As things were, he had nothing to wait for, even less to hold him back.  He let his mouth flood and his throat stretch.  The salty Chartreuse weight bobbed on the limn of his throat as he sucked and he breathed.  Kaiser muttered fuck and it sounded like he almost dropped the camera there as Ness leaned over him.  Ness sucked harder next time, swayed a little deeper until he’d almost made himself cough.  There it was then, one twitch and another.  Kaiser squirmed a little.  His dick was thrumming and he panted so hard.  He didn’t cry out.  Ness tried though, he tried to make him.  In another instant he had one hand around his base, pumping hard and slow as he pulled his whole mouth over Kaiser.  Yes, with a little hint of teeth and all underneath the curve of his lip.

“Oh, you started something.” Kaiser laughed again even as he was coming.  Ness swallowed most of the load.  He maybe let a little run down his chin for effect.  He smiled for the camera with his lips all wet.

#

WizardInGloves: Hey~

TechnoPussy: is this the puppy??
ur bj face is (⸝⸝> ω <⸝⸝)

WizardInGloves: Thank you.  I was wondering… 

TechnoPussy: i might be into that i’m really into you ha ur guy makes me laugh

WizardInGloves: He said the same thing about you.

TechnoPussy: nice
so anyway i like talking 2/him n bein gross I’m not ur rival
he acts like he’s so smart
ur smarter than him I’m sur

WizardInGloves: Umm. Thanks.  How do you mean gross? What kind of gross? He’s not gross with me.

TechnoPussy: lol u sur??
u wanna read sum stuff with me?? i mean stuff i read with him b4

WizardInGloves: OK

TechnoPussy: let me sharedrop
wait i need this in english huh
1 sec
happy abattoir families cumming ur way

Chapter Text

Ness should have known there was something going on when he heard voices outside.  That wasn’t the most unusual thing.  They got plenty of street noise from being on the corner, but this was at the crack of dawn and coming from the field.  

Ness’s bleary reaction was to unchain Kaiser’s ankles while he was thinking of it.  Kaiser didn’t even wake up, not even when Ness kissed the pretty interlocking markings the chains had made.  Ness fell right back asleep with the key in his hand.  

He did not specifically remember the voices until coach Sander chased everybody outside after warmups in the gym.

It was already clinging, sticky hot out.  The camera guys were fanning themselves.  There happened to be a lot more of those than usual, usual being one person in a booth with a bank of remotes.  These were several men and women with tripods and heavy gear.  Reporters took notes on the bleachers beside a few more casual observers with their phones up and friends steadying their lighting rigs.  They made up a few more people than had attended tryouts.  Ness didn’t think too much of it until Mensah facepalmed.  

“Damn.  That’s today?”

“What’s today?”

“The Sightseeing Invitational,” Kaiser answered, sliding in between the two of them.  

Mensah was not deterred from participating in the conversation.  “It’s our annual lesson in get better or else .  And you’re not going to laugh at us this time, Kaiser.  You’re going to be slaughtered right along with us.”

“So, laughing with you.”

“Don’t start.  We’re dead meat and you know it.”

“You can be dead meat if you want.  Go be it in the shade so you don’t get in my way.”

Mensah pulled a face like he was considering taking Kaiser up on the offer.  Then he scowled and crossed his arms.  “No.  I’m not giving you the satisfaction.”

“Then suck up some spit.”

Ness watched this exchange with the expectation he’d eventually get a chance to ask: No, seriously, what is the Sightseeing Invitational? That did not occur.  Instead, and about the time Kaiser started squaring up with Mensah, Noa finally made his appearance.  He went to his shaded booth with his bottle of Orangina.  He said, “Good Morning, Bastard München.  We’ve organized a little friendly match for you today instead of regular practice.”

Roughly a team’s worth of people ambled into the turf.  This was no team Ness had ever conceived of, let alone expected to see in person.  Corporate had gone to the ends of the earth to put this together, and then dressed them in Hawaiian shirts over white Bastard München third color kits.  Marc Snaffi, De La Fontaine, the current French Mensah, Laviño, who was wearing a straw hat and a feather boa along with the Hawaiian shirt.  

Ndaiye, who’d found his way towards the front of the team by virtue of being on the shorter side, spoke aloud each of their names as if in a trance.  Other players joined him, or laughed or gritted their teeth.  Ness just stared, his eyes sparkling— how would they, could they not ?  This was a dream, this had to be a dream.  Except.

Oh.

As a hammy conclusion to the whole procession, Laviño reached back into the locker room they’d come from, “And Snaffi brought Lorenzo to warm the bench!”

Don Lorenzo, specifically.  If Ness hadn’t seen any of the men across the field in person before (well, not this close up in Snaffi’s case) he had definitely not seen Don Lorenzo anywhere besides as a meme on certain soccer subreddits.  Falk had hated him a lot for Falk reasons.  Demeaning to the sport, he’d said.  Not true to the heart of the cards.  The memes scrambled in Ness’s mind at the sight of Lorenzo’s smile.  It was utterly shocking in full summer sun.  All those gold teeth, flashing as he said, “Hello, my guys.  I have some girls out back, okay~”

No one seemed all that excited about the prospect of girls.

The teeth must make Lorenzo so very interesting to kiss.  Not that Ness was going to kiss him anytime soon, but his mind went there.  

Anyway, Noa was saying, “I trust you won't have trouble holding your own against this year’s Sightseeing Invitational.”

“I heard one of you’s such a prodigy he made it in Bastard München after he started playing at fifteen, and not, you know five,” Laviño quipped.  “No really, that’s wild! Then somebody else’s got a reputation for kicking balls so hard they just pop.  Ouch!” He yanked at his crotch, to Gesner’s absolute lack of amusement.  “And also one of you has a semiotician for a mom? What even is that?”

Max made a face.  Ness had no idea what a semiotician was or why it mattered.  

”So what?” Kaiser pushed away from the rest of the team.  He strode forward like he owned the pitch.  “Today’s the day your times are up. Yes, all of you. I’m going to humiliate th-…”   

“Don’t make me give you a yellow card before the game starts,” said Noa.

“Fine.”

“Aww, Noel, be nice to the little guy,” De La Fontaine laughed and laughed.  He sounded sincerely charmed about the whole situation.  “He’s just excited.  I mean, who wouldn’t be?”

“You need a haircut, kid,” Snaffi teased back at Kaiser meanwhile.

“Same to you!” Kaiser shot back.

“Kaiser!” said Noa, again.  He then made effort to explain.  

The deal went: if Bastard München lost, they had to do the Sightseeing Invitational’s laundry.  By hand.  With old-fashioned laundry soap.  Pictures being taken the whole time.  There would then be an extensive lecture about why they had lost.  If they won— this was a friendly match, didn’t they know; winning was possible —all of Bastard München would get paired with a mentor from the Sightseeing Invitational for training the next day.  Then Noa didn’t object to the girls, who were real and pink and piled into a shady corner of the bleachers now that they’d been let in.  

“But you really expect us not to take the girls anywhere if we win?” Ali mused, rubbing his chin.  “That seems unfair to the girls.”

The girls, apparently a band and some streamers, were happy to do “whatever”, but then Laviño said, “He’s got a point.  Sushi on me if you’re the first Bastard München to beat the Sightseeing Invitational.” The girls liked this idea better after all.  One tried to come down and sit on Lorenzo’s lap, but Snaffi shooed her away.  “He’s working! Bench warming’s a very important job.”

The Hawaiian shirts came off.  That was that.  That being the last anybody from Bastard München thought of the Sightseeing Invitational for five whole blessed minutes.  The team huddled tight and whispered.  Kaiser slung Ness to his side.

“OK, so what do we do?” Ali opened, somewhat unhelpfully.

“I vote plate armor for Bachman,” said Fritz.  “De La’s drives are WILD.”

“That’ll slow me down!” protested Bachman.

“But you won’t die! I won’t have to personally clean up your corpse!”

“Don’t get pissy with me now.”

“I’ll get pissy with your mother like I did…”

“GUYS SHUTTUP,” roared Gesner.

Everyone stared at him.  Everyone also discovered that he had not done this unprompted.  Mensah had him by the scruff of the neck.

And Mensah sighed, “OK, so remember that game last week where Kaiser scored like eight goals and the other half of us had, well, nothing?”

“I will never forget that as long as I live,” murmured Sachs.

“Kaiser, Ness, two wingers.  Everybody else in the back.  It’ll be like playing tower defense.”

“We’re playing football,” mentioned Ndaiye.

“Fuck no, this is war,” Gesner cut back in.

“You know, if we plan for that as logically as humanly possible, that leaves you on the bench,” Ali mentioned, facing Gesner with surprise flashing in his eyes.   “And I know you love Mensah.  Not like that.  Also, I meant the other Mensah.”

“Yeah? And I’d croak if he scored on me.  Put me in if you eat shit.” Genser looked away from the others.  His teeth ground.  A noise of primordial displeasure ground out of his chest.  When he did face anyone, it was the two wingers.  “Fritz, Max? Don’t fuck this up.”

“We who are about to die salute you!” declared Fritz, speaking for both of them since Max was still a little bit back at being too stunned to talk.

At which point Kaiser finally deigned to enter the discussion.  “No words of encouragement for me?”

“You don’t fucking need any, weirdo,” spat Gesner.  He finally rounded on Ness and clapped him on the shoulder.   “You got this, Ness.  You do your magic thing.” He then removed himself to the benches where he sat on the far end from Lorenzo.  

There were a couple of fine details to hash out after that, trivial things, things that had nothing to do with the impending game, but five minutes were five minutes.  Once they were over, everybody marched to their starting positions.  

Kaiser followed Ness for a little longer than he needed to.  For a while there it was just the two of them in the middle of everything, alone.

“So, this is all on us,” said Ness.

“Yeah,” Kaiser paused.  He looked him straight in the face, all the hunger and destruction in his crystal blue eyes.  “Hey, loser.”

Ness had thought he’d given up on that.  Hearing it again all suddenly and in public, somehow it made him smile.  

“We did this before, remember?”

“This isn’t impossible.  Nothing is,” Ness halfway said it to the sky.  He was soaring inside.  They had this: him and Kaiser and everyone back there on the team.  They would make Bastard München history.  Right here, today, while sweating out the death throes of summer.  The whole hour swelled sunlit magical around him in and of itself.  

Ness kicked off with French Mensah.  Ness had the ball and then he didn’t.  For a blistering half a second he didn’t know where the ball was .  He found out when Sachs screamed.  Sachs had intercepted.  This meant De La Fontaine had lost the ball.  De La Fontaine wasn’t too pleased about that, or Kaiser making a point of pursuit, the headlong kind of way he did, tracking like a video tape stutter between himself and opportunity.  Sachs was fast and he was also galaxy-brained crafty when it came to moving around the field.  He wasn't going to pass to Ness or Kaiser.  Not yet, it was too soon, too far.  He shot it at Fritz.  Fritz bounced it off his head a few times before swooning out through the sudden rush towards him.  He broke from that, and vaguely towards Ness.  Ness winked at him though.  Max took this as ‘not me’ and chose Kaiser instead.  This should have worked in their favor, but Snaffi had been sitting on Kaiser from the start.  Not too obviously.  Ness only felt it because he was Kaiser’s and the magic had started to recognize this as true.  Maybe he should have said something.  That would have been a lot of explaining.  For right then, and no explaining at all, Snaffi tore after them.  Kaiser growled and gamboled and did his best to get the ball back.  Ness swayed in.  Their fingers touched behind Marc Snaffi’s back.  Snaffi was just too liquid for them.  Ali tried to put himself into their little trainwreck.  Ali somehow got kneed in the crotch from behind.  Snaffi passed to French Mensah who took one epic side shot and… 

Ness decided he didn’t mind doing laundry.

No.  He wouldn’t think that.  Kaiser would be disappointed in him if he let that cross his mind again.  It was one point and that one point had revealed so much.  The Sightseeing Invitational had never played together before.  Ness could see it now.  He could almost taste it bitter bright against the memory of the mead he’d slugged with the rest of Bastard München.  Their team had synergy (if not magic– again, no time to explain; did they need him to explain? Would they believe him for some kind of real if he just said it?).

Snaffi strode past Ness as they were regrouping.  He chuckled and remarked, “Do you always smile like that when you’re getting your ass handed to you?”

“Yes,” Ness told him, unironically.  

“Ah, that’s good.  I’m glad.” He paused then, snapping his fingers.  “You’re the one Gesner dumped over during the tryouts.  You weren’t smiling then!”

“Trust me, when Erik Gesner throws you on your ass, you won’t be smiling either.”

They laughed and returned to their teammates.  There were drinks and wet towels and Kaiser glaring bloody murder at his cleats as if they were the reason he’d been stolen off of.  He didn’t look up until Ness got to explaining his point about the Sightseeing Invitationals. 

“So, they’re like virgins with big dicks out there,” Ness said with the utmost honesty.  He was speaking from the heart, after all.  “They have the equipment, but they don’t know each other.  Not like we do.”

“Ness,” Sachs said thinly.  “why are you making it weird?”

“Because it is weird,” Grim mentioned.

Kaiser stared menacingly at the rest of them.  His attention went dumpling-shredding far away for half a moment.  Then he said, “Because he’s fucking right,” scrubbed at himself, and pulled out of the towel with a grin stained across his face.  “We just have to put the moves on them.”

“Oh, man ,” said Theo.

Kaiser kicked off this time.  He sneered at French Mensah and drove the ball at Fritz.  Fritz tapped it off the heel of his cleats and watched the chaos unfold as everyone bolted for the place where the ball had simply stopped.  Laviño ended up going “SHIT”, grabbing it between his ankles, and looking around to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating before he took off.  Straight into Max.  Max didn’t manage to keep him, of course.  

Neither Fritz nor Max was magic.  They did not suddenly become magic when they were together.  But Fritz and Max had a thing they did.  They could do it through a crowded room.  They could allegedly do it with walls in the way.  Right then, they did it from across the field.  They always said they were ‘vibing’ if anybody asked about their thing.  They practiced vibing by bouncing on their feet in front of the weight room mirror while listening to the same club tracks, so clearly it made up some kind of musical intuition between them.  But– vibing it was.  

How were they not in love? It baffled Ness that they could somehow not be saturated in a romantic need for one another.  Nevermind the way they bandaged each other’s knees with kissing and everything .  But, they weren’t and they didn’t feel that.  They killed each other in games and they drank hefe by the pitcher.  

That morning, once they knew what they were dealing with, they picked a tune and they vibed as hard as they could.  Fritz matched speeds with Laviño.  He shot him glance after glance after glance, all this weirdly concerned smile.  Like he was saying ‘oh, you’re making a mistake’ with his whole person.  Sometimes, like right then, he briefly ran backwards.  Laviño wasn’t going to fall for it.  Probably.  He just might.  Whatever he did though, he’d have to do it with Fritz in the way.  Fritz had chosen him to hassel.  What would it take to get Fritz onto somebody else? Laviño would have to wonder.  He was wondering right then, there, for a single flash.  Fritz laughed and took off.  Max feinted through the rush.  He played like he was going to take up Fritz’s place.  Then he didn’t.

The two of them cackled like jays and spun off through the crowd.  They were right where they wanted to be after all— bothering the hell out of everybody.  Kaiser shouted “MOVE” at each of them at least twice.  They did that.  That was also their job.  The ball shot around the field in utter chaos, the Sightseeing Invitationals tiding between regrouping and trying for a shot.  It went on for a long, sweat-dripping while until Kaiser cut in from behind Max and took the ball off De La Fontaine.  De La Fontaine chased him for it.  French Mensah tried to block his way.  Kaiser shot to Fritz since Ness was ground up with some dark-haired, keen-eyed beast of a man who grinned something at him in Russian.  Ness couldn’t remember his name for some damned reason, like his mind had stopped along with Fritz in the pure tension of that moment.  Fritz made eye-contact with Max.  De La Fontaine and Snaffi and at least four other guys, including the Russian, converged on Max.  One of them blurted something out about Ness.

But by that time Fritz had passed to Ali, who’d shot the ball to Ness, avoiding absolutely everyone.

“Run!” screamed Fritz.  

Ness and Kaiser ran.  Laviño and De La Fontaine looked at one another, homicidal.   Fritz and Max began to vibe again.  They circled, screeched and dodged.  The tune between them had changed.  Did anyone in the Sightseeing Invitational realize? Ness knew, but he also recognized that despite the flighty way he was doing it, Fritz had taken up guarding him .  He had the grating thought besides that even if they were up against professionals here, Fritz was about to get shoved dirtwise.  Ness couldn’t pay too much attention.  He couldn’t be sorry about that.  He could run— right around the French Mensah who was diving after him, diving like a mad man until Kaiser caught him, braced him back, took the pass from Ness and shot, blind. 

Fritz and the Sightseeing Invitational team’s goalie both splatted on the ground.  

Everyone on the field was panting.  Then the laughter started in Bastard München.  They strode up to the center of the grass, harsh sounds of amusement flowing through them.  There were elbow nudges and fist bumps and spitty snickers since everybody’s mouth was running in the heat.  Max had a water bottle ready to dump over somebody’s head, but ended up chugging it.

Snaffi watched them for a while.  Then wiped his face on the back of his hand, and spoke with it shielding his eyes from the sun, even though that didn’t seem to have been bothering him before.  “Where did you find him?” he asked.

Noa replied.  “They came to me.”   As in not you.  What a dig.  From Noa.  In broad daylight.  And not about beds.  Then Noa didn’t bother to ask which ‘him’ Snaffi meant.  

All of those circled into another quick regroup.  Kickoff was going to be a problem since the Sightseeing Invitational was starting with the ball.  They might sprint clear up to Bachman’s doorstep, or try it.  

Kaiser didn’t participate much in the discussion.  He spent most of the huddle looking over his shoulder.  Then he said, and more or less only to Ness, “They're gunning for you and me now.”

“I know.  We’re dead meat.” Ness smiled as he said it, right at Mensah.  Smiled and closed his eyes in the warm sunshine as if that was all he had to worry about.  

“Damn,” said Mensah.  “They’re kinda mad, huh.”

“Let them be mad.  They’re going to change tactics even more now that they are.  You guys pull in tight and get nasty if you have to.  Just think about all the shitty plays they’ve done to other people.”

This raised a snicker.

Ness gave the defensive crew a thumbs up.  Fritz and Max nodded to each other, then took off to the far sides of the field.  Kaiser and Ness strode to the center, one bare whisper glinting between them.  “Dream harder, Ness.  Their humiliation’s so close.”

Ness didn’t know about that.  He did know he was kicking off with Marc Snaffi in a situation where Snaffi decidedly had the ball.  He wasn’t going to end up with it anytime soon.

But no.  He could think a little past that certainty.  If Snaffi went right, Grim would catch them.  He could back Ness up.  Ness might be able to hold the ball for a handful of seconds, see what came of that.

Snaffi went right.  Ness gave chase, arcing into Bastard Muchen’s midfield, then through a loop-de-loop with Grim pursuit.  Snaffi was laughing.  Of course he was.  Ness thought about that one time Snaffi had dumped over a gondola in Venice which was about the only shitty thing he’d ever done that anybody knew about.  (And that didn’t involve who he might have been sleeping with, but Ness couldn’t count those so-called scandals.  He was in no position to do so).  

Max bellowed when he slammed into somebody.  Mensah was ping-ponging back along the space between Snaffi and the goal.  Snaffi banked into another turn.  Ness ducked under Laviño’s arm, sidled up beside Snaffi, and took the ball with one small swipe.  He scrambled to the left.  Mensah and Snaffi tangled, but that left French Mensah swooping down on Ness.  De La Fontaine came roaring in and there was Snaffi again.  He’d gotten loose, but he didn’t take his ball back.  He skimmed past Ness with just enough sideways energy to dump Ness on the ground.  “Tell me how that compares to Gesner when we’re done!” he called.

Not actually as rough, Ness decided.  Eight out of ten.  The missing brutality was helpfully supplied by Lorenzo, since Ness had landed somewhat near him.  “Ahia!” he shouted and he was laughing too.  

Once Snaffi got off of him, Ness sighed.  He rolled over in the turf, stood and stretched.  He and the magic breathed sunlight.  He felt mechanical affection grinding out there on the pitch.  The Sightseers were learning.  Learning each other.  Oh, and they were even more pissed.

But Ness had drunk down all the Bastards’ feelings and he had played with them for almost every day for weeks now.

He knew them.  He knew the goal Bachman had blocked would be caught.  Ali had it.  Fritz was holding Laviño.  Ali would give the ball to Ness even in his dreamy rise.

Ness caught it and he careened down the field, Max on his six, ready to burst in.  Why Kaiser had chosen to bank forwards on that particular line, only he knew.  Except wait.  Ness knew too.  He could see the place Kaiser wanted to shoot from, and the wall he’d have to skim to get there.  The spin Ness need to put on the ball to make the shot work spread like a sweetness on his tongue.  He ran.  Max circled up ahead, opening himself for a pass that never came.  The Sightseeing Invitational’s defense nearly snapped on all the possibilities.  Ness shot through them at the last possible second of any confusion.  Kaiser caught the ball.  Everyone, just everyone, was converging on him and Ness.  There were heavy hands on Ness’s shoulder.

Ness tasted the wickedness in Kaiser’s smile.  The ball smashed into the upper corner of the net.

This time, the celebration was feverish, mostly swearing and laughter and people spitting into the grass.  Kaiser poured a water bottle over his head and preened in the runoff.  He was starting to sunburn.

They were winning, but the game was hardly over.

Ali half-jokingly suggested, “So, we all stand in front of Bachman for the next thirty minutes?”

Kaiser shook the last of the water bottle at him.  “No.  We score another goal.”

“I hate this plan.  Let’s do it.”

Fritz and Max agreed.  They were still very much on and ready to take on all of Ibiza, if not a few football stars. 

Sachs was a little less enthused, but he came around.  “Fine.  I guess it’s like– what if somebody does a nutmeg on Ness and that’s a problem? We need insurance.  Or condoms.  Are we still doing the sex metaphor?”

“We’re doing wave of degradation,” Kaiser said.

He almost immediately took a sidle from Fritz, who was grinning like he should have had canary feathers in his mouth.  “Also, nutmegging Ness is Kaiser’s job, so we shouldn’t let anybody else do it.  That’ll probably piss him off.  Right, Kaiser?” Fritz went so far as to elbow Kaiser twice.  “My man. C’mon, that was a good one.  You know it was.”  

“Fritz,” said Max.  “I like you in one piece.  Not like.  Five pieces and I can’t find one.”

But Kaiser didn’t give Fritz a single lick of retaliatory smacking.  He even pretended to laugh.  Badly, but still.  “Haha,” said like that at the end.  He caught the third elbow jab from Fritz and pulled him close.  “You fuck up on me, I’ll nutmeg you so hard your mom will come.”

Bastard München went a bit quiet after that.  Nobody really had a response.  Ali managed to pull everybody back to the here and the now and the fact they just might win this unwinnable game.  So that was that, and everybody making their way back out on the field.  Fritz was still gawping at Kaiser.  He muttered to himself before he moved.  Ness wasn’t supposed to have heard, but the fact remained he did.  “My mom’s dead, you asshole.”

Ness went center field one more time.  He was kicking off with Snaffi again.  In Snaffi, there were a thousand possibilities and a fistful of smirk.  Ness chased him again.  He wanted his behavior to feel familiar, like there was a long do-over coming.  Snaffi ran tight and straight this time.  Everyone pursued.  Bachman sweated as he clambered around the goal.  There was an attempt to shoot from De La Fontaine.  Sachs caught it and slammed it as hard as he could into Bastard München bulwarks.  The team went hands over fists with it this time, passing and lagging out-of-bounds at least twice.  The last throw in was sparking on seconds.  It also went straight to the Sightseeing Invitational.  “NO SUSHI FOR YOU,” Laviño howled.  Ness didn’t care about that.  He didn't care who he was facing down and he didn’t think any of the others did, not anymore.  He knew that Kaiser came with him.  They spun Laviño around in his own joyful rage.  Fritz got the ball in the meantime.  He passed it to Ness around Laviño’s ass.  They were midfield all over again.  Ness ran.  Mensah left his place to come meet him.  They passed the ball back and forth to somebody sneering “What the hell are they doing!?” Kaiser rose up to meet them.  Kaiser who was grinning and had his arms out to meet Ness.  Kaiser who got dogpiled and twisted all around sideways.

“Shit,” said Mensah.  But then he nodded and he passed back to Ness.

Ness ran up to the goal alone.

He locked eyes with the goalie whose name had escaped him in the heat.

He feinted like he was going to shoot with his right foot.  The goalie started to move.  He moved so far he couldn’t commit to any other space.  

Ness whiffed with his left foot.  He took air.  Once again, he sailed down to the turf on the Bastard München pitch.  Clouds flowed serene across his field of vision.  The ball rolled into the back net of the goal and clanked and lay still.

So did Ness.  He had splatted hard on his tailbone.  Besides— they’d won.  They were going for sushi.  No one would be doing any laundry.  De La Fontaine was probably never coming for another Sightseeing Invitational for as long as he and Bastard München existed and based on some of the creative swears dribbling out of his mouth.

Ness heard someone saying something about the nurse beneath the flow of conversation.

Kaiser’s silhouette appeared between him and the sky.  “Don’t do that again,” he said.  “You mess up your back and I have to play by myself.”

“Yeah,” Ness breathed.  “That was a bad idea.  But it worked.  You OK?” He had noticed a red streak running from the inner crook of Kaiser’s elbow almost to his wrist.

Kaiser seemed to have only then noticed it.  He shrugged.  “Sure.  Snaffi’s not.”

“What?” Ness sat up.  He turned to where he'd last seen Snaffi.  Snaffi was still there.  The center of his left arm drooped like a wet towel.  “Oh, shit.”

“Let them handle it.  He’s laughing.  Don’t you hear him?”

Ness listened.  Snaffi wasn't just laughing.  He was pounding his fist on the ground happy that “something exciting finally happened on your prison ship”.

Kaiser meanwhile offered his hand.  “And I shouldn’t have to haul you up every game.”

Ness took it.  He stood beside Kaiser with their fingers twined around his still and he did not care who saw.

For the first time in hours, he was aware of the camera flashes.  Had someone caught his little ecstasy of remembering the taste of everyone’s spit? Maybe.  He’d find out.

Lorenzo ran to Snaffi.  The girls chattered louder and louder.

Since Ness and Kaiser did not run to them, the rest of the team joined them at the Sightseeing Invitational’s goal.  They were swarmed with sweat and happyslaps.

“The atrocity of it,” Max declared, enchanted.  

Chapter Text

Ness did not like sushi.  He disliked Lavinia XOXO– yes, you had to say it that way or she wouldn’t answer –even more.  She chewed everything like she had gum in her mouth.  At least Lorenzo’s twitchy gnawing had some logic to it and at least Lavinia XOXO took pretty good pictures with bejeweled phone, but Ness didn’t see the attraction between her and Lorenzo no matter how thoughtlessly they lounged into each other in the booth.  Personally, he’d have taken any of the other girls before her.

A few visited their table, circling with the restless Bastards and Sightseers.  One sat on Kaiser’s lap for a while.  He made her get off when she tried to take his rockfish.  The rockfish had been served still kind of alive and with most of the carcass intact.  Kaiser was invested in finishing it even though he didn’t seem to like it much either.

What he did seem to like was Lavinia XOXO.  Ness could feel him playing footsie with her.  In fact, Ness put his shoe down on Kaiser’s at least once since Kaiser played footsie in socks only.  It didn’t bother Ness at first because there was no time to be bothered about it.   A few drinks in and everybody was kissing pieces of cold fish out of each other’s mouths.  Ness even tried it with the drummer for The New Drama.  That was the most fun he had with any sushi that night.  When he did it with Lavinia XOXO, her tongue was colder than the fish and she tasted like cheap flowers on the roof of her mouth.  

Snaffi’s table roared with laughter and smelled like sharpie— Snaffi was having people sign his cast like a kid.  Ness wished he was there, but Kaiser had wanted a place up by the bar.  

Presently, Kaiser was making enough conversation to keep things slightly above awkward.  “I think you’re lying.  You didn’t have any fun watching the match earlier.”

“Well, I wanted to sit with Don,” replied Lavinia XOXO.

“Why didn’t you insist? Those old guys over there aren’t gods or even demigods.  They’re just guys.  What were they going to do with you? Make a scene in the middle of a game?”

She thought about that for a while, but didn’t answer.  Instead, she changed the subject to Kaiser’s tattoo.  It was sooooo aesthetic.  Did he know that she had sakooora on her back? These were admittedly impressive once she showed them off, but the thing was: Kaizer unzipped her dress for her so she could do that.  He said, “It’s beautiful, but the lighting in here’s not great.”  The rezipping took time, and a whisper from him.

About a minute later, Kaiser and Lavinia XOXO were headed out the door together.  She was carrying his shoes.

That left Ness alone at the table with Lorenzo and a few scraps of fish that Ness didn’t want to eat.  Lorenzo asked if he could have them.  Ness pushed the plate his way and ordered another matcha sour.  Lorenzo sucked the fish up one piece at a time, pausing to chew dreamily between.  He seemed like he enjoyed it.  Then he drank the soy and wasabi slurry out of the dish Kaiser had left behind.  

The soy sauce was the tastiest thing on the table as far as Ness concerned himself.  He wasn’t going to fault Lorenzo for that particular behavior.

Or the fact he decided he was going to try talking.  His German was thin, but passable, punctuated with snorts and snickers when he forgot words.  “So hey.  We are alone.  You and me.  It should be me with Lavinia and you with Mihya.”

Did he mean Kaiser? Yeah, he did.  “I’m a little mad about that,” said Ness.  He realized he’d sucked half of his bottom lip into his mouth.  He let it go and scrubbed at his chin with the back of his fist.  

“Why be mad? Don’t be mad.  Be even!”

That would have entailed Ness eating Kaiser’s share of the raw fish.  And— no.  He sighed.

Lorenzo put his elbows on the table and leaned across it to leer at Ness.  It was a toothy leer.  Lorenzo’s mouth went 80s aesthetic neon in the sidelight from the bar.  “You want to come back to my hotel room?”

Ness didn’t even think about it.  His pique had been sitting in the bottom of his stomach for two hours at that point.  “I’d like that a lot.”

It had Lorenzo wiggling in his seat.  “OK, good.  I’ll tell Snaffi where I’m going.  Not who with.  You can call an Uber, okay?”

The pun hung between them for what felt like a solid minute.  Then, they both snickered.

“I already did that,” Ness concluded, and went outside to mess with his phone in the rain.  It only occurred to him once he was scrunching under the entryway canopy that he had no idea where The Sightseeing Invitationals were staying.  At least Lorenzo eventually showed up and told him, which was more than Kaiser seemed to plan on doing.  He hadn’t even texted.  

The sheer audacity of Ness’s own actions didn’t hit him until he and Lorenzo were settled in the back of the car.  He’d had one night stands before, but in the context of hooking up at parties and with people he recognized from school or football practice.  Don Lorenzo was one of his peers, but not somebody he knew beyond the fact that he was/had been sort of seeing Lavinia XOXO and that he liked sushi. Well, he also liked getting even and football.  Come to think of things, that was more than Ness knew about most of the guys he’d been with.  Still, to test the waters, he pulled one lame as hell stretch-and-put-my-arm-around you maneuver just to see what kind of reaction he’d get.

Lorenzo coaxing him closer so he rested his head on his shoulder wasn’t something he’d have chosen as a likely result, but that occured.  “I didn’t know you were into this,” Ness murmured, trying to look up at Lorenzo despite the fact he’d landed someplace where he couldn’t.  

“I’m into what’s good.  Even if we don’t do it, you’re not rotting at the bar.  That’s very good.”

Ness chose to answer this by rubbing his nose against Lorenzo’s pulse point. Lorenzo smelled artificial and tart.  Nice aftershave, but not meant to smell like anything.  He also had a few flecks of stubble he’d missed forward from his earlobe on his jaw.  Ness joyously scratched his tongue on them.  Lorenzo laughed.  His laugh was obnoxious, but in an I-give-no-fucks way.  Ness in the mood for that if he was in the mood for anything.

Bastard München, he and Kaiser, had slaughtered this year’s Sightseeing Invitationals.  Kaiser had chosen to mark the occasion by putting his dick in Lavinia XOXO.  How thoughtful of him.  Nevermind that Ness, his Ness, was right there and that he very much felt like rolling over that night.  With this and besides, what was simple about their you’re mine arrangement now? It felt like a complex trash fire.  Kaiser had been free to walk the fuck off without a word in the end.  Was Ness supposed to sit at home and wait for sloppy seconds? Further from that, did Ness care what he was supposed to do at this point?

Lorenzo had to shove him off before he realized they’d parked and also, “Damn, I think you gave me a hickey!”

“Sorry!” Ness sputtered as he launched himself into the rain.  He could have gotten out of the car on the same side as Lorenzo and skipped the rain part, let alone the puddle seeping into his shoes, but he was three matcha sours in with his brain so stirred up it felt like whipped cream between his ears.  

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Lorenzo said.  He hauled Ness to him once again, and waved to the Uber driver before dragging them both inside.  In the elevator, he licked Ness’s ear.

The Cortiina had a beige modern vibe with oddly-sized windows and strange splashes of color, Lorenzo’s room looking like a movie set of a Swedish bedroom.  The thing that stood out the most was the collection of junk food littering the desk.  Ness stared at it, impressed, as Lorenzo shut and locked the door behind him.

Ness didn’t feel threatened by that, or anything Lorenzo had done so far.  He did give him a look though.  He felt obligated to.  That was such a power move.  

Then again, so was Lorenzo gathering him into his arms and grinning at him, “What can I do for you that Mihya doesn’t?”

“We haven’t been together all that long,” Ness admitted.  “But, I’m pretty sure if you left a mark it’d make him mad.”

“If you don’t mind me messing up your pretty skin, okay.” Lorenzo was invested in this pretty skin Ness learned in another handful of seconds.  They spun against each other, unhurried and without a beat.  Lorenzo was solid, but limber.  Circling there with him felt to Ness like he was pressing himself against the dragon part of Scylla.  The sensation made Ness’s hair stand on end.  This got a lot worse when Lorenzo started unbuttoning Ness’s shirt.  He went fast.  The shirt slid down to Ness’s elbows.  Lorenzo held him at arm’s length and inspected him.  His free hand slid after his gaze, down the center of Ness’s chest and abs, to his navel and his belt buckle which Lorenzo nudged down until he could finger Ness’s happy trail.  This was a lot softer than it should have been since Kaiser had started tending it.  Then Ness picked up the practice himself and here was Lorenzo smirking at him because he absolutely knew what was going on with the groomed, silky strands.  

Ness gave him a why not sort of shrug as he coaxed himself free.  His fingers stuttered as he was going for his belt.  He had all kinds of experience being naked around other guys.  He could even contain himself the vast majority of the time.  But Lorenzo seemed to be expecting something, and Ness couldn’t seem to put his mind on what it was.  He hoped their hookup didn't turn into a repeat of Kaiser finding his dick.  Not that he was hard yet, but still.

Ness was several shades paler from his navel to his knees, which were farmer brown and perpetually scuffed.  Lorenzo stalked around him, humming as he inspected this time.  He took a big squeeze of Ness’s thigh and then flicked his hands upwards, skimming on his stomach again.  Then he curled his view around.  “Your butt is very white.  It is asking for handprints.”

Those would be a mark.  Ness nodded, took the few steps to the bed, and bent over.  He expected a swat as an opener.  Instead there was a long rustle behind him.  Lorenzo’s naked body pressed along his back, all this deliberate weight and contact.  Lorenzo’s cheek on his back, Lorenzo’s hands leaving this lingering grope on his backside.  There was this satisfied hiss-sigh in his ear.  Ness sighed too.  He felt very wanted in that moment and also like he’d lost the plot of this encounter.  This was the strangest groping he’d gotten since the really early ones where nobody involved knew what they were doing.  Lorenzo did though.  He was having a fine time kneading and kissing his way over Ness, reaching between him and the covers to get a feel for his pecs.  His touch strayed out and down his arms.  Lorenzo kissed his knuckles with tongue.  Ness twisted his hand back to try and pet that tongue.  Lorenzo made this gurgling noise that seemed to indicate he liked the sensation.  Once they’d untangled from whatever that was, Lorenzo said, “You wear gloves when you play?”

“It’s so I don’t get turf bits under my nails,” said Ness.  

“Aa.  Hmm.  Hm! I thought maybe it was ironic.  That you didn’t want to touch the balls.” Their hands met again, Lorenzo’s fingers sliding in between his own, weaving underneath and squeezing him in this slow pulse.  Lorenzo himself shifted against his back.  He ran his long tongue over Ness’s shoulder as he admired his nails.  They weren’t anything special, but they were clean, now working softly on the air as Ness thought— would he be OK with this angle if Lorenzo decided to screw him like this? He would.  He’d just have to lean into this weird foreplay a little more.  He could do that.  He could very much do that if Lorenzo was going to keep nipping at his jaw hollow from behind.

Lorenzo’s lips lolled close to his ear.  He asked, in this slow, seductive voice.  “Do you like ketchup?”

Ness could not help himself.  He tried to.  He sputtered.  Finally he burst out laughing.  He laughed so hard he tasted his drinks in the back of his mouth.  He also tried to put his face in his hands, but Lorenzo beat him to it, squeezing on his cheeks until he could breathe again.  Finally, he said, “Yes.  I like ketchup.  Ketchup is not lube."

Lorenzo rolled off of him, landing on his back and gesturing NO as furiously as he could.  “I wasn’t going to use it for that! My friend in Japan told me you used to be able to pay girls to give you head with ketchup in their mouths.  Nobody does it anymore.”

That was… That was something.  Ness couldn’t decide if that something was better or worse.  “You want me to blow you with ketchup in my mouth,” he confirmed. 

“Lavinia was noooo about that.  Like I said.  Let’s be even.” There was so much hope in his voice.  But there was also a gleam of mischief that didn’t quite match.  Was he trying to be funny?

No.  Ness didn’t think so.  Lorenzo meant this.  He was laying some downright mystifying part of himself bare to ask it.  Ness could feel his magic pulling on it, just a little, like the magic had batted a spiderweb and the spiderweb clung.

Besides, glancing down— Lorenzo was… Well, Ness was not passing up on that dick.

“You know what? Let’s do it.”

Lorenzo screeched something joyous in Italian.  He bounced off the bed, beckoning.  Ness went after him, laughing again.  They slammed into each other in the doorway.  Nipping kisses followed.  Ness fingered his way up Lorenzo’s underside before settling him into his hand.  It took a little while to get him up, but he was so solid when he started to drip, all thick and juicy.  Ness’s mouth was running and his own dick sporting a half-on by the time they broke off to put down a towel.  Lorenzo retrieved the ketchup.  It had been tucked in amongst the junk food: a big squirt bottle of Zeisner Tomaten.  Ness let his mouth dribble as he knelt.  Lorenzo made that gurgling sound when he saw.  He gave himself a couple of squeezes as he presented his cock to Ness.  “You see I have no problem asking strangers for strange things.”  

“I’m that way too!” Ness told him.  It hadn’t been true for very long, but he wanted Lorenzo to know they shared that.  “You should have asked me back at the restaurant.”

“I didn’t want you to never talk to me again! Imagine, we’re on the field and you grumble, ‘There’s that asshole who asked me to suck him with ketchup,’ then give me the finger.  My ego would never recover.”

“Well, that’s not happening.  I think we’re going to meet eyes across the center field and think about ketchup in a good way.” Then  Ness he couldn’t wait.  He swayed up on his knees and he popped Lorenzo into his mouth for a couple stroking sucks.  Lorenzo’s cock felt so good, so heavy on the bed of his tongue.  He tasted on the strong side, very male and sour.  That made Ness want to suck him even more.  He had to tell himself that the sour would go well with the ketchup before he managed to pull off.  

The two of them gazed at the ketchup on the floor between them.

 “I don’t know if this will actually work,” said Ness.

“I don’t either now that you say so.” Lorenzo shrugged.  

“But we’re going to try.”  Ness nodded.  He took a big slug of ketchup.  He held it in his mouth and reached for Lorenzo’s dick.

It was his instinct to purse his lips to keep the ketchup in.  That would bare his teeth.  He tried curling his lips back.  He started to drip.  He grabbed Lorenzo and he stuck him in.  The ketchup splurted down his chin.  Lorenzo gasped.  Ness met his eyes.  Lorenzo’s were violet.  Ness somehow hadn’t realized until that moment, kneeling at his feet with his dick and a load of ketchup in his mouth.  He didn’t have the sensory space to appreciate them now.  All his brain knew was cock and ketchup.  His mouth had been overwhelmed.  He felt numb between the taste and Lorenzo’s perfect weight.  He sucked.  Ketchup went down his throat.  He swirled his tongue.  Ketchup spurted from the corner of his mouth.  He was slobbering so hard from the sweetness and the vinegar that it hurt.  He bobbed his head.  Out.  In.  Spurt.  The most ungodly gurgling purr slipped from Lorenzo.

Ness briefly went cross-eyed looking at the spack mark of ketchup and spit in Lorenzo’s pubes.  Then of course he started to laugh.  With Lorenzo’s hard-on and all that damn ketchup still in his mouth.  He managed to spit before he choked.

Thankfully, Lorenzo was laughing too.

Ness let it pass, then grabbed the bottle.  He took another swig.  He could feel it– the mess this was going to have to make.  There was no way to hold all of the ketchup and move, but moving was the only way to keep any appreciable amount of ketchup in him.  He had to let it flow and spatter with pauses to sauce up.  It did get easier after a couple more gulps and the part where Lorenzo caught onto the plan.  He put one hand in Ness’s hair, more supporting him jerking him onto his cock, though he did do that a little, hitting hard in the sweet, wet back of Ness’s mouth.  Ness snugged right up to him and spun his tongue when he had enough breath in him to do it.  The inside and the outside of his throat were both sticky.  He wasn’t just leaking through his lips, but swallowing half sips of spit-thinned ketchup.  All he smelled was Lorenzo, his cologne and his sour crotch and all the ketchup that had come down between them.  The stuff made the usual wet slap of sex so much more intense.  And the taste, it really did go well together.  It sharpened his hunger in this jaw-aching way beyond the poise Ness was having to put to his jaw to take Lorenzo.  

Even once he got going, Ness did have to pull all the way off once to catch his breath.  Again, he didn’t bother to suck anything up.  He drooled and looked up at Lorenzo, his stare ablaze as he took the biggest shot so far.  Lorenzo swore as he drove back into Ness.  The ketchup spumed out on Ness’s cheeks.  That sensation out of all the strange ones made the bottom of Ness’s back clench up.  He swayed hard into the next push.  His arms went around Lorenzo’s waist.  They squeezed each other close.  It was still thrusting, still sucking, still so much ketchup, but they went sensuously sticky about it now, all those handprints, spatter marks, trails of body fluid and red.  Ness had it down to his navel and it itched so deliciously.

There was ketchup fucking everywhere.  Ness’s lips burned from the salt more than any friction from Lorenzo.  One foamy bubble went up between them as Lorenzo started to twitch.  Ness breathed harder, dove harder.  He was moaning himself and he didn’t really have a reason.  

Lorenzo got off with a hard jab into Ness.  Rather than hanging there and having himself off, he dragged them together a few more times. Ness slipped loose and went with it.  He let the spermy ketchup squirt out of his nose.  The sensation was eye-watering, but he still wanted it once he had it.  With one last slurp he dragged himself off of Lorenzo.  And he swallowed.

He immediately started to laugh again once he had.  He doubled over at Lorenzo’s feet (that also had ketchup splattered on them) (in fact, there was ketchup on his own now-flaccid dick and it had been there for a while because it was starting to dry).

Lorenzo dropped into a crouch.  He was sweaty and sex-flushed besides covered in ketchup.  He swung his arm around Ness.  “That was so good, but are you really alright?  You look like a Mondo Cane movie!”

It took Ness a minute to answer.  He only stopped laughing because he made himself cough. “That was gross.  But it was so fun!”

“Yesss!”

“And it tasted really good in the end!”

Lorenzo made a surprised sound.

Ness closed his eyes.  He puckered up.  He could feel the film of ketchup shifting on his face.  “Yeah.  Kiss me.”

Lorenzo kissed him.  Full on this time.  He had a huge mouth and a tongue like its own living self.  His gold teeth were so smooth and not quite so sharp as human teeth.  Ness lunged at him for more.  They held on and they kissed and they stuck to each other.  It hardly mattered that they were in the middle of a ketchup murder scene on a hotel bathroom floor.  Well, it didn’t matter until Ness tried to lean back and concked his head on the toilet.  Lorenzo helpfully nudged him to the side so he could stretch out.  Under Lorenzo of course. “I should do it for you too.”

“Mm,” Ness said.  He turned his fingers through one of Lorenzo’s purple-tinted waves.  No ketchup there at all.  How novel.  “Do you think you could get it up again and fuck me?”

“Oh, yes!” came the answer.  Also another kiss before, “Maybe in the shower?”

“Shower sounds great.”

This was recently refurbished, and a walk-in with no real ledge.  The two of them floundered in.  Lorenzo elbowed the water on.  The stream down the drain ran tomato pink.

Ness had also never made out on the bottom of a hotel shower before, but there he was, pinned on the bottom of the shower by a curious and handsy Don Lorenzo.  The drinks were wearing off and the shower steam so good.  Ness managed to nudge his way up so he was sitting with his legs apart, Lorenzo between them wriggling in to kiss and to bite.  He stirred up so many suds between his hands before he took a hold of Ness.  The way he handled his cock had a slurp to it too that way.  Besides, the look on his face when Ness was up in his grasp; the way he chuckled— “Sì! Cazzo sì!” Ness had a wicked heat flush going by then and the remark only made this worse.  That, and strain from the half-on he’d lost earlier came back stinging.  He was catching his breath at the contact and Lorenzo was chanting yes at him in at least two languages.  Ness would have been fine if he’d ended it right there with a handjob.  All of a sudden though Lorenzo had squeaked his hands underneath him and grabbed his ass, both cheeks, hard.  Ness gasped— surprised, delighted, massively butthorny.  He went to grope his way onto his knees when he realized the shower had a long, heavy-duty grab bar.

So instead, he put his hands to that and braced himself as he stood, tipped over with his legs spread.  

Lorenzo gurgle-laughed as he scrambled up to join him.  “I see we’re having open legs lemonade.”

“What’s that?” Ness snickered.

“I’ll show you when we’re done.  It’s exactly the pose you’re in.  It’s so good.” He then briefly ducked out of the shower, knocking something over on his way.  He came back with bottle of Gun Oil.  Not Ness's first choice for lube, but it felt so good when Lorenzo closed his knuckles inside of him at first push.  Lorenzo had squirted some on both hands, and he put his left on Ness’s cock, stroking as he gave him a good, hard fingering.  He felt more preoccupied with feeling Ness out than stretching or even penetrating him, humming as he worked and Ness huffed under his touch.  He went up to three fingers besides, grasping and letting the lube make this sound almost as indecent as the ketchup had.  

He didn’t ask when he stuck his dick in, but he went pretty easy on the first thrust.  Then the groan he made when he bottomed out– “That’s good!” He pushed up on his toes, riding Ness down as he started to move.

Ness had already been a gasping wreck by the time Lorenzo hit into him.  He was moaning after a few jolts.  He hadn’t been this full in… But that didn’t matter.  Now mattered.  Now he was feverishly turned on.  Lorenzo’s sheer weight inside of him was more than enough to get him hungry for more.  But then Lorenzo had his own way of thrusting.  He was all liquid about his movements.  Where most men pistoned or brought down there was this squirm to Lorenzo’s movements.  He and Ness fit tighter or looser.  Skin slithered over his rather than beat down.  Because of this Ness was never quite free of his cock.  It was always in him and it was always moving, always driving him that little bit down and against the nerves that felt so, so good.

Ness’s mouth was running again.  His knees were locked but trying to shudder.  His fists worked and Lorenzo was on him, telling him he was a sweet fuck, okay? C’mon.  We’re better than even now, Ness.  You should come before you get hoarse.

Ness was verging on that sometimes on the down shift.  He felt that particular swell in his sex that he could be coming close.  It rose and bled off a few times, and it left him wanting to scream when it stopped.  Frustration squeezed on him the same as Lorenzo’s hands on his hips.  He started to say that he needed more as if there could be more.  Lorenzo was hilted in him.  But Lorenzo was also saying, “You’re dripping everywhere,” as he slid one hand to clasp Ness’s cock.  A shudder ripped through Ness.  Lorenzo had him both ways now, the strokes beating fore and back, Ness squealing beneath him because it was that or sob.  He was leaking tears somewhere under the spray and Lorenzo gave him such a silky squeeze.  Ness snapped in his hands.  He felt like he’d had the wind knocked out of him, but in its place was pure, electric sensation.  He clenched and he spurted so hard his dick thumped.  Lorenzo pumped him, swearing and laughing as he pushed into him and finally broke into a growl as Ness’s orgasm was dying down.

Ness let him finish, and then held him in his body for a little while longer while they caught their breath.

There was more soap after that.  It took so much to get the Gun Oil off.  They were trading kisses while they tried.  

They lay on the bed together after, watching videos of tourists spilling fizzy lemonade all over themselves.  They did this while naked and eating hot pepperoni potato chips.  The sushi hadn’t filled either of them up.  Ness’s insides still throbbed with stretched out pleasure.  Lorenzo had his one clean hand in Ness’s hair, fussing with his curls as they dried and popped back up.  

Ness hated to tell him, but he had to eventually.  “I should get back.  We’re training tomorrow, I guess.”  

“I know,” Lorenzo answered.  He licked off his fingers, then rolled over against Ness.  He put his arms around him and he kissed him on the cheek.  “Where do you want it?” He then broke for a moment to take a swig of the suicide soda he’d made, swishing it around in his mouth before he swallowed.  Well, a fizzy bite was better than a crumby bite.

“Here.” Ness pointed to the crook of his left shoulder, the opposite side from where Kaiser liked to bite him.

Lorenzo didn’t move right away.  He had a couple heavy breaths, not quite sighs.  They were wetter, sweeter than that.  Still he was grinning when he finally pulled himself up.  “You must be so jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.  I don’t want to be that girl.  I’m happy she’s having fun.  But I wanted Kaiser tonight.”

“His loss.  You should slap him, okay.  I know that’s a girl thing and you’re definitely not a girl.”

Lorenzo bit him. 

The pain made his vision white out at the edges.

It was exquisite.

Chapter Text

Kaiser got back to the complex at 1:46AM.  He had barely showered and his hair was everywhere.  There was brown blood under his left nostril that he somehow hadn’t swiped off.  

Ness waited until he’d shut the door, then slapped him as hard as he could.  He had this blinding instant where he knew.  This was why Mother always looked like she’d been running after she hit Father.  The exhilaration was so absolutely good. 

Kaiser reeled to the side.  He caught himself on the wall.  Then he rounded on Ness.  He kicked his legs out from under him.  

Ness scrambled on nothing.  He hit the bedroll.  The ceiling spun above him.

Kaiser was on him in another heartbeat, his weight and the rage in his eyes and the tangle of girl smell riding his sweat.  He bared his teeth and snarled as his hands snapped in Ness’s shirt.  “You’re not stupid! Why do you keep acting like you’re stupid?” His voice was a low growl.

The sensation of it reverberating in his own chest made Ness even angrier.  “You jerkoff.  You didn’t tell me this was how it worked.”

“You couldn’t figure it out? You’re mine.  Maybe I wanted some cunt tonight.  I’ll come back.”

“You couldn’t say two words to me?”

“Why?”

“We never talked about seeing other people!”

“You’re mine.  It’s not hard.  Stop making it hard.”

“It is hard!” Ness’s voice broke.  There were tears, cold on his flushed face.  He choked on a sob.  He barely knew what he was saying.  “As far as I know you were monogamous with Da–…”

“Leave him out of this you pathetic piece of shit!” That was not whispered.

Ness jumped.

Kaiser pulled back his fist.  But then he just— froze.  He was all raven eyes and short, panting breaths.  His nose had started bleeding.  Again, probably.

Ness would have been still too, but he was crying too hard.  He could hardly see.  He managed to get one hand up.  Shakily, he brought it against Kaiser’s cheek, unsure if he was trying to caress him or smack him again.

At the touch, Kaiser slumped over.  

Ness didn’t think he was breathing or even blinking.  Just bleeding.

Was he seizing? Ness tried to remember if Kaiser had been hit on the head earlier, but he couldn’t get his thoughts out of the present.  He was chanting no, no, no as he scooped him into his arms, as he nuzzled his bloody face and stroked his hair.  As he cried all over him.  

Kaiser felt like he surged in his grasp, once, twice.  Then he stirred, pushing Ness’s fingers away from him.  He tried to suck a sigh but ended up coughing, swiping at his face, looking down at the red on his fingers.  He said something like not again himself.  Another shudder passed over him.  He tried to curl up.  Ness was in the way, so he did that into him.  

Ness held him and he cried.  He told him he was sorry every time his mouth would make the words.  He was still so hot furious with him, but he shouldn’t have hurt him.  Not like that.  Not like this.

Michael Kaiser was hiding in his arms and Michael Kaiser was an asshole, but… 

But nothing.  That’s where they’d landed.  

He’d hit him.

He took another shot of anguish so strong it made him gag.

Kaiser slid his arms around him.

They lay like that for a long while.  Ness’s heart pounded and his face ached.  He could smell Kaiser’s nosebleed.  It was probably all over them both and the tatami and everything .

Ness ended up tilting Kaiser’s chin out of his shirt.  He wanted to give him a look.  Make sure he was OK.  He probably should have done that before.  The nosebleed was out of nowhere that he knew of.

It was also dying down now.  Kaiser sucked at his slick lip.  Their eyes met and he said, “I wanted to see what you’d do.”

“What did you think I’d do?” Ness sobbed.  He pulled the hem of his shirt out of his pants and dabbed at Kaiser’s face.  The thing already needed a hard dry clean.  What did a little more blood mean? “You walked away from me.  We should have been celebrating together, but you left.”

“So you sat in a corner and drank yourself into a rage.  Now, you’re crying about it.”

“Half right.”

“Don’t tell me you hooked up with Lorenzo.”

The anger snapped back into his throat.  Ness was already fumbling around with his shirt.  Unbuttoning the thing to show Kaiser the bite came naturally.  The bite was still red and it was going to bruise like hell.

Kaiser glanced at it, faced him again.  “You weren’t kidding.  You really are a slut.”

“Same to you.”

“Then what are we even fighting about?”

Ness blinked another surge of tears out of his eyes.  He spoke calmly once they’d dripped away.  “You left, I hit you, you called me names.” That was really all it was in the end and from some cold point of distance.  That was all, but it was so much.  The immensity had him quaking inside and he was still so mad .  “Please don’t hit me back.  Please.”

“You’d leave if I did that.” Kaiser snorted.  “I’d have hit the wall, not you.”

Ness whimpered.  He didn’t believe him.  He didn’t.  He didn’t believe Michael Kaiser would have punched the wall and not him.

But he’d hit him first.  And he’d meant it.

Ness squeezed Kaiser.  He tried to push magic into him like that would somehow fix this.  There was nowhere in Kaiser for the magic to go, so it bled out of Ness and lay like mist around them on the floor.  It ached as surely as every inch of Ness’s body.  He hated this, hated what they were to each other now.

But he didn’t, he wouldn’t, let go of Kaiser.

Who was talking again, low and light, there somewhere in the tangle of his shirt.  “My poor, sad little puppy.  Getting all worked up about nothing.  I’d never chain you to just me.  That’s cruel.  You have to trust me that I’ll come back.” He hummed.  “You have such a big heart, but there’s not a lot of that in it— trust.”

Ness knew this was true.  The fact stuck in him like a splinter.  “I’m not in the mood for this.  Just stop.”

Kaiser shrugged.  He rubbed up against him, his smeary cheek on Ness’s belly, then his chest.  He didn’t feel content as he rested there.  He felt like he was waiting, testing, trying.  Kaiser had to uncover every boundary and then kick them to see if they’d give.  He barely seemed to have a margin for his own body where he cuddled up so close.  His hands started to rove.  

Ness wanted to shove him off, but the night was so fragile around them with the magic spilled.  He’d never been as angry as Kaiser made him, but he’d also never been in love with someone the way he was with Kaiser.

Shit.

He… 

Ness felt like he’d lost all weight as it dawned on him.

He was, wasn’t he?

He was in love with Michael Kaiser.  He had been this whole time.  It wasn’t just the physical devotion they were sharing, it wasn’t just the quest to try and help him.

He was in love with him and this was what it had taken him to realize.

Ness verged on crying again.  He swallowed the sobs and so many words.  This was stupid.  This was all so stupid of him.  How had he not let himself know? 

That was about when Kaiser nudged him onto his back.  He swayed between Ness’s knees, bringing himself up until he could whisper into his mouth.  “You’re still worked up.  You’ll never get any sleep like this.  I need to put you somewhere else so you can rest.”

“Kaiser, stop,” Ness pressed.  “Not while you’re still mad at me.” Though he’d wanted to say, maybe meant to say not while I’m still mad at you .  Because he was somewhere smashed up with everything else he felt.   

Kaiser kissed him.  “That’s over.” His tongue trailed over Ness’s wet cheeks.  He took a lick of the tear stains.  “I’ll do all the work.  You relax.”

Relaxing had nothing to do with any of this.  Not with Kaiser taking the lead.  Ness whimpered again.  Kaiser started on the other cheek, tangling up to meet the last few tears that leaked out of him.

Ness wanted him so bad.  It didn’t matter if it was in the wake of something so wretched.  He could still do some magic.  He could still have whatever small piece of himself Kaiser shared when they were screwed up together.  Like they would be soon, Ness guessed and that still thrilled him straight through to the crotch of his heart.

Kaiser licked his lips.  He pushed up on his hands. 

Ness met his eyes and finished unbuttoning his bloody shirt.  

Kaiser let him do that much, then pushed his hands inside, stroking all over Ness’s chest and up to the mix of wounds on his shoulders.  Those twinged as his touch passed over.  Ness made a sound in the back of his throat.  He let his back arch and his hands droop to his sides.  Kaiser’s mouth settled on him again, his shoulder this time, then the juncture where Lorenzo had bitten him.  He knew Kaiser would bite him there too.  He did.  The hot lick of pain made Ness’s fingers twitch.  There was only a sound from him after Kaiser had let go of him, one of relief.  

Then Kaiser took his shoes and his pants.  He turned the bedroll out.  Ness climbed in.  He sighed so hard his chest hurt.  Kaiser made himself naked and crawled up beside him.  He stuck his hand down Ness’s shorts, started to ply him, started to kiss Ness’s neck.  Kaiser’s skin against Ness left this pure, quivering sensation.  Ness wanted to give in to him.  Give Kaiser everything and slip back into his own love for the other boy, to hang there with him without any past or future, without any complications.  

That their whole relationship had been a string of complications from the start caught Ness on one of the hard strokes Kaiser put to him.  But he’d promised himself.  But he’d said he would.  But he loved him and… They were kissing.  Not that Kaiser had kissed him.  The kiss was in Ness’s mouth first.  He loved Kaiser and he drank him in, Kaiser’s blond hair falling into his face.  Kaiser made some low, soft sound of interest; kissed him back and held him tight in a fist.  Kaiser’s mouth tasted of Lavinia_XOXO’s flowers.  

Then the fingers he’d had on Ness’s dick slipped lightly away.  Ness felt them again on his wrist, felt Kaiser guiding him to his cock.  Kaiser was striking hard, his foreskin soft and wet and slid back.  Ness held him tightly, dealing one slide and then another.  His own breathing came heavy and slow, like all the sobs had drawn the will to do it out of him.  

Kaiser seemed to notice.  He made a thoughtful inspection of Ness’s lips, then wove his hand into his bangs to tilt his head back.  Ness choked a little, but he asked, “Let me watch you stretch yourself out.” The words bubbled in his slippery throat.

“OK…” Kaiser sounded hesitant.  

Ness thought he might not do it, thought he might slip away again and somehow.  Instead, Kaiser held Ness on his cock for a while longer, until he was leaking on Ness’s hand.  Then he pushed himself upright on the side of the bedroll.  He shook his head and kneed his way to the nightstand where he kept the Vaseline.  He brought the whole jar with him, setting it aside on the tatami.  Finally, he straddled Ness, his stocking feet tucked under Ness’s armpits.  He bent over against him.  His whole underside flexed on Ness as showed himself off, just how he was, all damp and day-worn and hairless. 

His fingers went in the Vaseline and he brought them up under himself, leaning off of Ness to do it.  The angle didn’t seem comfortable, but it was the one Ness knew he favored.  It lent itself to showing off now.  Kaiser went slow up his taint and started to stroke at his hole.  He dabbed himself slippery, but there was no more delay after.  If he did it himself, he did it this way— the barest stretch once he was slick and then he’d push two fingers in.  Ness usually only heard this part.  Seeing Kaiser’s muscles give way and pink on the strain made Ness’s mouth go dry before it started to run again.  Kaiser sucked and shuddered at the sudden weight against his insides.  He also kept going, sliding in and out with low clenches on his fingertips.  It looked like it ached, doing it this way; looked rough even though he went so slow, waiting for his skin to settle before he drew his hand deep.  He might have been playing it up, but Kaiser’s breath caught as his fingers moved inside of himself.  He moaned too as he turned back to Ness and then his eyes .  They were fragments of color in his lust.

Ness closed his hands on Kaiser’s thighs.  “Show me,” he said.

There was no argument.  Kaiser got more Vaseline.  He put that into himself and scissored his fingers.  He was all sloppy with lube and viscera red.  The shadows inside of him shifted as he breathed, and on another sigh, he clenched.

Part of Ness couldn’t believe he’d been sticking himself in something so vulnerable-looking, but then he had his fingers there, pressed in beside Kaiser’s.

Kaiser hissed.  He dipped forward as Ness fingered him, curved his hand to hold him by the sensitive pulp towards his front.  He gave a shudder on one tight squeeze, then another.  Ness held him and then let go.

Kaiser sank over him.  He grabbed Ness’s cock with his slippery hand, held himself open with the other, letting his hole settle onto Ness’s tip like that.  He screwed softly from one side to the other as he sank down.  He didn’t drop himself this time, but bobbed against Ness before he finally settled onto his open lap, speared and flexing and huffing out the pressure in him now.  A bead of sweat ran down his spine.

Ness lunged after it.  Kaiser was just lifting his hips.  Ness jabbed up along with him as he moved.  There was a sharp sound.  Kaiser roiled inside as he took Ness’s cock inside of him and Ness’s tongue on his back and finally Ness swaying up to clutch him close.  There were whispers of protest, words tangled on Kaiser’s kissed-out mouth.  He flexed and he moaned— “I was gonna…” In this shaky voice Ness only knew from a few snatches over the past few weeks.  

The sex had cut deep already.  Kaiser writhed on Ness’s lap.  He went up in quick arcs then came in slow, angles shifting between them with the greasy sounds the lube made.  

Ness chased him when he could.  He had started leaking tears again when their bodies met.  Kaiser could probably feel them on his neck when Ness rubbed against him and his rose tattoo.  Kaiser didn’t say anything about that though.  He was gagging on his moans, straining where he knelt.  So Ness took handfuls of him, like Kaiser so often did of him.  Held his chest, squeezed his thighs.  Cradled him with his own heart pressed against his back.  Kaiser was already blown out in his arms, jerking back where the thrusts between them caught him.  The chants flowed out of him.  “Oh, God, Ness.  Oh, God.”

Ness licked his neck.  He bit the shell of his ear.  Kaiser squirmed and sang out, tipping forward in one instant to maybe try and bare himself.  Ness pulled him back, held him tight this time.  He brought one of his legs under himself while Kaiser begged him for more, and then the other.  He shoved upwards.  

Kaiser was hung up on him.  All of his weight was holding him down on Ness’s dick.  Ness paused again when he realized.  That would be a lot– pressure, sensation, need.

But it wasn’t more than Kaiser could take.  Ness grabbed Kaiser’s cock and pushed again.  Kaiser’s whole body surged between each point of stimulation.  A growl shook him, then he was panting and trying to crane over his shoulder.

Ness got one good look of what a wreck he was, his whole expression dripping pleasure despite this one glance of uncertainty.

Maybe it was because of Ness’s wet eyes.  Maybe he felt… Something too.  Something just beyond the margins of the two of them fucking on their bloody tatami.

But then Kaiser squeezed on him.  That was deliberate.

Ness thought: I love you and I wish , the wish being dashed on the words that should have made it.  It was more of an I want you there in the end.  Ness clutched, once more.  He grabbed Kaiser’s dick and he pumped him hard as the two of them slammed together.  There was one long undone noise from Kaiser.  Ness wrung the orgasm out of him.  There was spunk on the wall by the time Kaiser slumped into his arms.  He was still moaning.  His own words came out ‘don’t stop’, so Ness didn’t.  He had himself out on the post-coital soup that Kaiser was, coming between his thighs so the sperm didn’t drain out of him over what was left of the night.

They collapsed after that.  Kaiser lay halfway on top of Ness, his legs twitching.  He stretched and he groaned.  Ness finally caught his breath.  The tears stopped for good a little while after.  He stared at the hair towel Kaiser had left over the back of the desk chair for a long few minutes before he moved to grab it.

The two of them mopped up.  Sort of.  Ness was still leaking snot.  Kaiser had a red mark on his cheek from where Ness had hit him.  He let Ness kiss him there, but pinched Ness one more time on his fresh bite when he did.

They ended up spooned, Ness squeezing Kaiser’s glittering back to his chest.  His scars looked like sequins in the oblique light.  

Ness was tired.  Plain worn out tired.  He was going to sleep, he knew, but it was going to be an empty sort of sleep.  No dreams, no newness in the morning.  He confessed, a little.  “I've never had a fight like that before.”

“And you never will again.” Kaiser sighed.  “You didn't like that at all, huh?”

“Who likes fighting?”

“I do.  It's good to let it out, you know?”

Ness did not know this.  He felt low and stupid and very in love.  It was a terrible mix.

“But, if you're not interested, I'll do it with somebody else.”

“Tell me next time there’s somebody else.” He was slurring a little, Ness realized.  “I don’t… I won’t mind if you tell me first.”

“Don’t cry again,” Kaiser said.  His voice was impossibly smooth.  “I will .  You’re mine and it’s OK, Ness.”

Ness nodded.  He felt so utterly empty there as the magic roiled and spumed against the floor.  As it started, finally, to dissolve.  

#

They got their lessons the next morning.  All of the Sightseeing Invitational were hungover and most of them didn’t have anything prepared.  So, they winged it.  

Kaiser and De La Fontaine had gotten into at least two screaming matches they’d subsequently laughed off.  They were going for a third, maybe a fourth.  Fritz and Max played two-on-two with a pair of midbacks.  Gesner sat at French Mensah’s feet, reverent and sunburned.

Ness and Snaffi roamed the field, dribbling and passing and stealing from one another.  Snaffi did most of the talking, lightly correcting Ness’s posture or asking ‘why are you hopping’, things like that.  

By and by, he said,  “If you don’t mind me saying so, you seem like you’re too nice to play on Bastard München.”

“Maybe, but it’s where I want to be,” Ness answered.  He tried to take the ball off of Snaffi.  Snaffi kept it for the time being.

“Hah.  Anyway, When we get done here, let me make sure you have my number in case you change your mind.”

“Your number?” It was the only truly earth-shattering thing Ness had heard so far this morning.

“My number.  Keeping in mind I have three cell phones.”

“I understand~ And umm, thank you!”

“Nah, don’t thank me ‘till you’re really sick of Noa and… the other guys? Aust? Sander?”

Ness chuckled.  “Sander and his firing squad.”

“Yeah, that guy.  You see what I mean?”

“Maybe~” 

Besides.

You don’t know that I hit somebody I love last night.

Or that part of me thinks I should have done it harder.

Like that would knock the secret out of Kaiser’s head. 

I know it won’t.  I know, but… 

For a brief moment, Snaffi looked at him like he might have been able to know it, the magic riding beside him in Ness, tugging him closer.  But Snaffi wasn’t magic.  Not even a little.  

Nonetheless, he said, “Do you smell raw meat and undergrowth, or is it just me?”

Ness’s eyebrows quirked.  He laughed though and he answered, “It’s not just you.” Then he smiled like nothing was wrong.

Chapter Text

TechnoPussy: hey whatchu think about franken fran?? still too guro 4 u?

WizardInGloves: Sorry.  I didn’t get any reading done last night.

TechnoPussy: its cool u had a match i guess??

WizardInGloves: Sort of.  

TechnoPussy: ur so evasive cmon what happened??? 

WizardInGloves: I got in a fight with K.

TechnoPussy: wat???

WizardInGloves: Yeah.  It was messy.

TechnoPussy: no srsly wat hes talking up ur dick game like a lot

WizardInGloves: Really?

TechnoPussy: hes still fuckin doin it fam
oooooo
ooooooooo i get it
MAKEUP SEX!!!

WizardInGloves: I guess that’s what it was.  But I feel really bad.  I don’t know what to do.

TechnoPussy: whats to fix bro hes fine i can tell these things (￣▼￣)
go lick his dick itll make u feel better
hugs
my hand accidentally touchin dat ass oops lol

#

The blood didn’t want to come out of the tatami.  Ness spent lunch break of the next day kneeling by the stain, furiously trying to look up what to do so they didn’t have a big, brown welt in the middle of where they slept.  

When Kaiser found him, he casually leaned over and spat on the mark.

“Try it now,” he said to Ness’s quiet horror.  

The stain started to lighten just from the saliva sitting on it while Ness hesitated.  Then, he scrubbed, lightly, with the grain.  

Kaiser had to spit a few more times to get the mark most of the way out.  They were going to have to stop for a while and let the fibers dry.  They could be wet, but not that wet.

“Fastest way to get blood out— spit of the person who did the bleeding,” Kaiser sighed, leaning back against the wall.  “What’s your magic got to say about that?”

“That’s not magic.  That’s chemistry,” Ness mumbled.  He had slid from frustration with the stain to some clenching concern about Kaiser.  “Where’d you learn that?” he managed to ask.  He was on the verge of choking up and he hardly knew why.

“Somebody told me one time when I was at a laundromat.”

“What were you washing?” The space beneath Ness’s tongue quivered as he asked.

“My clothes.  That wasn’t my first nosebleed.” Kaiser leaned back, craning his neck and stretching.  He laughed a little too.  

It left such a sinking feeling all through him, but Ness didn’t say anything more about it.  He didn’t have the strength.  “We should probably wash the sheets too.”

They decided to have the bedding dry cleaned, special order because of the fine cotton.  Ness paid for it and Kaiser didn’t argue.  They slept together on the bare tatami under Ness’s coverlet that night, both of them restless and staring at each other across the gloom by certain turns of the hour.

“What are you thinking about?” Ness asked around two in the morning.

“Thinking about going to sleep,” Kaiser murmured back.  “What else?”

“I don’t know.  Us?”

Kaiser slid his hand under his chin.  He took him softly there and kissed him almost the same.  “You’re mine.  That hasn’t changed.  Now close your eyes.”

Ness did and then it was morning.

The thing was— washing the sheets worked.  The bed felt like it was theirs again after.  The easy creativity Ness found when it came to Kaiser’s body returned to him on the first clean night.  Kaiser got off in gasps, they both did, and then Kaiser drooled on Ness when he slept.

He was so beautiful and he made Ness so sad.  He made him happy too by other turns of his strange existence, but it felt different now, like the light between them had shifted into another season.  

Everybody still had problems.  Theirs was violence.  Kaiser’s especially.  Ness knew that now as surely as he breathed.  He wanted to say something, wanted to pull it out of Kaiser with more blood if that was what it took.  So, he fucked him.  And it was actually so good, like they’d scramble up to paradise from the wan physicality of Munich and other people.

#

Getting called into Noa’s office after hours again left Ness’s head spinning.  What had they done now? Had somebody complained about the shouting? It seemed a little late for that, but the mood in Noa’s office was so somber.  

Seven of them crammed into the space: Kaiser, Ness, the three coaches, somebody from corporate and the monstera.  It was late and hot again, but everyone had showed up dressed this time, though Ness wore shorts and Kaiser didn’t have his shoes.

“We’ve been discussing who to designate team captain,” said Noa.  

Sander looked away from him, towards the almost window.  His mouth moved, but there was no sound, only angry flexing.  

“So, it’s not Mensah this year?” asked Kaiser, meeting his eyes.  “What’d he do to get on your bad side?”

“Nothing.  The team’s dynamic has shifted since that decision was made.” Noa almost shrugged about that.  “As much as I appreciate his work last season, things need to change.”

Ness’s toes squirmed in his slippers.  He clenched the side of his chair.  His attention swung between Kaiser all gloriously loose in his tracksuit repose and Noa watching Kaiser steadily back.  They seemed like they were daring each other to say something before their implications spilled all over everything.  

“Did you tell him already, or do I get to do the honor?” Kaiser asked again.

“He stepped down voluntarily this morning.”

“Damn.”

“Your dad should have beat that shitty attitude out of you,” Sander was so angry he’d started to sing-song in an effort to hold his tone, or maybe not to shout.  

Ness froze.

Noa’s eyes went slightly wider.  He glanced towards Sander.

Kaiser’s grin turned to a closed-eyed sweet as he said back, “That’s not very nice.”

“And that’s rich coming from you.  Everything we’ve given you and this is how you act?”

“You mostly give me runs around the block.  Am I going to get one more tonight?”

“You know what? I’m gonna…”

Aust cleared his throat, side-eyeing Sander as he did.  “That’s enough.  Let’s say what we came here to say and call it a night.”

Kaiser pretended to pout.  “No celebratory drinks on corporate?”

The woman from corporate said nothing.  

“A-anyway.  Ness, if you’ll agree, we think you’d make a fine team captain for this season.”

Ness might have been sitting down, but he still almost fell out of his chair.

“You’re up front, you have a knack for pulling the team together.  Marketing loves your nickname.  Says we can spin it like you do magic and spells if we want.  Another enchantment for the magician.  Stuff like that.”

“It’s so dumb,” Sander muttered.

Ness burst out laughing.  He laughed so hard he had to hold himself up on his knees.  None of this hid the happy tears gushing down his face.  He hadn’t laughed at all in a few days.  Doing it now smarted.  The tears still came easily enough.

So did Kaiser’s hand on his back, smacking.  “Say something, loser.  You just got your trophy-touching privileges and this is how you fucking act?”

Ness fought himself and looked up, expecting to see Kaiser gleaming with rage.  But no, there was only half a scowl and another smack and his own cough.  Ness finally managed to blurt out, “Sure!”

He didn’t say anything about the irony, that he was magic, that all his little quips about spells were true, true down to his bones.  Instead, he threw his arms around Kaiser when Noa said he’d be co-captain.  Kaiser still drifted there when Sander stormed out of the room.  It left the remaining humans sipping Echte Kroatzebeere out of sherry glasses left over from the beefsteak dinner since apparently Echte Kroatzebeere was what Noa had in his desk.  It didn’t last too long.  No reason to draw things out when they were all tired and listening to Sander muttering to himself through the wall.  Noa touched Ness and Kaiser each on the shoulder, lightly about it with Ness, and sent them out for the evening.

The rest of the team was waiting in the cafeteria, most of them in pajamas, all of them in some state of casual complacency.  “We only found out like thirty minutes before you did,” said Fritz.  

“It was kind of a given, but, you know,” Max added.  

Grim simply tilted his head.  He said it softly himself, “Aye-aye, captains.”

Then that was everybody cheering the same.  Somebody sent off Christmas crackers and then, then came the beer.

It turned into an awfully intimate celebration for Bastard München as a team.  This fact touched Ness more than some wild jaunt to a club or any cake-smashing nonsense they could have done.  He and Kaiser sat on a table and basked while everybody drank around them.  The whole team stirred together in the magic.  They were the people he’d come to know, all so beautiful and a little bit rotten.  Because and again: everyone had problems.  Every single body in the world.  

Mensah was the one who said it, oddly enough, “You should kiss.”

That brought Kaiser out of his daze.  He’d been staring at his untouched beer glass for a while.  Now he looked at Ness.  He had the most enigmatic curl to his lips.  Then he set the beer aside and those lips were on Ness’s.

This wasn’t like the kiss back at the entrée scrimmage done over again for their audience.  This was how Kaiser kissed him when they were alone.  Ness squeaked, but he pressed back.  The rest of the team roared around them.

#

WizardInGloves: Guess what!

YourMouthInSpace: Mmmm you left Mihya for Gesner?

WizardInGloves: I told you we made up @_@.

YourMouthInSpace: You also told me to guess, so I guessed, okay?

WizardInGloves: I walked right into that one.  You're really hung up on that.  I’m sorry.

YourMouthInSpace: IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT, but tell me what happened I’m dying of wanting to know.

WizardInGloves: I’m team captain!! 

YourMouthInSpace: YOU ARE? SI FICO! Congratulazioni! Sorry for the Italian, but the German is not quite what I want to say.

WizardInGloves: I got congratulated in Italian.  My life is complete.  And THANK YOU.

YourMouthInSpace: Of course <3! I assume Mihya is co-captain.

WizardInGloves: He is!

YourMouthInSpace: You send him a regular congratulations then.  He’s not so bad at football.  He probably deserves it.

WizardInGloves: I’ll do that.

YourMouthInSpace: I meant very much what I said.  For both of you. 
So anyway it’s going to be strange to see the two of you kissing on the field knowing what I do.  I mean that in a good way.

#

It was just the two of them in one of the screening rooms.  They were going over some plays from earlier in the morning.  They seldom had critical remarks.  Ness supposed they sounded more like people watching home movies together, not that he’d ever done that.  It was all things like, “I bet you could do that from even further back” or “how’d you even get your foot in there?” maybe even “that looks way too much like your fuck me face”.  

They never talked about any thoughts they’d had out on the field.  They  already knew.  Those were strung intimately between them on the magic and did not need to be spoken aloud.  

That evening, Kaiser even told him: “You’re so good.  Look at that.  Just look at it! Shit.”

Ness smiled in the greenish glow from the screens.

There was a knock at the door.  “Can I come in or are you making out or something?” asked Ali.

“Like we'd do that in here,” Kaiser sneered.

Ali let himself in.  He stepped to the place in the middle of the room where Kaiser had plopped himself on three whole chairs: one for his ass, and one for each of his feet.  Ness sat beside him on a singular chair.  As Ali approached, Kaiser slung his tattooed hand into Ness’s lap.  He jerked off the air above his fly.

Ali started to say something, but realized he’d been had pretty quick.

Kaiser grinned at him.  So did Ness.  

“Haha, very funny.  We're headed to the Palm.  You want in?”

“Sure.  We need to change clothes.” 

“That's why we asked you first.  Somebody here can’t go anyplace without his eyeliner and five-hundred euro shirts.”

“I can’t, actually.  I’ll wither up and die.  It’s tragic.”

“I’m wearing a t-shirt,” said Ness.

“And a button down.” Kaiser challenged him. “What if you catch a cold and we both die horribly?”

Ali sighed.  “You two are so much drama.” He then removed himself from said drama.

So, they dressed.  Kaiser chose a suit jacket and jeans like he usually did for bar-crawling.  He gave himself black cat eyes for the evening and a little bit of lip stain.  Ness let Kaiser powder his nose.  He took plain of everything else— jeans, t-shirt, pale purple button down hanging open and loose on his shoulders.  It made him look narrower than he actually happened to be but maybe that was the point. 

They reached the lobby in about fifteen minutes.  A couple of words, a nod from Ali and the team set off.  It wasn’t as humid out as it had been, but still sticky-warm above the pavement.  There were people everywhere, fanning themselves as they waited for their friends or clasping on sweaty glasses.  A handful recognized the procession of Bastards and took pictures.  One leaned out of a stopped car to do it.  Some of the team— Grim, Max, Fritz –played up to the audience.  Kaiser did not.  He looked straight ahead and he basked.  Ness watched him and not where he was going.  He knew this stretch of sidewalk well enough.

Kaiser maneuvered himself and Ness up the line until they were walking behind Ali.  “So, what’s the excuse?” he asked.

“It’s nice out and we want drinks,” Ali responded.  He then paused, “And it’s not long ‘till the season starts, Noa abandons us, all that good shit.” 

“I don’t think I’ve heard you say ‘shit’ before.”

“I’m matching your energy.”

“Finally.”

“You’re such a prick.” They paused, swatting at each other with grins on their faces.  Ness let them have it.  He looked away, pretending like he wasn’t involved even as he hovered at Kaiser’s side. 

He looked away and saw Falk across the street. 

Their eyes met.  It was only an instant.  Ness swept any recognition from the fine details of his expression.  He did not think fuck, that’s Falk and cower.  He walked when Kaiser started off again.  He looked forward and nowhere else.

Kaiser had picked up that something wasn’t right.  His back was straight and stiff where before he’d been slouching.  He lifted his face and he sniffed the night air.

Ness thought of grabbing his hand to show he could.  But Kaiser was sharp now, primed, ready.  The perfume in his body heat whiffed faintly of firecrackers.  

Kaiser was the one who glanced back.  

Some of the rest of the team followed his attention.  Fritz punched Max in the arm.  They walked faster, but they never lost the thread of their conversation (kill count, the night before last, that one guy blasting Rob Zombie on mic).  Ness realized they had come up to wing him.  

Car horns and tire screeches followed.  Somebody shouted, “The hell’s wrong with you!?” In the ebb of traffic sound: footsteps on the roadway.  And then— “Alexis!”

Ness made no acknowledgement.  He thought again of Kaiser’s hand.  He still did not reach.  

“Alexis, can you at least look at me? I’ve been looking at you the last two nights.  You know what you did to Noa’s little superstar team was fucking amazing.  I can’t get it out of my head.”

Ness kept walking.  They all kept walking.  There was the sound Ndaiye made when he stuck his tongue out.  Sachs intruded on the Call of Duty conversation with how much he hated Rob Zombie.  

“C’mon, man.  We gotta talk this out.  You know what you did.”

“I don't.” The words slipped out of him before he could catch them.

Bastard München took it as their cue.  They tided to Falk and trash-talked in turn.  

Ali started.  “Seriously, piss off.  He's not into you.”

“Yeah, you changed the locks on him.  Dick move,” said Gesner, grinning so hard and so hostile about it his eyes pinched closed.  

Then Mensah slid in with, “Personally, I’d have called the cops.”

“Maybe we should do that now,” suggested Fritz.

Max backed him up, chuckling.  “I don’t think we need to.  Yet.”  

Kaiser rounded on Falk.  Like always, he finished things off.  “He’s mine.  I’m not giving him back.”

He and Falk stood a meter apart on the sidewalk. Falk was a little smaller than Kaiser in all possible ways: his body and his presence.  He was also the image of a healthy, blond German boy, almost impossibly charming even though he kept his hair short so it wouldn’t curl.  He shimmered with streaks of golden body hair, barely darker than his skin.  There were patches black as bruises under his eyes that night. 

Traffic skimmed again beside them, slower than it should have been.

“Like I want anything from you.  Stay out of this.” Falk made to take a step towards Ness.

Ness ducked behind Kaiser.  He met Falk’s eyes again.  He knew Falk’s hurt and still reflected no sympathy.

“Because he’s mine,” Kaiser snickered.  “Or, I mean, you could argue he’s ours, but that ends even worse for you, doesn’t it?” Bastard München affirmed this with whistles and yeahs and fists smacking open palms.  

“Where do you get off saying that shit?” demanded Falk.

“Usually with him.” Kaiser laughed.  “He’s so good.  Where’d you get off serving him vanilla for a year?” He stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned forward as he asked.  There was a certain amount of twittering I knew it in the crowd, but no one’s attention broke.  

Falk’s attention screwed tight on Kaiser, then shot to Ness.  “You’re letting his smarmy rich kid do kinky stuff to you and you just met ?”

It had been weeks now.  Long enough for them to work on the sex and fight about the rest.  Ness still didn’t say anything, but his right hand squeezed tight.

“Rich kid?” sneered Kaiser.  “The absolute fuck.  Is that even an insult?”

“Says the buttboy wearing a Gucci jacket.”

Kaiser removed his very expensive, hand-tailored, definitely not Gucci jacket and threw it at Max.  “That is such a weird flex.  But go on.  Tell me more about your insecurities.  I love this shit.”

Falk tried to side-step him, get Ness’s attention.  “You left me for this clown?”

”Falk, stop,” said Ness.  “This is stupid.  I’m not in love with you anymore.”

“Well, maybe that’s not true for me.  Look, I was… spiral searching or doomscrolling or whatever you call it.  I read some shitty things about your thing, about this club… about Ray Dark and Noa.” He might have been begging, but he sounded insincere about it; sounded exhausted more than anything; smelled like Rumple Minze.

Kaiser had sniffed it out too.  His nose twitched.  

The team, meanwhile, wasn’t having any of Falk. 

“Don’t diss our favorite coach!”

“Yeah, we don’t take that!”

“You wouldn’t say that to his face, pussy!”

Falk pressed on.   His gaze was wide and twitchy.  “I made a mistake.  I realize that now.  We need to…”

“I didn’t.” Ness told him.  “Stop.”

“You’re going to give me a chance.”

“You cut the crotch out of my favorite pants and you suck in bed.  Get away from me.” There was still no anger in his own voice.  Ness had none of that for Falk, or anything Falk had chosen to do since they’d parted.  He made a shooing motion over Kaiser’s shoulder.

Falk lunged forward.  “Don’t you even fucking dare!”

Kaiser caught him.  He got this fangs-bared grin when he did.  It was gorgeous.  And terrifying.  Ness’s heart popped in his chest.  This wasn’t the expression Kaiser had gotten in their fight.  This was pure malice.  And his voice, the breathy, cold delight that crossed his words.  “You wanna put hands on somebody? Great.  Let’s go, shitbag.  I’m here for that too.”

Ness brought his fingers to Kaiser’s shoulder.   The touch shocked him like static.  “Kaiser, that’s not what I…”

“You don’t even use his fucking name!” Falk shouted, hands up, mouth twisting as he laid his full attention at Kaiser.  “Michael~” he trilled.  “Or Mike.  Do you go by Mike? Michi?”

“No, dude, seriously.  You might want to stop!” said Fritz, waving his hands between the two.  Falk smacked him out of the way.

“Please stop,” said Ali. “We can’t hold him if you don’t.”

“More like we won’t, but same difference.” Gesner cracked his neck.

Kaiser took another step closer.  “What do you even want from me, "Schäfer"?”

“I don’t want you .  I want the magic back.  And you’re in my way.” He reached.

Ness’s eyes went wide.  

“Like I said.” Kaiser uppercut Falk as hard as he possibly could have.  There was a crack when his fist landed.  Falk tipped up and back and went down on his ass, dazed.  “He’s mine!”

Ness’s brain refused to sort out what he was seeing.  He’d have stood there staring if Fritz and Max hadn’t grabbed him and dragged him back.

Kaiser had punched a guy.  He really, really shouldn’t have done that.  But watching Kaiser reach down, grab Falk by his shirt collar, jerk him to the side while Falk was still clutching at his bearings.  It made Ness’s whole body thrum with lust despite the sheer terror.

Ness was, after all, used to simple familial violence.  Not street brawls.  Definitely not street brawls over him .

Falk started coming around as Kaiser pulled him towards the curb.  His eyes briefly shot to Ness.  He started to move.  Kaiser punched Falk in the head.  Falk groaned.  He struggled in earnest now, his feet wide, his mouth leaking blood beside.  The team backed off.  They were all shouting, blocking the way between anybody else and the fight.  Zoo animals Coach Aust had called them when they got like this on the field.  

Kaiser missed an elbow from Falk, and another, swinging his way around the strikes.  Again he dragged Falk.  Falk was heavy, moving too.  He wrestled his shirt out of Kaiser’s grip, so Kaiser grabbed his arm instead.  Kaiser made a face when he did it, but he had him now.  He was going to put him on the curb.  He was going to grin like a maniac when he did it.

Except Falk shoved him back.  Kaiser didn’t let go when it happened.  They toppled over each other on the concrete.  Falk growled.  He took a swing.  Kaiser had landed more upright than him.  He dodged and swung back; grazed Falk.  Falk tried to grab him and missed and scrambled his way to a streetlight.  He hauled himself upwards on that.  Kaiser got one in on him— a shot to the jaw.  Falk’s mouth bled harder.  He was on his feet then.  He charged at Kaiser.  Kaiser had a drive kick waiting for him.  Falk snatched for his leg.  Kaiser pulled into a full turn, landed with his fists up.  Falk dipped towards the pavement again.  He was smiling too now, a crazed smile.  He had his hands in his clothes too, halfway down his pants, feeling for something.

“Kaiser!” Ness shouted.

Kaiser saw the knife the same time as Ness did.  He broke out of the blow he’d been aiming and slammed Falk into a chokehold.  Falk bucked and reared.  Max had Ness by the armpits.  He was ready to run with him.  Kaiser sniggered right in Falk’s ear as he held him.  He was talking too.  Nice icepick grip you got there.  He was even starting to laugh when Falk thrust the knife back.

Ness screamed when he saw the blood.

Kaiser didn’t flinch.  He snarled and he smashed Falk into the nearest wall.  There was another crack.  Falk’s hand with the knife shuddered, but did not let go.  Kaiser said one last thing to him, then stepped back.  Gesner grabbed Falk’s wrist.  Fritz pulled Falk’s pants down and Falk slumped into them.  Gesner banged Falk’s hand on the wall chanting “Let go jerk wad,” one syllable for every slam.

Kaiser looked down at his flank, his eyes wide and curious.  There was blood on his hands where he’d touched the wound, more streaming down his jeans.

“Lie down!” Ness told him.

Kaiser wobbled to his knees and stayed there, transfixed with the spreading mess of his wound.  He didn’t resist when Ness nudged him back, not even when the back of his head touched the concrete.  

Ness swallowed his sobs.  He couldn’t do anything about the tears, not with everything spilling out at once around him.  Kaiser’s blood, shouts on the street, the sound of Falk getting kicked.  

There was a rip in Kaiser’s shirt.  Ness wrenched it open to get a better look.  He saw a wide, red slash.  Dribbling, not spurting.  That was a good sign.  No arteries involved.  Just Kaiser muttering, “Hey, Ness.  I think my guts are coming out.”

But there was that, but there was still still so much blood, more than he could wipe away.  He didn’t try.  He yanked off his button down, folded it up and pressed it to the wound.  “You’ll be OK if that happens.  They go back in, you know?”

“Yeah.”

Ness turned to look at Kaiser instead of his wound.  He tried so hard to smile.  “It’s not your first nosebleed.”

Kaiser sighed.  “That’s such a nice way to put it.  I don’t know why I said it.”

“Maybe because I was too nice to you.”  

“Heh.” He closed his eyes.

It was bad, but it wasn’t that bad.  Ness still felt it on his mouth.  No, Kaiser.  Don’t die.  Please Kaiser, don’t die.   Like Gerda in that weird Russian Snow Queen movie everyone had seen but no one remembered where.  It was so silly but the need to say it thrummed along with his heart.  He should at least tell him not to pass out.  He should tell him.

All of a sudden, Kaiser was wide-eyed and grinning at him.  He spoke with clipped amusement.  “Ever had your nose broken? Or your arm? A wine bottle smashed against your back? Ever been kicked in the kidney so hard you pissed blood for a couple of days?”

“Y-yes!” Ness found himself saying instead.  Yes, like it was some sloppy realization.

“Who did it?”

“M-my mom.  S-s-she was mad at me for wetting the bed.”

“Fuck.” Kaiser took a deep breath and faced the streetlight glare above them.  “OK, now I don’t know why I made anything nice for you.  I’m glad we had this discussion.” Then he was back to Ness. “It doesn’t hurt so bad, but press harder.  Please.”

Ness nodded.

He had never told anyone about Mother kicking him.  He was pretty sure his family knew.  If they hadn’t heard that night, then they must have caught him weeping about the blood in the toilet the next morning.  

So he had that in common with Kaiser too.

Ness pressed and pressed and pressed.  

He saw Kaiser beside him in the upstairs bathroom at the house back in Hamburg.  The child Kaiser Ness pictured was rangy and smaller than him.  His nose had been broken and there were baby teeth missing in his smile.  He wagged his little dick at Ness and whistled, “We match!”

Chapter Text

Kaiser got thirty stitches and his knuckles bandaged.  The wound on his flank hadn’t breached his abdominal cavity.  He still needed a course of antibiotics.  He was still going to miss a few games.

(He was not, he told Ness when the doctors weren’t looking.)

And have to pay a fine to Bastard München’s corporate body, probably the courts too.  The lawyers waved off the idea of jail time.  

He was sending a hospital selfie to TechnoPussy when Ray Dark called.  They hardly said hello.  It was right into discussing their libidos by matters of minutiae.  Ness had never heard anything like it, well, what of it he understood.  He hadn’t been asked to leave the room and he couldn’t make himself stop listening.  From what he did grasp, Kaiser very frankly told Ray Dark that he’d gotten off slugging Falk, but in some transcendental way that… Also got Ray Dark off even though Kaiser wasn’t his anymore.  Neither of them could help it. Their Uber-ichs were the worst for not letting them have this simple, private joy. 

Well, that was one more thing Ness didn’t know how to handle.  He crammed it down into later.

The lawyers showed up.  They needed Kaiser.  Kaiser didn’t hang up.  Instead, Dark spoke.  “Let me see Ness before we start that.”

The lawyers offered no argument.  Kaiser, with a groan, lifted himself towards Ness.  

Ness swung the chair he’d pinched around and put himself in the frame.  “Hello,” he said.  He tried to make himself sound meek as he remembered the sheer weight of Dark’s magic.  

“How are you?” Dark asked.  There was sympathy in his voice, a mere skim of the stuff.

“Shaken up.  But I’m alright.”

“Well enough then.  Kaiser, apologize to Ness for putting him in a position where he’s yours, but he’s taking care of you.”

Ness thought— But I want to take care of him.   

Kaiser turned to him.  He kissed Ness on the cheek before he spoke.  “I’m sorry.  I mean it.” He didn’t sound like he meant it at all.  Why would he? Remorse was not part of Michael Kaiser.  

Something Ray Dark might have caught given the subtle scowl that crossed his expression.  He spoke again to Ness.  “If you need anything else, take Kaiser’s phone.  It won’t be hard to find me.”

“I appreciate it.”

There was something too about Kaiser getting one more and then Ray couldn’t help him anymore.  The lawyers smiled at the mention as Kaiser stepped gingerly their way, trying to resist grabbing his side as he went.

Ness went outside to wait for him.  Bastard München had taken over a conference space at the hospital.  The staff had been too starstruck when Noel Noa marched in and said he needed a room.  Ness wondered what it was like to be able to do that.  He wondered even as Noa slouched against the half wall dividing admissions from the parking lot.  Noa was on his phone and muttering “merde” under his breath when anyone responded.  He spent the better part of an hour doing this before he noticed Ness.   Then it was, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” said in this needling, unpleasant way.  

Kaiser got discharged, finally, after midnight.  He and Ness Ubered back to the complex and once more hobbled up the stairs.  As soon as they were back to Kaiser’s room, Kaiser grabbed the Chartreuse and slugged.

“Are you supposed to do that with your meds?” ventured Ness.

“No,” Kaiser said.  “But I need something in my mouth.  I’m fucking starving.”

As he started to sway, Ness laid out the bedroll with ritual quickness. 

Kaiser winced as he lowered himself to his knees and then kicked over onto his side.  He made a few thready sounds of pain, but settled, breathing deeply.

“What do you want to eat?”

“Toast.”

Ness nodded.  His mind was already racing on how to make toast happen.  Late night takeout would have been simpler than toast.  But this was Kaiser and Kaiser made the impossible possible.  If he wanted toast, there would be toast.  Ness walked out of the room with the most determination he could muster.  It wasn’t much.  As soon as the door closed behind him, he slumped into one of the chairs in the quad and sat there with his head in his hands.  After a minute or so at that, he texted the REAL TALK Slack:  Serious question, does anybody have any bread in their room? Or an iron?

There were sounds of movement all around him in the next minute.  Ndaiye showed up with the end of a boule.  Fritz brought a chocolate Kaiser Knödel— “They’re kind of bread on the outside, and, y’know, lol, maybe.” Sachs and Bachman both had irons.  Sachs obligingly dumped the water out of his and onto the rug.  Ness took that one because it had a bigger plate.  He teared up a little as he thanked everyone and Bachman cut the boule remains into thin wedges with a pocket knife.  

He went back to Kaiser with his prizes and he told him: “Toast is coming up.” Then he sat with the iron propped between his shoes, carefully searing one boule scrap at a time, burning his fingers as he turned them.

Kaiser, now obviously out of it, watched as he worked.  He had finagled himself onto his uninjured side and was leaning over one of their mop up towels to suck the filling out of the knödel before he ate the outside.  He did that without comment.  By then a piece of toast was ready.  Kaiser broke it in half, and watched the crumbs fall.  One piece he popped straight into his mouth.  He munched loudly, like a toddler who’d never had anything toast-textured before.  “That scratches the itch,” he said with absolute pleasure.  

“I’ve never even seen you eat toast,” Ness commented.  His own expression had gone soft at Kaiser’s behavior and despite the fact he was making toast with an iron at one in the morning.  He let it be that way.  

“I’m mostly about the crust.  I might have a fixation.  I try not to… I try not to a lot of things.  Anyway, would you eat the middle if this was a regular slice of bread and not some kind of all crust bread thing whatever this is?”

“I’d do that.”  

“Then I can put some sugar on the crusts and you can do whatever you do with middles.”

“Cucumber sandwiches.”

“Yeahhh.  You think somebody Lieferando’s gonna think I’m putting cucumbers up my ass if I order some tomorrow? After all that other stuff on my order history?”

“Kaiser,” Ness said as he shook his head.  He was trying so hard not to laugh.  “You’re really high right now.”  

Kaiser paused.  He swallowed, not like he was nervous, but more like he had crumbs caught in his mouth.  “You’re gonna say poor baby or something next,” he drawled.  “But that’s stupid.  You’re the poor baby.  Your mom actually hurt your feelings when she beat you, huh?”

There was a long moment staring into the iron toast.  Ness’s jaw felt tight and sore.  He’d been clenching it for a lot of the night.  As soon as he went to rub the left joint, the toast decided to sputter.  He said damn and turned it and glanced over at Kaiser.  “You’re high,” he repeated.  But then he handed him the new piece of toast.  It wasn’t as done as the first one, but Kaiser crunched it right out his hand.  The tension went out of Ness’s mouth.  His fingertips strayed over Kaiser’s temple.  “So maybe we shouldn’t talk about it too much, but…” He swallowed.  “What happened to you?”

“Yeah, thaaat.  My old man beat the shit out of me.  It wasn’t personal.  Well, maybe when he stuck his dick in me too.  But that was just what he did to feel alive.  I’m not mad about it.  In fact, I should let you hit me more.  I’m used to it.  You got the hmm yes about that from your mom, huh?”

Ness said nothing.  He knelt there with Kaiser.  Kaiser’s glassy blue eyes fluttered all over him.  He was searching for something.  He was… 

Waiting for Ness to push him away or to cry or to do both all at once.

Waiting for something to change.

Nothing really did.  Ness loved him.  He hated what he’d been told, but he cherished knowing it.  It— at least some part of what he was up against.  The charred bones underpinning Michael Kaiser’s thorn forest.

Kaiser shifted where he lay.  He pulled Ness down, down to the bed and Ness flowed after.  Then there was Kaiser’s Chartreuse and toast mouth on his, the most intimate, soul-sucking kiss he’d ever gotten from anyone.  He felt it stammering in his chest and his belly and someplace deep in his pelvis.  He felt the thorns slide back around the tower in the distance and then the iron started beeping.

#

They woke up naked in each other’s arms.  All Ness could smell was burnt bread and their dirty clothes from yesterday.  He didn’t think they’d fucked.  He’d been too tired last he remembered.

They said little as he dressed and Kaiser burrowed in the summer quilt.  Ness was onto his sneakers before he stung into, “Anything special I can get you off Instagram?”

“Let me think.”

Ness let him think.

Kaiser sank deep into whatever he considered.  Practice and breakfast drew closer and closer, but there was still no rush anywhere between them.  It would make sense if Ness was late.  Kaiser had been ordered not to show up.  “I want something different today,” he said, at length.

“Ice cream?” 

“No.  My hair got in my face last night.  It was a fucking problem.  I probably wouldn’t have this if it had been back.  Or shorter.” Kaiser scratched at his wound, but he did it through the quilt.  It was probably OK.

“Want me to book you a barber?”

There was a groan of disapproval.  “Can you just cut it? I want something specific.  A barber won’t understand my vision.”

“Yes,” said Ness.  Then he leaned down and kissed Kaiser softly on his mouth.  “I’d be happy to do that for you, Michael.”

“UGH,” said Kaiser.  “Don’t call me that.” Then he kissed him back.  

#

After lunch, and placing one hell of a Lieferando order (cucumbers and blue hair dye and some thank you bread for last night), Ness went to find Grim.

Grim was in his room with the shades pulled.  He was actually writing.  He also hadn’t taken a shower, let alone changed out of his practice clothes, so he must have been inspired.  He looked inspired.  

Ness felt bad for interrupting.

At least until Grim chose to greet him with, “You look like a man possessed.”

“Thanks,” Ness said, thumbing absently at his ever-lingering bite-marks.  “So, ah, can you tell me about hair dye really fast?”

Grim closed his laptop with a decisive smack.  “Nothing you just said to me is a good idea.”

“Probably not.”

“Are you doing it for him?”

“Yes.”

“Then I have to help you, or I'll be the villain in your romance.  Sit with me, o wizard.  Did you get gloves and chapstick?”

Ness did not know how those items had gotten into the conversation at all.  He did know right away that this spelled trouble for him.  “No.”

“Don’t worry.  I have spares.”

They ended up hunching together on Grim’s bed.  Grim played several tutorials on mute, giving his own maundering commentary.  Ness got almost too much out of the lesson.  He also learned that Grim had a girlfriend.  The same girlfriend he’d had since they were sixteen.  He called her his little vampire.  Ness didn’t know, or care, how serious the label was.  It was cute however it had gotten there.  Anyway, when Grim disappeared in the evenings, he was dying her hair and exploring the fog-lost islands on the edge of the world, which was either reading poetry or fucking or possibly both at the same time.  There was at least one moment in a video where Grim slung an arm around him and said, “Don’t do that.” By the end, Ness was laughing and Grim almost smiling.

In the end, he said, “He’ll never forget.”

Ness hoped so.  

#

The order showed up.  Kaiser was already waiting for him in the showers.  Max had brought a stool in for them to use.  It didn’t look like any stool at Bastard München, but it did vaguely resemble the ones at the little Italian place’s bar.  Ness thanked Max twice, since Max also taped up a sign reading “Contains Wild Kaiser Do Not Enter”.

They were alone under the sniggering fluorescent lights.  Kaiser sat on the stool swathed in the oversized salon cape.  Ness opened package after package.  He filled up the trash can before he’d ever taken some experimental snip of Kaiser’s hair.  The salon scissors were sharp .  Grim had been right about watching his fingers with them.

“You’re not going to wash it first?” Kaiser asked.  He was staring forward into the mirror as if he was the one who had to concentrate.  

“I’m going to cut it, umm, day-old,” Ness replied, although he didn’t remember exactly when Kaiser had last washed his hair.  “And then dye it.  The dye should set better this way.”

“Ah.  Good.”

Ness stirred the dye with the activator.  Both were sort of soap-colored when he started.  There was some blue creeping into the mix after two minutes of mixing.  

Then he raked his hands through Kaiser’s hair.  If Kaiser asked, this was part of the haircut, making sure the strands flowed in the right direction before he began to divide them.  Kaiser did not ask.  Ness took one last, gentle pull, strands through all of his fingers.  Kaiser’s hair was on the stringy side and not very soft, but it was still Kaiser’s, and Ness savored the touch.  

His sentimentality satisfied, Ness combed Kaiser thoroughly and started to section his hair out and clips.  Kaiser’s hair also hadn’t been cut in a very long time.  It was crisp at the ends, grown out with no sense of reason.  

Kaiser “didn’t want” bangs.  Kaiser had in fact requested elaborate curtain bangs.  They were going to suit him so well, but Ness needed to concentrate there with his too sharp scissors cutting just a few centimeters from Kaiser’s eyes.

Kaiser barely seemed to register that Ness was there.  He sat so still, eyes on the mirror.  He watched himself as the clips slid in and ash blond snibbles started to fall.  He seemed to be thinking too, but not how he usually did it.  There was something wide and placid in his gaze.

Ness himself felt a little powerful about the whole thing.  He was cutting Michael Kaiser's hair.  Him, and nobody else.  It didn’t matter that the nerves in his fingers stretched unfamiliar through the motions.  Kaiser was letting him.

Which— it was such an intimate act requested by someone who’d had those spoiled for him from when he was small.  It seemed to Ness like Kaiser should have been on edge about a haircut, about so many of the things they’d done together.  But then again, thinking back on their past few weeks together, Kaiser: didn’t show a reluctance to intimacy.  If anything, he seemed to need to take it with his teeth and on his own terms.  What was wrong with Kaiser fed his strength.  And some late night Chartreuse confessions he might have regretted if was able to do that.  

Ness snipped and shifted.  He pulled Kaiser’s hair to the space on his cheek Kaiser had pointed to earlier, then just a little further.  He combed and clipped and cut and realized this wasn’t as difficult as he’d thought.  It was good he’d bought the big pack of clips though.  He wouldn’t leave Kaiser with anything dangling in his face for too long.  That would annoy anyone.  Ness measured once more with his fingers and started another section.  Some of the trimmings slid down Kaiser’s nose.  Ness blew them away and they flew like dandelion fluff.  

Time melted away from him once he’d gotten the bangs sorted out.  He needed to keep Kaiser’s hair even and layered until he got back behind his ears.  Then he was supposed to start being rough about how he cut.  For drama that wouldn’t get in his face.  This part was fun enough it got him grinning a little.  Divide, snip, test, clip.  He almost started to hum as he reached the middle back.

“Hey, Ness,” Kaiser said.   

Ness scritched him in the last of his uncut mop.  His hand came away covered in almost-white hair dust.

“I used to be a mentally weak person.” Kaiser still watched himself in the mirror, same expression on his face.  He sounded so matter of fact.

But Ness made a small “Huh?”.  The Kaiser he knew wasn’t weak about anything.  More than that though— Kaiser wouldn’t have survived if that had stayed the case.  All those little scars he wore.  The long ones on his back and underneath his hair.  The dots and dashes for the pins in his arm.  Fuck Ness, he was really so painfully beautiful.  The fact he wasn’t shy about his markings (or at all) made him even moreso.  

Kaiser spoke again after a small while.  “I gave up constantly.  Everything seemed impossible. But I realized I couldn’t live like that.  I had to force myself to change, but I did.  The whole world opened up to me.  That’s why I got the tattoo.  It’s to remind me not to fall into that mindset again.”  

“I… see.”

“Blue roses don’t exist in nature, you know.” Kaiser’s eyes flicked to the side, meeting Ness’s in the mirror.

Ness had not known that.  The connection made more sense now.

“They’re completely artificial.  But we have them.  I could be holding a handful of them in an hour.  They’re something impossible, but I could do that .”

He could.  Instagram would even do it for him.  Ness knew it.  Kaiser did too, of course.  For Ness, other things were clicking into place.  The rose went so deep into Kaiser.  It held him from the other, simple thorns, but it bound him to them as well.  What’s wrong with Kaiser feeds his strength.  Noa had told him so much truth and here Ness was, his hands full of cut hair, finally getting it.  He listened even harder.

“The first time I realized what I’d seen in one, I was in awe.  And that doesn’t happen to me a lot, you know.”

“I know.”

“Here was this impossible thing right in front of me.  A defiance of the natural order of things.  It didn’t happen right then, but I decided after, when I’d been thinking about it for a while— I want to become someone who can’t be defined by the impossible.”  

“That’s awesome ,” Ness said.  He let his feelings, and his magic, flow through the words.

“So no one can stop me, Ness.  I’ll win the championship league and the world cup and then.” Maybe Kaiser smiled a little in the mirror.  “I want to cast the rest of the football world down into despair.  That’s how I’ll prove I’m alive.”

“Hah.  That sounds like you,” Ness said lightly, full of joy.  And again— Kaiser operated on a logic, but not one Ness had known before him.  Now it was there, all there, laid out all before him on the roughest possible ground, but he could see it, touch it, touch Kaiser and say to him: “There.  How’s that?”

“It’s fine.” Kaiser tipped his neck.  Ness could have kept cutting.  He’d trimmed away what might have gotten in Kaiser’s face, but that had still left a lot fading down into a tail that seemed to insist on hanging as two parts.  Kaiser turned to halfway look at him then, seemingly having decided they were done.  “I just wanted it cut short because it was getting in the way.  More importantly, how’s the dye coming along?”

Ness leaned over the counter.  “Looks good. It’s… Really blue, actually.”

“Good.  And you said it takes how long to set?”

“Another hour and a half.  I’ll keep you company.  I’ll wash it for you too when we’re done, if you’ll let me.”

“Now you want to wash my hair.”

“Now I know nobody ever really did that for you.”

There was a pause.  Ness wondered if he had stepped a little too heavily into the other night; into Kaiser’s abuse.  Ness hurt for him.  Maybe hurt instead of him in some weird come-hither way.  What he felt right then, looking down at Kaiser and being able to see all of his face at once, to see him smile and only for him— he knew his heart could take it, race with it: the joy.

Then Kaiser had to go and say, “Ness, you’ve already done a shitton for me that nobody’s ever done before.  It’s been really good.”

Ness chuckled.  

“I think my dad did wash my hair for me once though.  I might have been dreaming ‘cause he was sober and it didn’t suck.  He never cut it though and that’s a lot harder.” That winked away, Kaiser sat back up and Ness, once his giddy sounds had died down, reached for the chapstick.  

While Ness worked in the dye, and after, they talked.  Kaiser told Ness who he wanted to ruin.  He had a long list and he’d already started on it.  De La Fontaine had been on there.  De La Fontaine also hadn’t taught him anything besides some tips on not looking hungover.  Noa— he’d have to do that sometime on principle.  Falk— Falk had asked for it, assuming he ever played again.  (They paused to rinse the dye out.  Blue spattered everywhere.  Ness tried to clean it out of the shower while Kaiser bundled himself into a shower cap and sat on the stool again, cape dripping, ranting about Russians.)  Then— Lorenzo hadn’t qualified yet, too niche, but there were so many names from Ness’s childhood.  He felt like he should feel bad for wanting to see them go down, but it was like— if somebody was going to murder them, it should be someone who knew how to murder, not a dull mind with a duller knife.  He found himself saying things like, “Well, he’s known to be pretty conservative, so you should kiss me after you do it” or “He got caught cheating on his wife not that long ago.  You could rub it in.” Kaiser laughed and laughed.  They were even planning plays and victory dances when the second timer went off.  

Kaiser wiggled out of his shorts.  He checked the plastic wrap around his middle and stepped into the shower one last time.  He and Ness both had snips of Kaiser’s hair all over their feet even though Ness had tried to sweep up.  Kaiser tossed the cape and stooped his head so that Ness could suds him up.  The specialty shampoo that had come with the due smelled like fruit and flowers.  Kaiser’s hair felt less mop-y with one good soap.  Even Kaiser thought so, getting his own fingers involved and tugging at his new bangs still without seeming to acknowledge that’s what they were.  

Again, he hadn’t had a haircut in a long time.  He moved like he was lighter now, standing there stroking at the cut edges as one last trickle of faintly blue suds ran down the drain.

Ness shook the bottle of conditioner that had come with the dye.  “Ah, this says it needs five minutes.  Seems kind of long.”

“Make sure you get the ends.  Should be worth it then,” said Kaiser.  His voice fluted faintly now and he was moving on his toes to give Ness his back.

So he was happy too.  He felt happy under Ness’s touch.  Ness made so sure to get the ends, especially the bright blue tails.  Once he was done, he washed his hands and turned the water off.  No reason to waste five whole minutes of it.  Besides, he needed to set the timer and… 

Kaiser turned the water back on and pointed the sprayer at the wall.  He smiled down at Ness from his tiptoes.  Then he slid to his knees.  The plastic wrap crinkled and caught some spatter.  He said nothing.  Just grabbed Ness’s soft cock and started to lick.

He had nibbled and sucked on Ness before.  It had felt like there was some unspoken I can’t fit that in my mouth between them.  But this was Michael Kaiser and he wouldn’t be defined by the impossible, not even when it came to blowjobs.  Besides, he had this hungry look in his eyes, even if he was still thinking.  Ness sensed both states slinking from him, and the grip of his attention.  It made him feel so dirty in the best possible way.  Michael Kaiser was going to suck his dick and he hadn’t even asked him to do it.

Ness stepped into the corner of the shower.  He spread his legs a little.  Kaiser pushed himself after and put his tattooed hand on Ness’s root.  He stroked and licked his lips before he put him in his mouth again. 

It made Ness’s whole body clench.  He kept squeezing his eyes shut about it.  Moaning already would be kind of strange, but Kaiser was doing just enough to get to him that way.  Ness caught a throb in his cock too.  He wasn’t all the way hard.  He would be though.  Kaiser slurped off of him to pump him a few times, and to let him look.  Look at how he was thickening and stretching by the second.

Kaiser’s dick was already up and dripping.  He must have been flushed from ass to navel with his own want and there he knelt, still thinking as he started licking again.

Ness let his head loll back.  He groaned.  The sound must have been luscious to Kaiser.  He pulled off again to give one of his tight gasps.  After, he leaned in, serious now.  His fingers stirred, drawing more of Ness into him as his lips thinned out on Ness’s weight.  He had them drawn over his teeth, but the red stain from last night still showed through the shadow of Ness’s cock.  

Kaiser’s mouth was soaking wet.  Even his tongue felt like liquid, this long, light wash of sweet nothing over Ness’s head, tracing down his underside.  He sucked softly too, just a little slurp here or there as he started to bob his head.  It was the lightest touch blowjob Ness could have imagined and it was maddeningly good.  His whole self strained and flared, every nerve in his spine singing, his hips twitching so hard with need he felt like he was going to go down knock-kneed and shivering.

Kaiser met his gaze too once Ness managed to look down and see him there at his feet.  That was the best part, the worst part.  Ness didn’t need to ask him if it was OK, if he enjoyed what he was doing.  He could see it in his eyes.  Out of everything in Bastard München, this was what left Michael Kaiser content: kneeling on the shower floor and sucking Ness off while he fucked his fist.  Since he was doing that and the movement was riding up his frame, moving his mouth, but not all of his attentions.  Ness wouldn’t have dreamed of looking away from him, but he didn’t think he could have.

There was so much there between them, but there was also this one act, Kaiser’s jaw cracking slightly as he brought Ness’s head to the hot limn of his throat and swallowed just to make the motion.  The noise that crept out of Ness when he did it was thin and almost pained.  Ness’s hands were twitching at that point.  He wanted to grab the back of Kaiser’s head and fuck his mouth, but he’d just fixed that hair and it was still slippy with conditioner.  But he wanted him so bad.  But his hair…  

Ness came with a shout, grabbing Kaiser’s shoulders as he did.  Kaiser sucked hard for the first time, gulping him down between Ness’s shuddery half-thrusts.  Kaiser had one long, silky moan about his own orgasm as that hit the wall and dripped away.  When he finally pulled off, the wetness on Ness’s head was all spit, not a trace of spunk.  Kaiser rested his forehead on Ness’s thigh, catching his breath and knuckling his jaw back into place.  “That’s five minutes,” he said.

Ness joined him on his knees to rinse out the conditioner.  There was a kiss, the tastes of one another all screwed up inside it.  Finally, they got out of the shower.

Kaiser saw himself in the mirror with his blow-job battered lips and his electric blue shag streaming over his shoulder.  He smiled like an absolute madman.

Once again, Ness’s heart melted.  

#

They didn’t say anything about it.  They went outside in their shorts to let themselves air dry.  It was obvious as all hell that they’d been at each other.  Kaiser’s hair slowly fluffing out blue around his neck absolutely didn’t cover this fact, no matter how much he snickered and raked his fingers through the tails.  The two of them got high-fives and whistles from the team.

Eventually, Coach Sander spotted them.  He came over with his two assistants— the firing squad.  “You can’t go out on the field like that,” he said without introduction.  

“Have you seen Laviño lately,” Kaiser replied.  It wasn’t even a question.

“You’re not Laviño.” 

“Right.  I’m Michael Kaiser.  Everyone will know that. I promised at initiation.  I promised everybody .  Even you.”

“I think it’s hot and I’m not even into that,” Fritz sing-songed from half the yard away.  He fanned himself and pretended to swoon— backwards and wrong, as one did. 

Max leaned over to catch him.

“Unless you’re talking about Falk’s shitty attempt to kill me,” Kaiser slid into once that was more or less over.  “I’ll hear you out on that one.  It hurts.” Moaning fakely, he buried his face in the crook of Ness’s neck.  Otherwise known as his favorite space to bite him.

#

The agreement with Falk came down fast and brutal, forced into the world by other people’s time limits and entirely too much money.  

Falk got a spot with FC Magic Kiel, as midfielder, and with a rather large salary, or so it was rumored.  He replaced a Robert Shah who’d probably been arrested over the summer.  No one could find him and the rumors were wild.

Ness felt for Robert.  He’d been shoved out of the sport he loved.  And probably, hopefully, over something not so bad at all.  A fuck, a snort, one bad decision somehow worse than ‘got into a street fight with a teammate’s ex’.  

He still felt nothing for Falk.

Falk was going to die out there once he was cleared to play.

Kaiser would see to it.

Chapter Text

Things were easier with Kaiser after that.

Some things, most of the time, but the two of them went into the season shoulder-to-shoulder with plastic wrap strands and an understanding between them.  Kaiser liked sex and football for his own damned reasons.  If he approached them strangely, he approached everything strangely.  Ness would remember and he would be patient.  

Meanwhile, the whole team got a lecture from their social media manager.  She was going to be watching everybody’s accounts more closely.  “Sex stuff” was fine, but it should be flirty, vague and positive.  Now, say it with her one more time: Kaiser had a training injury .  Don’t mention anything about it unless you absolutely have to.  Now: there was no trash-talking the other teams— a look at Gesner —or bringing up other people’s pasts— she didn’t look at anyone that time.  Ness reached for Kaiser’s hand between them.  Kaiser turned it around and grabbed his wrist.  He raised both of their hands.

“Yes?” drawled the social media manager.  

“Nothing,” said Kaiser.  “Just pointing out an example of what not to bring up.”

The team snickered. 

Ness’s heart fluttered and it stitched.  Nobody knew, except maybe Noa.  Nobody knew what had happened to Kaiser except for him.  But there everybody was, laughing at the “Falk thing” “that asshole”.  They didn’t sense anything about the bitter memories Ness now cradled in his grasp.  He could almost see himself holding them sometimes when he was awake and Kaiser snuffled in his sleep beside him.  He could almost see them now, wisping between the two of them.  

Another day or two later, everybody had to show up for interviews.  The atmosphere was cheerful and full of coffee, bright lights.  Kaiser pulled one of the reflector lamps over to a credenza and sat there with his knees apart, red eyeliner glittering around his gaze.  He had his diamond studs in with his sweats.  Ness took a cue and hopped up beside him.  “Do us next!” Kaiser kept calling despite them not being anywhere near one of the interview stations.  

Somebody gave in to him eventually.  Were either of them homesick? They looked at each other, shrugged and shook their heads.  What did they feel about the upcoming season?  Kaiser was “going to crush it” with the most beatific smile.  Ness looked up at the ceiling and babbled about joy.  Luckily, he managed to laugh that off.  Kaiser didn’t conduct himself like a rookie, according to the reporter.  Then Kaiser turned an insinuation he’d been living at Bastard München for more than a year into asking said reporter if she wanted to see his Japanese bedding.

Ness rolled his eyes at that.  The crew scooted them closer together and started taking pot shots.  Weren’t the two of them an interesting pair? Pair? They played off of each other well.  What was this ‘pair’ business? Did they have girlfriends? Too busy bringing ruin for girlfriends and Ness, don’t open your mouth .  Ness was allowed to open his mouth! Let him speak!  Let him say, “I’ve never had a girlfriend,” which was, of course, true.  Finally: the hair.  They had to ask about the hair.  Kaiser exulted in the attention, running the tails through his fingers and smiling.  It was just a little something he insisted as he locked eyes with the camera.

So, ah, were they going to miss Noa? No.  Kaiser was coming for him too.  Ness smiled about it.  Smiled like somebody about to be used as a human shield in a gunfight.  He took the question himself with more grace.  Noa was the best coach he’d ever had.  He would miss him even though he was doomed.

Speaking of Noa, he and one of the managers shoveled Kaiser and Ness into a booth for redos of a few of the questions.  The clip of them talking about girls still got used.

Mensah didn’t post the edit he did of it online, but everyone in the REAL TALK Slack got to enjoy said clip freezing then going into that OH NO NO NO NO NO audio clip that ended in sputtering laughter.

There was one little short he shared too, sans commentary: Noa saying: “Missed out on training during the break? Do you have any idea what it’s taken to keep up with this year’s junior team? Going back to my team sounds like a vacation after that.”

So Noa left.  He went back to being someone Ness saw on television, some far away source of excitement.  The evening chats with him started to feel like they’d happened with another person.  Like the Noa that Ness knew just happened to look like the heartless asshole of a striker Ness saw when he and Kaiser caught up on games.  

#

Their first Bundesliga match was away with Freischütz Augsburg.  It was hot out.  Ness skipped his undershirt even though he really didn’t want bits of turf sticking to his arm hair.  That itched so bad.  Then his gloves ended up on his lap around the second half.

His lap because he had played twenty minutes at the start.  In twenty minutes, he had scored, then assisted Gesner with a score, and finally gotten tossed around like a baton by Gesner, who said, with no subtlety whatsoever, “You said you and the weirdo aren’t a pair.  I’ll just do what I want with you.” Ness did not resist when Gesner put him on the sideline and neither did coach Aust.  Aust looked every bit as disappointed in the trajectory of the match as the team happened to be.  This wasn’t a challenge.  This wasn’t even practice.  They might as well have been playing Anlage Hamburg after Anlage Hamburg had done shots.  

The score was now 3-0.  Sachs and Gesner had chosen to cooperate (call it a ceasefire) and were feverishly concocting ways to dick with Freischütz Augsburg.  Sachs wasn’t much for dicking around and Gesner preferred to dick by himself, so watching them stare into each other’s eyes like they were planning to take over the world and not the pitch entertained Ness at least.  Probably the stands as well.  

Not Kaiser though and apparently.  He prowled the concrete past the sidelines, gazing up into the stands, bouncing on his toes, making eye contact with girls and boys and the odd annoyed, shouting person.  Sometimes he swayed and turned almost like he was considering ballet steps.  He smiled searingly.  The photographers and passing staff were only just part of his awareness— he never walked into them, oh, except for the cute girl with the monopod.  After that, Aust and Augsburg’s coach finally made him sit, no more of his but I need to stretch excuses.  

That brought a lot of the attention he’d cultivated to the benches.  There were so many people out there in the stands.  Ness had been part of crowds that big and bigger still before.  He had played to almost this much of an audience come to championships with Anlage Hamburg.  Stadium hum was stadium hum and he knew it so well.  Besides, nobody had thrown anything yet.  That he knew of.  

More to his interest, Kaiser sat next to him when they had plenty of other seats at their disposal.  He also spread his knees like he was trying to make a point.  Ness didn’t push back on him.  He let him sit there, and take up his space.

A lot of it– Kaiser leaned over after a few minutes, all conspiracy and shining eyes.  “Let’s make everybody wonder what we’re talking about,” he said.  

Ness figured it was hard for the spectators to not be wondering about Kaiser at that point, but he swayed over just the same.  “I don’t think that girl was your type.”

“Not even interested.  Anyway, why don’t we talk about you for once.  You liked it when those reporters got up your ass about your hopes and dreams and shit.”

“You did too.” 

Kaiser scoffed.  “Like I told them the half of it.”

“I know.”

“Anyway, you should practice talking about yourself more.  And not while you’re under me.”

Ness felt a certain apprehension that Kaiser was about to start asking prying questions in front of a mostly full stadium.  They’d discussed Ness’s parents and siblings a little, enough that Kaiser had decided he’d enjoy murdering them if he got the chance.  He’d seemed to think that sentiment would do something to Ness, but Ness felt nothing for those people.  Kaiser’s dreams were dashed into a vague annoyance.  Luckily, that didn’t last far past bedtime and the Black Seal fulminating on their tongues.  “Alright,” said Ness.

“Tell me about the magic.”

Ness cringed inside.  It was so hard to talk about magic with people who weren't magic.  He thought it might be like trying to talk about being male with someone who wasn’t.  Nevermind the body parts involved, there was a certain suroible people with magic did not possess.  Without it, Ness had to resort to using small words, which made him sound stupid to himself and then in turn feel achingly vulnerable.  

Ness tried so hard to explain to Kaiser how his magic in particular worked.  It kept coming out in stammery nothings.  It wasn’t as bad as it sounded— he couldn’t mind control anyone.  It wasn’t cheating anymore than shouting at each other.  People could walk off the effects.  Kaiser himself had.  It really wasn’t mind control.  It was a connection, but it didn’t have to be used.  It could be left like an unhooked analog phone and trill into obscurity.  

Ness still found himself calling it by the same phrase he’d once used with his disbelieving classmates.  “I can pull people in or I can push them away.”

“Anybody can do that,” Kaiser said, not too unkindly.  “It’s your social intelligence.  You’ve obviously got a lot of that, but it’s not magic.”

“Well,” said Ness, his expression tilting somewhat downwards.  “It feels like magic to me.”

“Don't make that face.  I'm not trying to take your silly metaphor away.” 

“Well, you can't take it away, so there.”

“How would I even do that? Beat it out of you? Make you barf it into your chalice?”

“I don’t know, actually.  But, it wouldn’t fit in the chalice.”

“I thought it didn’t take up space?”

“If it did, it wouldn’t fit in the chalice.”

Kaiser spread and closed his right hand a few times, mulling this over.  He ended up nodding.  “Anyway, you used it on me?”

“After what you said,” Ness admitted.  While he was at it, he gave Kaiser a little tug.  Kaiser didn’t react at all, not that Ness perceived.  He wasn’t sure if he’d wanted him to do that or not.  Kaiser seemed to be searching for some concrete action or effect for the magic.  He wasn't going to find one.  Magic didn’t work that way and Kaiser didn’t believe in it as magic anyway.  He’d need to do that before he could start to understand.  Ness swallowed and did his best to explain again.  “When you talked to me on the pitch that first day? That was all you.  I was kind of… Backed up, I guess.”

There was a pause beside him.  Then— “You get magical constipation.  That’s fascinating,”  Kaiser looked entirely too interested.

“Yeah.  But it went away when you took my hand.  I dunno, it was…” More than he could put into words.

“I bet that felt so good to get it out,” Kaiser cooed at him despite his depraved smirk.

“It actually did.”

“You let go of your awe and you were yourself again.  Your interpersonal intelligence started working again.”  

Ness huffed and leaned back.  “It’s funny you keep using that terminology when Freud never even thought of it.”  

“It’s useful, so why not?”

“No nots here.”  Ness shook his head.  At least he understood the concept of different intelligences.  He’d tried getting into psychoanalysis since that was something Kaiser used when he took in the world around him.  Ness had trouble getting past some of Freud’s methodology.  It felt to Ness like Freud had crammed things he wanted to be true into other people’s stories.  Like he was making excuses to say something he’d already decided to say.  It didn’t sit right with Ness.  Then again, Ness could get behind “perverse” not being a bad thing per se.  Maybe that’s what spurred him to ask, “What does the Freud see in me?”

Kaiser snickered.  “I can’t say.  I’m not a psychoanalyst and I’d need more time if I was.  But if I had to guess? You’ve repressed something.  It’s there, lurking under the surface of everything you do.  You can’t see it.  You can just barely feel it.” He squeezed Ness on the forearm for emphasis.

Ness thought for a minute, an actual solid minute, fumbling over at the parts of himself he wasn’t supposed to be able to access directly according to Freud.  The parts that wanted to open Kaiser up like a jewelry box to see what else he had hiding in the innards of his self, the part that dreamed of taking Kaiser’s place in front of his father, the part that wanted Mother to hit him again because at least she was paying attention to him.  That last one twisted a groan out of him.  It was such a child’s view of violence, one he was still carrying around for some reason.  “You might be right.  I get like there’s something down there sometimes.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No I…” The thought of it though, of that hidden thing– he caught this sharp surge in the back of his throat, and then an out-of-tune reminder of his true affections for the person beside him.  “I don’t think I am.”

“Is this discussion getting you hot? That’d be a hint if it is.”

“A little now that we’re not talking about me being constipated.”

“Wanna do it in the locker room?”

The answer was absolutely yes, but that answer decidedly came from his Es, since they were talking about Freud and all.  But it felt so right to Ness, smitten as he was.  He’d scored his first goal at his first Bastard München game only to literally fuck off into the showers.  He had to ask though, tilting his face to Kaiser for the first time in a long spell of the conversation.  “Do you want to do me because I scored first?”

Kaiser scoffed.  “It’s not about who scores first.  It’s about who scores last.  Anyway, you deserve an orgasm for that shot.  Right through Kraushar’s legs with your toes.  You play so dirty.”

“He’s the one who just stood there,” snickered Ness. “OK, if you’re sure.”

Kaiser’s look said it for him— when am I not .  

They stood.  Kaiser went first.  Ness followed along in the half shadow he left beneath the stadium screens.  Enough of the spectators were going to get a good look at him, there trailing behind Kaiser who was, once again for the afternoon, going on about shit, though to the coaches this time.  It got Ness laughing a little, the sound echoing in the corridor as the crowd noise died away behind them.  

The locker room was empty and quiet except for the persistent flicker of one of the tube-lights overhead.  Kaiser got into his bags.  He had a travel-sized squeeze tube of Vaseline waiting for this very occasion.    

Having showed it off, he shoved Ness against the wall, then grinned before he kissed him.  Ness had been holding in his horny until that.  It snapped over him as Kaiser’s thigh went between his knees, jerking him up.  Drool started in his mouth.  Kaiser’s tasted like afternoon turf.  No Chartreuse for once? Ness kissed him again.  Kaiser turned it messy, opening wide and staring down their butted up noses, his eyes all Lycean and wicked.  Ness moaned, nudging back on Kaiser’s knee.  Hot blood clenched through his whole pelvis.  He could feel the fabric of his shorts scraping over him as he got up.

Then the cool metal of the stall walls as Kaiser manhandled him inside.  Kaiser balanced the Vaseline on the back of the toilet and.  He dove into him again.  He kept one hand on Ness’s bite mark and the other between them, his knuckles to Ness's dick and the curve of his fingers to his own.  Ness arched, catching his breath.  He got shushed for it.  Kaiser’s mouth crept all wicked back the curve of his jaw, threatening to bite but never showing teeth.  Ness started to scramble with his shorts.  He didn’t want to get them sticky.  Kaiser pushed them down for him, and then his own.  They slammed up together, totally bare as Kaiser moved on to licking the shell of his ear.  It left Ness covering his own mouth, all that weight and breath on him.  It got him so hard and then there was that faint roar back towards the corridor.  Had something happened? 

The thought left him as easily as it came.  Kaiser groped him dry.  He prodded at his hole, squeezing his cheeks as he did.  Ness dribbled precum down his dick and Kaiser’s as they nudged together on the stall wall.  He didn’t let himself think too hard about that first time Kaiser had fucked him.  They’d gotten past that.  Mostly.  Probably.  He took one burst of anxiety about it, hunching up against Kaiser.  Kaiser kissed him again, then jerked him around.  

Ness stooped slightly, exposing himself, flinching on the empty air.  He swallowed hard, his whole body tight with the weight of his erection nodding at the wall.  He heard the tube suck in air, then felt slippery wet fingers stealing over him.  Kaiser circled and stretched him.  He did it hard, but hard in the way that made Ness’s cock strain.  He tilted into the touch.  Kaiser sank his fingers in, knuckles and a long touch squeezing, squeezing in.  It ached, but there was no way it wouldn’t, not the way they hurried.  The lube hissed as Ness swayed one more time.  He almost said that thing’s louder than I am , but Kaiser stuck him again.  Instead he bit his tongue.

Ness thought he heard the tube hit the floor.  Kaiser’s fingers were back, bracing him open.  Kaiser’s cockhead squeezed between them.  They slid back in the flutter of toilet paper Kaiser used to wipe his hands.  That definitely went onto the floor as Kaiser’s dick went into Ness.  There was a lot of lube between them to make up for the rush.  It trickled down Ness’s crack as Kaiser started to move.

Shit.  Kaiser had actually done it.  He had his whole dick up Ness in the locker room at a fucking game.  Ness felt a shimmering surge all over.  Still slippery hands bit into his hips. He didn’t hurt, he just…  He was stars in his eyes with Kaiser rutting in him.  Kaiser bit him on the back of the neck and he pushed.  Ness’s cock left a few wet dabs on the wall and Ness’s hole stung, mostly in the way of somehow wanting more.  Kaiser wasn’t sparing him.  He hung up inside of him and flexed his feet to wring that last gasp of intensity into Ness.  He did grab his cock too after a while and without prompting.  Ness thrust through his fingers and leaked tears.

He whispered his name, but his breath caught on a quick “ah!”.

“Shh,” said Kaiser.  One of his needy huffs glanced over the words.  “I’m right here and we’re getting off.”

That we hit him hard.  Ness let his hips be Kaiser’s to play with as he rode him into the wall.  He let him have him, clasp his dick, lavish another bite.  Ness let him play, though not in the way he’d been intending to do it before the stitches.  Those were pressed to Ness’s back somewhere in all of this, all of them.  

He was so gone in it all, he missed the footsteps.  Gesner’s voice, not so much.  “I don’t wanna hear that you’re in there helping him shit.” It was right outside the stall.  

Ness tensed.  His blush spread to every inch of his skin.

Kaiser kept right on fucking him after the briefest of a sideways swing.  “That part’s over.  I’m wiping his ass,” he said without so much as a gasp.

Ness couldn’t help it after hearing that.  He burst out laughing.  One of his fists clanged on the wall.  “Kaiser! Ewwwwww! Stop talking about shit.  That doesn’t turn me o-o-on! Ah! Dammit!” Which was honestly a fucking thing to have blurted out in front of Erik Gesner of all people.

Gesner might have agreed.  Maybe that was why he touched the door.  As for why the door swung open, apparently Kaiser hadn’t latched it.  

Ness glanced that way through the tangle of his bangs.  He kept gasping even as he processed the fact he’d never seen Gesner open his eyes that wide.  So that was how he looked when he wasn’t pulling his perpetually half-asleep expression.  Ness pushed his dick hard through Kaiser’s grip.  The lube made a particularly loud squelch.  So Kaiser wasn’t stopping.  

No.  He definitely wasn’t doing that.  He even did a show-offy upthrust that got Ness muttering incoherent swears as he tried not to leak spit all over himself.

“Oh my fucking God, you guys,” said Gesner.  His ears and nose turned bright red as he spoke through gritted teeth.

“Yes, the Freischütz’ve been disgusting me too,” Kaiser mentioned.  He was trying to sound bored.  It wasn’t quite working considering how his movements jerked the pitch of his voice around.  “Do you want something?”

“They just scored on us.  Get your asses back out there.”

“You can’t handle them?”

“I need you to see it.”

“That’s so vain.”

“You literally took Ness off the field to fuck him .  I’m the vain one? I’m the vain one? Fuck you, Kaiser.  Just fuck you!”

“Later.  I need one more minute here.”

Ness tried not to wail at that.  He was snagged somewhere between more laughter and a hot, itching need to get off.  He caught himself banging his fists again as he gasped, “I don’t know if I’m even… Gonna— ah! —last that long.”

“Suck up some spit, I guess,” said Kaiser.  He lunged.  His teeth sank into Ness.  His whole beautiful body crushed up against him.

Ness’s vision went blurry.  His mouth smarted.  He tried to shut his eyes, to live in that headspace where all he did was get off.  So maybe he could wring that out of Kaiser too.  They could come, slip through their pleasure and go back to the real world.

Where Gesner was absolutely still staring at them.  “Seriously?” he fumed.  

“Seriously,” Kaiser agreed.

Ness remained giddy with shock and the orgasm slamming around in his nerves.  He’d have it soon, but the need still beat on his senses, and the thick flush of his embarrassment.  Kaiser wasn’t even kind of stopping — it’d be messier if he did, leaving both of them sweaty, hard and unsatisfied.  Instead, Kaiser hitched him.  Ness stretched into a long, thin ache inside.  He didn’t hold the last gasp.  It came out as a moan and his eyes fluttered.

There was a hand in his hair.  Kaiser had him.

No, fuck! No.  The angle was wrong.

And the hand was too heavy.  

He felt his face lifted away from the wall, felt Kaiser tilting him or tilting with him.  The slam continued after half a second on thin air.  Then Ness realized he was chest-to-torso with Erik Gesner.  Erik Gesner who had his fist in Ness’s hair.

Ness shuddered.  He looked up at him, eyes wet and half-lidded, drool on his chin, another moan breaking his voice.

He thought he heard Kaiser say, “Go on.  Touch him.”

Gesner’s hand uncurled.  It slid over Ness’s temple and to his jaw.  There was a soft pat to his cheek.  Gesner’s fingers felt clammy and unsure.  They settled anyway as the thrusts ran on.  Ness’s whole body swung, skin and satisfaction and Gesner's expression flaring with wonder as he tried to stare into Ness’s eyes, but he was dumbstruck there watching and waiting and licking his lips.

Kaiser jerked Ness up again.  That movement was equal parts ache and ecstasy.

Ness’s mouth smashed onto Gesner’s.  Gesner yanked them closer together.  He kissed him, kissed Ness like nothing Ness had ever felt before.  He was tender, but intense, plunging one way then the other.  Gesner kissed like he had something to prove and then he fucking did prove it all over Ness.

His grip on Ness’s face turned rougher, but it wasn’t half as rough as the sudden hand on Ness’s dick.  Kaiser had let go of him.  Now Gesner was jerking Ness off, growling into his mouth, “Don’t come all over yourself, you perv!”

Ness cried out a few heartbeats before the orgasm, and then again once it hit him.  He came bucking onto Kaiser’s dick as Gesner wrung him out.  His feet might have gotten off the floor when it happened.  He couldn’t really tell.  He was lost in Gesner’s lips.

Kaiser met Ness’s spasm with his own, grabbing his hips tight and driving.  He groaned and Ness’s hole went smarting hot, full of Kaiser and the slick grind that was Kaiser pumping him full of cum.  The movement bled out in a sigh.  The three of them shared it.  Ness tilted against Gesner and took seconds to catch his breath.  Kaiser pulled right out.  He left a sticky, wanting emptiness behind.  

“Shit,” said Gesner.  He grappled past Kaiser, reaching for the toilet paper.

Kaiser, handed him the end.  They were both pulling.  There was paper everywhere.  Ness had cum on the floor just behind Gesner.  Thank everything he’d missed his shorts.  Kaiser spit loudly and dealt Ness one overly-intimate buttbath.  Strands of more toilet paper dragged around the floor as they broke for the sink, all furiously scrubbing themselves.  Ness still had his shorts around his ankles.  Kaiser couldn’t get the Vaseline off of his hands.  Gesner wet one of his own wads of paper and pushed it into Ness’s face.  It actually felt nice.  Did nothing for the sex flush, but still. 

Kaiser pressed himself close for likewise treatment.  When he didn’t get it, he stretched his arms over his head.  Gesner shot Ness a sidelong glance, then reached around him to grab at Kaiser one more time.  He got him by the tails of his hair and pulled.  Kaiser called him a motherfucker.  Their fists met, knuckles to knuckles.

“I knew you were a weirdo,” growled Gesner.  “From when I first looked at you.  Ness had still better be able to walk!”

Ness did one of Kaiser’s snap ups on his toes.  He pulled a pirouette and finally he walked right towards the field.

His ass stung like hell.  His whole crotch felt damp and thinking of Kaiser’s spit washed into him there did not help.  

The other went after him.  Gesner caught up to him first since Kaiser stopped to finger-comb his hair.  “No, seriously,” said Gesner.  “How?”

“It hurts really good,” Ness did his best to answer.  His voice was only hitching a little.  

Gesner made some skeptical noises.  Kaiser ran past the both of them, swaggering out onto the concrete and right up to coach Aust.

“Where have you been?” Aust demanded.

“OK, I lied.  Ness overheated.” Kaiser said, shrugging.  “He’s embarrassed.” (Well, that covered the color of Ness’s face anyway.)

“On the bench ? ”

“It’s hot over there.  Go see for yourself.”  

“And Gesner is involved in this how?”

Gesner narrowed his stare.  He cleared his throat and crossed his arms.  “Can confirm.  Hot as hell.  Then Kaiser made it weird, because he’s fucking Kaiser.  Oh poor Ness this and poor Ness that.  You know, that crap.”

Aust did indeed know all of that crap.

There was no reason whatsoever for Kaiser to slide his tattooed hand under Ness’s chin.  For him to ask him, not really whispering “You OK?”

Except— maybe it was Ness’s imagination, but he felt a battery of camera flashes out there in the stands.  

The final score was 5-1.  Gesner did a downright kingly victory strut.  He did it with his hands grinding into each of their shoulders as he marched them along.  

#

Once the interviews were wrapped up and the autographs signed; once Kaiser had posed for at least a dozen selfies, almost all of them with girls; once Aust had gotten some beer in him— they went back to Munich.  True, they could have celebrated in Augsburg just to rub it in, but the Palm was waiting for them with open bar and open hearts.  They made it there without anyone trying to punch anyone else.  At the Palm, Bastard München held a toast and let some of the waiting fans in for their private party.  Kaiser draped himself over two barstools and held court, Ness at his side for what must have been hours.

Somewhere in the alcohol fuzz, Ness realized Gesner had left the head of the table where he’d been heroically retelling the afternoon.  He’d pulled off to the corner with the flamingo bucket.  Macadamia lazed at his side as he stared into the foam of his drink.  He was chewing on something, probably his cheek.

Ness approached slowly.  “Are you doing OK?” He asked, smiling and sincerely.

“I’m fine,” Gesner answered.  Also sincerely.  But then he glanced over once, twice, and finally met Ness’s attention.  “That changed something in me, man.  Like I looked into your eyes and…” And something he didn’t have the words for.

“You know, they say everybody’s a little bit bi.”  

“It wasn’t like that.”

They looked at each other one more time.

Gesner shook off whatever he felt.  “I’m gonna go… Over there.” He stalked off, and was gone, down the hall to the bathroom.  He stopped halfway.  Ness didn’t try to watch him go.  But then— then he was furiously texting somebody, his face pinched with concentration.

Kaiser, Blue Hawaii drunk, appeared at Ness’s side.

Ness took the cocktail from him and sipped himself.  It wasn't as sweet as it looked.  

“You just do something to people, don’t you?” said Kaiser.  He seemed conspiratorially pleased about that.

“I kinda do,” Ness admitted.

“Hah.  I get it.  Your magic is pheromones.”  

“That’s at least part true, now that you mention.”

He grinned about how right he was and after all.  Then, more somberly, Kaiser added, “So that’s why you smell so good.” He put his whole face to the pulse point at the back of Ness’s jaw and he sighed in as much as he could hold.

Ness went every bit as pink as he’d been half-naked in Erik Gesner’s arms back in the locker room.  He hadn’t even thought to ask if Kaiser liked his scent back.  Well, now he knew .  Besides, wasn’t there something about people with complimentary immune systems smelling really good to each other? The drink seemed to have brought that fact out from the dark of his mind.  Then there was Sister telling him something else too, something about that.

There was Kaiser licking him in the middle of the Palm bar.  Ness took another swig.

Chapter Text

They boarded their flight to Mallorca from Munich International at five in the morning.  All of Bastard München yawned and dragged.

Ness didn't know if he wanted coffee or not.  He had heartburn residue from the warm milk he’d drunk to put himself to sleep early.  He was hoping he could rest on the plane.  He also half-knew that wasn’t going to happen.  

He’d flown before.  His family had gone to the Galápagos Islands when he was nine.  It was for real-life in person research, they’d said, as if the Galápagos hadn’t been researched to death already.  Ness had spent most of time on the beaches trying to teach the mockingbirds German– no one ever talked about the mockingbirds –and chasing ghost crabs.  Mother had slapped him once for trying to make friends with the housekeeping staff.  His family had been at Finch Bay so there’d been more housekeeping than other children.  Then again, Mother probably would have hit him twice for trying to play with ‘some snot-nosed tourists’.  While they were staying at Finch Bay , the fanciest hotel in the islands.  

Now Ness chose an up-front window seat.  Outside, the sky glinted clear through the first smacks of the sunrise.  He did want to watch the world slide beneath them, he decided.  He’d be getting coffee after all.  

And Kaiser, slouching in beside him.  Kaiser had hardly said a thing all morning.  He looked tense and groggy, felt it too when Ness touched his arm.  He grunted in response, then put the armrest up between them.  His hip brushed Ness’s.

Once everyone had boarded, the flight attendants came through for a check while one of them spoke loudly about proper exit procedures in case of an accident.  One asked Kaiser, “If you could put that down for me, sir.  It’s required for takeoff and landing.  Safety reasons.”

Kaiser clacked the armrest back down.  His reply: “Whiskey as soon as the bar’s open.”

The bar was open right then.  Kaiser got his whiskey in a glass with ice and a reminder to leave his tray table up too.  There was no pleasure in his face about his 5AM doubleshot.  Kaiser slammed the whole thing, sputtered, passed the glass to Ness, and proceeded to curl up with his head on Ness’s shoulder, armrest be damned.  

They started down the runway soon enough, the airfield in silhouette with scatterings of lights.  The plane jittered and clanked on the tarmac, though not nearly as bad as either of Ness’s flights involving Seymour airport on Isla Battra.  There was a sway too as they lifted away from the ground.  The team’s excited chatter filled the early morning flight stutters.

Kaiser squeezed closer.  The pressure of his nose on Ness’s neck started to smart.  His eyes were clenched shut and he was breathing through his teeth.  

“It’s a little plane,” Ness explained.  “You can feel it more when they move around.”

“It sucks,” Kaiser groaned.  And then, when they jerked, climbing faster.  “You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.  It should calm down once we hit cruising altitude.  It’s a really nice day to fly.”

Irritated noises followed. “OK.  Shit.  Never done this before.”

Ness hadn’t realized.  That made sense though.  “Squeeze my arm if you need to puke.”

“Fuck, I’m not puking on top of…” He growled and pressed closer still.

Ness posed himself so Kaiser could easily grab him if Kaiser stopped having a say in whether or not he threw up.  

Beside them in the window, the fading twinkle of Munich spun away in the dawn and the faint skim of clouds they soon passed through.  Ness glanced down to see Kaiser peering at the window panes.  Kaiser, realizing he’d been caught, slammed his eyes closed again and huffed.  

All of this told Ness a little something.  Ray Dark hadn’t traveled far with Kaiser.  Maybe a country or two over.  He hadn’t taken Kaiser to FIFA Headquarters or to his house in Sedona.  Had Ray Dark just… kept Kaiser in an apartment somewhere in Germany for a few weeks? Or months? Ness had calculated a gap between Kaiser’s sudden freedom and Kaiser arriving at Bastard München to heckle the actual team members and throw Schnitzel on Fritz.  Then again, Ness was working with vague information.  Kaiser didn’t know his own birthdate offhand.  He seemed like he was arbitrarily counting off years via New Years.  Ness believed he was a few weeks younger than Kaiser.  He didn’t know for sure.  

That, and he still had so little of an idea of what exactly Kaiser had meant, maybe still did mean, to Ray Dark.  They were close, but not in any way Ness comprehended.  The more he figured out about their way, their you’re mine , the more it started to look like Ray Dark had dropped work to sort out Kaiser’s arrest, itself a drunken figment of a conversation in Ness’s peripheral awareness.  How had Ray Dark even found out about Kaiser ending up in jail? Did FIFA have some standing alert for people being arrested for “football-based violence”? Unless Ray Dark had used his magic.  He had enough of the stuff it seemed viable.  Viable, not certain.  Ness wanted to nibble on Dark’s ear and ask him what happened ?

Well, Ness wasn’t going to do that.  The thought made his balls nudge up in their sac.  Then and besides, his own relationship with Kaiser didn’t make sense to anyone but the two of them.  Did any couple’s? When you really got down to the sweet perversity of two people living their lives in such proximity, did any relationship ever ?

Ness leaned over and kissed Kaiser on the temple.  He wondered, wondered, wondered so hard if anyone had ever cared about Kaiser in the specific heart-melting way he did.  If anyone else had ever held in their ‘I love you’s for him because Kaiser was wild, smart, so brave and so not ready for that.  

The captain told the team they were landing in Mallorca in two hours.  Kaiser snuffed in his sleep.  He was breathing through his mouth, and that tickled Ness— his skin and his nose since Kaiser had the worst whiskey breath.  Speaking of which, Ness handed the glass back to the flight crew and ordered himself some coffee, extra cream, no sugar, to sip at while the green-gray world flowed up to the slowly bluing horizon.  He had the distant thought of what it might be like to join Fritz for his “finally leaving Germany” champagne toast, but that was Fritz’s thing and Ness was kind of stuck.  Stuck in a place he couldn’t have been happier with: Kaiser all to himself. 

Kaiser slept despite the noise in the cabin.  It wasn’t much louder than the practice yard on a nice afternoon, and he slept there all the time.  He probably hadn’t needed the whiskey aside from exercising the power to get it.  Now, when he started to drool, it was sharp-scented spit onto Ness’s pink shirt.  Ness didn’t mind at all.  No-thoughts Kaiser using him as a body pillow was one of his favorite things about being Kaiser’s.  Besides: that still so real thrill of it.  He was his.  He was helping him the way nobody else could.  Kaiser wanted him so much that he said it out loud just that simply.  You’re mine .  Ness rubbed his lips through his hair.  He wondered… He wondered so many things, there among the clouds.

He was sliding in to maybe kiss his temple again when Kaiser tipped closer.  The lines of his eyes were faintly downturned now.  His lips moved like he might have been nibbling on something or someone.  He whispered though, so softly it took Ness a moment to parse the words.

“Don’t do it now.  I gotta shit.  You’ll make a mess.”

It dragged Ness aback, slower though than it might have before.  He knew what wretched things lived in Kaiser’s past.  But Kaiser didn’t speak this coherently when he was asleep.  It was usually the odd snorting ‘get off’ or ‘fuck you’.  Not this slow, intimate whine.    

Ness swallowed his sadness for what he could not change.  He pulled Kaiser close and patted his cheek.  He thought that would wake him up.  Instead, Kaiser’s eyelids began to flutter.

He’s dreaming.   About some of the worst things that can happen to somebody.

The next words trickled out.  “You don’t even like it that way.  Just wanna wring my guts out.  Fucking sadist.” He sighed with a hitch into a tiny moan.

Ness patted him again.  The armrest dug into his hip.  “Shh.  It’s OK.  I’m here,” he said with a softness he’d have hesitated to use on Kaiser when he was conscious.  He was thinking too that Kaiser had to come out of his dream at that.  He’d open his eyes and make fun of him for being nice about it.

Instead he whispered, “No, don’t,” again, a little louder.

Ness’s eyes strayed down the line of his body and the rumpled crotch of his jeans.  He swallowed when he saw that Kaiser was half-hard.  

He’s dreaming.  About that.  And he’s getting off on it.

Ness breathed in hard and counted to three breathing out.  Then he called for a flight attendant and asked for a blanket, mouthing “He’s cold.” Like it was the most normal thing in the world that here he was snuggling with a whiskey-on-an-empty-stomach passed out Michael Kaiser.  Kaiser made a few more uncomfortable noises as Ness bundled him up, kicking slightly, telling Ness no again.

“Kaiser, wake up,” Ness whispered.  “What’s going on?”

There were more flutters, more breaths.  Ness mused on the fact his mouth was all wet about this.  There was this flicker of interest riding his dick too.  It didn’t seem to matter how bad his heart ached for all of this, Kaiser telling him, “You want to watch me hurt.” like he’d seen his face.  Like he was awake.  But he wasn’t.  His eyes were still fluttering.  His whole body was.  Ness told him, “No I don’t.”  He slid his hand under the blanket.  Kaiser made a little gasp, and sank away.

It was hard to do more than palm him with the zipper in the way.  Ness kissed Kaiser’s ear as he unzipped him and reached into his shorts.  Kaiser’s cock was slippery despite only being half-hard, and very warm.  Ness felt him all over, tugging gently at first so he’d come into himself.  Feeling that happen in his hand always got him a little.  That came to him a little differently this time given their angles and the situation and Kaiser’s breath catching against his shoulder.  It didn’t stir his own sexual urges any further, but it drew him to reaching deeper, touching gently.  He held him and he kissed him again as he started to whimper.  Kaiser’s hips were twitching now.  Somebody was fucking him in his dream even though he’d told them to stop.  He was dripping with the sensation of it, murmuring, “You’re lying,” to Ness even though Ness hadn’t spoken in a handful of minutes.

Ness shushed him again.  He was slowly, oh so slowly, easing him into a pumping motion.  His head was so wet under his thumb.  Kaiser’s precum dripped onto his palm and he could feel every gloss of it slipping to the creases there.  “Shh, I’m not,” he offered.  Kaiser quivered.  Ness almost thought he was getting off already and somehow.  Instead, Kaiser nudged back against his hand.  Just a little, just a touch.  Ness held him tighter.  He said he was right there, he wasn’t lying and he fingered Kaiser to the so soft skin between his cock and balls, all the damp little creases to skim.  Then he was holding him again, tight in his fist as he kissed and he nuzzled.  There weren’t anymore words in Kaiser, just drooling murmurs between flits of him casting around. 

The plane thunked.  Laughter rode on behind them.  Kaiser startled awake.  His gaze flicked back and forth, half-focused, but aware.  He shuddered again, his hands wringing and his dick searing hot in Ness’s grasp.

Ness didn’t let go of him.  He hushed him one more time and pressed Kaiser against his shoulder.

Kaiser’s hands unfastened.  His nails had left press marks in his palms.  He scrubbed those over the blanket as his breath rasped.  The whiskey on his breath mingled with the remains of Ness’s coffee going cold over on his tray table.  He only swallowed most of his drool as he tried to look at Ness.  Ness snuggled him tight and tugged him a little harder.  Kaiser was looking at him sidelong and too close when he swallowed his last moans.  It was a long, slow come too.  Ness managed to catch most of it, but Kaiser would still be a little sticky.  Ness could get some water and dab him off under the blankets.  Probably, hopefully.  Anyway, there was still nobody looking as Ness brought his hand to his lips and licked himself clean.

Kaiser watched him, still dazed, still very in the whiskey.  When he finally said something, it was, “Ness, I’m gonna puke.”

Ness had the bag under his mouth in an instant.

Kaiser gave a few nasty heaves.  They left him white and quivering and spitting bile.  Nothing else came up, but there might not have been anything in him.  Ness didn’t remember him eating dinner.  They got water without asking and when it was all over, Kaiser gave a wild grin and a thumbs up.  He even let everybody take his picture, Ness smiling wanly in the background, his fly undone and sticky-rimmed under the blanket.  Then Aust told the team that “barfing at 50,000 feet” was neither accurate nor an acceptable Instagram topic, but good for them if they were so damn happy about it.

Kaiser went right back to sleep on Ness’s shoulder.  He stayed there, not stirring, not even when Ness wiped off his dick, until everybody else was off the plane and Ness had to kiss him awake.

#

They checked into the JS Palma Plaza.  Kaiser and Ness were somewhat removed from the rest of the team, being in the same block as Coach Aust.  There was only one bed in their room.  Ness stood staring at it for a while.  He felt called out.  

Then he shook himself out of that and pulled back the blinds.  Palma was so much smaller, so much less complicated than Munich, but it looked joyfully sunny even in the spans beneath the lingering ocean clouds, all the warm blond buildings beneath that blue sky.  He watched it for a while before he unpacked their bags as best he could with Kaiser taking up the bathroom.  

Kaiser was in there for a while before staggering out, as put together as ever he was, little blue stones in his ears and fresh red makeup under his eyes to hide the sleepless, bluish cast of the skin.  “Nothing’s going right today,” he grumbled.  Then he powdered Ness’s nose and combed his eyebrows for him in front of the bedroom mirror, remarking as he did, “Too bad this isn’t lower.  We could have some fun with it.”

“Yeah,” Ness answered.  “You sure you’re OK?”

“Are you?” Kaiser asked.  In the mirror he threatened that he was going to take Ness by the back of the head.  Ness gasped a little.  Then Kaiser pulled away.  

They headed out to tour the Son Moix stadium and talk about their date with the pirates tomorrow.  Son Moix did not have shelter for the pitch, only most of the audience.  It was so red inside too, the stands and the sidelines.  

Coach Aust waxed poetic about enjoying the Piratas’s almost glory days back in the late 90s.  He was a lot more talkative without Noa around and Ness hadn’t realized that he’d used to skateboard.  Ness also knew that their major objective for tomorrow was to disrupt the fluidity of the game.  Precision and beauty couldn’t stand up to logic and also the Piratas's strikers didn’t have the pure brutality the Kaiser possessed.  

Of course, this turned into Barceló and Sastre-Vidal, the Piratas’s team captain and first mate, striding onto the field to argue the point.  “You think we’re going to lose to a bunch of pasty German’s? Do you even know what the sun is?” 

Their coach met eyes with Aust.  The two of them commiserate in silence.

Kaiser’s pose immediately shifted aggressive.  He circled Barceló and Sast r e -Vidal, grinning as they started to circle him right back.  They talked about pillaging each other in sloppy English cut with sunscreen smell.  

Ness did his best to look critically at the two Piratas.  This was a herculean task.  They were both sunkissed brown with bodies more like dancers than football players.  And the ass on Sastre-Vidal.  The squats he must have done.  Ness ached to brush against him, by accident, of course.  Instead, he said, “Kaiser, don’t size them up all by yourself.  You let me have a look too.”

“That’s right.  You’re the captain of this submarine,” Barceló shot back.  “Funny it’s not him.”

“He has other things to do,” Ness assured brightly.  “Also, it’s a prison ship, not a submarine.  Marc Snaffi said so.”

Kaiser hadn’t laughed at all at the original quip back with the Sightseeing Invitational.  He did now, swinging his hand to Ness’s shoulder.

“Prison ship sounds about right,” Sastre-Vidal cackled.  “And hard labor’s good for character maybe .  Do you ever find any fun out there?”

“Not here to have fun,” Kaiser said, mugging.  “Might make me laugh to see you go down though.  Anyway, which one of you’s the cabin boy?”

“Like we’d show you our cabin boy.  He’s not for you.” Both Piratas glanced at Ness.

Ness only saw it from the corner of his vision.  He gestured for everyone else to look towards what he’d seen wilting on the sidelines in the warm Mallorca sun.  Strolling past them was Jinpachi Ego and his enormous grin.  

Ness found himself a little disappointed to discover that Ego was not, in fact, magic.  The magic from the woman he had carrying his sun umbrella more than made up for it though.  

She and Ness met eyes.  The afternoon paused around the two of them, a moment with some distant gull cry breaking on the sudden silence, jet streams frozen overhead.  They approached one another.  She was smaller close up than her magic made her feel.  She was powerful stuff, and very cute.  Ness tried asking her if she wanted to kiss in English.  She made a few curious noises in what was decidedly not English, then grabbed him by the ears.  She had to lean hard out of her heels to get her mouth on his, besides the whole pulling on his ears thing.  The kiss hit like a fireball.  It seared into him and then left him with spit trailing down his chin.  Well, the same went for the woman though.  She licked her lips at him and smiled.

The two of them returned to more or less the places they’d been when the magic had let them introduce themselves.  

Ness might not have done a good job of that.  Kaiser jumped when time started again.  Barceló and Sastre-Vidal scowled at each other, then started to laugh.  “Well,” said Barceló, “There goes our secret weapon! That asshole blew it right out of the water!”

If Ego heard them, understood them, he nonetheless grinned in their direction.

“So, what about him? I’m the one you’re fighting,” Kaiser said blithely.  “But while we’re here… Tomorrow? I’ll make you both wish you were cabin boys.”

The coaches got involved after that.  Not that a fight started or anything, but they seemed to think something funny might be going on.  Probably because there was.  

#

Bastard München took over the JS Palma Plaza bar lobby to finish strategizing.  Everyone was tired, but restless now, slouching into conversations about balance and backspin as the palo and soda flowed.  They weren’t too much of an obstruction to the other hotel guests— the lobby had several art pieces and half walls that split it up nicely.  The only real problem was the handful of guests stopping in to watch and in one case pull Ness aside for selfies.  Kaiser got plenty of attention too, some of it not even from anyone invested in his occupation, a lot of it from girls about his own age, plus one cougar whose husband didn’t seem thrilled by her interest.  

It was just starting to wax towards golden hour when coach Aust announced, “I want you to rest up after that early flight.  I made us dinner reservations if you’d like to join in.  If not, don’t do anything that lands you in the ER or on the news.” He looked at Kaiser.

Kaiser grinned.  “I’m not coming and you can’t make me.”

“I didn’t even include you in the estimated headcount.  Have fun with that.  You too, Ness.  I assume.”  

Ness didn’t get a chance to answer before Kaiser had dragged him back to the room.  They only stayed long enough for Kaiser to fish a tote bag out of the back of his suitcase.  Then they were right back in the lobby and Kaiser was hailing an Uber as the rest of the team negotiated the fastest way to the restaurant.  The team left before the Uber showed up.  As soon as they were out of sight, Ness wrapped himself around Kaiser’s arm and rested his head on his shoulder.  He half knew where they were going.  Kaiser had mentioned it as soon as Mallorca came up.  

The sourness seemed to be gone from him now, but there was still that faint distraction in the way he handled his phone, kept hitching the tote up on his shoulder.  

“We should put your hair up,” Ness said to fill the streetside silence.

“I want some pictures with it down first.” Kaiser shot him a glance.  “You have your phone right?”

Ness nodded.  He’d gotten better at taking pictures since he’d come to Bastard München.  Only some of those had been of Kaiser so far.  More were food and streets and himself struggling to pose against some aesthetic part of a wall.  Presently, Ness took an experimental shot of the sky overheard, just in case the camera had decided to die on the flight over.  It was fine.

Their Uber arrived.  Kaiser told the driver, “Cala Estancia rápido,” as if the app hadn’t reported his destination.  He shook free of Ness and climbed in.  Ness got in through the other door.  They slid together in the back.  The seat was hot from the sun or somebody else.  News in Spanish changed to low-effort English-language pop.  The driver gave them a look in the rearview and headed off.  Kaiser finished texting and put his phone away.  Traffic wasn’t that bad yet, but the streets were narrow and there were people everywhere in the shadows starting to reach across the island.  The sky bled bluer still, though it was drifting towards gold out by the east and the horizon and where Ness realized they were heading.

“You touched me while I was out, huh?” said Kaiser.  He was looking out the window.  All Ness could see reflected of his face was his teeth.

Ness didn’t say anything.

After a while, Kaiser turned to him in a flutter of car horns.

Then Ness nodded as Kaiser ran one finger over his own cheek.  “That’s pretty sick.”

Ness’s hands worked on his trouser knees.  “I made a bad choice.” He spoke low and clear, trying not to let his uncertainty surface too much.  It was hard to read Kaiser when he got blunt like this.  

Not even as he offered, “You have any idea what I was dreaming?”

“It was pretty obvious.  That’s why I said…” 

“Don’t you dare fucking apologize.  That was so good, puppy,  You get it.  I’m so happy you’re mine.” He ended on a sigh.  Kaiser’s eyes shone too, all hot lust and childish joy.

Enough to make Ness flush.  “I get it that what happened to you felt good sometimes,” He told him.  His own sudden smile felt watery against the heat on his face.  “I wanted that to be true earlier.  That was how I wanted to be yours.  You know.  Right then.”

“Fuck me, I know.” Kaiser reached for his phone.  He punched something about stopping into a translator app and took a hundred euro note out of his wallet.  He didn’t even wait for a stop to shove all of this at the driver.  

The driver likewise didn’t wait to snatch the note and cancel the ride.  He also obligingly turned down the rearview camera.  

Kaiser jumped on top of Ness.  The car was still moving.  Ness thrilled all over, shivering despite his incidental sweat.  The bitterness of the Palo still rode Kaiser’s tongue as he crushed their mouths together.  Ness leaned up and into him, arching on the squeaking vinyl.  He heard it again as they were snatching at their breaths, “Such a good puppy.”  Then there were Kaiser’s hands unbuttoning his shirt so he could lean in to nip at his collarbones.  Ness breathed tightly.  The weight of what he’d done crashed back to him in Kaiser’s feverish attentions.  Ness moved to run his hand through his hair.  Part of him remained soft surprised that the strands trailing through his fingers shone blue in the corner of his vision.  Then Kaiser was writhing, trying to spread his legs around Ness’s waist just as wide as the back seat would let him.  He was fist-hard in his jeans.

Ness thought about the few broken moans that morning.  Kaiser, here now, grinding on him and breathing in his face with his kiss-wrecked mouth was the person who’d had that dream.  The dream was part of him, but it lay distant now.  Kaiser moaned now, but it was sure and needed, condensation wet all along his throat.

The car stopped, finally.  Ness spread his legs, letting Kaiser slide into the well of his thighs.  They were lost in the shadows of each other’s arms and the grinding pressure of their need.  Ness held onto Kaiser.  Kaiser put his nails in the seat vinyl, grappling with Ness’s trousers and still insisting on trying to hold himself up at the same time.  His own jeans he shoved aside with his belt still fastened.  It happened in a slow flash that their cocks met.  Kaiser’s rested full on the flat of Ness’s underside, hot on his shuddering veins.  Ness held them together.  Kaiser spit, the saliva trickly down between their heads.  They were both moving, Ness pushing up, Kaiser doing whatever he could to bring them together.  They didn’t really fit together in one hand, not ever or like this, Ness’s body spilling over the back seat as sweat slicked down his upper lip.  The afternoon sun crept on through the windows, blinding sometimes without enough of the traffic to wash it out.  They were barely pulled over into some alleyway and Kaiser was huffing so hard as he put himself to Ness.  Ness only knew want, but a thousand different facets of it.  He wanted this sex act, he wanted Kaiser, he wanted to hold every piece of him in his arms, even the ugly ones.  He started to ask, something, anything, but Kaiser kissed it out of him for now.  In another few breaths he managed, “Give it to me.”

Kaiser laughed and he did.  He ground their hips together.  They were both panting with it, resting forehead to forehead in the hot car and waiting for the moans to break.  Ness’s urge to thrust strained in his thighs as another bite slid down his neck.  He was one hand on Kaiser’s tattoo and Kaiser pressed it tighter to him.  He might have whispered something like “Squeeze when I cum,” but Ness did that anyway.  It was pure reflex and his thumb bit into Kaiser’s Adam's apple.  He wanted to say sorry, but he was sparking hard on the orgasm still, teeth in his lips like it somehow mattered that he’d made sex noises in front of their Uber driver at that point.  Besides the sounds that came out of Kaiser, all this choked up pleasure.  His eyes were running like they had the first time he’d sat on Ness’s dick.  Then he was blissed out, hunching quick and needy until he shot his spunk all over Ness.  Some of it hit him on the chin.  Kaiser sighed as he licked it off.

The driver flicked them a thumbs up.  Kaiser returned it.

Ness could hardly move in the sunshine afterglow.  He felt more like he’d done some acrobatic bedroom stunt than gotten wet humped into the back of an Uber in Palma.  Though that second part had happened.  That much finally dawned on him as the street rattled beneath them again.

Kaiser swiped them both off with his t-shirt.  He got Ness’s button down off and balled both of them up in the tote.  That took care of most of the stains.  Probably no one would notice the rest once they got there.  To the beach.

The beach where the driver pulled across two paid parking spots to let them out.  They took off towards the palm tree shaded walkway without a word more.  Music streamed from a café, something soft that matched the conversation on the outside tables.  People walked past, stopped, took pictures over the low stone wall between the walk and the beach.  Ness spotted a step-through a few meters up.  

He also saw Kaiser not caring about that.  Ness’s brain was still a little bit back at his orgasm, so it took him half a second to pick up on the fact that not only was Kaiser disregarding the whole wall thing, Kaiser hadn’t been wearing shoes since back at the hotel and Kaiser was stepping out of his jeans right there on the walkway.  There were only a couple of startled “Oh!” sounds.  He did it so fast.  All of a sudden just there he was in his bright blue surf shorts.

They looked like so much to go swimming in.  Ness didn’t say anything though.  He definitely didn’t take the pair Kaiser offered him (purple, printed with…  fruit?)

He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a set of black swim briefs.  They were rumpled from having ridden around in there all day, but what did it matter?

Kaiser shrugged, jumped the wall, and pranced onto the sand.  Ness sighed and dropped trou.  If somebody back behind him got a hell of a look at his butthole when he bent over, that was their problem.  Then he didn’t quite have the gumption to turn and face anybody back there with his eyes.   Besides, his gaze caught on Kaiser.  

He was skimming ‘round in circles on the sand, scrunching his toes in the fine, white powder, kicking it over his own ankles and stooping to inspect the stray cigarette butt that had come up in the spume.

Ness tore himself away just to check the bag one more time.  He grabbed his phone and went out, pulling up the camera as he went.  

The sun was out over Cala Estancia.  Golden hour seeped in full.  Kaiser danced over the sand, not watching where he was going.  Plumes of white dust flowed behind him and his laughter.

Ness let himself see it with his own eyes.  Then he pulled up the camera app and started shooting.  The first hint of evening sun sparked through the blue strands of Kaiser’s hair.  He kept laughing, more gently than he usually did.  He was totally lost in himself, the pure feel of the beach, the cant of the light that turned him even more gorgeous somehow.  Little by little he slunk towards the water, like he was daring the sea to tell him he’d done something wrong.  On the foaming edge of it all, he stopped and stretched, sniffing the water and the sky.  He looked like some impossible vintage portrait, all blue and gold and warmth.

Except Ness was there with him and this was happening now.  He was caught with this and Kaiser and the everything they were.  His voice came wispy when he switched to filming and started to speak.  “So, it’s your first time, right?”

Kaiser snorted, snagged somewhere between annoyance and amusement.  “You creep.  But no, I’ve never been on a beach before.”

“What made you pick this one?”

“I didn’t want to wait.”

“You know we could… We could have gone anywhere tonight.”

“Ness, you don’t need to interview me.”

“It's for Instagram.  Play along.  Are you ready to do it?”

Kaiser smiled so hard.  His eyes drifted closed and the sunlight, its backcast fluctuating now with the water leaning up against the scene, flowing over his shoulder and his tattoo, all the way down Kaiser’s perfectly imperfect skin, that harsh, red jab over his flank. 

Ness tried to say something else.  He couldn’t seem to make his mouth work.  

Kaiser turned and ran.  There was a soft echo of a wave out there just as he touched the water.  It swelled up to meet him as he strode out, down the shallow incline to the place where the ocean reached his hips.  This was further from the shore than Ness would have thought.  But then again, Ness hadn’t foreseen Kaiser aggressively dunking himself under only to come up howling with joy as he scrubbed the salt out of his eyes.  

If he hadn’t just gotten off, Ness would have been done for.  The regular camera clicked and clicked and clicked away in his hands before he finally thought fuck it .  If anybody wanted to steal their sex-reeking clothes let them.  

He ran after Kaiser and into the sea.

#  

The Mallorca Piratas had, with the help of some vague consultants (though Ness had a good inkling who those were), not only regained, but surpassed their late 90s glory.  Ness hadn’t even been alive when they were first trying to make a name for themselves as the pillagers of the Ballaeric.  Still, there was something almost nostalgic about watching them parade out into the sun with their neon uniforms and their big grins and their waves to the stands.  

The Piratas were so beautiful out there and they played a beautiful game.  There was no need for flourishes in their movements— they were perfection.  Their teamwork, a fluid joy.  Ness could almost feel it tiding underneath his magic.

They kept the ball for what felt like 90% of the game.  Ness would later learn it was closer to 70%, but the concentration it took to play against them stretched his sense of time and even of himself so thin.

Bastard München did get the ball eventually.  It took four of them swooping in on Sastre-Vidal to do it, but it still happened.  Kaiser swooned his way up to the goal with it, Ness and Mensah clearing his way.  He shot.

The final score was 1-0.

The Piratas were all on their knees as the trash beat down in the afternoon rain.  The boos fell like thunder in Ness’s ears.  He was still there in the center of it all, letting Mensah swing him around while Kaiser demanded him back.

In the VIP seating, Ego sat grinning at the strange woman.  He did not seem to hear the Piratas’s coaches yelling at him.  

Chapter Text

They were knee deep in the Classic.  Berserk Dortmund had decided to be a bunch of contrarian shits: they and Bastard München were tied 1-1 and had been for half of an eternity, drawn out by the fact Dortmund kept knocking the ball out-of-bounds.  Bastard München had done it themselves too, of course; it was just one of those days.  But the fact this nonsense was happening in the Allianz Arena, their arena, pushed the situation past annoying and into unbearable.  The crowd was seething.  Gesner had beer in his hair and a yellow card for putting himself in a position where he could get beer in his hair.  Sander said nothing but “I told you so” and mostly to Kaiser, who was also cruising for a beer in the face if Ness was totally honest with himself.  

It was halftime.  Kaiser stood staring at himself in the mirror over one of the sinks.  He’d walked under one of the showers while it was on and so was spattered wet.  Ndaiye was changing his shirt— bloody lip.  Gesner had run out of hair gel.  He was going to have to put his do down.  He fought the prospect with a constant stream of fucks .

Ness did his best to let all of this slide off of him.  He had a job to do.  Well, so did Sander and screw Sander for checking out at a time like this.  

“Everyone,” he started.  He knew he only commanded about 70% of all possible attentions, but close enough.  “I don’t have any pretty words, but you know, are we really gonna let the Bastard München that beat the Sightseeing Irregulars get embarrassed on our own turf? In front of our own fans?”

“Fuck the fans!” snapped Gesner. “Some of that went up my nose.” He then blew a wicked snot gob into the sink.  Ndaiye spit more blood into Gesner’s sink.  Kaiser meanwhile moved to another sink further down the line.  

Ali took the time to intervene, specifically with Gesner.  He laid his hand on his shoulder.  “Yeah, actually you might want to back off on that.  I mean, I know my timing sucks with this little suggestion, but you don’t give me a lot of ins.”

Kaiser shot a side-eye their way.  “Didn’t we make a point about sex being a necessity? Recently too.  Hmm.  Can’t put my finger on it.”

“You shuttup too.  You’re all over the place.” Gesner threw off Ali’s grasp and lunged.  He didn’t exactly tower over Kaiser, but his heels went off the ground as he tried.  He looked so much smaller with his hair dangling into his eyes.

Kaiser showed his teeth.

Gesner did it back.  They snarled.  Gesner broke out of that glaring daggers at Ness.  “Somebody here isn’t doing his job.”

Ness spent three seconds being taken aback.  Then he marched right up to the two.  He and Gesner stared each other in the face through a long, sputtering silence as the last few plays cycled through Ness’s brain.  Eventually, he said, “You have a point.”

“What the fuck, Ness!” Kaiser did that pissed off snort thing that brushed uncomfortably close to laughter.  

“Who’s screwing with you?” Ness asked him.  “We’ll make his life hell.”

“You’re screwing with me agreeing with Gesner!”

“Gesner’s not wrong.  And we’re all just done.” Ness snapped his hand over his head and pointed to the exit.  “Everybody get back on the field.  Let’s ram whatever we’re feeling down their throats.  That’s the least we can do for Dortmund.” He said it as cheerfully as he could given his own emotions were pulling him towards a nasty smirk he didn’t know if he wanted to wear or not.  

Ndaiye ran up to him, then Kaiser (muttering “traitorous dog” under his breath).  Others filtered out of the lockers.  Mensah came out with his head held high, giving a wide berth to Gesner and Ali as he did though.  Those two brought up the rear.  Ness heard them over one last toilet flush: “Look, I don’t care if you pick up girls, but that one’s gotten attached if you haven’t noticed.”

The team was on the field long before they needed to be, limbering in their places while Berserk Dortmund crept their way back and Sander finally deigned to reappear.  He looked at them with a question in his scowl, but made no remarks.  

As Berserk Dortmund’s Derleth approached to kick off, he seemed to be swallowing some sudden nervousness.  Why had nothing to do with his current situation.  It was his ball.  Ness let him have it.  He fell in low on Sangare, one of the forwards.  Sangare hadn’t attempted a goal yet, but he’d been up for rookie of the month.  If he wasn’t going to try to pull something soon, it would have been a waste to put him on the field at all.  

Max might have been thinking the same thing.  He took up Sangare’s other side.  He and Ness circled wide as Sangare took a pass from Dortmund’s Midfielder Henninger.  The ball had already sailed all the way around the pitch by the time that happened.  Sangare caught it, held for a few seconds, tried to move.  Ness snatched the ball and shot it around his back so Max could pass it off before getting caught himself.  A couple Berserkers went after Ness as an obvious target and source of revenge.  The ball bounced its way to Grim in the next instant.  He slammed it on his ankles just before it would have sailed out of bounds again , punting it sideways at Fritz,  Mensah headed off the Berserkers changing course.  The Berserkers did have their ability to shift their focus and come down like a tide on the field.  Distracting them hadn’t been fruitful.  Another goal was going to take pure power.  Dammit, Ness really should have said that back in the locker room.  Too late now.  He’s have to make himself trust.  

Starting with Gesner.  He roared across the field with his hair plastered to the side of his head.  He took the ball from Fritz.  Fritz stopped dead to shrug at the two Dortmund defenders who’d been coming up at him, then ran between them like he was leaving a party in a rush.  Gesner too charged right through an attempt to block him.  As Dortmund was regrouping, he shot to Ness.  There wasn’t much time.  Dortmund had never really stopped trailing Ness.  They seemed to recognize what he was up to.

Ness felt for Kaiser’s shot out there in the magic between them, the flavor and the wonder of it.

He realized he couldn’t get the ball to that place.  Nobody could.  Not the way things had shaken out.  Damn that too.  They were coming for him.  Max and Gesner were both open.  Max was ever so slightly behind and Max was still a lot better at feinting than Gesner.  Ness met his eyes, let that be the thing unsaid between them.  Max careened towards him, but Ness shot to Gesner.  Gesner doubled back to avoid the heaving mob.  Kaiser met him on the far side, and helped himself to the ball in the same instant Gesner body blocked Derleth and Sangare.

Kaiser made a hard, clean shot.  It landed with a smack and a hurricane of gasps.  Ness saw him sigh as the whistle blew, watched as he lit on his toes, beckoned the crowd to cheer especially for him.  

Then Gesner put him in an armlock and marched him back to his starting position.  He did that, but they had both begun to laugh between calling each other names.  

The victory still wasn’t quite true until the clock ran out.  Then there they were: 2-1 with the Dortmund Berserkers.  Bastard München converged on the center of the field, all sweat and loose tongues, hands and fists out, embraces flowing between as all the anger and frustration vanished.  

Kaiser hung onto Ness, picking him off his feet saying, “I didn’t have to drag you up this time, loser”.  He leaned back and Ness leaned with him, unable to stop himself.  They were tilting, not quite falling.  They were caught on a swell of shouts, the backbeat of a chant: Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! from a group of mostly girls up above them in the stands.

Kaiser didn’t seem to be paying them much attention.  Then he had to go and grab Ness’s face and squish their lips together.  It left Ness sparking along his skin like someone had dumped water onto him and then of course Fritz actually had.  Then Max kissed Gesner on the cheek while Gesner was distracted.  Gesner shoved Max at Ness.  They shrugged and pecked each other while Kaiser told Gesner: that could be us.  And then he kissed Mensah instead.  Mensah pretended to swoon.  He did that better than Fritz or Max, who applauded him.    

By the end of the day, Ness’s hand hurt from singing his name.  He did not want to remember that “ball philosophy” was a thing until the term could be funny again.  He swore he still saw flash afterimages along the dim Munich streets.  He knew his drink was running low— it was something the Palm made only for him.  He didn’t know what it was called, but it was blue and shimmery and served in a fishbowl glass even though he was sitting outside on one of the tables where fishbowl glasses went to die.  Today had been a lot of people.  There were still a few more trickling past, taking the chairs and gazing up at him and talking about the same stuff he’d been talking about all afternoon.  Of course he was happy.  Of course Bastard München would win the Bundesliga this year.  Kaiser had said they would, right?

Then Kaiser was there with him, sitting on the table too.

“It’s finally cool out.  I thought that’d never happen,” Ness said between sips.

“So ridiculous.” It came with a nudge in his side.   

Ness sniffed.  He smelled spring grass and Prada L’Homme.  “Are you drinking chartreuse and soda?”

“Mallorca gave me an idea.  You want some?” Kaiser all but put said drink under Ness’s nose when he asked.  He was, in fact, drinking chartreuse and soda out of a martini glass for some reason.

“Ah, no.” Ness told him.  He finished his own cocktail in the next swig.  Then he lifted one knee and propped the hand with the glass there, watching the leftover shimmer twist along the bowl as he turned it.  He didn’t really weigh the options for what he said next.  He was drunk enough to forget he could do that.  “Is there something bothering you?” 

“I’m horny.” Kaiser laughed.  His eyes were full of mischief when Ness met them.  “I can’t take your pheromones sometimes.  How do you live with them?”

“Sleeping in your bedroll, it turns out.” Ness thought he’d keep talking about that, about how much he enjoyed their sleeping situation after all and how the futon was the best.  He thought that, but the words that came out of him went: “If you’re horny, let’s get a hotel room and mess it up.”

“Sounds good,” Kaiser said.  A grin split his face.  He pounded the rest of his drink, handed the glass to Ness, started typing on his phone, and finally burped so hard it blew the hair out of his face.  “We’re doing that at… DO & CO.”

Oh.  They actually were… going to a hotel.  Impromptu.  For fucking.  

Ness tipped his head back.  He sucked the cool night air through his whole self.  “I’ll meet you there.  Text me the room number.” Then he kissed Kaiser on his tattoo, adding in a slow, seductive whisper.  “I’m not bringing the syringe.”

“Then get the white box on top of The Lucifer Effect ,” Kaiser responded.  He snapped his lips at him and got up.  Apparently, he was walking.  This left Ness to bring the glasses back inside and call in Uber in that order.  He did not trust himself to walk anywhere after two of his personal cocktail.  

At the complex, he found Coach Aust up and watching replays of the game against Dortmund, Sachs hanging upside down from one of the bars in the gym and the box exactly where it was supposed to be in Kaiser’s room.  He grabbed that, a few accouterments from the cedar chest and his weekender bag.  Ness had kept that ready and packed.  They’d talked about taking nights off, just the two of them. Now it had finally happened.  

They were having a date.  

Ness wore half a dirty smirk all the way to DO & CO.  The place came off intimidating with all its aggressive modernity and the red wall behind the check in desk.  Luckily, the clerk was occupied when Ness arrived.  He filed past her, got his bearings in the sideways laid out building.  Ness found their room easily enough: Kaiser had left the door slightly ajar with the Do Not Disturb sign in place.  He stood close and pretended to check his phone, waiting until the hall was clear of guests before he slipped inside.  Then he let himself see.

Kaiser had the lights down except for the spots over the bed where he lay naked on the gray spread, his eyes half-lidded and his own smirk to show for all of this— there was also a bottle of Chartreuse and a pizza box on the bar.   

Ness almost felt like he was going to laugh, but he needed the air, he needed his wits, he needed Kaiser who shifted subtly on the sheets, tilting so he could look at Ness through the strange, dim bearings of the room.

Ness dropped the weekender at the foot of the TV.  He toed off his shoes, tossed his jacket over a chair with his shirt and he couldn’t wait any more than that.  All of him ached with need.  He jumped onto the bed with Kaiser, tipped him onto his back and kissed him all over his throat and his Chartreuse spicy mouth.  His hands stole over him, his flanks and his hips, the blue spill of his hair.  Finally he was seizing on his thighs and just how absolutely good he felt there.  

Kaiser struggled not to laugh too and he bit Ness.  It was further down his shoulder than usual.  The muscles underneath flared as Ness kissed him again, then pulled back.  He asked him, earnestly, “Please tell me if there’s something going on.  You feel… light tonight.  I don’t know what to do with that.”

Kaiser looked up at the ceiling, thinking.  “I do feel light,” he said.  He sounded like he’d only realized it himself just then.  Then his eyes, and his fingers were back to Ness.  “I’m redirecting some energy.  You picked up on it earlier too.”

“We can talk about it.  Whatever you’re doing, you don’t need to do it alone.”

“Sex first.  Then I’ll talk all you want.  Promise.” The promise was sealed with a finger between both of their lips.  Kaiser kissed him through it.

Why that got him going, Ness couldn’t say, but he himself felt radiant.  He longed to push Kaiser, suck on him, hold him down and just look at him.  He almost gave in to the last one.  Kaiser’s hands were so close to his grasp.  He could have just done it, just gulped him in all of his senses.  The light feeling though had seeped into Ness too, now that it was cool out and the Berserk Dortmund was out of their sight for a while and Kaiser lay so close.  Ness was going to be filthy-intimate with him tonight.  “Can I tie you up?” he asked.

“I said you don’t have to ask,” said Kaiser.  

Ness tore himself away.  He hung off the side of the bed, groping for and through the weekender bag.  Kaiser, sitting somewhat, watched him do it.  He held out one foot when Ness held up an ankle cuff.  Ness kissed him on his instep, strapped him in and locked the catch.  Kaiser shifted to the other side for the same treatment.  He then asked, nodding towards the collapsed spreader bar, “How do you want me?”

Ness turned him over, facedown on the place where the pillows were supposed to be.  Kaiser made a sound of appreciation.  He spread his legs and waited.  Ness got the bar screwed open and locked, then clipped it into place.  He sat back then, appreciating his work.  Finished with that part, he said “Hands,” as he reached back into the bag.  Kaiser gave them to him so willingly, his own smirk brilliant in the spotlight shadows just above the sheets.  The only hint of resistance came when Ness brought out the chain: one short length with a plastic sleeve so it wouldn’t clank.  Ness wrapped it around the spreader bar and said it again: “Hands.”  Kaiser had to bring his knees up to get his wrists in a place where the chain could be looped around the bar fastened to both of them.  

The pose left his underside utterly exposed, his ass in the air.  Ness took another long look at Kaiser’s flushed taint and his squirming shoulders.  Once again, he returned to the bag.  He took two more things out and dropped them where Kaiser couldn’t see.  

Then Ness slid his belt aside and got up on the bed, one hand on his half-hard cock and the other kneading the back of Kaiser’s thigh.  Kaiser was mostly hard, just starting to drip.  Ness squeezed him and pulled his hand back.  He spat on his palm, then wrapped his grasp around Kaiser’s length, pumping him slowly before he pulled his foreskin back so soon and while it was still on the thick side.  Kaiser’s juicy head squirmed in his grasp all sensitive and bare.  It didn’t take long for Kaiser to get it the rest of the way up like that.  Soon, his dick hung red and longing up by his belly, shifting with the rise of his breath.  

Ness slurped on his wet fingers.  His mouth watered so hard before he ever brought the first stroke of his tongue and then he didn’t wait, didn’t waste movements on Kaiser’s body beneath him.  He licked him from the back of his bare balls to the pit of his hole.  Kaiser was salty there, a little musty-tasting.  He made a scratchy gasp at the contact.  

Ness let the spit flow.  He kissed and he sucked and he squeezed on Kaiser’s asshalves.  The first few kisses were tender and simple.  They grew rough as they went on.  Ness’s tongue slipped out of him and prodded at Kaiser’s pucker.  Kaiser flinched.  There were more jerks of sound from him.  Ness shot him a glance over the curve of one cheek.  His mouth slid open against him.  He lapped with the bed of his tongue, then pushed with the tip.  Kaiser opened a little this time.  Ness dealt him more kisses before trying again.  This time there was a groan and a squirm.  Ness smelled deeper chartreuse than before.  Kaiser’s dick must be dribbling.  Good, let him feel what Ness was doing in every part of his sex.  Ness kneaded and spread.  Kaiser buckled slowly around him.  His breath shook as Ness got his first taste of his cherry red insides.  Ness’s own cock surged.  He humped air as he re-positioned and pushed in again.  Kaiser’s insides still tasted like Kaiser, but there was this faintly sour sidewalk flavor besides.  This from where he ended and from where Ness loved to touch him, fuck him and now lick him.  He was so warm inside too, even to the most delicate tongue skim.  

Ness only pulled back when his mouth started to ache.  Kaiser’s hole was all wet with his spit.  There was more trailing into him, but he swallowed it before he went back.  He held him and he ate him, laps and thrusts that drew these long, sliding moans out of Kaiser.  He got hotter still and he was squirming inside too, clenching sometimes on Ness’s tongue.  Ness buried his face in him until his nose itched from rubbing on the small of his back.  Until Kaiser was sweating again, his bonds clanking as he fought to hold himself still.  “Fuck, Ness,” he murmured.  “I can feel your teeth on my taint.”

Ness hummed in acknowledgement.  He tried to push more of his bottom lip up, but that meant a little less of Kaiser’s hole open on his tongue.  Moaning himself, he leaned into him.  He was clutching his thighs now for leverage, holding his breath until his vision started to fog.  

He pulled off with a gasp, and panted between Kaiser’s spread legs.  He pushed his trousers around his knees as he grasped himself as he watched Kaiser’s asshole twitch, as he let Kaiser’s taste run down his throat.  He brought himself so close and then Kaiser was snapping at him to do something .  So Ness put his mouth back on him for a couple more pumps.  He didn’t let himself come.  He cut himself off at the very edge, groaning and knotting his left hand in the mattress.

Ness was going to enjoy every second of this.  He wasn’t going to get off yet, but he wasn’t going to lose his hardon.  Not even if it smarted like hell.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Kaiser groaned at him.  

“Magic trick,” Ness told him.  He then grabbed the heavy thing he’d dropped on the bed.  He tossed it into the air where it flashed in the low light, caught it, and before he let himself think better of it, stuck the thick end as far back into his mouth as he could reach.  His throat welled with the head.  He was too ecstatic with the cold, sleek feel of it.  

It was a heavy-headed stainless steel g-spot wand.  Ness pulled it out of himself with a glorious slurp and put it to Kaiser’s ass.  

Kaiser rustled all over to the unfamiliar weight.  He strained, trying to push his whole self back where he was bound.  Ness held him on that edge for a few seconds.  Then Kaiser went facedown on the sheets, moaning as the head sank away, all its weight to fill him and rest directly on his sweet spot.  The next sound that came out of him was so shrill and needy.  Ness tilted the wand a little deeper, drawing the noise from him again as he began to pump.  He hooked the wand deep and hard.  Kaiser’s mouth-opened body struggled with it somewhat, especially if Ness held the head so it was spreading the ring of muscle, but Ness only did that a little.  Mostly, he pushed into that good, pulpy spot.

Kaiser was red in the face by this point, red down to his throat and his chest.  His eyes had gone glassy with lust.  “It’s so good, but I really want your dick.” He said after a while, not too long.  He was huffing and shaking.  

“You’ll get off faster with this.  I know it’s starting to hurt, huh?” Ness spoke softly, but he picked up the pace with the wand.  He could see Kaiser’s own cock was hard and flushed to the point of looking raw.  There were spatters of precum on his stomach and streaked all across the bedspread.  Another slicked down as Ness pushed the wand in and up and towards Kaiser’s navel.  That little extra touch of a scar Kaiser had there was all in shadow.

Ness reached around and put his finger in it.  He pushed the wand deep.  Not that he could have touched his finger to that wand.  Kaiser’s insides didn’t bend that way.

Kaiser let out a yelp though.  Like that was exactly what had happened.  “Ness!” he gasped.  

“It’s harder than my dick too,” Ness reminded him, driving with his finger and the wand.  He could feel Kaiser’s muscles churning as the wand broke into him.   

“But it’s not your dick,” Kaiser snapped.

Ness smiled down on him.  His face had started aching with his smile a while ago. So much of him ached though.  His pulse clanging in his ribs and his dick.  His jaw throbbed from being held so wide for so long.  “Why do you want that so bad?” he asked.  

Kaiser snarled.  He got the wand again, deep in and hard.  There was some resistance pulling out.  His body had clung to it.  Ness noticed of course, and he gave him a drizzle of lube before he did it again, harder and lower, back in that good spot.  He had to move his off hand and brace himself on Kaiser’s hip.  Kaiser’s cock hung a hot weight on the seat of his body, his groans were bringing him to surges, and to something glancing desperation.

He shuddered all over.  His bonds clanged.  He spoke through gritted teeth.  “It’s not you and goddamn fucking FUCK YOU! What are you even doing to me?”

Kaiser had almost let himself beg.  It was so beautiful and it was also something jarringly unexpected in the next few seconds.  Kaiser squirmed in his cuffs, hands and toes grasping on nothing.  His breath caught hard.  He shuddered again, stretching into his own sensations.  His asshole trembled hard enough that Ness could feel it up the wand and sweat ran down the line of his back.  When the spasm passed, he had slumped over as much as he could, gasping.  His dick was still up and straining.

Ness breathed that hard he expected to start snorting his own blood given the pressure.  He tossed the wand.  It landed with a wet thud.  He’d mounted Kaiser before the sound was half over.  Kaiser was a slick, twitching mess around him, sighing in pure pleasure as Ness hilted him.  It was the easiest push Ness had ever taken into another body, but it clenched in as soon as he started to move and the shudders started again.  He was panting too, clinging to Kaiser as he rode him since his knees were threatening to buckle.  Kaiser kept trying to push back, trying for more even though Ness was as gone in his innards as he could ever be.  Ness squeezed Kaiser tight enough to bruise and he fucked him with no sense in his hips.  He fucked him until he was gasping, head thrown back and calling his name up at the dim ceiling while Kaiser dissolved into moans.

They orgasmed about the same time.  Ness bucked.  Kaiser fluttered so hard Ness swore he saw the liquid motion riding up his spine.  Ness’s sperm felt hot as liquor as it left him and Kaiser’s tremors sucked him dry.  His balls stung after as he drifted back down to himself, to being held in Kaiser’s heat as the afterglow slunk in.

They should have put a towel down.  Kaiser was a sloppy, spermy mess and too loosened up to hold much of Ness’s semen for long.  Ness tried to remember if the lube was safe to ingest.  Well, probably.  He took a deep breath and stuck his face to Kaiser one more time, lapping until he’d sucked up every drop he could taste.

Ness knew he had felt this strange swirl of exhausted and clear-headed before, but when would not surface in his memories.  He wanted desperately to lie down and enjoy it, but he wanted to care for Kaiser more.  Caring won out.  Ness staggered to the bathroom, coming back with two washcloths.  He put the cool one where Kaiser could rest his face on it, then mopped up Kaiser’s cock and battered backside with the warm one before he unclipped him from the bar and finally let him collapse.  Which he did.  Thud.  Shaky sigh.  

Then Ness grabbed a pillow from where Kaiser had tossed them aside.  He tucked it under his shoulders and laid down on his back beside Kaiser, who was still face down on the washcloth.  He stroked his hair and his scarred back.  “Still horny?” he asked gently and after a while.  

“You fucked my brains across the room again.  What do you think?”

“I think I want to know if you like having your ass eaten.” Kind of a cheeky way to answer, but he wanted to hear him say it.

Kaiser’s response though was to finally push himself up on his elbows.  He regarded Ness.  Then he jumped him.  He went on to lick him all over his face, suck on his lips, biting and lapping and grumbling for more.

Ness hadn’t washed his face or his mouth.  He had no idea if Kaiser was tasting his personal sweat or trying to get a lick of himself.  Ness loved it though.  He loved it to a faint laughter before they both drooped again.

The two of them rested for a while until.  Then they had a little more Chartreuse straight from the bottle and onto their dirty lips.  The pizza was ham with no sauce, better eaten room temperature, at least according to Kaiser.  It could wait a little more.  Besides, the night was young and the post fuck haze particularly heady.  Kaiser only rested his head on Ness with any purpose if he was done in for the moment.  Neither of them had chests that worked well as pillows, so there was something to be said for Kaiser sprawling on him in the halo of his grasp.  Especially since it was so absolutely temporary.

Kaiser had something to say, after all.  Assuming he did still possess the faculties to do it.  He slumped against Ness for… But the clock had been face-down since Ness had showed up and he had no idea.  

Finally he sat up.  He was still in the cuffs and so many handprints.  The overhead spots left him looking all ethereal despite the way they plucked at the shadows of his muscles.  He scooted to the bottom of the bed, grabbed the strap for the weekender with his foot and pulled it close.  He took out the white box and he draped out beside Ness with it between them.  His smirk was tender-bright.

Ness didn’t say anything.  He listened.  

“You’re always asking how to be mine better.  There’s something I want to say to you about that.  It’s straight from my Es.  You struggle with things that raw sometimes, but then sometimes they’re fine? That’s an indecisive Ich you’ve got.”  

Ness nodded.  He wondered why he felt such an overwhelming need even though they’ve both already come.  “Kaiser?”

“I decided to let myself tell you anyway.  You’re strong enough to accept it.” That part came out clipped.  Was he nervous? Maybe just a touch? Even if he was, when he locked eyes with Ness, his attention downright sparkled.  “I’m going to pierce your ears.”

“Huh…?” Ness hadn’t heard right.  That wasn't something people just said to the other.  But no, he had.  He actually had.  “What? Umm, I don’t know about that.” He had also never given the process a single thought.  

Kaiser took his uncertainty another way.  He swung himself to the bathroom.  The sink ran.  He came back with a hand towel onto which he dumped the contents of the box.  There were sealed pairs of gloves, a string of alcohol wipes, a marker and two white plastic spring clamps with bits of metal sticking out of them.

Ness regarded them with a bland revulsion.  At least it wasn’t sewing needles.  He’d heard the girls in school talk about piercing their ears that way.  

“Everything’s sterile and I got stainless studs,” Kaiser explained.  

“It’s not that.”

“Scared?”

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Only for a minute.”

“Aa.  I don’t think that’s something I’m into.” 

Kaiser only shook his head.  He kneed his way over, folding himself so he was almost face-to-face with Ness, who hadn’t moved from his pillow.  Then when Kaiser spoke it was with the sweetest confidence in his voice.  “I’ll take care of the holes for you.  I’m the one putting them there."

“Yeah but… Why? Why that?  Can’t you just put a cigarette out on me or something?”

Kaiser leaned back.  Disgust twisted his face.  “Ness! Do you have any idea how bad that hurts?”

“No,” Ness said sheepishly.  “But I could…” The words slipped away from him.  Keep it covered up.  Of course Kaiser didn’t want something Ness had any chance of hiding.  With the earrings, everyone would know even if they didn’t.  Ness was Kaiser’s.  

Ness thought of getting out of bed.  He put one hand down in a place where he could have pushed and been free.

Kaiser grabbed him by the shoulder.  He stroked him and drew closer.  “You’ve already changed yourself so much to get where you are.  Why won’t your Ich give you this?”

The breath went faintly ragged in Ness’s chest.  The only thoughts he had on the matter were simple, direct.  How else could he say no? But he had to choose.  He had to do it carefully.

He was still struggling with how when Kaiser swung one leg over him.  So he was pinned.  He’d have to knock Kaiser on the floor to get away.  He was thinking about getting away.  Instead he covered his face with his hands.  Kaiser could still read him, just from his body and his pulse.  He knew that too, knew it as Kaiser rested his lips on his knuckles, as Kaiser finger-combed his hair back from his left ear.  Ness said,  “Kaiser, stop.  I don’t want pierced ears.”  

“That’s your Uber-Ich holding out, isn’t it?” And that voice now, there was almost pity in it.  At least some faint sadness.  “Your dad didn’t like that? Your mom think it was too gay?”

“They both just thought body mods were gross.  Pretty funny since my mom had pierced ears.”

“Fuck her.  You’re mine now.”

It didn’t undo the nervousness, the twist of anger in him.  But Ness knew that.  He knew that with everything he was.  Hearing it squelched his desire to move.  After all, he had asked, hadn’t he? How do I be yours better?   This was an answer.

Part of him would have rather had the cigarette.  All of him put his hands down.    

Kaiser cleaned Ness's ear with one alcohol patch.  He pulled on the gloves, and cleaned them too, and marker, and the pull tab for the first clamp’s wrapper.  He was meticulous about marking the center of the lobe.  Ness swallowed.  Kaiser shushed him.  He unwrapped the clamp and brought it around.

There was a sound like somebody stepping on a can.  One sharp sensation that turned into a distant ache. 

Ness let go of the breath he was holding.  It actually didn’t hurt that bad at all.  The muscles in his neck relaxed.  Why had he tensed them? He hadn’t needed to hold in a scream or anything.  

He had no trouble turning his head when Kaiser asked and Kaiser treated the other side just the same.  Then he stuck his still gloved hands in Ness’s bangs, holding him that way as he admired what he’d done to him.

His expression was close to bliss even for the sharpness staining the lines of his lips.  “Beautiful,” he said.  “You’re not even bleeding.”

Ness realized too— he wasn’t crying either.  He had no reason to cry.  The pain was barely that.  Part of him still didn’t understand why Kaiser wanted this particular thing from him.  Being Kaiser’s Ness almost understood, but earrings were… No, anything he thought about that had come from his mother and he shouldn’t listen anymore.  He should lean up and kiss Kaiser.  Kiss him so deep he might feel it in his Es.

As they parted, he asked him, “Can I see?”

“Of course.” Kaiser not only got off of him, and off of the bed, he offered him his hand. Then Kaiser limped a little as he escorted Ness to the bathroom.  He still tracked so light though, so happy with himself there sliding the lights on so that Ness could see himself.

Ness had two perfectly placed ball studs in his ears.  They twinkled in the corners of his eyes even when he looked straight at the center of his own face, or to the side of the slender mirror where Kaiser had paused to play with his hair as he admired what he’d done to him.

“It’ll be a few weeks before we can switch them out,” he said.  “These shouldn’t be much of a problem until then.”

“It’s weird to think there’s metal in me now,” murmured Ness.

“I already bought you some amethyst.  It's Portuguese cut.”  

“Ah.  I don’t know what that is but it sounds nice.”

“I guess you want diamonds too.”

“If that’s OK.” Besides— Kaiser? Buying him diamonds? Kind of romantic.  Almost more so than this way he’d chosen to mark him.

“Very OK,” Kaiser purred.  Then he oh so silkily put his hand around Ness’s still lube-slippy, half-hard cock.  “Just like this is OK.  I got hard too when I had mine done.”

Ness had been only distantly aware of his arousal.  There was so much else streaming through his thoughts.  At Kaiser’s touch his senses clamped down on that part of himself.  He took a breathy gasp and looked at himself in the mirror again, then at Kaiser.  Kaiser nuzzled his cheek and started to jerk him, slow and light, almost a tease despite the certainty of his fist.  Ness whimpered.  He was so ready to come again.  Something in the swirl of his thoughts was clasping him back from that though.

He swallowed it.  He was Kaiser’s.  Everyone would know now even if they didn’t.  Ness would drop the boundaries of himself, just a little, just enough to let him revel in the truth between them.

His need went searing in another few strokes.  Kaiser’s pleasure with the situation was obvious in his kiss, flowing into another that turned into him biting the corner of Ness’s mouth.  Ness slid his arm around him and Kaiser put his opposite hand in his hair, squeezing on his skull.  There were gasps.  Ness flexed up on the pads of his toes, trying to get himself more stimulation.  Kaiser tightened his hand and he rose too.  He was on Ness’s neck now.  He was maybe thinking of leaving a hickey on top of everything.

“No, I think I need— ah!” Ness gasped.

“What do you need?” Kaiser asked, cheek-to-cheek with him, his fingers so tight, his mouth so close and his hair tickling the raw lobe of Ness’s ear.

So Ness let his Es speak too or something like that.  “Let me stick it back in.”

“Are you serious?”

“I wanna put my dick inside you, Kaiser,” Now, he was the one begging, but softly and eyes closed; softly and so lost on the moment that he could hardly speak.  “You’re so good.  I don’t think anything else is gonna shut me up.”

Kaiser kissed him one last time.  He pulled off, swung to the side of the sink and bent over.  He was still all red and slippery and blown out from earlier.  He looked hurt even though he was twitching needy himself and already.

Ness grabbed the lube.  He slicked himself and that was it.  Kaiser was ready for him and Ness put mostly clean hands on his hips as he drew into him.  

Once they were slung up tight together, he looked at them in that slender mirror.  Kaiser’s face was a little pinched despite his open-mouthed expression of desire.  Then Ness had earrings and lust-black pupils and a blotchy blush all over his throat, threaded with spit from Kaiser’s tongue.  He almost didn’t recognize himself there.  He looked so absolutely gone.

Kaiser shifted under him, uncertain of the stillness.

Ness nodded to his reflection.  He whispered, “Tell me who did yours.”

“Dark,” said Kaiser

“Who jerked you off?” Ness started to move, started to feel him. 

He really was so good, so hot, already making these enticing noises with his voice and his ready hole. “I did it and he watched,” he moaned.  “Then I licked it up but he still wouldn’t touch me.  I wanted him so bad.”

Ness gave it to him so hard next instant that Kaiser cried out.  He was trembling too inside, already and again.  

“but it feels like a dream now ness I don’t even remember half of it especially not now” All one word, beautiful and run together.

Ness slung back into his own speed, own depth.  He wanted to come and stay satisfied this time, to fuck and stay fucked for a while.  He drove his fingers into Kaiser’s hips.  He had him.

Kaiser knew it too.  He was saying, “All I feel is you fucking me.”

“Do it harder.  Give me more.  I just wanna…”

“…Be happy for once.”

“Ness!”

Chapter Text

Pavel Mirsky.  That was the name of the Russian who’d come along with the Sightseeing Irregulars.  Ness hadn’t parsed that at first because Mirsky was in his own age bracket.  He didn’t look it.  He was built like a bull.  Then those big, dark eyes and that just a little too long haircut— really a striking man in the other sense of the word.  

He did this routine about sending balls into space.  His father had been a cosmonaut and his father was also dead, which was possibly why Mirsky kept getting away with any show-offy routines on the field— Russian teams tended to discourage that.  He’d said in interviews that he wanted to go into space himself someday, but he never got into more detail about how.  He had though broken a few bones already in his career.  As in other people’s bones.  

He manifested the most intoxicating grin.  Ness hated it a lot, mostly for the fact it kept ending up in his face.

Pavel Mirsky had it out for Alexis Ness.  It didn’t matter how hard Ness pushed him away with his magic.  They slammed up together, once, again, for at least the twelfth time.

Bastard München would take possession of one of Mirsky’s satellite launches.  They’d push and shove their way up to the Russian’s third of the field, then waver on the edges of where they could have shot, Kaiser, Ness and Grim skimming the ball around.  Gesner had taken to trying to body Mirsky out of the way and Gesner now had a yellow card to show for his efforts.  He was still making somewhat gentler attempts to foist onto Mirsky what Mirsky kept doing to his teammates.  Because it just kept happening.  Mirsky would block the ball.  He would send it into space.  

The turn of phrase might have been a gimmick.  It was also true though.  Ness understood why Mirsky was not a striker despite the power of his kicks, the clarity of his aim: Mirsky’s specialty was whipping the ball over everything.  He didn’t appear to be that exacting when it came to moving it above the ground .  In fact, he’d botched a pass to the other Russian fullback— Garabedian —the one time he’d attempted it.  So that was Grim with the ball, juggling towards Kaiser, Ness elbows and armpits up against Garabedian.  Garabedian had whispered and nodded at Mirsky a few times, but otherwise remained incommunicative.  They had some synergy, those two, but Garabedian exerted more energy to read Mirsky than the other way around.  That faint distraction was the only real advantage Ness could finesse out of the Kabaný.

Grim surrendered his back to one of the other Russians to protect Ness.  Ness pinched the ball from Grim’s waiting feet and passed hard to Kaiser.  Kaiser yelled, shot.  Mirsky sent the ball into space. 

The Russian goalie might as well have been standing around smoking a cigarette.   

Mensah and two of the Russian forwards dived for the ball.  Borman, a shy-eyed midfielder, slid behind Mensah at the last possible second and knocked him askew.  That meant Kutuzov had the ball.  Kutuzov was ruthless and red-headed.  He shouted at his teammates more than either of the coaches did.  He played with a military efficiency, up there and by himself, Borman and sometimes Rogachev on his flanks waiting for orders.  He didn’t give them anything this particular time.  There was one glance to Bachman and something that almost might have been a smile— a rarity on the Kabaný.  He didn’t so much shoot as he did slice.  The ball slammed into the bottom corner of the goal with a clang like a gunshot.

Had the Kabaný even planned that? They’d been nothing but hard to get with Mirsky chewing up every shot Bastard München chanced.  The whole thing looked accidental from Ness’s point of view, or at least like there was something he’d missed.

Notably, Kutuzov didn’t seem much to care that he’d scored.  He flicked Borman on the nose, grinned at him, and then brought him along to have another loud one-sided conversation with the rest of his team.  

“What the fuck was that?” Kaiser spat as soon as Bastard München had regrouped.  The stadium booed and threw fists around them.  It sounded more like the sound effects for a sinking ship in a movie than a stadium at all.  Though there was that one disparate sound that always seemed to follow Kaiser: girls wailing. 

Ness gathered himself up before he answered.  The hollows of his knees were slippery with sweat.  “Nothing we can’t handle.  They’re paired off like a lot of us are, but their bonds aren’t as strong.”

“Is that your official magician’s assessment?” Grim said.  

“Yes.  The other thing though…”

“I’m going to slaughter Mirsky,” said Kaiser.

“Fucking Mirsky,” Gesner added.

“I don’t like that guy,” Ndaiye sighed, almost to himself.

That gave Ness an idea.  He stretched their time together thinner than he should have to slide it together.  “Ndaiye, why don’t you switch positions with Gesner.”

“WHAT?” Both of the players involved in this transaction whined.

Ndaiye went on to add: “I can’t hold that guy.”

“I don’t want you to hold Mirsky.  I want you to stay in Garabedian’s peripheral vision.  That should limit one of Mirsky’s options.  And then Gensner’s back here to catch another space shot when Mirsky does that, because he will.”

Aust raised his hand to interject.  “That’s a little creative , Ness.  Why don’t we bring the midfielders up, have Gesner wing…”

“No,” said Gesner and Fritz laughed at him.  

“Fine.  Have it your way.  I’ll see you back in the locker room.  Nobody slam any doors when you lose.” He then stalked off like that was what he’d been intending to do the entire time.  

“We’re fucked, aren’t we?” said Max.

Fucked or not, they went ahead with Ness’s plan.  It was the only plan they had.  Ness thought he could hear a steady cycle of what the hell running through the stadium as he squared up with Kutuzov.  

Kutuzov made no attempt to acquire the ball.  Instead, he looped around behind Ness, charging after him, eyes blazing but the rest of his face deadly calm.  He was so quiet.  His feet hardly even touched the ground.  Ness did indeed steal a look at him over his shoulder.  How could he not?  That guy had a presence like smothering ash.  He wasn’t going to let Ness pass.  Not even after Ness dodged his way around Rogachev (another incidental midfielder, handsome in a sloppy, also incidental, way).  

Ness thought he heard Max back drawing in.  In the corner of his eye, Kaiser caught one of the Russian midfielders.  They tangled and swore and then Kaiser was free.  Mensah pranced up to Kutuzov.  Kutuzov finally made a noise, a slight huff as he loped towards Mensah, threatening to catch him.  Mensah was too fast for him, slinging himself out of the way.  Kaiser sprinted to keep time with Ness.  Their way was spooled out in acrobatic feints.  Gesner went head-over-feet alongside them at one point, but he bounded back into the chase.  

Then up ahead.  There he was, Ndaiye bouncing around Garabedian.  Garabedian shook like a wet dog trying to track him.  Mirsky up behind them strung up in the moment of what he could or could not do.  

Ness beckoned Ndaiye to him.  He needed him to notice him and to know.  Ndaiye’s expression brightened and held steady.  Mirsky had nothing to read.  As for Ness, he ran right into Kutuzov.  Just.  Smack.  And there they were, one body on the field.  Kutuzov was softer than he looked.  He smelled like tea even through his sweat.  Ness smiled at him and genuinely so.  This wouldn’t be as many bruises as he figured.  Not to him, anyway.  Kutuzov’s ego might have some injury.  It looked like they were hugging there for two seconds or so.

The ball shot to Kaiser, even faster than Ness had meant to send it.  Kutuzov’s softness left him unable to hold back.  Kaiser had to trick the ball off his chest and reposition it, but he shot.  It was so clean and so good and… 

Mirsky.  

Mirsky didn’t even get the ball.  He managed to knock it out-of-bounds though.  

After some coach bickering, Kaiser ended up designated for the throw in.  Ness felt so many heavy Russian gazes on him.  He knew the ball would come nowhere near his place.  

Kaiser heaved it at Kutuzov, all but into his arms.  Kutuzov made a sharp sound.  The ball hit his feet and not the other way around.  He gave it a bounce.  The first flourish Ness had seen him do.  That was good.  Let him be enchanted.  Let him lose himself.

He passed it to Mirsky.  Mirsky put the ball into space.  Except he didn’t fly quite as high as before.  Except Ness was right there.  Specifically, the side of Ness’s head.

Ness’s first thought, once he had those again, was that at least it hadn’t hit his freshly pierced ear.  There were whistles all around and stars in his eyes.  Pain, not so much.  More like a thunking surprise that had messed up his hair.  Ah, and he’d stumbled.  That’s why he was on his knees.  That’s why everyone was circling around him with those twinkly points of light.  Kaiser was going to be so mad about having to pick him up.

“What the shit, Ness.  Don’t just up and fucking die on me!”

So mad.

Ness burst out laughing.  He laughed so hard he got spit in coach Aust’s face.  Aust didn’t seem too perturbed about it.  “Are you alright?”

And that was Kaiser’s hand in his hair.  

And that was Ness’s dick doing weird things given the current hand-in-hair situation.

It brought him somewhat back to earth.  “I’m fine.  Just give me a sec,” Ness said.  His own voice sounded dreamy and cheerful, like it might have been coming from somebody else except he could feel it vibrating in his chest and all.  He could also feel his overstretched right thigh protesting.  Then the ground wavered for a few seconds before he regained his footing.  Kaiser still had his hand in his hair.  The dick thing was still, yeah, happening.  Kaiser, move your hand , he thought.  Somehow he didn’t manage to say it.  

The Kabaný were all watching this with lovebird-cocked-head curiosity.  Finally, Mirsky said, “Mazokhist!”

That got Mirsky out of the game.  Ness’s plan had worked.  Wait.  Had that been his plan? Maybe.  He vaguely recalled suffering the thought.  

Bastard Muchen still lost 0-1.  At least it wasn’t a crushing defeat, just a sad and stupid one.  

#

Everybody was subdued on the way back to the complex.  Not silent.  Not furious. 

Sachs talked to Max and Mensah about some upcoming game release none of them seemed actually excited for; like they’d discussed it into the ground.  Fritz fidgeted with such displeased regularity that Ali offered him his own arm to chew on.  Then he seemed surprised that Fritz bit him.  Kaiser put his earbuds in.  

Ness had given up asking what he was listening to.  All it got him was glares.  Whatever kind of music Kaiser liked, he was stringently private about it.  He also— he listened to music as a singular activity.  No reading, no writing, barely any moving around.  Staring out the window in the long chords leaking into the air he seemed the opposite of the Kaiser who’d laughed up disdain about the Russians.  He looked thoughtful, gone and furious.  Ness leaned back and let him be.  He waited to feel a hand down his pants if the mood changed.  It didn’t.  Kaiser played the same song over.  The singer shouted on the backbeat.  

Ness didn’t like shouty music.  It was probably better he didn’t listen anyway.

Anyway, they parked.  Everyone started filing off.  Ness waited by the seats for a while, hand titled where Kaiser could have taken it, but that also didn’t happen.  He ended up leaving without him and hearing the driver tell Kaiser to get off already.  Then there was Grim’s hand on his elbow.

Grim had gotten a little touchier with him since the hair thing.  He was one of those people who liked to make physical contact before he spoke.  He did it to some of the others too, but Ness was new to the whole thing.  “You shouldn’t beat yourself up about that.  We’re still in the running for the Champions League.”

The margin of error wasn’t looking great, but Grim was right.  “That’s true.  And thanks.  What should I…?” Do , but he already knew.  He banged the door into the complex like he’d been told not to.  It got everyone’s attention.  He declared, “Fuck it.  Let’s go to the Palm.  The saddest beer they serve on me.” It was, he decided, impossible to feel down with a pink flamingo watching you consume alcohol.  Besides, they’d been there a lot lately.  There had to be some residual joy pinned up among the neon and the liquor.

Not everybody was up for it and Ness understood.  He was also surprised to find Kaiser in the lobby come the time they’d decided to leave.  Kaiser still hadn’t said two words to anybody since the cameras had been off of him. Now he didn’t want to hold hands.  Or lead.  That fell to Ness.  Gesner slid in tight behind him, peering around the night lights and wandering traffic.  Ness was about to ask him if he was watching for Falk (slim chance, but a chance nonetheless) when the entire group of Bastards stopped short all at once.

K-pop streamed from the Palm.  The tables outside overflowed with Russians and vodka shots.  Kutuzov, who was dance-swaying-dopeslapping one of the midbacks, raised his shot and declared.  “Salut, bitches! We are eating your lunch.” He didn’t have the voice Ness had imagined for him.  It was squirrely and bright.  Also, he didn’t take the shot.  He handed it to Mirsky and then drank out of the fifth of Factory #8 in the middle of the table.  

“That’s disappointing,” said Max.

“Very,” Grim agreed.  “Curse Instagram.  But, if anyone’s interested, I know a goth club and it’s not too far a walk.” The last part he half-whispered.

Fritz snickered.  “We probably should have done that in the first place, dude.  Lead the way! Let’s go be miserable and listen to The Cure! That’s a goth band, right?” 

Grim was raising his hand to gesture as he explained whatever the answer to that question might be.

Everyone else looked to Ness, as if he was captain out here on the streets.  Ness nodded.  He had never been to a goth club.  Kaiser hissed, “Whatever,” and they set off.  

It was actually a nice walk, crossing part of their usual jogging route and then heading into an older part of the city with trees along the boulevard and people stinking of magic as they passed through the streetlights.  

Then the club itself was literally underground: in the basement of a building that smelled old and a little like clove cigarettes.  The portion of the team that went into the slippery guitar darkness was a little brightly dressed for the occasion, but they didn’t get more than a few disinterested glances as they arranged themselves at the bar.  Well, again, most of them.  Grim asked the bartender something, and then escorted Fritz to a table.  Fritz was about to get schooled.  Well, Grim gave pretty awesome schoolings.  It’d take Fritz's mind off the game.  Max, in the absence of Fritz, ordered absinthe French style, which would also get his mind off of the game, though in a much different way.  The music changed to something about “I will always love you” with some of the most melancholy guitars Ness had ever heard.  He started to sway with them and into the next song and the one after that, even though he wasn’t sure he liked the music exactly.  It was music and it was there.  He made his way down a black vodka and elderflower soda sooner rather than later.  

Ness thought, and not for the first time, that he didn’t care as much about music as most people did.  A song was good or it wasn’t.  He hadn’t really felt like listening to Bette Middler since the Great Window Hurling of Hamburg.  But “You had to watch her too,” Father had always said since he was the one who’d brought her into the house.  She seemed like something Ness had left in his childhood now.  Thought and again, he had this feeling that he wanted to hear ‘The Rose’ and look at Kaiser while it played.  To watch the petals on his neck flex as she swallowed whatever he was drinking.

Ness glanced to the seat down the bar where Kaiser had ordered.  There was a shot glass with a dribble of green liquid at the bottom and a pile of change on the napkin.  The bartender was talking to Grim again, so she hadn’t noticed it yet.

Neither had Ness even though Kaiser had walked right past him if he’d gone out the door.

“Shit,” he said.

“Eh?” said Max.  “What’s shit? Oh, and if you want it to not be oh shit anymore, you should try this stuff.  Whew.”

“Kaiser ran off.”

“Yeah, he does that.”

“He doesn’t need to be doing it right now.” Ness shook his head and emptied his billfold into Max’s grasp.  “Sorry.  I have to.”

“I get it, man.  Tell him I said… Hey, Gesner.  You are not actually drinking beer in a goth bar.  I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.”

Ness left before that argument got off the ground.  He was back into the restless night— streetlights, voices, magic all slippery black on the swish of the vodka through his veins.  Later or not, it felt like there were more people out than there had been on the way to… Whatever Grim's place was called.  Ness hadn’t seen a sign.  He didn’t think it had one.  He smelled more magic too, but that might have been the season shifting the city streets deeper into autumn.  

He’d done enough exploring as a child that he knew the way back to more familiar streets by footfall.  His phone stayed in his pocket.  He nodded to a few strangers moving likewise on the sidewalks, striding through whatever there was left in the evening.

The music at the Palm had changed.  Now it was Russian hip-hop.  Ness guessed he liked that better than shouty music, but it was still pretty obnoxious.  More obnoxious than any music was the fact Mirsky had disappeared back inside.  In fact, Kutuzov lounged by himself, feet up on a table while some locals stared at him in a mix of consternation and wonder.  

Ness did his best to walk past him.

Kutuzov wasn’t having it.  “For record, I have no problem.  But you run loose, you make own problem.” He gestured, liquor loose, at the inside of the Palm.  “You get stupid hair.”

“Like yours is so great,” Ness said flatly.  

Kutuzov went back to his wine— since that was what he had at the moment anyway —looked smug.

Ness straightened his coat and entered the Palm.  The music had him wincing before he hit the threshold.  So loud.  It took one swift glance around the space for him to find what he’d really been hoping he wouldn’t.

Mirsky and Kaiser were sitting at the bar and next to each other.  He would not have called them together even if he hadn’t known the leadup to the scene before him.  Kaiser claimed a predator’s face in place of his own. Mirsky was eating some dark-colored dip out of a takeout container and aggressively chewing with his mouth open.  There was a condensation-wet bottle of vodka between them.  It was not the same bottle Mirsky had been swigging out of before.  They were pouring now, for each other.  Vodka sloshed all over the bar, trailing towards other people’s takeout containers.  Garabedian looked on as the two typed furiously on their phones.

Mirsky’s sounded first.  Ness nudged his way through the tables to listen underneath the blaring music.  He discovered that Mirsky had the voice on his phone set to high-pitched and female.  “you should not say those things to me it’s disgusting that you think the only way I will get any better at playing with GARABEDIEN is to do something as pervert as that you really don’t know what it is to do a comrade”

Google Translate had picked a hell of a time to err out in that particular way.  Ness would have cackled over it if it hadn’t been for the tension in the air, the fury leaking through Kaiser’s gaze.

Kaiser scowled and started editing whatever he’d been typing.

Ness smacked him on the shoulder.  He’d meant to tap him.  They were both moving at the same time and things happened.

Kaiser reeled at him.  It took him two whole instants before his eyes focused and he knew Ness.  He grinned up at him, sloppy and mean.  “Hey, let me finish this discussion with Murk-see and we can go…”

“Kaiser, I don’t think this is a good idea.  Let’s get out of here.  We’re outnumbered.”

“Ugh.  Is this about the thing with Schäfer?  I learned my lesson.  I even said I was sorry.”

“No, it’s being outnumbered and also you’re pretty wobbly.”

Mirsky’s phone started speaking again.  “hello it is the dog you are very loyal to your master it makes me unwell to see that you would parade your bad relationship around in public like that and now your master is trying to get me to do it too haha I do not like that either”

Ness gave Mirsky the most skeptical look he could manage, accounting for the black vodka in his system.  It made his sinuses prickle as he reached for his own phone.  Meanwhile, he said to Kaiser: “What are you even talking about? Did you tell him to screw Garabedian or something like that?”

“What? No, no, no,” Kaiser waved off the idea.  “I told him he should make Garabedian his.  So they can be like us.  It’ll make things more fun when I crush them next time.”

“We didn’t exactly crush them today.”

Kaiser didn’t seem to have heard.  “I even explained it wasn’t a sex thing.  But maybe that got lost in translation.”

Ness gaped at him for a couple lines of Russian hip-hop.  “You just… told them that.”

“Why the fuck shouldn’t I? Mirsky started it.  Wanted to know…”

Before Kaiser could finish the thought, Garabedian, who was spookily sober at that point, leaned in.  Though he was shouting over the music, he sounded almost sweet as he asked, “Does he shit on you or do you shit on him? I don’t know how German tops and bottoms work.  Genuinely curious.” He glanced at Mirsky as he asked.  Mirsky grinned back at him.

Garabedian was plain compared to some of the other Russians.  He looked like he should have been working a construction job somewhere, but he had these wide, keen eyes and something approaching a sincere smile, at least for someone talking about shit.

Ness snapped a finger at his chest and trilled as he spoke.  “You’ve been letting them text and you speak German.  Some friend you are.”

“The blue one’s using too many big words.  And I don’t want to repeat some of what he has said to my friend.  Top or bottom and what does it mean?”

“We don’t shit on each other just because we’re German.”

A hand came down, once again, on the back of Ness’s head.  “Relax, Ness,” Kaiser slurred as he slid them ear-to-ear.  His liquor breath chilled the sweat on Ness’s neck and Ness could see his teeth in the corner of his vision.  He almost kissed him.  Instead, Kaiser took a shot.  The Russians remained all eyebrows for sometime after he’d swallowed and clacked his shot glass on the wet bar.  Ness struggled to parse what was happening.  Everything kept smacking into place, once action or reaction after another.  Kaiser beckoned at Mirsky, saying, “Fill that up for me.”

Mirsky obliged, sloppily. 

“That’s better,” and those words came with a croon from Kaiser before he all but slammed the shot glass into Ness’s teeth.

Ness went crossed trying to look at it.  “I don’t want another drink.”

“Sure you do.  Unless, what, did you chug absinthe at whatever that place was?”

“Kaiser, that’s…” Not important.

Kaiser pushed his head down with one hand and the glass up with the other.  “Open your mouth.”

Speaking would have done that too.  Ness squeezed his eyes and his jaw shut.  One more drink wouldn’t be the end of the world, but he didn’t like where this was going.   He didn’t want straight vodka in him and he didn’t want that to happen here.  

Kaiser had slid off the stool too.  He moved his hand from the back of Ness’s head to the pressure point at the far corner of his jaw and he squeezed.  When that didn’t work, he stuck his fingers in Ness’s mouth, plied him open that way, and dumped the shot into him.  Chilly vodka trickled into the well between Ness’s teeth and bottom lip.  The sensation made him shiver.  And then the burn.  The burn was so bad.  Ness rasped and tried to swallow.  Swallowing made him cough.

Garabedian and Mirsky had some confused words between them.  They’d watched the whole thing.  Now, briefly, they watched one another.  Ness couldn’t understand a thing they were saying, but there was something subtly telling in their movements.  They were communicating in that same wordless synchronicity they used on the field.

A second before Mirsky stood, Garabedian put himself behind Kaiser.  Kaiser had nowhere to run but into Ness.  He was also very drunk at that point, so he made something resembling a shove in Ness’s way.  Mirsky spun Kaiser around, grabbed him by the back of both of his collars and started to drag.  

Kaiser struggled, swearing and kicking and nailing a chair full of Rogachev as Mirsky hauled him along.  

Mirsky meanwhile said to Ness’s slack-jawed expression.  “Come.  We teach lesson.”

Ness shook himself out of his stun.  He gave chase.  His hands got into Mirsky’s coat.  He was pulling on him.  It felt like trying to hold back a mountain.  Mirsky didn’t pay him any attention.  There might have been some camera snaps, but they weren’t pointed to the bathroom hall.  It was like no one else could see them stumbling along.  All the Kabaný had turned their backs, were gone in their drinks or simply did not care what Pavel Mirsky did.

Ness balled up his fist and hit Mirsky on the shoulder.  Mirsky reached around to shoo at him, but kept walking.  Ness tried words.  “Let him go! This is so dumb!” But the only words he had were in German and English since he wasn’t going to reach for his phone.  He needed his hands.  To do what with? He kept grabbing and coming back with handfuls of nothing.  Kaiser tried to twist up at Mirsky.  He was grappling with himself, swaying from a soft bang on one wall to a less soft bang on the other.  He shouted, “I’ll kill you.  I’ll fucking…”

Garabedian opened the men’s room door.  He gestured after you , then gave Kaiser a smack on the back as Mirsky dragged him forward.  Kaiser almost got an arm free.  Mirsky helped himself to that limb as he continued his march forwards.  Ness managed to scramble past Garabedian.  “Just stop!” he shouted.  His voice was froggy from the vodka shot and his footing unsteady.  He ended up grabbing Mirsky’s coat and pulling.  Not even the coat budged.  Mirsky looked at him in dumb surprise while Kaiser struggled in his grasp; while Kaiser up and bit him on one the side of his hand.  Mirsky got him off with a shake.  He kept looking at Ness.

“I… No,” Mirsky decided.

He then dunked Kaiser’s head in the left-hand toilet.  He did it with such an elegant grasp on him.  It was almost acrobatic on his part and despite Kaiser’s bubbling thrash.  Kaiser’s hands clamped on the sides of the seat.  He fought, pushing himself up.  Mirsky simply lifted him to a higher angle, submerging his face once more.  

“What are you doing!” Ness cried, even though it was obvious.

Mirsky either did not hear him, did not understand, or did not care.  He see-sawed Kaiser out of the toilet water, listened to him catch his breath, and then put him under again.  All the while, Kaiser kicked and fought.  He threw himself too wide and too soft, sloppy in his liquor and missing one of his shoes soon enough.  The second time Mirsky let him up, he spit before he gasped.  His makeup was spattered and smeared.  Most of his hair was wet, and plastered to his head.  His tail fluffed softly down his shoulder as toilet water ran into the rest.  

Mirsky took stock of his work, nodded, and dropped Kaiser against the stall wall.  Kaiser crumpled under his feet, his expression stunned and absolute.

Mirsky hadn’t broken a sweat having his way with Kaiser.

Ness looked up at him in confounded horror.  Not so much because he was, in fact, horrified, but because Mirsky kept himself in the stall doorway.  He also, without so much as a gesture, received Garabedian’s phone so he could make a few words.

“your loyalty to this freak is cute,” said Google Translate.

“Danke.”  Ness enunciated carefully as if that might get the venom in his voice across more clearly.  

“don’t thank me dog you should go die that would be good for you.”

“Excuse me for being gay!”

Garabedian offered a quick translation.  This time, Mirsky typed with a scowl on his face.  “you think this is about homosexuality you could put that back in the box I think it would be good for you but no you dumb dog such a dumb dumb dog.”

“Then wuff wuff! Get out!”

Mirsky grinned (confusedly) at the wuff part.  He made some noncommittal shrug and stalked past, sure to bump Ness into the wall as he did.

Ness waited for them to be out of the bathroom, then spun and locked the door.  It’d only be a minute.  Hopefully.  He dropped on his knees besides Kaiser and combed his fingers through his soaking hair.

“Ness, there’s toilet water in my ears,” Kaiser moaned.

“Eww.  Let’s get you back and cleaned up.”

At that mild expression of disgust, Kaiser did manage to give him a look, pained and angry, seeming more so with the red liner blooming under his eyes.  He shook out of it though and tried to stand.  He almost hit his head on the toilet paper dispenser.  He could not seem to find his shoe even though he was all but sitting on it.

Ness heaved him forward.  They tried again.  Ness handled the shoe issue with some nudging.  Someone yelled “Dammit, I have to pee!” at the door in German.

Finally, they wobbled back into the Palm proper.  Ness did not give the shouting person more than a smidgen of eye-contact.  Kaiser’s phone was where they’d left it, swimming among the takeout boxes.  All the Kabaný had left the bar for a table.  They were hooting about something.  Kutuzov seemed to be the only one watching as Ness checked over Kaiser to make sure he hadn’t been pick-pocketed or anything.  He put both of their phones in his own coat.  

Kaiser took the chance to utter, “One more shot.”

“No,” Ness told him.  Then when Kaiser tried to raise his hand to call the bartender, Ness did as Mirsky had and grabbed him by the arm, pinning it behind him.  He marched him to the door as best he could.  He was wavering himself that last shot seeping into his senses and Kaiser throwing as much of a fit as he could while still staying upright.  He sprayed toilet water everywhere as he moved.  Ness had his own fine spattering of it in his face and hair and coat collar by the time they got outside.  

“Don’t drag me around!” Kaiser screamed to the Munich night.  “This is backwards!  I’m the one who shits on you!”

More than a few people looked.  Ness kept up with the march.  Kaiser was so absolutely sloshed, all pink and wet and wobbling.  It would have been kind of charming, maybe, in different circumstances.  In the present, Ness muttered, “I noticed that a lot today.”

There were efforts to shove him off.  One got him hard enough in the side to leave a bruise.  Finally Kaiser twisted over his shoulder.  “I said stop.  Let go of me.  I can walk.” He was wider-eyed than Ness would have expected. 

Ness didn’t let go.  He shuffled the two of them together a little differently, hefting Kaiser up on his shoulder and squeezing an arm around him.

“Don’t pin me !” Kaiser snarled right in his ear as the traffic lights changed their minds along the sidewalk.   

“Look,” Ness sighed.  “I was trying to…”

“I don’t care.  They’d be in trouble if they’d kicked my ass.  I think I know that pretty well, don’t you?”

“I do.”  

“And I don’t need you to protect me.  I need you to find some rubbing alcohol so I can put it up ever hole on my fucking head after that.  I’d rather have my nose broken again than this!”

There was this one limping flash between them.  Kaiser brought his free hand up.  He was staring into the palm of it and not where they were going at all.  Ness wondered if he should call them an Uber even though he could almost see Bastard München from where they tottered by the curb.  He tried at least to touch Kaiser’s raised hand.  Kaiser jerked away, then socked him in the shoulder.  “And stop getting in my way!”

The acquiescence was easy enough.  There was no fight left in Ness.  Not after the day he’d had.  “OK.  I’m sorry.  I’ll get your pajamas out too.  And wash your hair if you want.”

“Alcohol first,” Kaiser said, more primly now.  As they stepped over the crosswalk together, he stared distracted up at the sky, and the thin smear of the moon somewhere up above.  He muttered too as he walked and he might have been trying not to shiver.  

Ness cleaned him up with swabs and a jug of rubbing alcohol, sterile water to rinse out his eyes and a saline gargle.  Kaiser met that with one final nightcap of Chartreuse once they were both clean and slung into the pajamas.

Then, despite his lousy, drunken state, Kaiser cleaned Ness’s ears for him.  He did it without a word between them on the topic.  He pinched a little that evening but not too badly.

Then he passed out into Ness’s lap.

Ness didn’t know if he should laugh or cry.  He chose the bottle and he passed out too.  

Chapter Text

They were up late in the gym.  Kaiser had been doing arm curls at himself in the mirror when Ness arrived, staring down his own reflection.  

Ness didn’t bother him when he got like that.  Kaiser might as well have been thinking himself muscles with that look on his face.  So, Ness stretched.  He wasn’t as flexible as he’d been as a little kid, but he was close.  He could still do splits, but they were pretty uncomfortable given how his anatomy had changed.  He could also bite his own toenails if he wanted to, but that was gross.  His favorite showoff was to go upside-down with his weight on his forearms, to stretch his legs up and to draw them apart until the center of his body started to ache.  He did that.  

Kaiser didn’t even look. 

Ness flipped onto feet and shook himself out of his vertigo.  Kaiser hung up his dumbbell and headed over to the presses.  Ness joined him.  They went through roughly the same routine until their legs were burning, then moved onto the cable machines.  Kaiser attacked his.  Ness took a somewhat more measured approach and at no point slapped the struts of his unit.  He thought it was awfully nice to have somebody to work out with, even if that someone was Kaiser and Kaiser was not in the mood for conversation.

Finally, Kaiser preferred the one treadmill with a pillar instead of a view.  He put a plastic bucket between it and the next left machine, and started running.  No slow start.  He and his soaked pits accelerated as hard as he could click up the speed.  Ness at least counted a few steps between as he started his own.  He’d also taken the time to mop the sweat off of his face.  He watched the street through the hallway windows instead of any drywall.  There still wasn’t much to see or that much strain to bear starting out on the running portion of his evening. 

His mind wandered.  He thought of stretching and his childhood.  He’d had aspirations of sucking himself off someday.  Now, there was simply too much of him for that to be realistic anymore.  Besides, he had Kaiser’s boneless mouth if he wanted head.  He still thought about it every so often.  Thought about what if he could get just one little lick in.  He was pretty sure if he mentioned the idea to Kaiser it would be all they talked about for the next forever.  

For now, Ness was enjoying having a few quiet days between them even if there was some tension to the silence.  The tension didn’t veer his way.  Besides, he still was all smitten with it, that someone wanted to just be with him .

His mouth watered.  Probably exertion-related and not the lingering thought of nudging his own cock in his mouth.  Ness leaned over and spit into the bucket.  His next breath didn’t slurp so much on his teeth and that was nice.  “Thanks for bringing the spit bucket,” he said.

Kaiser clicked the speed up on his treadmill.  He glared across the space between them.  “What the fuck, Ness.  It’s not a spit bucket.” He then spit into it despite what he’d just said.

This confused Ness for obvious reasons.  The yellow plastic mop bucket was a fixture of Kaiser’s late night gym grinds.  “It says spit bucket on the side.”

“It’s a puke bucket,” Kaiser sneered.  “In case I run myself that hard I puke.”

“You’ve never done that.”

“Not since you’ve been here.” That had him turning away, back to the blank wall.  He slammed the treadmill controls with his thumb, not seeming to count the clicks.  Sweat streamed down the point of his nose and spattered on his open lips.  “You softened me up.”

Ness didn’t answer right away.  He made adjustments to his own speed.  His whole body felt swampy and he ended up tossing his tank top.  That helped a little, but they’d been down there a while even if it hadn’t seemed like it.  Now he was listening harder to his breaths, the odd swallows between when he chose not to spit.  He watched his long strides as he felt through his own and the belts whirred beneath them.

Kaiser made a faint ‘urk’ sound.

“Don’t run until you vomit! That’s not good for you!” Ness shouted at him, half-laughing although Kaiser was indeed looking a little green all of a sudden.

“Don’t fucking tell me what to do!” Kaiser shot back.  He slammed the controls.  The machine beeped once, beeped twice, trilled, and threw Kaiser off onto the floor with a sweaty squeak.    

Ness pulled the emergency stop on his treadmill and jumped off.  “You OK?” he asked, leaning over the splat that was Kaiser.

“Should have just let me puke! Fucking damn you.” Kaiser snapped, then rolled over on the floor and lay there panting into the well of his arms.  But then— “Yeah.  Just stopped moving too fast and my brain’s thudding.  You ever get that?”

“I’m getting it right now,” said Ness.  He added then, “We should walk.  Outside.  Get some fresh air.”

Kaiser answered with a vague grumble.  He swung his way to his feet without using his arms, then stood with his legs apart, rising in an autonomic stretch.  He was soaked, no makeup and his hair bedraggled.  He was still the most gorgeous thing Ness had ever known, and he accepted a water bottle without complaint, rinsing his mouth and spitting before he drank properly.  Ness stopped his treadmill, dumped the bucket out, brought towels, and finally led them through the front door.

The night air was chilly on his shirtless and damp self.  Ness didn’t mind.  The sensation got him bouncing where he stood as he waited a couple of strides for Kaiser to come out with him.  It was only a little later than people tended to sight Bastards around the complex.  Some of the streetlights had already gone down, but there were still car sounds and people up the way to the Palm.  The two of them walked, by unspoken agreement, up to a small park.  Kaiser put his nose in the cool air, luxuriating, sometimes licking his lips like he wanted to know what they tasted like without oil or stain.  Neither of them had brought their phones, so there were no workout pictures.  They’d posted a double selfie just a night or two before, and without quite so much sweat, so that was fine.

Ness didn’t remember the exact timing.  His evenings were running together, and that wasn’t so bad, but he was going to need a rest day sooner or later.  So was Kaiser, prancing along closed-eye beside him as their sneakers piped into the park grass.  He said to him, “You’ve run every night since we played Kabaný.  Getting a little obsessed?”

Kaiser made a thoughtful sort of expression.  He looked at Ness with hooded eyes.  Specifically, Ness’s shoulders which were bare in the half-dark and littered with the prints of Kaiser’s teeth.  “It’s helping me think.  There’s so much that could have gone differently that day.”

“Yeah.  I know.  I shit that one up.”  

“You and everybody else.  Fucking Mirsky.” 

“Tell me if you think of something I could do better.” Ness made a little bow at Kaiser with his hands behind his back as he said that.

Kaiser scoffed, “Don’t I usually?” He then brought himself in front of Ness and toe-to-toe besides.  He gave him a glimpse of his teeth before he put them to him.  Right there.  On a Munich street drifting with voices.  

Ness’s breath caught, but he didn’t push him off.  He took it and the smirk Kaiser wore after.  

“Let’s just rinse when we get back,” said Kaiser.  He then bounced once, bounced twice, and took off running for the complex doors.  

Somehow he still had the energy to do that.  Then again, he’d also made it clear he had the energy for sex.  Ness ran after him, shoving his aching calves on as hard as he could.  They touched the door handle at the same time and slid into a kiss from there.  Kaiser badged them in, then clucked his tongue at the cleaning lady they’d almost bumped into.  They went up the stairs, Ness after Kaiser, and barged into the quad shower.  This had two stalls and one of them was running.  Apparently they weren’t caring about that, or the fact Ness ended up under the spray with his shorts still on.  Kaiser had slipped his clothes into a puddle somewhere by the sinks.  

They foundered, kissing and fumbling each other in a lukewarm spray, Kaiser doing his best to keep his hair out of it which seemed to mean he held Ness directly beneath the shower head until Ness’s curls were dripping in his face.  

Max peered around the corner.  “You, ah, want me to leave?”

“We’re changing venue in a minute,” Kaiser said.

“Right.  I’m sleeping in Fritz’s quad tonight.  Don’t look for me.” He turned off his water, and, towel and toothbrush in hand, removed himself from the scene.  He wasn’t even dry or wrapped up.

“I wasn’t going to,” Kaiser told his retreating footsteps.  

Ness felt a bit bad about chasing anyone out of the showers, but he also felt like if their places had been reversed, he would have left Max alone with Kaiser so he could go back to his own room and jerk off about how much he wanted Kaiser.  Michael Kaiser was hot and more people should masturbate to him.  

As things went, Kaiser had nudged him up against the wall.  He held Ness by his hips as he licked along the still salty lines of Ness’s throat.  Ness was tilting hard and Kaiser still shimmering soft.  That probably meant Kaiser’s earlier thoughts had been about setting up a scene.  Ness was onto this fact about Kaiser’s body.  It didn’t surprise him at all when Kaiser whispered at him, “I’m gonna tie you up tonight.”

“I want that,” Ness said, and meant it.  

They shut off their shower.  The coast outside of the bathroom was clear.  They ran for Kaiser’s room, all footprints and deserted clothes— Ness had shrugged his shorts off at some point.  They crashed together just inside the door, hands on each other’s dicks, struggling to bring their lips together and still breathe.  This was also familiar now.  It didn’t leave Ness a single shred of doubt, not about the two of them.  Not even when Kaiser gave him a bit of a shove, telling him.  “Stay there while I set up.”

Ness obeyed, mostly.  Destined to be tied up or not, pushed the implicit barrier of “stay there (and don’t move)”.  It was his turn to nudge something around in whatever they were to each other.  As Kaiser turned the bedroll out, Ness slid his hand to his cock.  He stroked himself slow and tight.  Not enough to approach getting off, but he stirred up wet in his own grasp.  

It took Kaiser a few movements to catch him.  When he did, he frowned, but broke off from straightening the futon to kiss him again.  The kiss came with a bite to Ness’s lower lip.  Ness tasted blood between them and he leaned into it before Kaiser slid away and into the closet.

Ness jerked harder for a few strokes, then stopped, clenching his dick-damp hands on his thighs.

The second time Kaiser returned to him, it was with Ness’s black blindfold in hand.  Ness turned to face the door without being asked.  

Kaiser yanked Ness’s hands behind his back.  He wrapped one wrist, then the other, and finally knotted them together in a way that Ness had no way of undoing no matter how much he squirmed.  Still, Ness strained in his bonds, trying to smile over his shoulder as he did.  They were exactly tight enough with one slip of silk between his wrists that Kaiser could grab and march him to bed.  Kaiser did this, and nudged his legs out from under him.  Ness mostly fell.  That made both of them that evening.  Ness didn’t protest about his turn.  He tipped onto his back and bent over the weight of his bound hands.  

Kaiser also had the spreader bar.  He didn’t extend it all the way before he cuffed Ness into it.  He left just enough space between Ness’s legs that Ness couldn’t close them.  Then he propped Ness in a way that Ness was looking down the planes of his own body, still a little wet with the curls of his pubes glinting in the last of the shower water and his dick hard enough to ache.

Kaiser took it all in himself, his expression that catlike kind of pleased he got.  He wasn’t particularly stiff himself.  Ness wondered what he was playing at, watching for so long.  But then he grabbed the lube— the actual lube that Ness had bought —about the same time Ness said to him: “You like talking about things that shock people, huh? It gets you off.” It felt a little out of nowhere at the moment, though it made sense in the lines of his own thoughts.  

Kaiser had wanted to crack Mirsky, to reach inside of him and crush whatever heart existed past his facades.  Kaiser was running himself ragged because he hadn’t gotten that particular release.  He needed to let it out and now, here was Ness.

Ness felt a little apprehensive.  He felt it in his earlobes and down in the pit of his belly.  But he needed to know what happened next.  Wanted to take the pain.  Wanted to see Kaiser get off that other way.

Kaiser held him by the chin, smile-sneering and so beautifully half-wet himself.  “I'm just talking.  People should stop being surprised at how ugly the world is.”

“I'm not.  Not as much as most people anyway I think.”

“Eh.”

“Anyway, you can tell me more anytime.  You can tell me everything you wanted to do to Mirsky.  I want to hear it.”

“I know that, Ness.” Kaiser crooned.  He absolutely filled his right hand with lube.  He squeezed his fingers into a fist until the gel slithered  out.  Then he slapped the whole handful onto Ness’s dick.

The sheer, sudden soak was more than a little overwhelming.  Ness gasped, struggling upwards and away at once.  There was a sound of amusement from Kaiser, who watched again before he closed his hand on Ness’s head.  He circled his grasp on Ness’s most exposed nerves.

It stung at first— too much and too soon.  Ness stretched where he rested, his bonds aching on his limbs.  He huffed and again and got his bearings with himself even if he was tense all over from the odd pose.

Kaiser stroked on, but he met his eyes.  “You know what I was trying to say to that face-that-needs-a-slap? I was trying to tell him to make Garabedian his.”

Ness oofed, both from the lube trickling onto his balls and what Kaiser had just admitted to.  

Not that Kaiser looked like he’d admitted anything ever.  This was just telling.  This was him burying Ness’s hardon in his grasp.  “So that we could have another you’re mine to crush someday.  They seemed like they could do that, even if they are Russian and uncreative sexually.”

That was so far out of what Ness had assumed they’d been talking about.  So far out of anything.  He leaned back, groaning.  “You actually did that.”

“Don’t shove your dick at me.  Just let me do it.” Kaiser snickered.  “I did.  Did you think I was defending your honor or something?”

“I thought you…”

“ Without you around to see me do it? Ness, that’s so fucked up.”

“And…” What you said to Mirsky wasn’t? But the sentence drained out of him.  Kaiser hadn’t been stroking him that long, but there was so much lube and he kept leaning into Ness’s sensitive spots with the meat of his hand.  Ness felt like he was buried in pure slick, but that slick was running down and down him, clear to his taint now while Kaiser circled his head again.  Ness himself itched with need.

“No,” the words from Kaiser came all languid sweet now.  “It sounded hot.  I’d lead them into some simple pleasure and then use my own to ruin them.  Does that sound hot to you, Ness?”

“Yeah.  Ah!”

“I thought it was worth the risk.”

“You could have been hurt, but that’s…” Ness had to set his jaw and suck air in through his nose.  There were so many moans suspended in his throat.  Speaking was a struggle even as much as he wanted to do it.   “…that wasn’t a thing to you in the moment, was it?”

“I’ve already been hurt so much, Ness.” Kaiser was crooning once more, his lips just out of reach.  

Ness thought of flexing up to him anyway, or at least trying.  He thought about begging.  Why that got him surging in Kaiser’s grasp, it was so complicated and it was, after all, also fucking hot.  

“One more time was worth it if it was going to be over breaking Mirsky’s Uber-Ich.”

Was that a compliment? There was some kind of affection riding the words, something more than desire.  Ness shuddered.  He could not answer.  Only pleasure sounds were left to him, rasping on his lips as he tried so hard to close his legs.  He couldn’t and there was Kaiser leaning over him as he pulled up the hot lube and put it back on Ness’s twitching head.

“I’d have done it so hard for you,” Ness said thicky.  “Brought you Mirsky’s umm ah!”

Then Ness was coming.  He jerked off of the bedroll at the first jolt.  Kaiser pulled his hand around to wring him out and he did it so hard.  Ness spattered all over himself.  He smelled like sour soda and salt that night.  It had only been a day or so since he’d gotten off, but his body was so used to that happening heartbeat regular with Kaiser.

Who said, “And you’d still like to do it for me, huh?”

Ness nodded.  He still wasn’t quite… He hadn’t.  There was something still lingering inside of him.

And on him.  Kaiser had gone back to smearing his hand around his head.  There was sperm in the lube now, so it felt a little tacky and uncomfortable beyond the fact Ness’s orgasm-sensitive skin.

Kaiser held him there.  Ness fidgeted.  There was a different kind of ache building in his nerves like a clench held too long or a limb half asleep.  This happened in his dick, seeping out along the rest of him.  He wanted to pull away and let himself go soft.  He wanted to enjoy his afterglow.  That had already been blown.  Kaiser wasn’t even letting him slide back to resting against his balls.  He was holding him up in his lube-slick grasp and still circling his palm over his head, to the point Ness’s slit was starting to feel sore and the rest of him jerked at certain passes.

“What are…?” Ness forced out and then there was another moan.  This one stung in his chest.

Kaiser had slipped back to that place over him where he almost could have been kissed.  “Forget Mirsky for a second.  You ever really push yourself?  Until you couldn’t take it anymore? Until you felt like you were gonna die?” 

Shit.  He wasn’t going to stop.  

Ness thought of squirming away.  The look in Kaiser’s eyes stung him.  If he fought, he wouldn’t get far.  He didn’t actually want to.  He just wanted whatever he was feeling to stop.  And yet that was Kaiser.  Kaiser needed to know how far Ness would go, here, now, and hung up in the gym.  He wanted to thumb that boundary and see if he could take it down after all.  

Tears pricked in the corners of Ness’s eyes.  He was groaning, caught between slinking down to the bed and pushing himself up into Kaiser’s grasp.  The ache screwed up tight in his balls.  His calf muscles were beating like wings.  Still, he swallowed a sob and he made himself speak.

“N-no.  I tried to be healthy about it.  When I started working out.  I had a lot of… Ah! Kaiser! Why?”

“Because it’s my dick.  I’ll do what I want with it.” He leaned in.  His forehead brushed Ness’s.  “Finish your story.”

Ness swallowed.  His tears fell.  “That's something I had drummed into me from when I was little.  That there was only so much I could do with my body at a time.  Or at all.  We’re all just adenine and thymine.  And I didn’t… I didn’t… Ah!… I didn’t need my ears pierced like I didn’t need my mom to punch me out if I threw up all over myself.” He wasn’t sure if that last part made any sense.  He was flinching all over with every stroke.  The knot in his stomach tightened.

Kaiser took him in, his expression shifting to something thoughtful.  He kissed Ness on the cheek, lingering as he did.  “I don’t like this ending.  Keep talking.” He squeezed.

Ness lay back what he could for a moment.  He made a few thin sounds of pain and grit his teeth.  “Umm.  Unless you mean…  ow …the part where…  The part where I pushed my family away.  After all that shit they put me through.”

“Huh.  Maybe.”

“It took a lot from me.  After I did the magic, I’d go to bed feeling like there was nothing left inside me.  But then I’d go out the next day and it was like… sunshine when I told people my family wasn’t coming and that I didn’t have a curfew so yeah I could… I could go back to their place and we could fuck .”

“Which was usually oral.”

Even in the weird morass of pain and want where he’d found himself that night, Ness still felt touched.  Kaiser remembered what his teenage sexual exploits had been like.  The fact Kaiser had plucked them out of him after Ness’s resistance had stopped smarting months ago.  Ness knew– Kaiser had been searching for something to bring them together.  Their previous sexual histories hadn’t been that thing in the end.  No, their bond was so much darker, not only for what it entailed, but for how deep it drew.  

Ness pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth in the present, determined to tell him only what Kaiser wanted to hear and not anything about love.  He was also starting to get hard, but not in any way he’d known before.  It felt more like holding an erection when he was desperate for release.  The pressure was incredible and nothing to do with Kaiser’s slippery touch.

“Y-yeah,” Ness managed.  “Sometimes… I’d beg for them to hold me after.  It was so much like… Like… Kaiser, you’re hurting me.”

“I know.  You’re getting there.  Come on.  Just a little more.” He spoke so lightly.

It ached so bad, but Ness treasured anybody talking to him about these things at all.  It took him a few breaths more, but he nudged up into Kaiser’s touch despite the roiling discomfort.  He let himself want even if wanting made things worse.  He said— “I don’t have to beg.  You want me.  Sometimes that really fucking hurts too, but that’s because you really fucking hurt .”

Kaiser’s expression slipped immediately.

Ness took a jolt of fear besides the throb in his hardon.  He didn’t believe Michael Kaiser would have punched the wall and not him.  

But it wasn’t anything like that.  Kaiser’s pupils bled lusty and wide.  He kissed Ness.  Kissed him and moaned himself.  Their tongues flowed all sweet and there was spit on Ness’s chin, Kaiser in him and on him and saying his name as he pumped him raw.  Ness fought to breathe through the drag of it, but he was also humping up into Kaiser’s grip.  It hurt .  Kaiser was going so hard, but the pleasure twisted out from there, wove up Ness’s spine, crushed into him as Kaiser bit his lip again.  Ness came so hard the jolts shook him all over.  The little spat of jizz he leaked ran hot down his shaft.  He barely heard the sound he’d made and suddenly his vision went all blue.  He wondered if he’d passed out, but then Kaiser was talking.

“That counts, Puppy.  Maybe all that counts even more to somebody like me.”

There was one more flutter in Ness, caught between his heart and his blissfully soft dick.  His face ached with a sudden flush.  He wondered if Kaiser could feel it as he nuzzled him.  He knew he was so spent, so absolutely over for the night.  One last thing straggled between them though.  “You didn’t come.”

“I’ll get to that.” Kaiser sighed and breathed again until most of his body rested on Ness, until Ness was prickling with his teeth, sliding with his tongue. 

Ness twisted in his bonds. He wanted more of Kaiser.  That was just the greedy, easy spill of a person he happened to be.  

“I can still smell your frustration.” came the likewise self-indulgent huff from Kaiser.  “I wonder what it’s like if you make yourself puke while you’re training.” There was a nip at his collar bone.

Ness seethed into it.  “You’d also have to smell the puke.  And my tears.  I cry when I throw up.”

“Then how about I make you run until you cry? Less mess.”

A brief silence spread between them.  Ness didn’t think he wanted to do that either, at least not during the season since he’d be down for a day or two after.  But would it really matter all that much if Kaiser joined him?  Though the idea of Kaiser crying— his eyes watered.  They were doing it now.  But he never got those autonomic stutters in his chest, never shook, never wailed.

Some human stain had taken those things from him.  Ness suspected as much, anyway.  He was lying there wondering if putting the tangle of Kaiser’s thorns to some kind of order would give that back to him or simply make things worse.  He was telling Kaiser, “Only if you run with me.”

“Hm.” Big, cool hands stole over ness.  Kaiser had wiped the lube off at some point, but he still wasn’t human-temperature, not quite, as he slid his fingers over Ness’s arms, and into the spaces where they pressed to the sides of his ribcage.  He stuck one finger down each margin a few inches above the bend of Ness’s elbow.  The sensation came ticklish and tight, along with the words, “I’m fucking this spot right here.  It feels good.”

“Huh?” said Ness.  That part of him didn’t have much give, not between the way he’d been bound and the fact his brachialis was pretty solid.  Then he felt Kaiser’s dick thump against him in the moment before Kaiser crawled off of him.

Kaiser shifted and propped Ness until he had that slot of his limbs level with his own cock.  He also used the good lube again, pushing it into the slit he wanted.  Ness couldn’t pull his arms up much higher to make more space, not the way Kaiser had tied him.  Kaiser’s knees brushed close and Kaiser’s slippery head skimmed him before the sudden pressure broke.  Kaiser hadn’t been gentle at all with himself.  He gasped, face to the ceiling as he absorbed the sensation.  “That’s really tight.” Then he started to thrust.

It was so strange for Ness, lying on the bedroll with lube just there, Kaiser’s dick so close to his mouth, but then not in his mouth.  Kaiser called him creative, but Ness couldn’t have seen himself concocting this position, even if he’d had orgasms left to give.  He didn’t.  He was spent.  There was still some basal arousal creeping up his senses as Kaiser thrust into the space between his arm and chest.  Kaiser was right up between two of his ribs.  It almost tickled.  Then there was more lube and then it definitely did.  Ness squirmed, not towards or away from Kaiser this time.  He just— he needed to move.  So he did.  Moving caught him Kaiser’s hand firm in the center of his chest.  Kaiser grinned down at him.  One of his blue tails skated over his shoulder, swaying as he moved.  

He said, “Almost looks like I’m fucking all the wet stuff in your chest if I squint.” He wasn’t squinting.  But he was definitely enjoying whatever sensations the act brought him.  Ness could feel it even without the nerves clustered in his fingers or his penis— the subtle movements, the hot breaths when Kaiser bottomed out.

“Kaiser, that’s…” Ness held his “kinda weird” in his teeth for a moment.  Then he asked, “Which one of Techno’s comics did you get that from?”

“None,” Kaiser laughed.  “This’s something I dreamed up doing especially to you.”

Ness glanced away briefly as heat seeped down his neck, as Kaiser chuckled between his gasps.  Kaiser went harder now and the lube was spattering down Ness’s arm.  

Ness thought.  He had enough to go on for the visual Kaiser must have given himself.  It was all black-and-white with the too-long proportions Japanese artists seemed to prefer when they ripped their character’s apart.  He could see himself that way, and it was almost pretty in that style.  

Ness also didn’t mind Kaiser’s weird ways of expressing intimacy.  Not even this one— wet stuff in your chest .  Kaiser was stopping himself a touch from the heart of it.  Figuratively.  Literally.  

Ness planted his feet on the bedroll and started jerking when Kaiser thrust in.  The moans came easy after all the ones he’d spit earlier.  He added some pained sounds too.  If hearts could be innervated for touch, they’d probably be that kind of sensitive, almost too good to handle, like the rise he got when Kaiser poked the tip of his tongue into the slit at the tip of his cockhead.  Like he’d felt just now, being all overstimulated, but crashing along with his pulse.  He decided to say something too.  Ventricle and valve didn’t sound sexy though.  He’d have to make do with vague conversational terms.  He could do that.  So Ness pitched up and he did, locking eyes with Kaiser as he whisper-groaned alongside him. “Ah! Kaiser.  Right there.  Right between the chambers.  Can’t you feel how hard I’m beating?  I can feel you in me.  Feel your dick in my heart. Where it’s all hot and red.  And there’s this one spot in the middle…”

“Ness! Shuttup!” Kaiser blurted that out between his laughter.  He was flushed too now, his eyes so dark and his hips starting to stammer.  His hand came down on Ness’s chest again.  

Ness didn’t shut up at all.  “Fuck it harder.  Put your cum all over it.  I wanna bite my lip and taste you in me.  I…”

Kaiser held him fast.  He drove his hips.  Ness’s skin started to smart even with the lube.  Then there was sperm trickling hotly over the side of his back, Kaiser grunting shrilly before he finally threw back his head and gasped.  A shiver passed over him and he raked his hair from his face.  “That was over faster than I figured.  Shit.” Though he was grinning, though he looked so satisfied.

Ness gave him a long, half-lidded look.  Then he tilted his way towards him, asking for a kiss or some space on his sweaty lap.

He got both.  For a little while he breathed chartreuse and salt.  He didn’t think about the wet patch Kaiser must have left on him and their bed when he came.  The dry cleaner knew them by then.  He thought, and he asked, “Would you do it again? I will if you want.”

Kaiser had already decided.  “Yeah.  I would.  But I’d like to cut you so there’s blood next time.  Or you could cut me.  Would you do that, Ness? It was kind of your idea there.”

Their eyes met.  Ness matched Kaiser’s smile.  “I wouldn’t mind much.  I’d like that more than running myself sick.”

“Ah.  Noted.” There was a pause, half a heartbeat even as fast as theirs were hammering.  Kaiser stuck out his tongue.  He pulled his lips back so Ness could see him crush some flesh between his teeth, as he bit down and the blood welled.

Then he prised Ness’s mouth open, he leaned down, and he spit.  

Ness swallowed.  He knew this taste of Kaiser so well, all the biting that slipped out of him when he kissed.  He thought too, with some joy, how absolutely disgusted his parents would have been to know he was willingly sucking down somebody else’s bodily fluids.  That left him with his own restful satisfaction.

And in the end, he didn’t have to ask to be held.

Kaiser cleaned him and untied him and shared some Chartreuse with him.  Then he buried his face in Ness’s armpit where he lay whispering about killing Russians until the small hours of the morning. 

Chapter Text

Ness was certain that, to his other teammates, it looked like Kaiser never did anything for him besides flirt in the edgiest way possible.  

The first little hey about it came when Ness was carrying Kaiser’s latest Instagram haul upstairs.  Kaiser dropped a laundry bag over Ness’s head without comment.  

“Hey,” Fritz said to Kaiser.  “He’s already got your crap.”

Kaiser shrugged.  

Ness simply said, “What’s a little more crap?” Besides, prepping their laundry meant he had some time alone with Kaiser’s succulent shorts.  Kaiser giving him the bag was a gesture of affection as far as he was concerned.  Besides, who minded doing laundry? Well, maybe people who didn’t have an attachment to the whiff of Michael Kaiser’s crotch, but those people were missing out.  Besides, once Ness had put away the liquor and left the cheap candy in the quad for other people to munch on and tucked the bottle of Moschino Toyboy into Kaiser’s cosmetic box, he went back downstairs to find Kaiser, who greeted him this time by licking his cheek.

“Mlem, mlem,” Fritz helpfully supplied as a sound effect.  Max joined him.  

“You need another sugar,” Kaiser said through the mlem-symphony.

Ness scratched himself.  He could barely feel the stubble.  The faint prickles seemed thinner than the last time he’d needed to shave, which was a while ago by then.  Not like he’d ever had much facial hair, just a few coarse, dark curls on his chin and jawline, nothing but pale fuzz on his upper lip.  It was frankly easier to pluck, but the one time Brother had caught him doing that, well, there had been a lot of sighing about ‘Alexis can’t do anything right’.

Kaiser had tried to weedle it out of him, but Kaiser also hadn’t needed to go even half that far: Ness didn’t like the scruff on his face.  The rest of his body hair was his, but his attempted fourth degree beard? It got in the way.  Kaiser had already been tending his ears at the time, so the change in topic came easily enough.  Ness should let Kaiser sugar him.  And pluck him in between until maybe Ness wouldn’t need to shave or sugar or pluck ever again.  Ness’s razor? Into the trash.  Throw it harder, Ness. Throw it like you mean it.  

Ness liked Kaiser grooming him.  This had become a thing so gradually that Ness hadn’t actually noticed it was happening until Kaiser asked him what color eyeliner he wanted that day.  Now, Ness wore subtle eye makeup if Kaiser wanted to put it on him.  Ness had the neatest eyebrows in Bastard München.  Ness’s pubes and pit hair were soft and smelled like amber.

Then sugaring itself smarted, but Ness loved watching Kaiser make his own paste on a coffee mug heater, how he measured the sugar by tapping the scoop and squeezed the lemon through his long fingers to catch the seeds, the way his lips moved as he tested the thickness.  While the mixture cooled, Kaiser cleaned Ness’s ears.  They were almost healed enough to change jewelry.  There was a pair of Asscher cut diamonds waiting for Ness besides the amethyst and some niobium balls in violet, blue and steel gray.  These all lived in Kaiser’s jewelry box for the time being.  Ness still needed to buy his own.  

He said as Kaiser switched to tending the other ear, “So, I know you already bought me earrings.”

“And I said I’d buy you more.  These are my holes.” Kaiser never got tired of mentioning that.

It wasn’t the only reason the piercings had grown on Ness.  Neither were the gentle touches the holes had earned him.  More, it was— having metal in his body got to him in this sexual way.  People didn’t naturally have that.  It was something they did to themselves and simply for beauty.

Kaiser was right up against his ear, kissing the upper rim.  One hand rested on Ness’s collar bone.  One hand of someone who himself had a bit of a thing for occurrences not found in nature.

“I think I want a pair of huggie hoops,” Ness went on.  “I like the way they click.  Plus, then I’d have metal around and in me when I wore them.”

“I saw a platinum pair on sale the other day,” Kaiser said, speaking a little loudly for someone who had his mouth so close to anybody’s ear.  

“Platinum? Isn’t that…?” Expensive .  Ness didn’t bother to finish the sentence.  His diamonds were also set in platinum.  They had screw-on backs to assure they didn’t fall out.  He shook his head and Kaiser butted him for that.  “I’d love that.  Thank you.”

Kaiser nodded.  He finished Ness’s ears, went to his phone, made the purchase, and Line’d TechnoPussy: Guess what the puppy asked for?

He then resumed his routine with Ness.  He plucked his eyebrows— not too much.  Just cleaning up the stray hairs.  Ness did Kaiser’s for him then, which was mostly him poking Kaiser with the tweezers to make it seem like he had something to do besides admire him up so close.  Then, Kaiser tended his Ness’s, hands and feet, files and cuticle trims.  Ness knew he was going to say yes to a clear coat of polish one of these days, but for now he resisted.  He hated the smell of nail polish, but he hated it less when Kaiser put it on himself.  Kaiser didn’t get as far as his own nails right then.  He deemed the sugar paste cool enough and that took precedence.  It was still pretty warm when he started smearing it onto Ness’s face.  He worked from the outside in, and he went fast.  Streak, streak, press, yank.  Ness held a tissue under his eyes to catch the water.  His face was hurting so his eyes dripped and there was nothing he could do about it.  The worst part was his upper lip.  Kaiser saved that for last and laughed when Ness gasped after.  Finally, Ness got some light, sweet-smelling liquid rubbed all over him.  It killed any lingering burn and made his skin look glassy for a day or two after.  

That night, Kaiser held Ness’s face in his slippery hands for a while after he’d put it on.  He stared into his eyes, his gaze sharp and satisfied.  “Anything else you want before we play Magic Kiel tomorrow?”

Ness smiled.  “Give me a hickey.”

Kaiser scoffed, “Make sure to tell Lorenzo about it.”

#

The hickey was bright purple and would probably be visible on footage of the game.  Telling Lorenzo had been icing it didn’t need.  Sander screamed into his hands when he saw it.

“I guess it’s a magic hickey?” remarked Ali.  “You know, if anyone asks.”

“What?” snorted Kaiser.  “Do you want one too? I don’t have a problem doing it, but it’s going to be a lot of me lying on top of you.  Last I heard, you’re not into that.”

Ali narrowed his eyes.  “If I’d wanted one, a) I would have asked earlier and b) I would have asked a girl.”

“Kaiser counts as a girl most of the time,” Max called from the shower.  What he was doing in the shower before a match, Ness was still trying to parse.  

“Max? Eat my ass,” Kaiser replied.

“Nah.  Two’s a crowd.  Right, Ness?”

Ness made some noncommittal noises and turned to face a sink.  The sinks in the Kiel stadium leaked.  That was nice.  

The larger part of the team spent a few moments hung up in that awkward silence before Mensah came dashing in.  “Tiny-dicked ex is on the field.  He’s got visible surgery scars on his jaw.  No missing teeth.  Dyed his hair neon green.”

Kaiser had been bragging around the complex, especially to people who didn’t want to hear it, that Falk was going to need more than stitches.  Hearing about the scars should have led him into one (hopefully) last round of peacocking.  Instead, rage seeped into his expression.  “Schäfer did what?”

“A terrible dye job.  He looks like a tennis ball.”

“Vile.  Ness, come here.”

Ness continued to snicker and wafted vaguely Kaiser-wise.  

“You’re not going out there like that.”

The remark broke him out of his schadenfreude.  “Like what?” Kaiser hadn’t yet escalated to doing field eyeliner for him for matches.  It sounded like today was the day.  Soon enough, there came the waterproof pencil out of Kaiser’s bag.  And it wasn’t black, it was “Abyss”, and technically deep purple.  There was also a selection in hair chalk in oddly saturated midtones pushed towards him.  

Ness considered the antique aqua shade.  He’d kind of match Kaiser with that, but he also wouldn’t quite match enough.  He ended up reaching for the heliotrope, running his finger over the surface and working it over one curl.

It turned this plummy shade of purple on his hair.  

He didn’t even have a chance to tell Kaiser yes before Kaiser had looped a towel around his shoulders and started swiping it on.  He worked furiously fast, pulling as he went, batting up a cloud of searing purple-pink he had to blow away before he checked his own work.  By contrast, he was meticulous about the eyeliner.  Ness hardly even felt the pencil as he gazed into Kaiser’s out-of-focus hand.

Kaiser spun him to the mirror.

He looked pretty ridiculous.  The purple fade in his hair verses the red and black away uniform.

He looked ridiculous, but the rest of the team was all around him, rubbing their hands together as if they had a fine surprise cake ready for Falk and not an oddly decorated Ness at all.

Ness beamed.  He said to all of them, “I think plan C.  How does…?”

“Plan C!” roared Bastard München.

Plan C had a moderate risk of yellow cards and a dead certainty of Sander exploding at them.  Coach Sander was already primed to blow given the hickey, so— why not?

First, Ness strode out onto the field alone, hands clasped behind his back.  The pose wasn’t a matter of feeling shy about anything, especially not the state of his hair.  It was more— Falk, no, Schäfer, —would take offense at not being offered Ness’s hands right away.  And Schäfer could see him from about a mile away like this, out there alone.  

Ness would be kicking off.  He planned to offer the ball to Magic Kiel about that, if Joppich would let him since Joppich was waiting for him in the center of the field.  Joppich was tall and thin for a footballer, devilishly handsome.  He looked more like a romantical Arabian prince than a Joppich and he also wore earrings, Ness noticed.  More than that though, he must have been driving Schäfer half-mad.  He might not have been Schäfer’s type, but he was undeniably hot and inaccessible: he didn’t just have a girlfriend, he had a fiancée who was, somehow, even more beautiful than him.  

Schäfer looked like a troll beside him.  Ness saw this close up since as soon as Joppich realized what position Ness would be taken, he beckoned to Schäfer, who traded places with him.

Both teams were playing the petty part of this game.  Ness had hoped, vainly, that Bastard München would be the only one.  So, they weren’t.  That was more than fine and also something contingency Plan C could handle.  So, he stood there with Schäfer.  He smiled with all the bright sincerity he could muster.  The rest of his team streamed out behind him all at once.  Kaiser’s path took an arch around Ness and the two exchanged a glance.  Mensah and Gesner assumed positions oddly close to Ness.  Fritz and Max stood all but on the edges of the pitch, stretching and sighing.  They were wearing matching headbands all of a sudden.  Black ones.  

Finally, Schäfer insisted on the ball going to Bastard München. 

Ness held his gloved hand out to Schäfer’s bare one.  Through his primly tilted mouth he whispered, “We’re going to leave you in pieces.”

“You already did,” said Schäfer as he shook.  “Try another threat, you shitty whore.”

Neither of them attempted to yellow card the other.  

Ness gladly took the ball, and he fled with it.  

They’d warned Magic Kiel what they were about to do.  Magic Kiel hadn’t caught on though.  

All of Bastard München converged behind Ness.  Nothing too special, maybe a little suspect as far as plays went.  It was the first minutes of the game and they had every advantage of weather and spite.  Why close in so quickly and with so much flash— namely Fritz and Max dancing around Joppich and Frey (their striker, nicknamed Freyr for obvious reasons)? But then Fritz and Max peeled off into Bastard München’s third of the field.  Mensah and Ndaiye rose up to meet them and to spin into their places.  Joppich and Frey caught like two ships on a reef, only it was two brow-furrowed boys on hands and arms and legs.  Fritz and Max bowed to each other, linked wrists and spun outwards.  Ness was out of everyone’s sight by then, lobbing around Kiel’s Weizman.  Gesner caught the ball, sidelong and with a balletic tilt of his hips.  He dribbled it towards a soaring Max.  At the rising heart of the Bastard München storm, Schäfer struggled for space.   Every place he could have gone to guard, every spot where he’d have been open for a pass, let alone a steal, Kaiser was there— flouncing backwards, leaping, pirouetting.  Schäfer made to duck around him.  Kaiser caught him, chest to chest, no hands and no words, but his hair did get caught up between the two of them.

Meanwhile, Ness tangoed around Gesner, who’d reclaimed the ball, standing on it for an instant or two like he’d shot the thing.  Ness got the ball again, eventually.  Fritz and Max switched sides of the tiding team, and their pursuit intensified.  Fritz almost had Joppich in another moment.  Joppich was still banking towards Ness.  Gesner simply stood in his way.  Joppich went to dart around.  He stared up at Gesner, uncomprehending.  That was when Frey slammed into both of them.  Nobody called for time.  They were scrambling, spitting turf.  Ness came up on Boateng.  Boateng’s black braids whipped around his face.  He was that chiseled kind of handsome.  Ness reached his hands out to him gladly.  Boateng pulled his own away.  He went for the ball with a big, glistening grin.  

Ness no longer possessed the ball.  It slid around Boateng at the smallest possible distance.  Kaiser grabbed it.  Kaiser made his charge, Fritz winging him hard.  When Schäfer crashed towards them, Fritz called “ALLYOOP” and slid.  Not in any direction that would have made any sense, but more or less into Schäfer, whom he grazed, sending them both askew.  Kaiser meanwhile reached a space a few yards off from his usual shooting distance.  Kiel’s goalie was visibling sweating.  Kaiser jumped, and then shot so hard he knocked himself askew.  The ball missed a fullback, sailed upwards and arced and smashed into the upper left corner of Magic Kiel’s goal.

The boos from the Magic Kiel side of the stadium were intense.  Kaiser, having regained his footing, began to stride his way back to Bastard München’s starting arrangement.  As he walked, he waved to the crowd.  And to Schäfer.

Joppich was the one to ask it: “What the hell are you doing?”

“Playing football.  You should try it sometime.”  Kaiser took it upon himself to answer.  

“Hey!” Joppich was also team captain for Kiel and not about to take that.  

Ness stepped in.  “Kaiser, be nice.  They’re good hosts.  Very sportsmanlike.”

“Oh, my bad, I guess, or something.”

“No seriously,” Joppich insisted.  “What’s with the interpretive dance?”

“What are we supposed to be interpreting? It did just score on you.” (Not we just scored on you. Ness might need to give him another something resembling a talking to about that.) In the meantime, Kaiser swung him into a waltz stance.  Ness hadn’t realized that Kaiser had any cognancy of ballroom dancing.  He himself, he’d picked it up at school, the price of attending a nice Gymnasium and all.  Anyway,  Kaiser swept him along in big whirling steps, calling over each of their shoulders, “And this is dancing.  Don’t even need music to do it.” 

Ness blushed.  They hadn’t talked about this or anything like it.  They had talked about showing off to Magic Kiel while playing the match, not in between goals and minutes and whistles.  Ness was not prepared to be danced around the field.  Or whistled at, because they got a whistle for dawdling.  

“This is exhausting,” Mensah said as they resumed their places.  “But it’s also hilarious.  I’m torn on this one, Captain.  Is he worth it?”

“Hell no!” hooted Max.  “That’s why we’re doing it.” Fritz high-fived him before scurrying back to his side of the pitch.  

“I don’t have a problem if anybody wants to go back to playing normally,” Ness told the team.  “We’ve made our point and a goal.  It would be easier to make another if we stopped.”

Mensah thought for a moment.  He concluded, “But nah.”

Nah it was.  

This time, Ness kicked off with Joppich.  He stood there waiting for the ref to sort out some regulation or other with the ball itself.  He waited with his hands behind his back again, swaying his shoulders to some tune that lived only in the bare edges of his subconscious and thanks to Kaiser sweeping him around.  

“What the hell are you smiling about?” Joppich asked, exasperated. 

“I don’t know,” said Ness.  

“It’s actually kinda weird Falk’s so hung up on you.  You’re nothing special.”

“Kaiser disagrees.”

“Kaiser should be in jail.”

“No doubt about that.”

That tactic seemed to have been uniquely fitted for shutting Joppich up.  Finally, the ball was gifted to Joppich.  

Ness stood dead still in the middle of the field, watching him run with it.

Right into Kaiser.  Kaiser scrambled with him for the ball.  There was definitely shoving involved, teeth as the two of them reared at each other.  The shoving was not called.  The teeth gnashed.  Grim skidded in and scooped the ball from between the two of them.  The instant he’d freed it, Kaiser tried to spin off.  Joppich had him by the shirt though.  A whistle sounded.  Everybody rolled their eyes and waited for this to get sorted out too.  Joppich for whatever reason didn’t let go of Kaiser.  Kaiser chose not to struggle.  He dangled in his grasp, laughing as the yellow card was hoisted.  Then he summarily dropped to the ground.  

“And that should have been a red card!” Ness called from where he stood.  No one paid him any mind.  Not even Kaiser, who was too busy swanning dramatically on the turf.  Anyway, play started again.  Everybody had eyes on Grim.  Grim crossed his arms as he waited for his cue, and then he flipped a slow heel shot in Gesner’s direction.  Schäfer got the bright idea to do a goalie-style body block of it, which sent the ball sailing out of bounds.  Play stopped again.  Grim got designated for the throw-in.  Bastard München all high-fived about that.  Grim did the best throw-ins.  This time he even managed to fake that he was aiming for Ness.  In fact, he smacked the ball towards Kaiser.  Kaiser caught it with a yelp and a bounce.  He took off through Bastard München’s backfield, dodging between his own teammates.  It confused Magic Kiel, but only for a few turns.  By then Ness had caught up to him.  Kaiser passed him the ball— gave it a little too much air when he did.  Ness had to drop it with his knees and half-jump to catch up.  He might not have made it if Max hadn’t snagged Weizmann.

But still, once he caught up to Kaiser, once they were spinning between the rest of Magic Kiel, the ball banging like a trapped pinball; once Kaiser said, “You, you want one, loser?”

“If you want to give it to me.” Ness winked.

“AND ON THE FUCKING FIELD,” Schäfer slammed up alongside them.  His eyes were wide unto bloodshot in his rage.  His tongue dangled from his mouth and the sweat pouring down his bank was tinted green, runoff from whatever he’d done to his hair.  “You know what? If you two are gonna make out now, I’ll just take that.”

“If you think this is making out,” said Kaiser.  “I need to know how you do sex.” He reached to rub his chin, but instead of touching himself there, he brought his arm across Schäfer's chest.  Schäfer tangled with him.

Beside them, Ness jogged the ball back and forth.  The crowd sounds came through, all people wondering aloud at what the hell was happening.

“I’ll tell you what,” Kaiser said to Schäfer.  “You take this ball off of me at any point in this game, I’ll blow you.  Then maybe we can work on your fucked up libido.”

“WHAT.  THE.  HELL.”

To that, Ness laughed.  He passed the ball back to Kaiser.  This should have been a suicide move, but Kaiser caught it.  He caught it, juggled for an instant, and shot off.  

Ness swayed up to catch Schäfer as he was diving.  He also turned Schäfer lightly over his own shoulder.  Several of Schäfer’s teammates ran smack into him (and Ndaiye, whatever he was doing up here).  While they sorted that out, again sans whistle, Ness loped after Kaiser.  Reunited, he caught Max up behind him, starting to circle.  Grim signaled he was open, and immediately took a body from one of Kiel’s fullbacks.  That was one down.  Joppich screamed about Kaiser’s shooting range, his words all jumbled up.  

Ness glimpsed Boateng from the corner of his eye.  Shit.  This might not work after all.  But Kaiser.  Kaiser still wanted to go through with it.  He wanted to try.  Boateng had his hands out for them this time.  Wait— them or one or the other.  Ness was the one who looked.  He had to tear himself away from doing it.  There was only that last sprint up there with Kaiser streaming beside him.  He didn’t think of falling back to catch Boateng.  He thought about how he’d receive the next shot from Kaiser.  This was Kaiser’s shooting range.  His was a little further in.  Alright.  Yes.  He charged forward.  He was almost skidding.  Kaiser hammered after.  Boateng was snapping at his heels.  Kaiser passed.  Ness didn’t so much catch it as send it on its way.  The ball hardly touched his foot, just this one light smack on his toes and it hit the net right behind Magic Kiel’s goalie’s left ear.  

Close one.  The stands were screaming now.  Ness sensed security personnel out there, felt Kaiser beside him.  Kaiser whisked him into his arms and he dipped him.  His sweat dripped into Ness’s face and Ness laughed so hard about how absolutely good that felt.

What followed was one of the itchiest halftimes Ness had ever known.  Everyone wanted back out onto the field.  Magic Kiel fulminated about it.   Bastard München did their best to look conspiratorial even though they’d already done the conspiring part.  Kaiser bounded around.  Gesner paced.  Fritz and Max did little tappy toe struts that annoyed the everloving piss out of Coach Sander.  Schäfer threw something on the other side of the stadium.

Finally, it was time.  Ness met Joppich once more.  It was Joppich’s ball and Joppich blind side-shot it towards Frey.  Ness’s eyebrows went up.  Frey did not actually catch the ball.  Joppich caught Ness though.  He struck him once, twice.  They remained chest-to-chest in that dead center of the field.  The ref tried to whistle.  Joppich might have tried to say something.  Ness dropped down and nutmegged himself through Joppich's legs.  Play stopped.  Joppich was getting benched and the ball had to be thrown back in again.  Magic Kiel chose one of the midbacks.  He did a fine serve, one clearly meant for Frey.   Kaiser didn’t seem to like that idea much.  He snagged it instead and took off.  Ness would have joined him, but there was fucking Boateng again, and Boateng said, very clearly as Ness caught up and hip-bumped him, “Is he always this infuriating?"

“Infuriating? What are you talking about?” Ness laughed at him.  Boateng took the chance to try and cut him off.  It sort of worked.  Ness whirled out with Gesner so Boateng had to deal with him instead.  Weizmann was gunning for Kaiser, now and probably.  Max sort of had him, but Kaiser was going to have to pass sooner or later.  Mensah and Ndaiye swayed up around Ness.  This was quickie spiralling into a hell of a play, all of the team charging up to the goal, a whole swell full of maniac bastards cruising in for the kill.  

But then where was the rest of Kiel’s midline? 

Ness caught it over his shoulder.  Schäfer was on an intercept course with Kaiser.  Ndaiye banked for Schäfer.  Sachs was coming up too.  Ness pulled on them notice , but when they did nothing much changed.  Magic Kiel’s third of the field had to be the better part of dead with everybody crashing down like this.  Mensah had accepted the ball from Kaiser, but he didn’t keep it for long.  As he skimmed along the sidelines, his and Kaiser’s eyes met.  They smiled, looped in, changing places.  More what the fucking fuck rose from the crowd.  Magic Kiel was tripping all over itself.  Kaiser got the ball from Mensah.  Fritz and Sachs caught Weizman.  Schäfer remained free.  He and Kaiser met at right angles, almost as if by accident.  Kaiser had his legs cocked mid-step. Schäfer jumped away, but not before he’d smacked the ball.  He was radiant up there, even with the green hair.  And Kaiser, he wore this almost maidenly expression of confused delight.

When the two of them inevitably knocked heads, Kaiser didn’t even go down.  Just shook himself and went on like nothing had happened.  Boateng had come up and caught Schäfer’s steal.  Sachs tried to tackle him, but this ended in Sachs reeling.  He still got back up and ran, got back up and chased Boateng.  Schäfer meanwhile turned wide into the center field.  He crossed Mensah, Kaiser, Kaiser again as Frey and Boateng made a whole circle of the pitch, passing and dodging.  Finally Weizmann put his shoulder into Ndaiye.  That should have cleared a path.  Max surged in at the last second, but the ball sailed over his head.  Frey had absolutely fucking whipped it.  The ball surged into Bastard München’s goal.

“This is what you get for screwing around out there!” Sander shouted at them as they regrouped.

They took it as screw around harder.  This was Ness’s day in the spiteful sun.  

Kaiser kicked off with Schäfer.  “Thought I’d give you a preview of what you’ve earned,” he said slyly as they waited.  Then he kept the ball, only to give that ball to Ness, who gave it back to him in time.  That was more or less how they handled running out the clock– dicking with each other.  It might not have been the most glorious end to the match, but with Magic Kiel riding furious and Bastard München toppling towards exhaustion, that was simply how things had to be.  Kaiser did try one more shot, but Kiel’s goalie ate it and by then there were only three minutes left to spin and wheel, to incidentally body Boateng in a situation that saw Kaiser using Ness as all but a literal shield.

Bastard München was exhausted, soaked, and victorious.  They laughed all the way back to the showers.  They laughed so hard that Coach Sander gave up trying to lecture them.  

Besides, they’d won.  

By the time they started their rounds, the stadium was full of trash and rage.  This didn’t stop the girls from trying to bound up to Kaiser— there were a lot for an away game.  It only somewhat hampered the post-match interviews since there was toilet paper involved and toilet paper showed a lot even out of focus.  The stadium staff cleaned as fast as they could.  Outside, cop cars twinkled.  

“Those were some remarkably elaborate plays you did out there today,” a reporter was saying to Ness.  “Is Bastard München trying something new?”

“Not really.  I think we’re all just excited for Halloween.  I know I am.”

“Halloween?”

“It’s next week.  It’s going to be so much fun to put on masks and be out there with people who don’t know it’s us.”

“I’m hearing there’s going to be some excitement on the streets of Munich next week.”

“Maybe~”

“So about you and Joppich.”

“I don’t know what brought that on.  It’s not like he doesn't have a date.”

Neither Ness nor the reporter said anything more about that , but they each paused to glance around right then.  Schäfer was missing from Kiel's spread. They knew.  And they went on.   

#

Kiel’s coach was still livid about the disappearance when things finally wrapped up.  Nobody in Bastard München said a thing to him about it.  They had their own problems trying to hold Sander in the usual number of pieces.  Mensah had taken him aside and might have been seriously agreeing with him on a couple points of his rants.  

It was early evening, autumn blue sky fading out along the last of the tree leaves in the distance.  Ness had a scarf on with his street clothes, but his jacket was open.  It was only uncomfortably cool in the shadows, but those grew long between the outdoor byways of the stadium; the places where no one was really supposed to go except for maintenance reasons.  Schäfer stood with his back to a long stretch of concrete, his arms crossed.  A certain contingent of Bastard München hung around him, their backs turned.  Gesner in particular was picking his nose.

Kaiser knelt at Schäfer’s feet.  As Ness approached, he spoke, again or for the first time.  Ness had no way to know.  

“Go on.  I was serious out there.  Weren’t you?” Kaiser reached for Schäfer’s hands.

Schäfer only crossed his arms tighter.  He’d pulled sweatpants on over his uniform.  Salt from his sweat had dried in his arm hair.  So he hadn’t even showered.  Where had he been? But Ness wouldn’t think about that.

Kaiser pawed the drawstring at Schäfer’s waist.  “You really don’t want it? Think I’ll gag? Trust me, I won’t.”

There was a scowl above him.  He and Schäfer looked each other in the face, no fists and no liquor between them this time.

With a soft nod, Kaiser moved his hands over Schäfer’s stomach, to the waist of his pants.  His fingers slipped inside.  He was pulling so slowly, smiling like sugar, licking his red lips.  Leave it to Kaiser to turn his own small loss into someone else’s massive humiliation.

Except then Schäfer spoke.  He fisted his hand in Kaiser’s hair as he did it, pulling hard enough to snap strands.  They fluttered silver and loose in his grasp.  “Like I want anything from some disgusting, dead-eyed, soulless cunt.”

Kaiser’s surprise quickly snapped to amusement.  “Tell me what you really feel, Daddy.  Do you want to do it harder?”

Schäfer squeezed.  The tilt of Kaiser’s knees changed.  Grim looked over his shoulder, took in the scene, and judged this fine.

Ness kind of wanted to say something.  He didn’t.  Instead he let Schäfer spit out, “Go be happy with yourself, Kaiser.  I know you’re going to wreck him and so do you.”

Then he let go.  Kaiser slumped to the ground, barely up on his hands.  What he watched, he watched with such wonder in his gaze.  Schäfer himself stayed frozen for a moment.  He was weeping, if only to himself.  By and by, he shook his head, sucked his snot, and started to walk.

He walked right past Ness, but he didn’t stop.  He walked right past Ness and neither of them looked at the other.  “You have my number if you ever want to talk.”

Ness pushed him away one last time.  Let this be the one that did it.  Let them barely know each other next time they met.  But do let there be a next time.  Schäfer didn’t need to be gone from the whole world, just Ness’s.

He heard Kaiser laughing.  The sound made him smile.

Then the shadows were somewhat longer still.  He was sitting on the bus with that person.  There was a hair chalk stain on his scarf, he realized.  How had it gotten there? The hair chalk was gone from him.  Not Kaiser’s arm though.  Kaiser had him pressed all possessive to his side.  He proclaimed,  “Disgusting… and he doesn’t know half of it.  What do you think say if he realized just who he said all that shit to?”

“Nothing worthwhile,” Ness answered.  

“Of course not.” Kaiser rested his head on Ness’s.  He wasn’t usually this touchy in semi-public.  Ness knew something was coming.  The whole team probably did, even if they couldn’t hear the words.  “Better question, what would it take for me to be disgusting to you? And don’t say that’s impossible.  Consider who you’re talking to.”

Ness thought.  Sander had one last bluster at the driver, because no one else was open to hearing his shit.  Then that was over.  They might be leaving Kiel stadium sometime before nightfall.  “If you tried to re-parent me, I’d actually throw up.”

“Well, that’s off the list then.”

Ness wrinkled his face.  Then he pulled closer to Kaiser.  

“I wouldn’t.  But I am going to feed you lamb tonight.  I’m into curry dick if it’s yours.” Kaiser pushed somewhat out of his slouch, twisting towards the aisle as he shouted,  “So, who wants to watch me feed Ness lamb korma on naan, no spoons?”

“Me!” sang Bastard München.  

And coach Sander, he had no more fight left in him.

Chapter Text

Kaiser was kissing him in the middle of the Bastard München lobby.  “You’re so creative,” he broke off to say.  He still happened to be hanging around Ness’s neck, lightly drunk, eyes gleaming with mischief.

“What are you two even doing?” muttered Gesner.  Gesner had dressed as a zombie complete with green makeup and a zipper spirit gummed to his forehead.   

“Oh, does that matter to you?” Kaiser shot back.

“No.  Just figuring it’s really gay.  Should probably take my girls someplace else,” he glared hard at Mensah.  Mensah and Sachs had put on their most respectable suits and were headed to late night services at their respective churches, hence their presence in the lobby sans costumes.  Neither responded to Gesner’s attention.  

“What if they like watching guys kiss?”

“Nobody likes that.”

Ness took it upon himself to snog Kaiser.  Mensah and Sachs applauded.  So did Fritz and Max even as they lunged out the door, trailing plastic chains.  Ness wasn’t sure what they were supposed to be, only that they’d duct taped themselves together and were shouting “BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD”.   

“Anyway, we’re going Trick-or-Treating,” said Kaiser.

“Aren’t you a little old for that?” asked Sachs since Gesner was now pretending that he’d lost interest.

“Ness never got to go.”

“Ah.  That’s…” Sachs glanced to the side, tightening his lips.  “That’s actually very nice of you.  Are you feeling alright?”

Kaiser burped.  “Yeah.”

“But you said it was his idea?”

“He picked where we’re going.  So many expats.  We’re getting full-sized chocolate bars and Hohos!”

“Oh boy.  Can’t wait to hear you going at it while you’re full of sugar,” Mensah said with far from genuine affect.  In another moment he had started to laugh.  “No, really.  I bet it sounds like one of those wind-up Easter chicks.  Cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep!”

“Speaking of us going for rides,” Ness segued.  “I think that’s us.”

Kaiser swung around, pulling Ness after him and towards the door.  “Later, normies.  Cheep-cheep my ass.”

He went on to stuff Ness into the car.  Ness was glad for the pushing.  The synthetic material of his allover renaissance doctor gown stuck to the seat.  The thing was heavy too and he had to gather the hem after him.  Then Kaiser threw their pumpkin-printed tote bags onto his lap and joined him from the far door.  He slid right over and rested his head on Ness’s shoulder.  Kaiser was dressed the same as him down to the boots and gloves, but Kaiser had picked up how to maneuver in the gown a lot more easily than Ness had.  

As the car started he flexed with excitement.  Not like the kind he got before matches or when they were poised to fuck.  It was something deeper, but lighter too in a way.  Easier might have been the word, but after the time they’d spent arranging the outing, Ness couldn’t bring himself to put things that way.  

They were going Trick-or-Treating.  Just not in the traditional way.  

After a few blocks, Kaiser picked himself up.  He tilted Ness towards him and started to finish his costume.  There was a headband, a wide one, pushing Ness’s hair back and out of his face.  A button-on hood hid the rest.  Kaiser fixed that with some bobby pins nipped carefully into the seam lines where they wouldn’t be too obvious.  He had much the same for himself, but he put that in place on his own.  His blue tails showed behind his neck if he swayed just the right way.  Probably no one was going to look that hard.  Not where they were headed.  

Then, the masks.  Kaiser had a golden leather Vega.  The long chin looked eerie on his frame and the tilted eye slots made his gaze seem so enormous and sharp.  If they’d been on their way anywhere else, Ness would have put his hips up for him and said— hump me with that on.  But something else waited for them in the night.  Ness himself had stopped feeling much of any way about it.  The future of the next six hours or so broke open all around him.  It would be what it would be.  He ached all over with the possibilities, but in such a fine-boned, soft-cut way.  

“You really thought this up,” Kaiser said through the muffle of the mask.

“I did.  You’re right about me not trusting.  This should help.”

“Of course it will.”

“And it’s something we’re both curious about.” Ness sighed a little.  “But, Kaiser…”

“But what?” 

“Did you ever go Trick-or-Treating?” He asked with all the sympathy his heart held.

Still, it didn’t surprise him that Kaiser threw back his head and laughed.  “Fuck yes, I did.  It was one of the only nights I knew I was getting food.  One time, I even went with real blood on my clothes.”

Ness nodded.  He put up his gloved hands and worked his gown against Kaiser’s.  In the end there was almost an embrace.  His face butted Kaiser’s mask as they pulled to a stop.  

Kaiser grabbed their bags as Ness crawled his way out of the car.  He kept his head down— he wasn’t wearing his mask yet.  The two of them strode up to the velvet rope outside of Vector: Motherless.  The club was a blank concrete structure on the edges of the city, marked streetside with a V:M spray painted on the wall.  The actual sign was a small lighted one over the black doors.  A bouncer in a leather harness and jeans took their tickets for the evening.  He then also searched their bags and locked up their cell phones— full concierge service for visitors with their type of tickets, of course.  Then, he and one of his companions crouched almost to their knees to let them pass.  Ness was fascinated by the gesture.  He lingered longer than he should have in the doorway.

The open room of the club could have been any decent-end retro-modern space.  Ness had figured it would be red too, but it had some bisexual lighting going instead and a couple of cycads in pots around the bar itself.  The bartender also wore a harness that did nothing but accentuate her breasts.  In a nook to the side of the bar a man had been bound to a metal frame, the audience and his friends taking turns whipping his thighs.  Music boomed from one of the side walls.  There was supposed to be a dance floor, but Ness and Kaiser made their way through at least one makeout session and up to the quieter side of the building, the one with the foil paper Trick-or-Treat banner hanging a set of double doors.  The attendant there took their tickets again, besides the consent forms and the results of their recent blood tests.  They had to sign one more set of papers with her watching.  Then, she handed them a fishbowl of condoms and said, “Lucky you.  You’re house thirteen.”

Kaiser laughed and laughed.  He pulled Ness after him once again.

The back room was softly lit, but concrete and high-ceilinged like a gym.  It had been filled with a pretend village, two dozen “houses”, really cubby rooms painted in haunted house designs: witches in the windows and devils in the scraggly grass.  Thirteen had an arched-back cat.  Inside each house was a small bed, and a chair, and assorted hooks.  Ness took the space in.  He pulled on a wall to see if it would tilt at all.  It didn’t budge.    

“Face!” someone called.  Ness quickly covered himself until the coast was clear.  He then pulled off his robe and his gloves and his boots.

He had nothing underneath.  

Kaiser held his mask up to him.  It was a black leather Moretta with a silicone bite button.  Ness had to set his teeth there if he wanted the mask to stay on.  It made him mute too unless he let go.  Ness had no intention of that.  Believed anyway what he wouldn’t have to do it.  Besides, with the mask and the hood, he was almost unidentifiable aside from his cock.  

Kaiser kissed him on the lips the mask didn't have.  He put Ness’s hands in a pair of bondage mittens and then chained him on his back, bound hands to the sides of the bed, ankles up in cuffs so he could not close his knees, ass exposed, words and what felt like an arrow written on the underside of his thighs with a Sharpie.  

They had one last exchange there; at least, Kaiser said to him, “I have you.” His gloved hand trailed up Ness’s chest and then he was gone.  

Ness took a few deep breaths.  He resettled his teeth on his bite button and tried not to let the anticipation crack apart his calm.  The night was full of magic, sparks and shades of it circling all through the city.  Enough of it felt poised to come down where he lay, though and then again, the magic was only a shred of what he expected to get that night.  

Ness breathed and he waited.  The voices around him carried and bled into each other.  He could still sense Kaiser with him, that sunlit glare of a presence shifting around on the chair; that touch of citrus and leather cologne on the limit of his sense of smell.  He heard him whisper to somebody, then a snicker.  The door leading back to the main club kept clattering.  Open.  Shut.  People passing.  Costumes rustling.  Laughter and leather settling, chains clanking, voices gasping already.  

Somebody stopped walking.  There were words, Kaiser saying, “Let me see it.” Ness tightened all over.  He breathed slow and even to himself even as his heart thumped.   The fishbowl full of condoms rustled.

There were two sets of hands on him then, both in plastic gloves.  Neither of them were Kaiser’s.  One felt smaller and more feminine.  He couldn’t really see either person they belonged to, only that their costumes were red and showed a lot of skin.  One pushed Ness’s cheeks further apart than they already were, stretching his taint and his hole.  The other plucked at his pucker, remarking “He’s so nice and stretchy.” The lube they used was on the thin side.  It left Ness feeling sloppy.  His dick twitched upwards nonetheless.  The one with the small hands seized him and their grasp barely fit around him by the time he was all the way hard.  The two spent that much time with him, spreading him to three and then four fingers.  Ness heard them mention a speculum.  He didn’t want that.  He hadn’t even thought of that when talking to Kaiser about tonight and then again it didn’t surprise them when Kaiser said, slipping out of sotto voce, “He looks up me all the time.  Let me see.” So that was also their business rubbed onto this couple of strangers.  

The speculum was plastic and disposable, so not as cold as Ness had been ready for.  It didn’t hold him as wide as the four fingers had.  All three of them were looking, Kaiser with audible interest.  “He’s moving just sitting there.  That’s wild.” Then as if he’d never done it before, Kaiser switched for a disposable glove and put one finger there to catch the breathing pulses up Ness’s hole.

Playtime ended.  A big man, gloriously hairy, with a red harness and a red devil’s mask, put himself between Ness’s legs.  His smaller partner slid the condom onto him, then moved back to Kaiser.  Ness thought he heard them kiss.  Then the big man was telling him, “Open up, twitchy butt.” Ness had made his choice about this hours ago.  He did.  The devil had a big, fat cock and he leaned over him so his beer belly rested on Ness as he thrust.  It was a pleasant sensation, the way his weight nudged, brought him down tight to the bed.  Ness’s cock got caught up in it too, this damp and edging stimulation.  He was longing to get off a few minutes into when the devil laid into him, bottomed out and held him down.  He came before Ness did, and then left him hanging on the empty air as he pulled out.  His partner tied off his condom and then laid their hands to Ness.  Ness shot off all over himself and then lay there twitching as Kaiser invited the two guests to write on him besides.  They did, the words quick and sharp as their goodbyes.  Then Kaiser didn’t clean off the sperm.  Well, not most of it.  He took a little lick, sliding his hand up under his Vega mask.  He said, “That was hot.”

Ness nodded because he had no other way to answer.  The sex hadn’t carried the intimacy his nights with Kaiser did.  It had certainly been good for him even with the speculum.  In fact, he hadn’t minded that part in the end.  But that wasn’t the end-end.  

They planned to stay until after midnight.  Kaiser had promised to take him down if Ness let go of the mask, but Ness was determined not to do that.  Kaiser would speak for him.  He’d trust him by the end of tonight.

Presently, a woman’s voice— “Reverse Trick-or-Treat! I brought candy.”

“Never seen that kind of candy before,” said Kaiser.  “But I’m listening.”

She explained.  She had little carbon fiber wands, with flowers on the end from what Ness understood.  If she could smack Ness, the two of them got to keep a rod each.  It wasn’t safe to share carbon fiber now, boys.  It had a habit of picking up pathogens.  So, wait, were they a couple?

“He’s mine,” Kaiser said with blunt simplicity.  “And he’s not into that.  I, on the other hand.”

There was a slushing noise as Kaiser dropped his robe.

“Oh, my god,” said the woman.  “Your back .  You must be hardcore.  Why’d I explain anything to you?”

“Far be it from me to stop you,” said Kaiser.  He slid up between Ness’s legs, bracing himself over Ness’s body.  He still wore his own hood and mask, besides a pair of fake tattoo sleeves that didn’t quite hide the point of his shoulder.  There was one little prick of vine above the hem.  He nudged his mask at Ness’s.  Ness gave him a squeeze with his thighs, what of one he could manage.  He squished into the remains of Ness’s spunk.  

The rod coming down sounded like a piece of wicker snapping.  Kaiser caught his breath and flinched.  He didn’t cry out, not on the first one, or the second.  His eyes were so wide behind the mask, bright with pain.  Around the fourth there were noises slipping from him, sinus sharp and right up against Ness’s chest.  His breathing started to drag too, but he held steady through the blows until the last when he gave up this, “Dammit, ow,” that didn’t sound forced at all.  It sounded real.  And a bit snotty.

Of course the woman dealt him one more whack.  “Let’s give it up for house 13!” And there must have been people watching because thin applause trickled up from under Ness’s feet, right then and when Kaiser stood, bowed, revealed that Ness had started tilting towards his second erection.   

The next group of Trick-Or-Treaters stopped because his size fascinated them.  They were little lacy creatures in butterfly masks and costumes more like lingerie.  One wanted to ride Ness.  Kaiser, his voice still a little warped from his beating, said, “Sure.” Then he made out with the blond one and her friend who sounded Spanish, maybe Basque? The three of them hid their bare faces behind Ness’s spread and markered thighs.  Ness still glimpsed them on and off through the Moretta’s eye slots.  Kaiser pressed to suck their nipples as a third girl, all fragile and pink, put her gloved hand to Ness’s dick.  The lace scratched as she sized him up.  She didn’t even try to look at any other part of him.  He was all cock to her and soon sheathed in a ribbed condom she had brought for herself.  Her friends helped her swing up and mount him— Ness wasn’t at the best position to give much that evening.  He still tried, his breath breaking out of him as she rose over him and began to sink.  She was shallow at first, but very tight, almost uncomfortable for Ness.  He wanted to ask her if she was hurting, but maybe that was the point.  She made the most luscious sound, only from her lips.  There was something quietly domineering about the way she held her body.  Ness struggled with his spit and the sheer force of her for most of the fuck.  Then one of her friends, switched to medical gloves, put her hand up her bottom.  Ness felt the fingers on his underside through her.  His dick beat inside and his feet flexed.  The girl on his lap came in a short, smacking burst.  Then she got off of him and took the empty condom for the trash.  She signed her name on his flank and left him aching.  Kaiser got one more kiss and a grope before she and her friends left.

He adjusted his mask and he said, facing away from the flow of passers-bye, “I don’t think we’re going to have a dead spell with that in the treat basket.”

Ness nodded.  He hauled up on his chains from a sheer desire to move.  He could hear people gasping, sense gestures of attention.

The next person who actually approached almost swept past Kaiser.  Kaiser caught him and sneered in his Freddy Krueger mask.  “What’re the magic words?”

“Trick-or-Treat.  Damn, man.  You can’t just leave somebody up like that and, er, then somehow us freaks gotta ask.”  

“Yeah, well you freaks squirming while you ask gets me hot.” Kaiser did not mention that asking appeared in the contracts all of the guests had signed.

“OK, so… Is that a yes or a no?”

“It’s a do him before I change my mind.”

The man crept up.  Ness could see very little of him.  He had the sweater and the gloves and the hat and everything with his costume.  His mask was rubber with the eyes screened  out.  His fingers moved clumsily over his belt buckle.

Ness moaned.  He nudged himself up the little bit he could, tempting.  His hole clenched on the action, then the weight of his hard-on crashed fresh into his senses as he swung back down.  Freddy dropped his gloves haphazardly aside.  He grabbed Ness by the thighs and spread him.  Ness couldn’t tell where he was looking— at his dick or his ass or somehow the black pit the moretta turned his face into. Whatever he saw, he liked.  He held his hand out for a condom.  Kaiser stuck the bowl under his face so he still had to choose one for himself.  He did do that and then he held it in his off hand as he stroked himself the rest of the way hard.  Ness hadn’t gotten a look at his penis before it sank into him.  Freddy was on the smaller side and he was rough as hell.  Even with as little as he knew about Nightmare on Elm Street , Ness thought that checked out.  He had a couple amused snorts to himself before he was groaning out his nose.  If nothing else, rough was what he needed to wring the orgasm out of him.  He trembled under Freddy’s grasp, jerking up for more but getting the same shoves instead.  His cock thrummed and beat.  He wanted so hard.

He orgasmed right after Freddy had finished inside of him and pulled out.  The last slip of stimulation got him.  He came weakly, asshole quaking so hard it felt like he’d cramped, sperm welling and leaking from the head of his dick, down his shaft, itching in his pubes.  The pain was over and gone from him.  Ruined orgasm or not, he’d take it.  He’d had weirder comes before thanks to Kaiser.

Kaiser, who stood watching Freddy struggle to pull his gloves back on.  Just watched and barely even lifted his head when Freddy passed him by and said, “Nice ass you got there.” Once he was out of House 13, Kaiser got up.  He put his face up close to Ness again.  “You’re doing so good.” Then flicked him on the sole of one foot before returning to the open side of their space, lounging there like he was the one available.

Ness felt dizzy with the pure sex riding up his veins.  Good wasn’t the word he’d have used if anyone asked how he was doing and he wouldn’t have said he was enjoying himself.  Still— he didn’t want to stop.  That lay so far from his desires and the faint misgivings creeping along the edge of his distorted senses.  Finally back in a body that wasn’t throbbing all over, Ness felt into the magic.  It was clear that night, liquid too.  It tended to get that way on Halloween.  Everybody magic went out on principal if they could.  There were so many strolling Munich and at least two powerful ones in the club.  The streets groaned with more.

A person storm-heavy and familiar circled past.  Ness didn’t dwell on them.  Someone else had come to fuck him.  That someone had on a neatly tailored business suit and a half a skull mask.  He chatted with Kaiser for a while.  He was tall, stooping his head to speak with that person, offering him a cigarette that Kaiser took and stashed.  “For later,” Kaiser said.  “Gotta make sure nobody runs off with him.  That’d make my dick sad.”

Ness flexed, enticing once again.  Beneath the mask he smiled.  The man fingered him for a while even though he was already loose, then asked for more lube.  Kaiser found a packet in the fishbowl and tossed it to him.  The next sensation didn’t come to Ness as anything sexual, but there were lights flashing all along his nerves.  His hole fluttered as the man entered him.  Without the pleasure or the pain, all he got was the pure sensation of being full and fucked into.  He did sputter some prostate fluid when the guy jerked up into him, getting himself off for certain.  He had his eyes closed when he came.  He might have been imagining someone else.  That thought got Ness a little hot and then it was over.  One more tied condom in the trash bin.  Kaiser and the man spoke again, but it only lasted so long.  

One more person had come around to tap Kaiser on the shoulder, and to ask.  About Ness.  

There were three heavy magics floating in Vector: Motherless now.  The third had gotten in with so little fuss.  Another VIP.  Maybe the others were too.  They had all perceived Ness in the Trick-or-Treat village.  Their recognition came to him like dark eyes staring from the shadows where he couldn’t see past the mask.  They felt indifferent, but they did not let him slip from their own senses of the night.    

More lube came out.  The latest person was wearing a cartoonish looking getup with suspenders and a tie in too-brought colors.  They also had a charming, furry fox mask and two big, soft paws besides.  Kaiser agreed to use the lube on Ness and to put the condom on them.  They leveled their soft gloves to Ness’s flanks.  Those tickled.  Trying not to laugh was the worst Ness had wanted to let go of the button so far that evening.  He had to throw back his head and clench his teeth to keep it.  Snot sputtered at one point and got on the inside.  It stuck and it was pretty gross.  Then came the fox’s dick.

It wasn’t a dick.  It was a strap on.  And it had a knot.  Ness found out about the knot when it slammed up against his hole.  He didn’t manage to muffle the oof in his chest.  The fox tried again.  This time when they hit they held onto the pressure.  Ness felt himself start to give, but that only went so far.  Kaiser, forgetting his medical gloves, reached in.  He squeezed on Ness’s taint until his muscles loosened and slid.  The knot went in with a smack.  Ness clenched back up, hard enough the dildo made a sound in its harness.  The thing was long too.  While the knot dominated his perception of the act, he could feel the head battering around inside of him too.  But the knot, the knot was wringing on his insides.  His dick crept towards hard again.  His skin that wasn’t between his legs felt dull and distant.

A cartoon fox was fucking him while Michael Kaiser stroked him behind his balls.  Ness writhed, but he didn’t come.  His pleasure fell in these thin-stretched flashes through every muscle in his body.  He wasn’t even half-hard when the fox got off, however they did that.  He knew they gave him some bouncing hard thrusts, then let Kaiser help them get the dildo out.  That was another empty condom for their collection.  The fox gave them friendly paw swipes and then went on their way.  

Ness leaned back to catch his breath.  He was leaking lube.  Realizing that  brought a low heat up in him and the half-on he’d already started to lose.  He had no dignity here though, not unless Kaiser gave it to him.  He could let go and be vulnerable.  He could do this.

As his head almost dared to clear he realized that one of the big magics had come into the village. 

Ness knew who it was now.  The pressure and the sheer size.  It had to be Dark.  The fact blurred on his personal attenuated lust.  Ray Dark was here.  In Vector: Motherless.

That made sense.  So much that Ness was smirking to himself under the mask.  If Ray Dark didn’t do sex, maybe he did bondage and discipline without genital contact.  That seemed like something a guy like him would be into.

But Trick-or-Treat was a public use scenario.  Most of those people were tied up, it was true.  Ness bit his button.  He stared up at the ceiling to the sounds of someone else’s screaming orgasm.  He thought he heard champagne corks too, and there was a smell besides the magic, some dark candle scent seeping past the Moretta.

He looked down.  His smirk went away.  

Ray Dark had dressed in a hooded wizard’s robe, deep blue.  He held a long, wooden staff with a crystal ball instead of a cane.  His mask was an abstract pattern of waves.  Ness couldn’t make out the eye holes.  Not from where he lay.  

“Umhm,” Kaiser said appreciatively.  “Nice.  What’s the plan?”

Wait.  Did he… 

Dark gestured forward with his staff.  He made a thrusting motion.

Did Kaiser not recognize Dark? Kaiser on the other side of his Vega showed a lingering interest in the figure, nothing more.  He was always so arrogant about anything he had to do with Dark.  I was his (not you).  He gave me this (because he likes me).  He knows what he’s talking about (he gets my libido better than I do and we never fucked).  He’d have said something like that if he knew this was Dark.  

So he didn’t know.  Did he.  

Dark advanced on Ness.  Before he ever touched him otherwise, he took one of the Sharpies and he started to write.  That wasn’t part of his magic.  Maybe it was how he got his pleasure?  Ness was too on edge to be charmed about the possibility.  He lay very still.  His fists knotted in his mittens as the marks flowed over him, starting on his shins and veering towards more sensitive spaces.  The words on his flank got him even worse than those close to his armpits.  Dark gave the fur there a yank, but moved on, placing some radial design around one nipple, then streaking down to write around Ness’s happy trail.  Finished, he put the marker away.

He put himself between Ness’s legs.

Ness stared up at him, wide-eyed, bewildered, and afraid.  Afraid of what exactly, he couldn’t say.  Just Dark, there, now.  

When Dark leaned down, he whispered, “You’ve been busy.” Then he pulled his own mask aside, just far enough to get his tongue out.  He ran that over the bare skin between the Moretta and the headband.  His hood still hid him from Kaiser.  

Should he call out?  Dark hadn’t threatened him or anything.  Dark was just there, over him.  Ness could not see his face, or even his eyes.  Dark’s mood lay outside of his own senses.  Ness had no way to fathom him that way.  He only knew that Dark was heavy.  His magic, his body, his blue robe that shifted to eerie pale green when the light hit it just right.  He had the faintest smell though, just something human and good.  Ness kind of liked it.  Then there were hands on him.  Dark’s hands.  He wasn’t wearing gloves, just rings.  A lot of heavy rings.  Ness could feel them on his sides, this faint-jangling slickness.

Ness stirred in spite of himself.  He sighed and then he pressed his face towards Dark.  He looked at him with every question he held reflected in his eyes.  He hoped.  

The laugh from Dark was so low it shook each of them more than made a sound.  

Dark tipped him.  Ness was flat on his back, looking up.  He could only see Dark over him, Dark in his faceless mask.  He said, “Didn’t anybody ever tell you?”

Tell him what? But Ness couldn’t speak.  He held his hips still even to the weight threatening against them.  He was sparking there.  His dick longed to be hard, but that was crushing so much blood from his fear.

Dark’s hand and Dark’s cold rings came to him.  He started to pump.  Ness sighed again.  The space in the mask for his nostrils was too small and damp from earlier.  He felt like he was dangling somewhere humid, but that place was also, somehow, under Dark, like in the dark, like he was hanging from a tree branch somewhere in a swamp.  Then Dark’s mask butted to his pulse point.  “The magic will never give you what you want,” he said.  “It gives you what you need.”

Ness had heard that before.  It had been at the May Day Faire where he’d bought the ruby glass crystal ball.  The magic woman who wouldn't kiss him, (he was too young, she’d insisted; he’d been thirteen and old enough to decide who he kissed), she’d told him while he was holding his hand in both of her thin, veiny ones.  He’d thought that was wisdom from her age, but a year later he’d caught the refrain from a man he’d offered to blow on the train coming back from summer vacation.  Now Ray Dark said it, and swiped a finger around the hole at the very tip of Ness’s hard-on.

Ness realized he was nodding.  Dark’s off hand went to his hair, worked into his curls, and held him there despite the hood and pins.  “You don’t even know what you’re doing.”

I do.   Ness thought it as hard as he could.  As if that could somehow get it through to Dark.  But Dark didn’t have that kind of magic, did he? Was that even halfway true? He wondered there, as Dark squeezed him slow and so hard.  Ness flexed on empty air.  He hadn’t realized how tight he’d been holding himself, but then he wasn’t.  He felt so cold and open as Dark’s finger’s went to him.  There were two, down to the rings. Ness fought his bonds.  He wanted more.  More of everything.  More why, more touches, more of the magic looming over him.  More words, like if he could scream I know exactly what I’m doing and even though it was such a lie.  

He’d pulled Kaiser as close as he could with his magic.  He’d put his whole self into making love to him.  Their bond was a light in his senses.  

Maybe Ray Dark could see that too… Then why was he… 

Kaiser appeared beside them.  He offered the fishbowl, and then an alcohol wipe.  “If you want it.  He’s already filthy, but I mean, that was the point.” He had one of those phantom grins on his face.  Ness could feel it, if not see.    

And Ness moaned on Dark’s fingers.  They were so long, longer than Kaiser’s, and then went so deep, three of them, all beckoning.  Ness was hurting hard and soaking with precum.  How he’d even gotten any more out of his body, he didn’t know.

Ray Dark pulled aside.  He cleaned his fingers and his rings.  Then the condom was on.  He said one last thing.  “I need you to get what I need.  And you need me.”

Ness almost spit the mask.  He didn’t have a chance.  Dark swerved into him in one long, deep shot.  He lifted Ness from bed, spearing and panting as he began to thrust.  Ness’s whole self contracted around him: his hole, the grasp he could not move and the ache in his thighs that was finally turning into real pain after however long he’d been strung up.

Ness surged.  His hair stood on end and he felt like there was something alive under his pulse points.  His heart beat so hard he heard it crashing in his ears.  Ray Dark wasn’t that big, but he left Ness feeling so full that it verged on painful.  Ness sank down, down into the mattress.  He could imagine it simply giving way around him.  There would be springs and fiber and him all over.  

Ray Dark fucked him.  He made piercing grunts about it and he moved heavier on one side.  He didn’t have his cane or his staff to hold him up, but he balanced well enough with his grip on Ness.  He was fucking him just fine and Ness shivered every so often despite the authoritative artlessness of the act.  Ray Dark had his dick in him because he was a hole, and nothing besides.

Except Ness had known that wasn’t true.  There had to be some other motive.  He felt it creeping up his insides first.  At least his body recognized the sensation, the raw nature of someone else prodding at an orifice.  Then it was the smell, Ness’s own sex and semen mung slithering away beneath the dead meat as Dark struck at his magic too.

Ness clenched it back.  It was his and maybe everything he knew about it he’d learned through trial and error.  Maybe it was soft and silly and kind of mean to hold onto it.  It wasn’t mind control!  But it was his.  It was his ! Dark didn’t have any right.  He’d better not.  He couldn’t actually… 

Ray Dark’s magic spread that part of Ness too.  If it came through ungentle in the end, it was only because Ness had fought him.  Ness knew that, and not because of the faint “that’s it” whispered along his neck.  

Dark’s magic opened too.  It lay wide and every bit as vulnerable as Ness felt with his parted.  Except they had no way to hurt each other.  No weapons, no fists, not even any spells.  The two of them held bleeding wounds that felt pleasure instead of pain.  

What happened next was so blindingly tender.  His magic and Dark’s began to flow like the wax and oil in a lava lamp.  The swells rose up on his orgasm reflexes, tempting but not freeing them to sparks.  Dark fucked him with the steadiest rythm and so deeply, impossibly deep.  It might have been that other sensation soaking in, the magic between them.  The two of them were meeting, moving, changing.  Ness felt himself in heliotrope and then Dark was midnight blue, almost black.  Ness stared into a midnight sky framed in his own neon, and somehow there were stars: two dim, five bright, then others merely swirls in the hearts of nebulae.  They were so, so beautiful despite the fact Ray Dark filled Ness with such dread.  Ness reached in curiosity, but he didn’t quite manage to touch them, or however that would have happened in their wide open magics.  

There was another hard shift between them.  Dark was panting in his face.  Ness’s balls felt like someone was trying to squeeze sperm out of him.  There came this thick swell of violet and all his nerves were singing.  He wanted more sex, like Dark could have hammered him for the rest of the night.  He wanted more of the bleeding magic, more of the stars.

Then it wasn’t like Dark pushed him away.  Ness’s magic fell back to him and rested on the shell of what it had been before that moment.  

The boundary between their magics slowly sealed again.  Dark promised to finish in him.  Then he did, then he was squeezing Ness in his fist even though neither of them lay on the mattress anymore.  They were coming on what might as well have been thin air.  Ness’s ejaculation sputtered.  It still felt soaringly ecstatic despite the little he had to show for it.  

Dark on the other hand shot a big, sticky a load into him.  The condom was sagging when he pulled it off to tie.

Ness wished that Dark could have stayed inside of him for a minute, for an hour.  He would have held him and rocked his ass against him until they were fucking again.  He would have found a way to tell him off.  He would have felt himself pulling open that other way and he would scream at Dark’s stars and this time it would have been on his purpose.

He didn’t exactly feel violated.  More like swept up and sorry like he’d turned when Kaiser pierced his ears.  

Ness remembered he was wearing his diamonds tonight.  He wanted to touch them.  He couldn’t.  

Kaiser said, “Nice!” about the condom.  He grabbed Ray Dark’s dropped staff for him and handed it over.  He left lube fingerprints beneath the arch that held the crystal ball.  Ray Dark nodded to Kaiser and he left them.

Ness’s head spun.  Do I tell him? Does he know? What the hell if he doesn’t.  But he couldn’t not know? Could he? He’s not magic and he’s not sensitive.  He’s… Kaiser what are you doing?

Kaiser had pulled off his Vega.  He was holding it between himself and the hall between the houses.  He rubbed his face on Ness’s Moretta.  “Hanging in there, Puppy?” There was so much light in his voice.  His eyes crinkled at the corners and he had that smirk that wasn’t.  Just like Ness had figured.

Slowly now, Ness nodded.

“One more to cleanse your butthole palette? That last guy did a number on you.  You’re all red and leaky.”  

Ness wanted to see, but he had no camera and no way to ask.  He took Kaiser’s word for it.  Michael Kaiser’s fucking word on that, and– 

“I still haven’t come.  It’s after midnight, by the way.  That’s what all the champagne and patchouli was all about.”

Oh.  No wonder Ness was so thirsty.  

Kaiser spoke again.  “Pretty Ness.  All the devils want him tonight.” He kissed his forehead, right where Dark had licked him, and he moved aside.

There was another man in a devil costume, more sinister and black with a ghoulish smile in the mask.

Ness pushed up, up.

The second devil didn’t need shown.  He took forever to come, but when he did it was so hard the chains rattled around Ness.  He didn’t show his condom off.  He thanked Kaiser and he left.

Ness hung alone for a few moments after that.  The ceiling was a gray blur with no one lording over him.  Every sexual reflex in his body had been stretched so thin and his magic still hadn’t gone quiescent.  

Kaiser put his hand down on the Moretta.  Ness let go.  Mucotic saliva streamed after.  Ness moaned, turned to the side, horked, and spat twice.  His lips were stretched out of form.  He lay back with a thud.

Kaiser had to shoo somebody off, but he came back to him and started unfastening the chains.  Without them, Ness fell limply to the bed.  There was a big wet spot under his butt.  Or maybe that was his butt.  That part of him was an aching bruise.  Kaiser pushed him the rest of the way up on the bed.  He straightened Ness out like he’d never done for anybody on the field.  The long, thin muscle up the sides of Ness’s lower legs burned in a way that made his feet twitch when he tried to relax.

“I don’t think I can stand,” he managed to say.  

“Shh,” Kaiser shushed him.  “Sure you can.  Let me get you loose and then you can lean on me.”

Part of Ness hoped that took forever.  He hoped Kaiser had lost the keys to the mittens and he’d just have to lie there while he searched.  But Kaiser was deft and quick.  Kaiser had freed him exactly when he’d had enough.  

He’d caught him in a trust fall.

In the end, that was what Ness had wanted so dearly.  He could trust him.  He could.  At least as far as sharing with strangers.  And that was a lot if he couldn’t stand at the end of the night.

Kaiser was saying, “That is such a blissed-out expression.  Did you like that? Was it good for you?”

“Y-yea.  And I’ll be OK.” Ness shook himself.  “I’ll be better than OK.  I just need some water.  Please.”

Kaiser pulled away.  He took a swig from a water bottle tucked under his chair.  Then he spit the luke-warm liquid into Ness.

Ness shook, swallowed and asked for more.  

A little while later, he limped out of Vector: Motherless.

#

Once again, they returned to the Bastard München complex in the small hours of the morning.  Kaiser brought Ness into one of the main pitch’s locker rooms and jimmied on the lights.  Ness stood naked in front of the full length mirror.  He was covered in handprints and graffiti and skims of sex fluids dried to fish-scale patches on his skin.  His eyes shone wide and wet.  His genitals were all red.

Ray Dark had written on him in one of the languages from The Lord of the Rings .  He didn’t remember which one, but he recognized the characters.  He had no idea what they might say, or how many people he’d let fuck him that night.  It seemed like there were a few who hadn’t quite clung to his mind.  A few places where somebody had stuck it in him without any preamble or words.  Ten, twelve… More than that somehow? He quivered at the thought.

“I really fucking did it,” he whispered.  He couldn’t make many other sounds besides that.  

“You were so good,” said Kaiser and he swept in, sliding one arm around Ness’s shoulders as he leaned in to kiss his way down his neck, onto those so-familiar bite marks.  Kaiser on the other hand was pristine from the front.  He had a wicked softie and a drunk kind of flush to his cheeks, but no hint of sex or violence.  The carbon fiber wand hadn’t left much in the way of marks, at least not compared to the marks he already wore.

Ness relished being bitten again, because of course that happened.  Once it had, he bent over, hands on the mirror.  “W-would you be the last one tonight? I know you need it.  And I miss you after all that.”

Kaiser nodded.  He shook a bottle of their good, personal lube out of their things.  “I’m skipping the condom.”

Ness got nothing from the fuck as it happened.  He knew the cleaning crew of the team would find the smears on the mirror and they’d have such thoughts.  Numb he’d gone to his own urges, he was able to take in so much of Kaiser.  How needy and turned on he was, how he kept giving these pauses to stretch things out and even if he wanted to come so badly.  The sense of his big hands on his hips and his crotch resting all silky right up against Ness’s backside.  Every twitch and pulse and jerk when he came.  Every half gasp.  Every sweet breath.  And that low, slick dripping sensation when he finally pulled out.

#

A while later when they’d showered and opened the box of Hohos they’d bought for themselves, Ness drew the air with the glass athame he had bought especially for that night.  His vase full of feathers stirred and the mead in the chalice sparkled with the last of all hallow’s eve.  

“Please accept my pleasure that I sacrificed to you tonight.”

He’d thought of so many sweeter, bigger words in how he wanted to put it, but they’d all skittered away from him after everything he’d felt and feared and known that night.  Somewhere in what he managed to stammer, he turned away to the window and his bed.  It was funny to see Kaiser there.  He’d made himself comfortable enough he looked like he might be dozing.  As Ness faced him though, he opened his eyes and he said, “Fine.”

The last of his prayer spun out of him.  Ness drank.  He brought the chalice to Kaiser.  Kaiser drank too, and deeply.  He remembered though.  He left enough for the ground outside to taste.  They threw it out of the window together.  Ness dried the chalice out with a towel and then climbed into bed.  Kaiser wrapped him in his arms.  Ness was the little spoon tonight.  He hadn’t even asked.

Then Kaiser was asking him, “Is the magic good tonight? You haven’t said anything about that part.”

“Mine got bent a little funny,” came the admission.  “And I’m really worn out.  I’ll be able to tell you more about it after I sleep.”

“Fine.  But I’m not letting this one go, ever.”

“Don’t.” 

At least one of them fell asleep.

If that one was Ness, his mind still worked over what had happened.

He looked into his magic.

There was more of it than there had been.  It was all definitely his too, so it wasn’t like Ray Dark had put some of his magic into Ness.  More like– Ness’s had reacted to Dark’s and grown.  It felt every bit as raw as Ness’s asshole, but it was also new and warm, an afterglow suspended in his self.

It didn’t quite fit.  Ness could hold it, but it was too big for him.  He had to stretch to keep it, and stretching hurt, but it felt so good too.

So Ness held it and he thought.  

Kaiser didn’t know that was Dark.

He’d be heartbroken if he did.  

Unless Dark asked for me.  That’s possible.  But Dark could have asked anytime.  Kaiser would have given me to him, I know.  He might have tonight…

No, he didn’t.  

Anyway, Ray Dark fucking me wasn’t outside of what we decided.  He didn’t hurt me, didn’t call me names.

But Kaiser didn’t know what was Dark.  He couldn’t have hidden that from me.

So, I guess… Dark saw me and he decided to mess with my magic because I was there.

He got in easy though.  He planned to be at Vector: Motherless tonight.

But Kaiser didn’t know that was Dark.

Kaiser might have said that’s where we were going.  But Kaiser didn’t know.  I know that he didn’t.

That means Ray Dark went there because he wanted to and Ray Dark does sex.  

It might just be with other magical people if he’s got a fetish.

But still… 

I can’t see it anymore.  How did he say no to Kaiser so many times?

#

WizardInGloves: I have a weird question.

YourMouthInSpace: I don't think it will be the first one between us.

WizardInGloves: Yeah, but.  This one’s extra weird.  One of the people last night.  He said something I’ve heard before.  But I don’t know what it means.

YourMouthInSpace: I’m not actually magic.  I just play magic on TV.  Anyway, what did he say? I assume you had a bit in your mouth since it was on Halloween.  That’s why you didn’t ask him yourself.

WizardInGloves: He also had his dick in me.

YourMouthInSpace: Ah yes.  Nice dick?

WizardInGloves: Authoritative dick.  He said, “The magic will never give you what you want.  It gives you what you need.”

YourMouthInSpace: I've heard that too!

WizardInGloves: So you know?

YourMouthInSpace: No idea.  I’m asking Snaffi. 
Wait, don’t you have his number?

WizardInGloves: I'm not going to randomly text Marc Snaffi on the day after Halloween to ask him about magic when he’s not magic.  

YourMouthInSpace: Luckily, I have no problem doing this.
He’s typing and untyping a lot.

WizardInGloves: I asked the right person.

YourMouthInSpace: LOL.  But yes.
Hm.
He says it means many things, some of which sound like some kind of I don’t know.  Like how people talk about soulmates?  He understands it like that the moment you get your magic, the magic will be something you needed right then.  I think.  He switched languages in the middle.  

WizardInGloves: OK.  That makes sense.

WizardInGloves: YourMouthInSpace: He also wants to know why the person I’m talking to doesn’t know this.

WizardInGloves: Well, neither of my parents were magic.

YourMouthInSpace: A-ha.
They were shitty too, right?

WizardInGloves: Why are you saying that.

YourMouthInSpace: Because this is the first time you’ve mentioned them.  Then the magic gave you what you needed.  Bang.  The power to find your own people.

WizardInGloves: You’re not wrong.  I just never thought of it that way before.
Wow.  I am kind of embarrassed about this.

YourMouthInSpace: Ketchup Friend! It’s me.  I am a no embarrassment zone.  

WizardInGloves: Thank you.  I mean that.
So what if I told you I don’t actually know how my magic works? I just know what it does.

YourMouthInSpace: I think that’s your parents’ fault.  I’m not blaming them to blame them, okay?  They taught you how to tie your shoes.  They could teach you sorcery if that’s what you needed.  Not so hard.  There’s magic everywhere.  You said so.  

WizardInGloves: I had to teach myself how to tie my own shoes for starters.

#

TechnoPussy: so heard you went out for ween

WizardInGloves: We did.  To a bondage club.

TechnoPussy: NO FUCKING WAY
how was it??
i gotta know

WizardInGloves: <3

Chapter Text

They snuck out of the hotel to go see it— The Little Mermaid statue off of Langelinie Promenade.  Fritz and Max trailed after.  

It was after dark, so Ness saw her with the long shadows the spotlight gave.  She was so small, but so breathtaking there with the sea lapping at her finned ankles.  Ness loved the way the verdigris washed over her and the curls in her hair.  He could see those from the shore and even in the sharp light.  She was beautiful.  He leaned out over the water and simply enjoyed gazing at her for a while.  

Kaiser hung beside him, not saying much but also not checking his phone for the time.  The sea air drew his tails along the collar of his coat.  

Beside them, Ness heard Fritz sniffling.  “Yeah, that one picture I got of Mom she was right here.  I think? Or maybe more like…” Then a silence and finally what sounded like Max tickling him, that certain get away from me laughter.  

Ness decided to take a few pictures himself.  He held very still, squeezing his camera as he shot.  He got about five good ones before Kaiser took over, changing the angle and framing before switching to what was probably a reel because he happened to say: “Is she everything you hoped she’d be?”

“She’s perfect.  I love her.  We should get married!” Ness pronounced this with all the ironical enthusiasm he could muster, his hands reaching precariously towards the figure in the sea.  

Kaiser tilted the camera towards The Little Mermaid , then back to Ness.  “And that’s why he’s never had a girlfriend.  Apparently his type is two-hundred-year-old bronze statue.” He then clicked off.

“Are you posting that?” asked Ness.

“Fuck yes, I am.”

“I love it.”

“I love it too!” said Fritz, gamboling up especially to interrupt.  He still had some snot in his voice and had obviously wiped his nose on his shirt.  Nonetheless, he said, pointing landways, “Did you know those two guys from “Løver Cope-and-Haver’ve been following you? ‘cause it seems like they’re following you pretty hard and it’s not sinister or anything, but what’s up with that?”

Kaiser scowled at Fritz, then shrugged at their pursuers.  “Did you know we didn’t invite you?” 

“Invite me to what?”

“Our consensual stalking session.”

“Huh? I thought Ness wanted to see the mermaid.”

In fact, Ness was staring out to sea again, not particularly bothered with any of this.  “I did.  As far as I’m concerned, you’re all just tagging along.”

Kaiser snagged him by the back of the head.  He pushed him down and waved at the two strikers standing behind them and under the streetlights.

#

The match the next day felt more like being observed by a parliament of owls than playing football.  The Copenhagen Løver had some knack for turning their heads in unison.  They talked in perfect turn like stage actors.  That second part would have been team goals for Ness, although he knew it would never happen with Bastard München.  They had too much personality variation for that to ever be true.  Then Tougaard, the Løver’s captain, had to go and say, “I’m really impressed by how you’re holding them all together,” while they were in the middle of waiting to kick off.

Ness had smiled at him, “It’s just a little magic.” It was a lot of magic, even more giving testimony about each other's flaws and glories in the screening room.  

Then Ness had nearly gotten himself yellow-carded for how hard he slammed into Tougaard when he stole off of him.   All the Løver seemed to pause, some almost mid-air, and to watch him.  One by one they peeled off of whoever else they’d been guarding on the field and pursued Ness.  Kaiser had to cut his way around and Fritz got bodied out of bounds at some point.  He was laughing about it and then again about the goal Kaiser scored.  Kaiser did that while still half-tangled with Ness, Rask (the Løver’s midback) charging at them full force.  The Løver’s goalie barely missed blocking the shot.  Kaiser went spitting mad about how sloppy the whole thing had been. 

Suddenly Rask held Ness and Kaiser each against massive delts– “What are you so upset about?” he asked, and winked, and finally returned them to Gesner.

Rask was also magic.  He hadn’t wanted to kiss.  He and Ness had fist-bumped instead.  Ness was only a little sour about it.  He liked the kissing, but he also still felt… off.  He’d stretched to hold what part of his magic had come to be during his entanglement with Dark, but the memories of the strange sensations remained.  There had been something close to growing paints in his suroible and also his upper thighs for a few days after the encounter.  That had stopped.  The magic had settled.  It was still absolutely his.  But the thing was, he kept checking.  His magic had stayed very much the same since it had first come out.  Then Dark happened and the sudden difference unsettled him.  

He was thinking about magic when he shot from the circle of a Løve’s arms; after he missed and then again for the rest of the game.  It ended up being some of the longest 90 minute stretches in his life and over a 2-1 win.  But Kaiser kissed him in the end in the shadows of the two strikers.

Who were, still and again, watching.

#

Kaiser insisted they go to RosenRott (what even was wrong with people) to celebrate.  Ali said the private rooms were both booked.  They went anyway.  The club was blasting shouty music.  Ness sighed.  Then the bouncer said, “Bastard München, party of question mark? Upstairs, left.” 

Upstairs left was the bigger private room.  It was bright up there for a nightclub, still dim, but silver-gray throughout, and playing some ragged synth while the bass from the shouty music showed itself in quiet parts of other songs.  Ness had never seen a more liminal space that wasn’t also a beach at dusk.  

Then the Løver had showed up in more or less matching suits as if this was something formal.  They’d also purchased table service for at least four bottles of Copenhagen Distillery Gin with the different bottles being laid out with their own garnishes on four small tables.  Grim went straight for the orange and Ness followed him since they had somewhat overlapping taste in cocktails and also that table held Luxardo cherries.  Kaiser scowled after them, and went for the Byens.  The Løvers watched and nobody really said anything until the better part of Bastard München had be-ginned themselves.

Then Tougaard told the team— “We wanted to buy you guys drinks.  That was a good game.  Anything anybody else wants to say about our motives, I’m not involved.  I’m here for the spirit of sportsmanship.” He announced that, but then he yanked Mensah down beside him.  

Mensah, caught off guard, stayed, and drank and started to relax.  They got into some comfortable bickering that fell into the backbeat bleeding up the floor. 

It was the strikers, Dalby and Kjerulf, who did most of the talking, at least in Ness’s direction.  

Dalby bore a niggling resemblance toThomas Dolby, who Ness only knew because his music had been banned in his childhood home due to “scientific disrespect”: long, oval face, keen eyes, blond hair perpetually in shambles.  He looked like somebody Ness wanted to have a conversation with.  Ness supposed this was inevitable now.   

Kjerulf looked more traditionally Nordic, every feature strong.  His eyebrows matched his skin so closely he didn’t seem to have them unless he painted them on.  He also had a bit of a moustache sometimes.  It was hard to tell in pictures, not so much in person where Ness noticed he was bare and also he had a little scar from a badly split lip.  Very appealing.  

Ness sat with Kaiser at his right and Dalby on his left.  

Kjerulf stood.  He was drinking something not on offer at the tables, something burgundy in a wine glass with a sprig of rosemary.  He said, “We…” He gestured to himself and Dalby. “…wanted to see what you’d do.  It’s fascinating so far.”

“Also, you’re not Russians,” Dalby mentioned.  He offered his glass to Kaiser in particular for a toast.

Kaiser didn’t give it to him.  Instead he drank on his own and slid his arm around Ness.  “I thought you said it was ‘cause you liked getting creamed by us in particular.”

Rask called from off in somebody else’s conversation, “Don’t say creamed to them, my dude.  They will take it the wrong way.”

Dalby shrugged.  “Maybe.  But like my friend said, we want to see what you’ll do.”

“Kaiser,” Ness snickered into the cherry fizz trickling off of his drink.  “What’s going on? This is getting silly.” What he meant— This is making me uncomfortable.  

Kaiser started to sneer.  Kjerulf put a hand on his shoulder, about as comradely as any of the rest of Bastard München would do to each other.  In fact, Kjerulf did it almost the same way Max would, with his pinkie splayed.  Ness hadn’t even realized until that moment that he carried that unconscious recognition of the movement.  Seeing it in someone else betrayed it to him.   That, and the fact this gesture shut Kaiser right up.  

“I’m going into psychology once I’m finished with football,” said Kjerulf.  “I think humans are fascinating.”

“So he’s out here practicing without a license,” Kaiser interjected.  “Saw we were coming his way and slid into my DMs.”

“You make it sound so trashy.  I asked nicely if I could observe you and Ness in person.  You have such fascinating chemistry.”

“Well, we…” Ness realized he had no idea how much Kaiser had said about the two of them.  “…we clicked and then there was magic.”

“You talked to Tougaard about the magic earlier.”

“Yeah.  So do you have magic too or do you just like to gossip like hausfraunen?” Ness sipped at his drink after, burying his lips in the fizz.

Kaiser shot him a flinchy grin.  The two Løver laughed in this light and academic way.  

“We’re integrated differently than your team is what I’m hearing.  And seeing.  But then again we don’t have any pairs of lovers so we’re not working around that.”

Alright, so Kaiser had said that much.

“It sounds very Spartan.  You know, in a good way,” Dalby remarked.

Then there it was, “We’re not lovers.  He’s mine,” said Kaiser.  He leaned over, and he clicked his teeth on the Portuguese cut amethyst in Ness’s ear.  Ness shuddered, caught between the touch and the writhing citrus in his gin.  

“He doesn’t play like he’s yours.  He plays like he’s the beating heart of your team.  You know, like he’s the captain or something.”

“He plays like he’s doing his job.”

“And you play like you’re trying to murder someone.”

“Oh, really? Tell me more.”

Kjerulf did it again, touched Dalby like he had Max’s mannerism clinging to his hand.  Dalby laughed about it, swatting him away and almost sloshing his own drink into his lap.  “That’s not what we came here to talk about,” Kjerulf stated after a while.  “But maybe later.  See if you can run the gin out and we’ll talk.”

They wouldn’t talk well after so many cocktails or so Ness imagined as he came around to mentioning, “If it’s me, I already know who I am.”

Kaiser and Kjerulf both looked at him with knowing smirks.  Ness smiled placidly back.  His drink was already lower than he liked the look of.  He tried to twist it like people did for pensive moments, but the glass was too slippery.

“Play along,” said Kaiser.  “It’ll be interesting.”

“Yes! So, anyway,” the was Kjerulf stalking around to stand in front of Ness.  Or so Ness thought.  Kjerulf sat down cross-legged on the floor.  “Who are you?”

“Ness the Magician.  I really am magic.  Ask Rask.”

“No, I’m not going to do that.”

“I play midfield for Bastard München and I’m Michael Kaiser’s.”

“Did you put that last part, well, last, for emphasis or were you trying to bury it?”

Ness’s smile remained, but it wasn’t in his eyes anymore.  He had felt it drain away.  “I listed them in chronological order.”

“Aa.  Alright.  How long have you been a magician?”

“I don’t know.”  Half a memory dawned in the depths of Ness’s mind.  He almost couldn’t grasp it through the gin.  “Kaiser, is Kjerulf Jungian?”

“Very nice, puppy!” He raised his glass to Ness’s for a toast, which Ness gave him. 

Once they’d drunk, Ness said, “And didn’t Freud and Jung hate each other a lot?”

“Freud hated Erikson.  Erikson never got over the rejection.  Anyway, it’s not my favorite flavor of psychoanalysis, but it can answer the question of if you’re a magician for real or not.”

“I won’t go too deep,” Kjerulf said, reassuringly.  “I just want a peek at what makes you tick.  Kaiser does too.  Indulge us.”

Ness nodded slowly.  He felt a temptation to say something about the magic and how Kjerulf couldn’t know it.  Kjerulf had already pushed that idea away though.

Meanwhile, Fritz joined them.  He sat down beside Kjerulf, facing Dalby and slugging whatever he had poured himself.  He swayed as he leaned over and asked Kjerulf,  “Why are we sitting on the floor?” 

Dalby answered, “We’re doing gonzo psychoanalysis on Ness.”

“Sounds sexy."

“Fritz, go sit on Max,” said Kaiser.  “You’re shitting up this discussion.”

Kjerulf however got an idea.  His forefingers bobbed below his chin when this happened.  “Ness, what should we do about Fritz?”

“We let him stay if he brings us more drinks,” replied Ness.

A murmur of approval cycled through the two Løver and then Fritz.  After, Dalby asked, “What if I want to use him as a footstool?”

Ness pressed his lips together.  “Your team didn’t win, so that’s not appropriate.”

“What if he was mine?”

“He’s not.”

“Humor the question.”

“Shoes are dirty.  You don’t want to get someone who’s yours dirty that way.”

“Interesting.  Kaiser, is that true?”

Kaiser nodded with his glass still up at his mouth.  He licked his lips after.  “When somebody’s yours, you do what you can to make them beautiful.”

“Even though him being yours is not necessarily a sexual thing.  I see.  I see.” That was Dalby talking again.

Once more Kjerulf pulled the conversation back to Ness.  He also handed his glass, as well as Ness’s, to Fritz.  Fritz loped off, added the glasses to the growing glass island on the side shelf meant for empties.  He more or less recreated Ness’s orange and cherry monstrosity, then one of the servers produced a second iteration of whatever Kjerulf had been drinking.  Fritz returned to his seat and his own half-destroyed gin and soda.  He beamed.  

Kjerulf continued.  “What is the dragon, Ness?”

Ness thought for a moment before he answered.  He needed to lie, but he also knew the Løver would know if he lied.  No one present needed to hear that his nemesis was the heart of Michael Kaiser, starting and ending with Michael Kaiser himself.  Ness wanted to say something plausible enough he wouldn’t be called out on it.  He chose, “The tidal forces trying to pull Bastard München apart.”

This got him some narrowed eyes and a couple of hums.  Kjerulf finally decided, “So your team’s strength is also its weakness? Then here comes Ness the Magician holding everything together.”

“Something like that.  I don’t think I phrased it very well.” He chuckled a little.  Briefly, his eyes lit on Kaiser.  Kaiser definitely knew Ness was shitting Kjerulf.  He didn’t appreciate the fact either.

Dalby took a turn pressing Ness.  “So, you were a magician before you joined the team.”

“It’s been a lot longer than that.  You can ask Anlange Hamburg.”

“Put in a good word for you, did they?”

“They know who I am.”

“None of them showed up to tryouts, Ness,” Kaiser said, some dark amusement on the words.  “They didn’t argue about Bastard München taking you, and they certainly didn’t say congratulations.  You’d have told me if they did.”

“I guess maybe they were a little jealous Coach Aust headhunted me.  Also, it’s eight hours by train.  That’s a long way to go if you don’t have business.”

“How about your parents?” Dalby tried again.

“They didn’t care and I’m over it,” Ness answered, pulling terse and holding his drink close to his mouth again.  “Yes, I still went through that thinking my mother was the most beautiful woman in the world phase, but I don’t remember wanting to murder my father.”

“That’s Freud.”

“I know.  I just thought I should say.”

“And you did!” Kjerulf cut in with enthusiasm.  “Anyway, we don’t have to talk about your parents.  But your friends.  They’re… your team.”

“Ness is totally my friend,” Fritz announced.  “Not like Max, but I’d bring him more toilet paper if he ran out.”

“What an interesting metric for friendship,” mused Dalby as Ness reached down to toast Fritz.  Fritz had put about a dozen cherries in Ness’s drink and said drink was better for it.  

“So,” Kjerulf tried once again.  “What’s your way of being friends to everybody?”

“I give them what they need and they do that back.  That’s how I play too.  You probably noticed.”

“Sounds a little transactional.”

“It might be, but it’s working.”

“So, what does Fritz need right now? Don’t ask him.  You tell me.”

Once again, Ness paused to consider.  Fritz looked pleasantly lost in the conversation.  Ness assessed him through the slip of magic between them, but putting words to what he found there was of a chore.  “Frtiz needs music with more of a beat.  That would help him remember what we’re saying better.  And make him happy.”

“Holy craaaaap,” said Fritz.  “I was just thinking that.  You’re right!”

“You’re not just saying?” Dalby prodded.

“Not even.  How do you dance to this music?”

“It’s thinking music.  You don’t.”

“Sucks.”

“I have a followup question,” Kjerulf said, shifting his legs to cross the other way around.  “What do I need right now?”

“Dalby needs a drink refill.” (This was true.  Fritz called “on it” and took off.) “You need something you’re not getting from me.  I’m not going to give it to you~.”

“And why’s that?”

“‘cause I know who I am and you’re not open for a pass.”

“I assure you, I am wide open.” They waited on that for a spell as Fritz did his drink mule business.  The beverage he handed Dalby was clearly a different color than the one Dalby had originally possessed.  Dalby sniffed, tasted, pulled his head back, and then apparently decided he was fine with whatever adjustments Fritz had made.  “Fritz,” he asked.  “Are we open for passes?”

“I’m bad at this metaphor stuff.  What did Ness say? He’s usually right about people.”

“Usually?” Kjerulf snatched at that thread so quickly he spoke over another member of the conversation for the first time that evening.  

“Well, he’s got a shitty ex, but don’t we all?” Fritz drank.  “And I’m cutting you off there.  Not my circus, not my monkey.”

“Fritz knows his stuff,” Ness said congenially.  He was, in fact, starting to get a little bit tired of the catty slant of this whole routine.  Perhaps the two Løver read that in him.  

Kaiser definitely did.  He leaned into Ness, solicitous about it as he ever let himself get in public.  “I’ve never seen your Uber-Ich do this before.  It’s fascinating.”'

“’splain that one to me,” gurgled Fritz.  “Is it like a fortress around his heart? My mom loved that song.”

Fritz got two answers, one from Dalby, “Ness’s persona is being fantastically rigid this evening.” And another from Kaiser, “Something in the very essence of Ness’s personal code isn’t letting him say some very basic things.”

“Really?” Fritz said, addressing Kaiser.  “That’s not usually a thing with you two.”

(The Løver did not seem to believe this.)

“Is this all some fancy way of saying he doesn’t want to talk?”

“No,” Kjerulf mentioned.  “It means he’s hiding something.  Probably because we’re in public— this might have been a bad idea.  That or maybe he doesn’t want to hear something we’re going to say.”

Ness made a mistake in that moment.  He focused on the cherries swarming in his glass.  It really hadn't been the time to look away, but the glance was over and done by the time he recognized as much.  He held and he waited for someone to push his arm down, make him look at them.

That person was Kjerulf.  His eyes sparkled with his realization.  “I’m going to tell you anyway.  Ness, you’re not a magician at all.  You’re a caregiver, but you’ve got a selfish streak a mile wide.  Part of you knows too.  Part of all of us knows just watching you.”

“That’s not how collective unconsciousness works,” Ness said flatly.

“Maybe not, but if you won't even consider the possibility… I wonder what it would take to make you .” 

Ness gave Kjerulf a long, slow stare this time.

Kjerulf’s expression didn’t change as he shifted away.  He moved to stand over Kaiser.  Kaiser drained his glass and sucked an ice cube so his lips were red and wet.  He spit the thing with a clank, laid his glass aside, and stood as well.  Kjerulf had an inch or two on him.  Besides, it was all so much blond at once, caught there in the trickle of music and Fritz asking “Guys, what's going on?” through a drunk lisp.  Copenhagen Løver noticed first.  They were owls again through the lenses of their drinking glasses.  Gesner got to his feet as well.  He cracked his knuckles.  Mensah had somehow ended up on Tourgaard’s lap and Tourgaard turned him to the scene, smiling as he did.  Fritz scuttled out of the way and into Max.  

Kaiser’s teeth showed.  He ran his tongue over them.  

Kjerulf socked him straight in the mouth.  Kaiser staggered, but kept his footing.  He had dropped into fighting stance.  Ness recognized that now.  He hated knowing that too and the slosh his heart made at the bottom of his stomach.  He barely had time to shout.  Then Kjerulf was on Kaiser again.  He struck him hard between the ribs.  Air rushed out of Kaiser.  He went down, right on his knees.  His mouth was leaking blood, enough to slip on.  Kjerulf stepped around it as he strode over.

“What the hell are you doing!” Ness cried.  He didn’t know which one of them he was talking to.  He was scrabbling with Dalby’s hand, suddenly around his waist.  Fritz dodged away from Max with a nod.  Kaiser lunged at Kjerulf.  Kjerulf hit him in the face again.  Kaiser made a thin screech.  He caught Kjerulf on his elbow before another blow landed.  Kjerulf drew back, flexing his knuckles.  Kaiser grinned up at him from his knees.  There was blood in his teeth too, lurid and pink.  Dalby was reaching for one of the mostly empty gin bottles.  Max snagged Dalby by the lapels.  It loosed his hold on Ness.  Ness dropped.  He caught Dalby’s arm as it passed his face.  Caught it by the wrist with his teeth.  He bit.  Dalby thrashed away.  He was laughing.  Ness called out, “Kaiser! Hit him back already.”  Fritz reached for him, but Ness didn’t want caught.  He was wheeling and stumbling over the bloody floor as Kaiser raised himself to Kjerulf one more time.  

Fritz changed tactics.  He grabbed one of the ice buckets and dumped it over Kjerulf.  The table he’d snatched it from went down with a crash, ice and glass and feathers of dill weed.  Kjerulf didn’t finish his swing.  The angelica gin sloshed everywhere.  Off-balance, he did manage one more half-thought-out-punch, once that landed mostly on Kaiser’s nose.  Kaiser reeled.  He did it right into Ness.

Ness hung onto him for dear life, clutching him to his side and not caring where the blood went.  Kaiser wasn't even angry, not really.  He didn’t have that sharpness in his eyes or his poise.  He felt like drunk, smiling Kaiser as Ness reached up to wipe at his face.  It turned into him cradling his cheek.

“I said he could hit me!” Kaiser snapped loud enough for everyone to hear.  “He didn’t even do it right.”

The room slid into a tense stillness.  Water dripped somewhere. Mensah abruptly got up, dusting himself.  Fritz started to pick his way out of the table debris.  Max reached out to help him

Kjerulf, wearing the same calm wonder as before the blows fell, said to Ness and Ness alone, though everyone heard, “Consider everything you did and didn’t do just now.  Consider that you didn’t hit me back.  You could have.  You could have done so many things.  Now, you’re letting Kaiser bleed on your shirt.”

Kaiser pulled away somewhat.  He kept his face down, but he lifted his eyes.  Blood dribbled from his nose and his mouth.  

“I don’t do that!” Ness insisted.

“Because that’s Kaiser’s job? You know, I’ve never thrown a punch before today.  I’m not sure I like it.  Can think of so many things I’d rather do.”

“Like pick at other people’s old wounds until they bleed.  You fucking freak.” That came sweet unto laughing out of Ness.  He shot Kjerulf the most charming smile he could put on himself.  

“No such thing as freaks.  We are what we are.”

“Then get me a towel, freak.”

“All you had to do was ask.” Shrugging beauteously, Kjerulf went to the door.  He came face-to-face with one of the bouncers.  There were words between them.  Ness made out something about slipped and that they’d love to pay for the table.  Kaiser nudged him back behind one of the couches and they stayed there, hoping no one would notice Kaiser’s injuries.  Kjerulf kept his freshly battered hand out of sight.  The blood had washed away in the gin.  Dalby tried to tug Fritz onto the couch with him, but Fritz danced out of his way.  Somewhere in the Løver, Rask started to laugh.  His magic streamed around the room, smokey besides the notes of growth and death.  It made Ness’s mouth water a little, even though whatever the magic did wasn’t for him.

RosenRott’s staff had the mess cleaned up and a fresh table of angelica gin ready in only a handful of minutes.  Ness’s hand had stuck to Kaiser's face in that time.  Kaiser nipped him ungently on the thumb to get it loose.  

It was an assortment of both teams that came to escort Kaiser, Kjerulf and Ness to the upstairs semi-private bathroom.  It had only one, unisex with a bank of sinks and mirrors set perpendicular to the stalls and urinals. Everyone crowded around the sinks in this softly twisting silence.  Kjerulf handed Ness towels and Ness washed Kaiser’s face with the foamy hand soap.  He dabbed the blood out of his hair and off of his shirt collar.  Kaiser obligingly spit to make the last easier, something the Løver hummed about.

“Best thing for cleaning up bloodstains,” Kaiser explained to Kjerulf.  They made real eye contact, not only through the mirror.  “You didn’t know that.”

“Like I said, I don’t punch people,” he gave a low laugh though and his hand went to the back of Kaiser’s suit jacket.  “You seemed perfectly alright taking punches though.” They were edging closer too.  Ness felt it in the Kaiser under his fingers.  He could feel it in his magic too, he swore and wondered and swore again.

“I’ve had…” Kaiser started to say.

Ness cut him off.  “What are you doing? It’s gross.”

“We told you, puppy,” Kaiser snickered at him.  “We’re learning!  About you.  You should have some fun with it too.  Maybe you need another drink.”

“I don’t want another drink.  I want Kjerulf to stop.”

“Talk about me like I’m not here,” sighed Kjerulf.  His attention never left Kaiser’s.  “Honestly though, I’m a little worked up.  Just like you said I’d be.  I think I’ll believe you about the spit cleaning up blood thing.”

“Has to be the blood of the person who did the bleeding,” Kaiser explained.  His off hand rose between him and Kjerulf.  He cupped it along the side of his mouth.  His lip was already starting to swell.  There was no obvious damage to his nose, though he was probably going to catch a little red mark beside it.  The same thing as when Ness had hit him.  

Ness cringed so hard inside.  He watched the two of them, Kjerulf and Kaiser.  Watched the other faces swimming behind them in the drone of the not-quite music.  Watched his own wide-eyed and vaguely drunk expression.  

Kaiser said, though he posed like he was whispering.  “You know what you should do? You should fuck Ness.  He’s public use.”

Every muscle in Ness’s body shot tight.  His lips fell open and he caught a blush like a burn across his face.  He pulled on Kaiser’s arm.  There was so much noise behind them.  Everybody talking at once, some sounds of disgust, but there was interest and whistles too.

Kaiser turned.  He took Ness’s face in his hands this time.  He made this sweet expression that just looked wrong on the particular sharpness of his features.  “You did it once.  You can do it again.”

“Right.  Of course,” Ness managed.  That instead of what the fuck Kaiser that as one time for Halloween .  But it wasn’t like he’d hated it.   Then, if Kaiser hadn’t understood that their agreement was for one time, that was Ness’s own fault.  Ness should have been more clear about his desires.  He met his gaze, sighing between the two of them.  

Kaiser kissed him of course. 

Ness tasted blood, and the warmth the wound had brought out on Kaiser’s  skin.  “I wasn’t expecting you to say that in front of everybody.  That was stupid of me.”  

“You’re not stupid.  I kept you waiting.  I wanted a precipitous moment.”

“Right.  Well.  Now they know.” Nodding to himself, Ness turned.  He faced the crowd and held out his hands.  “Surprise.” This time it was all “ooooh”s that went out around them, though he did catch Mensah in the background, hands over his face in shock.  Ness decided not to look his way for the meantime.  Instead, he slid up to Kaiser, and he rested his head on his shoulder, backwards though they were to each other.  His intention was to say that his public status didn’t make any less of him and Kaiser.

But two things happened in that instant.  Kjerulf said to Kaiser, “I know we decided to keep it professional, or, something, but I’d rather have you.”

And Gesner lunged out of the crowd.  He grabbed Ness by the front of his shirt and pushed him up against the wall.  Løver and Bastards parted around him to make it happen.  Then he was kissing him.  He kissed so good.  Like it shouldn’t have been legal for Erik Gesner of all people to have that kind of tongue game.  Ness moaned under him.  The sensation was so utterly wild that his dick didn’t even know what to do with it, though he felt it stirring underneath his clothes.

There was no spit when Gesner pulled off of him, only this deep, dark leer.  "If you’re public use, it doesn’t matter what junk you got.  You’re just a hole.”

“And you’re just a guy who fucks holes~” Ness smiled back at him.  

They rested there in the wondering crowd for another handful of seconds.  Somewhere in the background, Kjerulf had started kissing Kaiser.  Ness could hear them trying to make cutting remarks against the softness of each other’s mouths.  Something about kiss me with your fist .  The sentiment made Ness shudder.  He wanted to hold his arms out, even if it was to Gesner.  He wanted, but he didn’t.  Then Dalby was saying, “Hey, the hosts should get first pick, don’t you think?” He laid one possessive hand on Ness’s hip.  

Ness turned to Kaiser.  Kaiser was gone, swanning in a drunken, red-tinged kiss with Kjerulf.

So Dalby kept talking, “Do you even know how to fuck a guy?” he asked Gesner.

“Sure.” Gesner answered, self-assured.  “It’s like doing a girl up the ass.  You put extra lube on the condom before you stick it in.”

“Is… Is that actually how you do anal with girls?”

“Fuck no.  Why would I do anal with a girl?  They come with perfectly good holes that you’re supposed to put a dick in.”

“Well, I wish you guys were staying longer because I feel like a lot of what you just said is worth examining.  Annnnyway.” Dalby sighed.  His hand skimmed forwards over Ness, coming to rest over his belt buckle.  Ness burned beneath his touch.  His head swam.  He’d never been good at gin, but now here he was in it, exposed down to some raw and membranous part of himself.  He held his smile, thought of having more gin after all and anyway, then finally nudged Dalby’s hand lower as Kaiser and Kjerulf hit the wall, arms around each other, blood running down their chins.  

Dalby out of all of this said, “How about I warm him up for you? It’s not gay.  I’m looking out for you, bro.”

There might have been some argument in Gesner.  It never saw light.  He nodded, and slugged Dalby in the shoulder.

So Dalby put Ness to the wall too.  He hovered on one side, Gesner the other.  Dalby groped Ness through his clothes, but not for long.  He had his pants undone soon enough.  One of the other Løver shucked them off along with Ness’s shoes and took them out into the private room.  Ness was going to have to ask for them back.  He was going to have to kiss Dalby, but he minded that a lot less.  Dalby was kind of staid about it, and would have come off that way even if he hadn’t been following up Gesner.  He tasted nice though, his gin tongue on Ness’s, seeming faintly fizzy too.  One of his hands went to Ness’s nipple, pinching through his shirt.  The other coasted Ness’s backside.  When Dalby found his hole, he rubbed it deeply and dry.  Ness gasped into him, thinking of the bruise this would bare.  He shuddered where he stood, spinning through the possibilities of where he should put himself for this.  Dalby was a little shorter than him.  He might not have to go tiptoes.

The lube and condoms came out on a tray.  Ness had a fairly cracked suspicion that the club had provided them— the lube was in packets like it had been at Vector: Motherless.  At least it was thicker stuff this time.  Dalby coaxed Gesner to open a pack onto his hand before he reached around Ness again.  He got Ness’s whole crack wet with the stuff as he fingered him.  Ness didn’t mind that too much.  He’d never been stretched from this angle before.  It was harder going than if he’d turned around and stooped, but it left him so clearly aware of how Dalby worked his fingers against him.  One, then the other, then two as Gesner put his hands on Ness to twist him aside.  Gesner wanted to know to see how that hole was coming along.  As Dalby pushed a third finger into Ness, Gesner was the who said, “Hey, you’re pretty flexible, right?” to Ness.

Ness nodded.  He thought he knew what Gesner might be getting at.  Gingerly, he picked one foot off of the floor.  He swayed.  Gesner and Dalby both caught him, but Gesner did it harder, and reached down.  Reaching down brought his face closer to Ness’s dick and Ness thought he saw him sniff.  Ness still wasn’t quite steady, not until Gesner grabbed him and he pulled.  The muscles in his thighs and lower back stretched and the stretch crept inwards.  He hadn’t felt it this deep between his legs when he was aroused before.  He made a few small noises, surprise and fascination.  He only smarted a little there at the end when Gesner tapped his foot against the wall over his head.  Ness had held Dalby’s fingers inside of him the whole time, feeling them shift along with the lines of his body.

“That’s impressive,” said Dalby.  He pulled towels to wipe his hands, then thumbed through the condoms.  Gesner kissed Ness again, first the taut lines of his calf muscles, and then his lips again.  Ness pressed up into him.  His sharp little gasp when Dalby prodded at him went into Gesner’s mouth.  Behind them somewhere Kjerulf said “I didn’t know he bent like that.” But if he was talking to Kaiser, there was only this dim rubbing noise, not even anything about Kaiser breathing.  Ness couldn’t see past Dalby as Dalby wriggled into him.  Everything about the two of them coupling like this on the fringe of Gesner’s grasp felt sideways complicated.  The first few thrusts struck unfamiliar places in Ness’s insides.  He’d been done on his side enough in his life, but not like this.  There was this twist to the motion.  Dalby jiggered into him and his taint ached with it, squirmed inside.  The crush of it though was finding himself helpless to move his legs.  He only had one foot on the floor, and not doing much.  Gesner had him by the other one.  Gesner, who was looking down the rumpled lines of Ness’s shirt to watch Ness’s cock bounce as Dalby trust and panted and thrust again.  Dalby happened to be going pretty slow and shallow.  Ness got the impression he might not have much stamina for fucking, but that was alright.  Dalby also put his mouth to Ness, nuzzling the old hickies just below where Ness’s shirt collar covered— that had come open in Gesner's fingers after all.  Neither of them did anything to his ears and Ness was glad of that.  They both scratched at his nipples though.  That sensation he was less sure of.  It didn’t do much for him.  It kind of itched, honestly.  Besides, Dalby’s hands pressed against his ribs in time with Dalby pushing inside of him.  It took his breath away and not at all like Gesner, holding him, kissing him, keeping him suspended there for someone else.  Besides, the underside of Ness’s leg was starting to ache.  His toes clutched at the air.  He put his head back to breathe between his lips getting plundered.

Soon after, Dalby tried his mouth again.  Tried, but then he was gasping.  His forehead pressed damply on Ness’s and sounds shook out of him.  He drove himself hard to Ness’s hips and shook himself off inside of him.  He collapsed right out, cock already wilted, condom streaking lube along the wall as he clutched at himself for his bearings.  He said something in Danish that Ness absolutely didn’t make out.  It sounded pained though, maybe a little bit touched.  His eyes were all glossy as he wrung himself out of the condom.  Then he was looking down at his hands, still talking.  Gesner grabbed him by the chin.  “You,” he said and that was more than enough.  Gesner accepted a fresh condom from Dalby.  Dalby stayed and held Ness much more gently than Gesner had.  He was still panting and didn’t seem to want to make eye contact with anybody.

Gesner did though.  He curled around Ness from his leg up side, pinning him as he struck in.  Ness tried to hold his gaze as Gesner stared into him, hunger in his squint.  Gesner was close to Kaiser, dick-wise, but he hit like a hammer with a pullback at the end Ness realized was meant for G-spots and not anything he had in his anatomy.  His nerves were in the wrong spot and they got wrung out on the motion.  And it was still at that weird angle Dalby had used.  Gruesome teary sounds came out of him although his eyes were dry.  

Then there was Kaiser’s hand on the curve of his neck.  

Ness glanced over at him.  They’d been beside each other this whole time, but with Gesner in between them.  Now there was only Gesner’s hand, and the wriggling lines of Ness’s upturned leg where his toes shuddered in his socks.  Kaiser lay back against the wall, stripped the better part of bare.  He had his own legs crossed behind Kjerulf’s back.  Kjerulf was holding him up, humping him in a puddle of lube.  Their cocks were more evenly matched in size than Ness and Kaiser, and they’d made so much spatter between them.  Kjerulf moved with impatience, his face stuck in the hollow of Kaiser’s shoulder.  Kaiser shoved back at him sometimes, but he was some dreamy kind of lost there and just out of reach.

He said, “Fuck, puppy.  Look in the mirror.”

That’s right.  There was the mirror over the sink, somewhere above the tray of sex packets and discarded paper towels.  

Ness swallowed.  He pulled to one side.  He saw Kjerulf's bare ass and Erik Gesner’s dick prodding some shadow of his body that the mirror did not catch.  Then he saw himself too, all flushed, all wanton.  “Kiss…” was all he got out.  Gesner flung himself into Ness.  He lifted him higher on the sheer force of his fuck and kissed him so wonderful.  He held firm and he pounded close to the occasional animal sound.  Ness fell to pieces under him.  His legs hurt and he wanted to come.  All that came out was sounds of pleasure, one incidental “more” spinning in his throat.  

Gesner started to snap his hips.  He growled and he said, “My dick’s getting tired,” not half a minute before he got off.  Ness saw his eyes roll back in his head before his lashes slammed closed.  He felt him pulse and quake and give one last satisfied spurt into the condom between them.

Gesner lingered before he pulled out.  He hung there with his load stretching the condom.  Then he put Ness’s foot back on the floor.  Ness’s toes were asleep.  He had to reach out and hold Gesner to keep himself upright.

“You didn’t come.” It was an accusation.  

“I don’t usually from just that…” Ness tried to explain.

Gesner rolled his eyes.  He grabbed a lube packet and dumped it all over Ness’s dick, to say nothing of the floor.  Then he seized him and he slung him off.  It hardly took a minute since Ness was straining in his skin.  Somewhere closer to the end, Gesner kissed him one more time.  He jerked him off so Ness’s jizz hit the floor, only it was a different floor, filthy in other ways.  Ness came with a shout and then he was on the floor too, legs suwarikko’d out beside him.  He hung there panting for a while.  

Gesner zipped himself up.  He said, “Good dog.” And there was a pat on Ness’s head.  

Once he’d left, Fritz peered into the bathroom.  He said, “Hey, I got your pants.”

Ness looked at him like he’d been speaking in tongues.  Then he nodded.  He managed to stand.  His ass was soaked.  So, he made some vague gesture about going to the toilet and cleaned himself up.  Fritz was still waiting for him at the door and caught him under one arm.  Ness’s foot that Gesner had lifted didn’t want to go flat.  It was a trial to get his pants back on, but after there was gin.  Max brought it, glasses for all three of them.  

They ended up on cushions on RosenRott’s floor sometime after midnight.  Kaiser and Kjerulf had returned from the bathroom and were talking about incest.  Max was whispering to Mensah.  Ness could only hear any of this from one ear.  He had one of Fritz’s dirty corded earbuds in the other.  Fritz was playing the same song over and over again.

Then let me build a bridge
For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire

Chapter Text

They lay half drunk and half asleep on the bedroll.  Kaiser was reaching for his headphones.  Ness slid his own bare hand against the lock tattoo on Kaiser’s knuckles.  He lifted him to his mouth and kissed him where he’d scuffed his hand rooting around in the closet earlier.

“I still won’t wear gloves,” Kaiser told him.  His breath smelled like a meadow.  “I want to feel everything.”

“It’s not that,” Ness whispered.  “I just wanted to touch you there.”

They were screwed up in bed and couldn’t have been touching much more than they already were.

“And umm.”

“Hmm?” Kaiser licked his forehead.  Now, Ness smelled like a meadow too.  He was trying to remember how much he himself had drunk, but the memory stole away from him and that probably wasn’t good.  They had a match tomorrow. Or was it practice? It was probably practice if they were still in Munich in their own bed.

“It’s just…”

“Spit it out.  You trust me now, right? You worked so hard on that.”

I don’t think that’s how trust works.  But Ness didn’t say that.  “I’m a little sad that everybody knows I’m available now.  I wanted that to be between us for when things were special.  And yes! I do trust you.” He laughed, harder than he’d meant to.  Harder than he’d thought he could about the whole thing.  

It wasn’t like that much had changed.  He liked getting the cheeky asides in Bastard München’s common spaces.  They meant he was seen and accepted.  That had been true since the team had welcomed him.  If now some of those asides involved Fritz and Max competing to see who could smack his ass the most, well, fine.  

Kaiser was laughing too.  “If that part of your Es is free, you can’t put it back.  You’ll hurt yourself if you try.  Besides, it’s like…” He shifted, reaching around until he found the Chartreuse bottle that had come to rest against the small of Ness’s back.  He opened it and drank.  “If you saw a flower struggling on the side of a cliff, would you pull it out because it doesn’t belong?”

Ness slipped down the cliff in the metaphor.  He saw and touched the thorny knot in the stone.  But there were thorns everywhere in his conception and then he was back in bed with Kaiser and he didn’t think he’d ended up understanding much.  Maybe it would make sense in the morning.

I can’t take it back.

But I trusted you.  And I do trust you.  I just… I just.

Gesner.

He’d meant to bring up Gesner.  Kaiser already put his headphones in.  Ness had caught something about snakes singing he thought there on the edge of the vocals.  That couldn’t be right.  Kaiser wouldn’t listen to music with lyrics that strange.  Except he had actually made a metaphor tonight and that was somewhat unlike him, especially in discussions about Ness being his.  

Which now involved Ness being his to give.

Ness’s dick, worn out or not, stirred under the blankets.

Kaiser reached down and began to pump him.  

#

Gesner was a problem.  If he was the least bit horny, he expected others, meaning Ness in this case, to meet him at his level.  That was true of the way he played, and then twice as true for the way he fucked.

Bastard München did have practice the next morning.  It ran long.  Ness’s innards felt sloppy with the strain.  He was pouring sweat.  The only things he wanted were a shower and to suck Kaiser off.  The second was the physical twist of the urge.  He longed into his jaw as he limped out of his uniform and into the nearest open shower stall.  

He’d just turned the water on when Gesner stomped in.  “Hey,” he said and he made some gesture for Ness to turn around.

Ness didn’t.  “Hey,” he said back, reaching for the soap.  

Ndaiye leaned over, broaching the partial barriers between the shower heads.  “Hey, I’m not in the mood to listen to that,” he said with that dead seriousness he reserved especially for communicating his displeasure with other teams’ behavior.  Ness swallowed faintly when he heard it directed at Gesner and himself.

Gesner meanwhile rounded on his teammate.  “Then go shower someplace else.  You heard Kaiser.  Sex is a necessity! That shit fucked me up and I need some damn boypussy.”

“Uh,” Ndaiye’s voice trailed off into some vague fremdschämen horror.

“And it’s my asshole , Gesner,” Ness cut in as matter-of-factly as he could.  He did end up turning and talking to Gesner through the wet curls of his bangs where the water had sloshed them into his face.  “I’m male.  If you’re pretending I’m not, that’s on you.” He gave his dick a shake to make his point.

“Totally,” sniffed Ndaiye, who then went back to his own shower, more or less.

Gesner seldom looked at Ness’s penis.  He didn’t then.  Ness persisted.  “And that was a lot of running after Bauernomelett for breakfast.”

“Not my fault you ate too much.  Bottom’s up.  C’mon.”

Ness’s magic was hairs-on-end tight too.  He felt his hands clench and his lips twist.

Then Kaiser came around and socked Gesner on the flank.  “If he says no anal, knock it off.”

“I just wanna fuck him.” Gesner protested.

“Of course.  He’s public use.  Public use doesn’t mean you let your dog shit all over the park.” When that met with an impassive blink, Kaiser rolled his eyes and went on.  “Do I need to spell this out for you?”

Ness choked back a laugh.  Then Kaiser reached for him.  He had him in his arms and was pulling him to one of the stalls at the far end of the locker room.  Gesner tramped after, complaining first the hell are you going and second did they have to take up the flickery dark space where the light still wasn’t fixed for some reason.  There, Kaiser pushed Ness up, back to the wall.  He shifted so Ness was holding him, and then pitched a tube of actual lube at Gesner.  Ness didn’t know where he’d gotten that or how long he’d been holding it.  Gesner just looked at it all suspect, possibly trying to figure out if it went with the condom he himself was lugging around.  And just a condom.  Fuck, they’d talked about that too.  The wettest possible condom was not enough lube.

Anyway, Kaiser said, “You insist on fucking Ness, you learn to fuck thighs.  I’m taller, so you want have to hunch over as much.  Come on.” He then shoved his own legs as tight together as they’d go and smacked himself on the ass.  

“K-Kaiser,” Ness stammered.  He hung on just the same, though he was glancing around the stall— to Kaiser’s filthy snark, to Gesner’s apparent confusion, to the light flick-flicking overhead, to the rest of the team carousing in the middle distance, acting like the three of them weren’t even there anymore which was absolutely for the best except for the faint and fading part of Ness that wished he could carry on too.  He felt that even though he was lost under Kaiser.  Besides, Gesner might lean around to kiss him.

He did.  They both kept their eyes slitted.  Ness finagled after his tongue and he purred.  As it ended, Gesner spoke in Kaiser’s ear, “Does that even feel good?”

“Anything feels good with enough lube,” Kaiser replied.  “I fucked the side of his chest a while ago.” Nodding, he addressed Ness.  “We should do that again.” He also kissed him. 

Getting kissed by Kaiser after Gesner brought out the artless intimacy of the way Kaiser did it.  Like he could never get enough.  Ness whimpered up at him, then reached down the lines of his body to hold him around the hips.  “We should.”

“So how’s this work?" Gesner asked.  “I just lube up my dick and stick it in?”

“Considering that’s how you usually fuck, yes,” Kaiser informed him.  “If you need more lube, put it on me and jab it in with your dick.  You can squeeze my legs if you want.”

There was a slippery squirt sound from Gesner’s space in the shower.  Then Genser did squeeze.  He squeezed Kaiser as hard as he could.  Kaiser pushed up on his toes, his weight sliding into Ness.

Who he told, “You should have worked out how to handle him by yourself.  You’re the one who made this decision.”

Ness wanted to say I did, but not like this .  He wanted to bite Gesner and tell them both he was tired.  Instead, he tried, “I wasn’t sure if that was OK.  I’m sorry, Kaiser.  I’ll think harder next time.”

“I know you will,” Kaiser said back, leaning in to kiss his temple and then the space in front of his ear.  “You struggle with the strangest things.  It’s almost cute.”

“Are you two having a moment while I’m trying to fuck you?” Gesner said.  

“Trying’s the word,” Kaiser spat back.  “You’re only going to get back what you put into it.  Harder.  Squeeze.  Do it!”

“It’d be easier to jerk off,” came the complaint, but then Gesner dumped more lube into the situation.  He grunted as he shoved in the next time.  One hand, only probably his clean one, went for Kaiser’s hair.  He pulled him by the tail, jerking his head back.  This made Kaiser start all over.  Ness took the sensation in his own dick, now better than half-hard with Kaiser’s weight and light and foggy-eyed expression drifting above him.  He held him tighter, as if he was pulling back against Gesner, keeping Kaiser for his own where they were cock-to-cock in the dark shower.  Kaiser’s shaft met him higher than how it happened in bed.  Gesner had lifted him to his toes at some point.

Kaiser hung there in his grip, jostling with his trusts, striking against Ness.  Ness kissed and rubbed on Kaiser, thought of the bruises they’d share later that night and tomorrow and down into the next week.  Gesner growled and pushed.  He asked them both if they liked it and Ness with his crotch open to the simple strike of Michael Kaiser’s needs could only tell him yes.  Sometimes, that person he did such wild bedroom stuff with just wanted humped; sometimes and right then.  Gesner butted in to kiss them both.  They were all three in it at some point, Gesner’s wet hair sticking to their mouths.  Kaiser made a fake gagging sound about it, and tried to bite.  Gesner turned him back to Ness, smashing them together like two dolls in a playground.  He pushed so hard that Kaiser’s nose lost a trickle of blood.  

Ness put himself under it, lapping obediently.  

“Sick,” Gesner said without much force.  He then came all over Kaiser’s lube-slick thighs, shoving him hard and up and off of the slippery tile.  

Kaiser crowed about it.  He was reaching to take Ness by the back of the head, but he caught Ness’s dazed little frown.  So instead he swung himself loose.  They crashed into each other and they ground every inch of themselves together.  There was more blood, just a little.  “Seriously gross,” said Gesner.  But there was still no heat, not in him and the sex flush shell pink color he turned when he got off.  Ness longed to run a hand over him and mean it, but then Kaiser had him by the underside of one thigh.  He ground on him, ground and kissed and then they were gasping, dribbling come down between both of their legs.  Ness smelled altars in Kaiser’s Chartreuse jizz and one last droplet of blood.  

Kaiser held him up this time and turned on the water.  Finally, his sweat trickled off and down the drain.  He smiled and he thought he might mean it this time.

Kaiser started to talk.  “So look.  Experiment all you want— that’s what you’re doing if you didn’t notice, —but you don't get him on demand.  Why? Because I'm here and he's mine.  Get it through your thick skull and screw your GIRLFRIENDS once in a while.  Or your side piece.  Do your girlfriends know about her? Or is it them at this point?” He said all of this with the most delicious, toxic gentleness.

Gesner did not address any of Kaiser’s points, instead commenting, “Stingy dickcheese.”

Kaiser stuck a finger in his face.  “Call me that again and I will cut you off.”

“Hah.  What does Ness have to say about that?”

They were both looking at him.  The light sputtered.  Ness told them, “I'm Kaiser's first.  And you should bottom sometime if you want sex so bad.”

“No.  That's gay.” He grinned.  Grinning all but closed his eyes.  But then he wrinkled up his nose and he turned away.  “Well, that was less fun than it should have been.  Later, weirdos.”

That left Kaiser and Ness staring at each other across the half-gloom.  In time, Kaiser snickered.  He pulled Ness to him, squeezing and caressing Ness halfway to another hard-on.  Then he decided he was going to wash his hair for him instead.

#

The coaches called in the masseuse brigade after break.  Everybody went, except for Kaiser who flatly told the coaches no and retreated to his room.  Ness had a hunch that Kaiser didn’t want people handling his scars.  If that was true, it broke Ness’s heart a little more than it had already broken over Kaiser.

Fritz and Max divebombed their favorite guy.  Ali started chatting with the girl who offered him her table.  Ness got the teeny tiny girl from Berlin to do his legs with her iron knuckles.  He throbbed all over and then his limbs felt like water in the most wonderful way.  Putting weight on his feet again after what felt like hours brought him this strange, tingling happiness all the way up to the back of his skull, the place where it felt so good when Kaiser grabbed him.  There was no Kaiser though and no arousal, unlike what had apparently happened to Grim, though Grim and his masseuse were being good sports about it by the sound of things.  It happened.  

After all of that, Ness settled into his quad.  He wore a set of boxers and a sort of short kimono overcoat.  What had TechnoPussy called it? A haori.  What mouthful of a word for something so simple and comfortable.  Ness’s happened to be a lighter one meant for sitting indoors and decorated with big, fat chrysanthemums.  He was probably supposed to be wearing more than boxers with it, but the couch in the common area called to his ass.  Finally, he sat.  

Other people showed up and sat around him.  More like draped languidly over random pieces of furniture, but still.  Fritz and Max brought an armful of energy drinks, crazy things to put on top of a massage, and another of their battered laptop collection.  Mensah had gotten himself a French soda as well as the stool Bastard München had borrowed from the little Italian place to prop it on.  They asked if Ness wanted to play.  Ness still preferred to watch.  He could follow what was going on now, more or less.  Tonight, everybody was hunting sandworms for toothpicks.  Ness didn’t know what a toothpick was going to do against any of the enemies in this game, but he suspended his disbelief.  

As the shooting and the “STOP DYING AT ME”s started, Kaiser emerged from his room.  He had his hair up and a couple of shimmery marks on his arms and face indicating he’d been sugaring himself.  What there had possibly been left to remove, Ness had no idea.  He did know that Kaiser liked the haori somewhat less than he himself did.  Then again, Kaiser had a fur-trimmed beetled linen robe and it was probably hard to downgrade after that.  And why should he? Ness could have bought a drivable car for what that thing had cost.  It was almost as wonderful to touch as Kaiser himself and presently, it filled Ness’s lap.  

Kaiser sat with his feet and the hem of his robe plopped there.  His toes fanned.  They were so clean.  Ness considered kissing them, just to see what everybody would do. (Probably Eww, lol, onward.) Kaiser happened to say though, “Rub the outsides.  They’re tight.”

Kind of an odd request Ness thought, at least until he got his hands onto Kaiser’s lower legs.  His peroneous muscles were so tense they twitched under Ness’s touch.  Ness nodded and started to kneed.  In the game, Fritz sailed his sand skiff into a worm and the worm won.  Fritz leaned back into his “shiiiiiiiiiiit” and let the controller dangle from his hand.  Then he tipped his head, and his second can of Club Mate towards Ness and Kaiser, more specifically Kaiser.  “You know, you should really call one of the guys if you want that done after all.”

“Why?” Kaiser scoffed.  “Ness doesn’t try to make small talk.”

“You can ask for that, you know.  ‘sides, Ness maybe wants to relax too.”

“This is very relaxing for me,” Ness said and meant it.  He felt almost like was making some kind of art when he got into touching these deep, inner strings of Kaiser’s.  

“Hah.  Good for you.” Fritz swigged and he looked like he was going back to his game, but then again, “Seriously, Kaiser.  You know he like collapsed in Denmark.”

“Fritz…” Max coughed on the word like he didn’t say it every day.

“He drank too much,” said Kaiser.  “Don’t say that never happened to you.  We all know better.”

“Yeah, well.  I’m just saying.”

“What are you saying, exactly?”

“Stop riding him all the time.  We need him too, you know.”

A smile twisted out on Kaiser’s lips.  He glanced at Ness, then back to Fritz.

Fritz looked almost catlike in his challenge.

Kaiser’s poise slid to an uneasy slouch.  He leaned away from the conversation despite the fact he kept that on his tongue for the time being.  “He’s the one with the extinction event libido.  You’re describing his problem, not mine.”

“Am I really?”

“I think Fritz has a point,” Max cut in.  He was screwing around on his skill tree for a change.  

“Of course you think he has a point.  You all but drink each other’s piss.”

“Whatever.  I’m team Ness needs a break.”

“Thirding, but do we have to start this now?” Mensah said evenly.  He seemed to have paused too, frozen on a screen of a dead man held in violet clouds above the sandy horizon.  His eyes skimmed the other four people in the room as if he might be thinking he’d have to dive for another photograph of Kaiser from the floor.

Kaiser wasn’t going anywhere.  His muscles had only started to go tender under Ness’s thumbs. 

“Yeah,” Fritz started up again. “and I don’t think he likes the way Gesner…”

“Please don’t speak for me.” Ness asked.  He sounded more calm than he felt. “Also, Gesner’s not here to say anything about it.”

“OK, that’s a thing.”

“Thing, that, on.  You know more words than this.” Kaiser spread his arms.  “You three all have scum in your Uber-Ichs”

“My dick is just fine, thanks,” said Max.

“I'm not talking about that half-price weisswurst in your pants.  I'm talking about the over-Is you have.  You’re still clinging to the tatters of your father's self-censorship.”  

“I don't see what that's got to do with you trading Ness’s butt around,” Fritz put up a shrug.   

“I’m doing no such thing.  Ness is mine.  He’s demonstrating his loyalty to me in a way you reject.  And for reasons you’re refusing to examine no less.”

“This is so counter-intuitive to me,” said Mensah, shaking his head.  He made a clack with his lips so Kaiser turned his way in particular as he asked,  “Wouldn’t his loyalty to you mean he only does stuff like that with you?”

“Absolutely not.  Monogamy is a prison.”  

“Wooow, OK.  Did not know you had that opinion.” This was accompanied by a couple quick hand brushes over the air.  “I’m not kink shaming.  I’m kink asking why.”

“That’s what we desire.  We’ve chosen to put it above how society thinks we should handle ourselves.”

“Ah.  Guess that answers my question.”

Fritz took it in less of a stride.  “Is that right? You just not doing the whole society thing?”

“You’re over-simplifying,” Kaiser told him and he stretched back, hands over his head and a groan shimmering down to his bones.  When he sat back up, his eyes were hard and bright and so blue and all over Fritz.  “You think I’m hurting him? You’d infantalize Ness The Magician that hard? Don’t you trust him? You’re the cruel one here.”

“Don’t follow.” Fritz glanced to the side.  He looked like he thought somebody might be pranking him.  In fact, the five of them were quite alone and no one had their phone out.

“I’ll show you,” Kaiser told the three who’d dropped their game.  He picked himself up from the sofa.  His ankles flexed hard between his weight and the rug.  He put his hands behind his back, remarking as he did, “Mensah, hold them.  And mean it.”

Mensah shot him a look, but shook his head and did what he’d been told.  As he settled himself to Kaiser, Kaiser’s robe slipped, falling open from the collar to the sash. 

Like that, Kaiser looked down on Ness.  Hunger held him now, though cut with something impish.  “Ness, do whatever you want to me for the next sixty seconds.”

“Wait, let me set a timer,” muttered Max, groping for his phone as he did.    

Ness didn’t wait for him to set it.  He stood, but he didn’t reach for Kaiser, not right away.  He squeezed his own hands and looked at his feet.  This was such a gift and he’d been given it so suddenly.  The first time he went to lift his eyes, Mensah met him with a look— s eriously, what the hell is with you two without a fragment of a word.  Ness nodded to him just the same.  

Kaiser’s lips were barely apart, asking to be kissed.

So, he kissed him.  Simply at first, winding into something deeper.  Kaiser did not kiss him back, but swam passively beneath him.  He didn’t even draw on the spit that leaked between their mouths.  Ness had his hands around him by then, clasped behind his neck.  Kaiser canted a glance to each side.  He gleamed with curiosity before Ness pulled the two of them together.  Mensah made a sound and shifted his grip.  Kaiser had pulled on him? Maybe.  It didn’t matter so much.  Ness nuzzled into him, held him and rubbed on him, taking his scent, spreading his own.  He held him and he snuggled him like he could have wrung his heart out by doing it.  He thought I love you at him as hard as he could and until he was the one gasping with the intensity of it.  He only slid back at the sound of the timer because he’d gone so lost in Kaiser that the sound startled him.

Then Kaiser— he had flushed faintly besides the dewy look of his skin.  He started to snicker.  “I wasn’t expecting that , Puppy.” Then he shouldered his attention towards Fritz and Max.  (Mensah stayed behind him.  He didn’t seem to have let go yet.)  “Now, what was that about me making him suffer?”

“Well, sure proves Ness is a cuddler,” said Max.  “But like, I knew that? Because I have the powers of deduction?”

Fritz took a little longer to answer.  He sat for a while, bonking his can of Club Mate against the side of his head.  “I think I’m getting it.  The little voice that tells you not to do things is different than most people's.  We don't understand it ‘cause we’ve still got the normal people voice.  You shut yours up! And Ness is the one you brought with you into the light! ‘cause he’s the one with the biggest dick!” He then sang with laughter, toasting himself with the last splash of his drink.  He’d have thrown the can too, but Max caught it and stuffed it into the garbage can between them.

Once this spectacle was over, Kaiser swept his hand out along the others.  “Ness was already halfway there.  I could tell.  The huge cock speaks for itself.  You’re close enough.” 

Fritz mugged.  Ness thought he deserved to do it.

Then Kaiser snapped his fingers in his face.  “Ness, give Fritz a blowjob.”

Ness and Fritz both yelped in surprise.  Fritz got closer to making words.  Ness glanced around what he’d thought might be furtively.  None of the other teammates in the quad had any insight into this matter.  Mensah’s lip curled and Max was softly stunned with a face like he’d gotten bad news.  Ness didn’t feel like this counted as bad news.  

Maybe he shouldn’t have been so surprised by what Kaiser had decided, or Kaiser choosing to put his hand on the back of his head.  Slow want pushed up into his startled heart as Kaiser brought him to bear, facing the others without any question now.  Ness’s whole self felt loose, like he was floating along in his own form for the moment.  He still kind of wanted to say no.  

His gaze met Fritz’s.  Fritz was light-eyed, blue with a brown umbra around the irises.  Ness felt like he hadn’t noticed before, though he knew he must have.  He had those thick boy lashes too.  He was actually really cute there, cresting on a soft billow of magic Ness hadn’t managed to keep to himself, asking, “Is Ness OK with this!?” And squeaking when he did it.

“I don't mind,” said Ness, taking a step closer to Fritz as he did.  Besides, it was what Kaiser wanted.  Besides again, the haori tickling the backs of his thighs beckoned him on.  “I'd like to know what you taste like.”

“You can stop if he also has a half-price weisswurst,” Kaiser suggested.  He went back to the couch and took the whole thing for himself, feet where Ness’s lap had been.

Ness gave him one last glance, then focused on Fritz.  He moved to him in slow, deliberate steps, careful of the cords around the coffee table.  Fritz, despite the nervous tilt of his expression, got comfortable in his chair.  He even shoved his controller and Club Mate cans aside.  Mensah meanwhile gurgled on his soda while Max swayed between taking a better view and stuffing his face in the other direction.  

Fritz had pressed his knees together.  He was still doing it when Ness dropped to his own before him.  Ness licked his lips as he met his eyes again.  Really so pretty and they were going to be on him doing something he did with talent if he said so himself.  Gently, Ness prodded Fritz’s knees with his fingertips.  Fritz let him in and obligingly scooted closer to the edge of the cushion.  His throat bobbed, though his mouth was set with his determination.  He even did a lot of the work of baring himself to Ness, pushing his sweatpants and shorts down until they drooped out of the way.

“Don't you want some privacy?” Mensah asked.

“I think my my is telling me yes,” Fritz answered slowly.   “But that's the wrong answer and oh my god you guys.”

"Don't think so hard,” Kaiser told him.  “You'll blow a fuse.”

Fritz’s head jerked his way.  He nodded.  He pushed himself closer still.

Fritz had fuzzy thighs up close to the inside, though that thinned out quickly running down his thighs.  His fuzz was also red, maybe even redder than his hair.  His balls seemed fluffy too back behind his cock.  That hung conspicuously to the left.  It looked a little bit confused, something in the tilt of his head.  His tip seemed narrow and there was a lot of thick skin around the base.  Ness took him in his hand and turned him upright in his grasp so he could lick him there more easily.  Fritz fit comfortably in his palm to start off with, but he took this radial shudder as soon as he started to stiffen.  Besides, Fritz had a strong taste, very sour, very male.  Ness definitely knew what he tasted like from first lick.  He tasted like he needed sucked on, so Ness did that even if he was only vanishingly hard.  

Fritz surged.  The muscles in his cock seemed unusually mobile.  Like he was already thudding inside.  Ness realized why as he went— he had a lot of creases below his head, but the skin of his cock overall had this fine, translucent thinness to it.  The veins slid out against it as Ness worked him up and he got so warm.  It was easy to slide him into the hollow of one cheek then another as he was still coming into himself, to get to know the particular lines of his body.  When Fritz first shed precum, it was brilliantly bitter.  Ness’s mouth watered.  He made sure to slurp and then made sure to make a show of licking Fritz all over while Fritz himself looked on, dumbfounded despite his smile.  Oh, he smiled while he was getting sucked off.  Ness liked that about him too.  He did more long licks of him.  He was bobbing up from his crotch and his balls followed along the motion, the sound of it.  Not just the noises that were coming from Fritz himself, but the appreciative slurps Ness made with his wet mouth.  

When Fritz was fully hard, his foreskin slipped back into a glossy band around the high offset of his head, narrow as that might have been.  The wet part of his skin had turned that particular purple-red that the penises of very fair-skinned people took on.  He smelled wildly of sweat and of dude.  

Ness gave him one more out-of-the-mouth lick, trailing spit all the way down his underside with his enthusiasm.  He then circled his right hand around his base, and put the rest of him in his mouth.  All of the rest of him.  He was comparable to Kaiser in girth, but longer, so Ness used a soft screw of his fingers to mitigate the difference of what his mouth would be used to holding.  Then he held him tight inside and simply breathed.  The sucking itself came soon enough.  Fritz swung over his tongue as he began that.  There was a swirl too, the barest bob.  Fritz's thighs were quivering where Kaiser had said give him a blowjob not let him mouthfuck you , though Ness wouldn’t have minded getting mouthfucked.  Fritz could have pinned him over the coffee table and jabbed his dick in as deep as his throat would have allowed.  It wouldn’t have been too much for either of them, maybe just a challenging angle.  If he hesitated, it was for Kaiser— and alright, maybe the curious “ahhh” drone that came and went as a pulse through Fritz.  

Fritz was slobbering a little, seemingly unable to close his lips.  That was another temptation then.  Ness didn’t pull off to kiss him though.  He pushed on and he sucked.  As Fritz glanced the margins of his gag reflex, Ness let him flow over him and into empty space before he pulled back.  He had Fritz by his flavor and his smell, his whole face full of who he was by his own pheromones, or stink perhaps if someone else would have liked, but Ness was very much enjoying himself.  

He heard behind him, “That technique…” And was that actually Mensah saying those words? It was.  Somebody must be a little more experienced than he let on for church.  Well, good for him.  Maybe he’d suck up some spit and come to Ness someday.  

Now was tonight.  Now was Ness chancing a moan as he took Fritz into him for another pull.  His exposed veins beat on the hollow of Ness’s cheeks and Ness put his tongue to them for the pure joy of it.  This got Fritz going cross-eyed.  He trilled again, louder and heavier this time, before sucking on the corner of his own mouth.  He maybe tried to say something.  Instead he rather roughly clapped one palm to Ness’s cheek.  Ness put Fritz's dick there next time he bobbed.  Fritz shook with delight.  Briefly his head tipped to the side.  “This’s so good,” he said and he might have been talking to Kaiser, he might have been sharing his feelings with Max, but it was Ness who caught all that in his next suck.  He put his neck into that one and the deep places of his chest.  He could only breathe at certain poses with this particular blowjob, so he snatched up what he could.  That came with Fritz’s smell, now beading with salt.  He was close.  He might have been asking to come, but it was all blood rush in Ness’s ears with the two of them screwed up together like this.  Fritz would get his spurt.  Soon or not, it was there, broaching on a flavor all its own.  It was there, thick in the wondering gasps around the room.

Fritz leaked a little bit of sperm before he actually came.  His thin skin felt like surface tension ready to break in Ness’s mouth.  When he twitched, he twitched wildly and Ness made a sound of amazement.  Fritz started to speak, but Ness lifted his eyebrows in the smile he could not actually make at the moment.  He went on steady, pulsing his tongue against Fritz, holding his gaze and his root.  There was another sudder, this one longer and sharper.  It broke with Fritz jabbing into him.  He came with a heaving, “Oh shit, that’s really good” still breaking close to laughter.  His whole head fluxed inside of Ness, and his spunk was so sour-bitter it tasted more like medicine than anything that had come out of a human.  Ness swallowed it gladly, all of the seething spurts that came.  The strange flavor rang hard on his tongue, but so did Fritz's skinny head.  That hung inside of him for a moment, bobbing on his tongue before Fritz pulled himself out on his own. 

The way he looked down at himself, he might have been expecting to see leftover sperm globs.  There weren’t any.  Ness didn’t even have a salty patch in the corner of his mouth.  

“Dude,” said Fritz after what sounded like a whole loop of the game music playing from his headphones.  “That was like.  Stupid good.  Like not that you’re stupid.  Like I feel stupid after that.”

“Oh, so that works better on you than schnitzel,” yawned Kaiser.  “Good to know.”

“Yeah,” Ness offered too.  He gave Fritz one last series of licks, just to make sure he was clean and ready for his shorts.  “That is good to know.  I’m glad you liked it.”

“Liked it…?” Snickering, Fritz craned to one side.  He craned so far, he almost fell out of his chair.  

Ness and Max both caught him.  Max started to laugh soon after and Fritz wasn’t far behind.  They got themselves back together.  Ness wandered to the couch and Kaiser.  He was still drooling a lot, and he could smell Fritz on his lips no matter how hard he licked them.

Kaiser didn’t move his feet for him.  Instead, he beckoned.  When he opened his mouth, Ness didn’t even ask what he was up to.  He kissed him, deep and with so much affection.  Kissed him and let himself be sucked upon since Kaiser all but emptied him of spit.

To the apparent final shock of everyone else in the room, Kaiser went on to smack his mouth and say, “He’s not bad.”

“What were you expecting?” Max asked, sounding vaguely offended.

”Not a miracle or anything.”

“Why would…?” Mensah was stammering with laughter.  “Why would you even need a miracle right now?”

Ness could think of a few reasons, on the off chance miracles and magic had anything to do with each other.  He still laughed along when everyone busted up over everything, and also over nothing.

#

Mensah posted another short about who was the dog.  This time, when it ended everyone was dogs.  It was dogs all the way down, pictures of that one Shiba Inu filling the screen with its smirk.  He had, thankfully, resisted the urge to include any Baha Men old meme songs about dogs.  

Gesner played the clip over and over on his phone, staring into the dogs.   Which was fine.  He could do that if he liked.  Except, he was doing it on the bench in the locker room while dripping shower water.

Ness had paused to watch him.  It was just such an odd thing to do, especially for Gesner.

He was not expecting to be noticed.  Then again, it did nothing to him personally if that happened.

As things were, Gesner turned to him.  He said slowly, “Yeah, you put conditions on it.  Not interested anymore.”

“Is this how you treat your girls?” Ness asked him.  He smiled as hard as he could muster, thinking about it.  

Gesner said nothing.

Ness pressed harder.  “Do you even know what a relationship is, Gesner?”

“Not what you have,” came the answer, clipped and final.

Chapter Text

Not that Gesner left him alone entirely after that.  He gave Ness more shit on the field.  It felt like more anyway, but Ness had so much going on in his head and his heart.  Besides, he didn’t mind.  It was tame compared to what Gesner could dish out for other teams, got people laughing and didn’t seem to undermine what passing authority he had as team captain.  Besides, Kaiser was getting even more.  

Nothing seemed to have changed about Fritz.  It was Max who sometimes cast his attention aside when his conversations got caught up with Ness’s, and then sort of shyly.  Ness wanted to talk to him about it, or maybe get Ali to since Ali had that knack for making even the worst segue seem somehow sensible.  Involving Ali might not be fair to Ali though.

That, and Fritz solved the problem for Ness.  It was the two of them and Max in the showers after a tour of the gym machines.  They had the rest of the afternoon and the evening to themselves, so Ness was doing a better job of washing his hair.  He didn’t actually see Fritz until Fritz had sidled up to him.   

“I can’t believe you did that the other night.”

The other night was two weeks in the past.  Kind of a long span to count as “the other night”, but Ness took that in stride.  “It wasn’t any trouble.  I’m glad you liked it.  Unless it’s bothering you.” Since this was the first Fritz had brought the blowjob up, Ness had to suspect that.

“I’m not bothered for me.  I’m bothered for you.  You just let that happen.  No strings attached.”

“I didn’t let it happen.  I wanted to do it.  And so did you and so did Kaiser.  Maybe it’s a little strange he’s involved.”

“He’s involved.  That makes it strange by default, man.”

Ness shrugged genially.  

Fritz found a stray strand of soap on his arm and pushed into Ness’s water to wash it.  Ness let him do it.  He half expected the question that came next.  “So, it’s not like a passive thing.  You’re really not getting pushed around here?”

“Absolutely not.”

“So you’re naturally, that, umm…” Fritz scratched at his face.  His pinky finger went up his nose.  “I don’t know what word I’m going for here.”

“Easy? That’s what I call myself.”

“Easy sounds passive.”

Ness shook his head and let his smile spread.  He reached up into what was now their shower spray and he gathered a handful before dumping that onto Fritz’s head.  “Who says?”

Fritz yelped and burst out laughing.  “I dunno.  That’s the way I always heard it, I guess.  I’m getting my head spun around in my skull by you two fancy gentleman a lot lately, huh.  So.”

“So?”

That got him leaning in.  He had the biggest grin to show for what he asked next.  “Can you teach me how to do it on purpose with girls?”

“I can try,” Ness chuckled, wiggling back towards Fritz so they were shoulder-to-shoulder.  “It’s a lot harder with girls though.  You have to wait for one who also wants to make things easy.”

“Oh gotcha.  That makes sense.  So, how do you find girls that’re into that?”

“You ask.”

“Shit,” Fritz slid back.  He was blinking in surprise.  “Really?”

“It’s not hard once you realize some of them say yes.”

“I seeeee… Wait a sec.  You picked up girls?”

“Sure.  Why not?” Ness didn’t think that one merited another shrug.  Didn’t most teenagers experiment? That was part of being a teenager .  “The one was crying and I asked her if sex would make her feel better.  It worked great.  You have to be careful when you do that though so you’re not taking advantage.  And you’d better have a good dick game.”

Fritz looked at him so hard that Fritz began to waver on his toes.  He seemed like he had something else he wanted to ask, but that something was definitely not getting past whatever had just occurred in his consciousness.  Maybe he had blown a fuse up there after all.  They might be down a winger.  Reason— brain broken.  Oops.  However, he did come back to himself, and call over his shoulder, “Hey, Kaiser.  Your hound is on another level.”

“You finally noticed and all he had to do was suck you off.  Be more observant, Fritz.” Kaiser gave him a weary look, then started rooting around in the towels.  He was still wearing his shower bonnet, one of the ones with the bow on the brow.  His also happened to be printed with daisies since that was how the nice ones came.  He had one with roses too, but today it was daisies and “Seriously, you missed that pass from Mensah by a mile yesterday.” 

“And now the great Kaiser is giving me feedback!” Fritz remarked up at the ceiling.  He spun and added, “As opposed to a schnitzel to the face.” Everyone almost laughed.  There was no actual sound about it though.  

“I could punch you if that might be more effective.”

“Nah, I’m good.” This came with Fritz waving the idea off.  His smile didn’t even break.  That whole schnitzelincident had been more than a year old when Ness came across it living beneath the whole of the upstairs quads.  Now, they had this instead– Fritz giving him an elbow in the ribs before striding out to meet Kaiser.  Fritz didn’t bother searching out his own towel while this happened.  He dripped nakedly onto the tile as Kaiser observed him.  “So, do you two wanna go to The Palm with me and Max? Pick up some chicks? Shove them in Gesner’s face?”

Kaiser frowned.  “The Palm’s not good for picking up girls.”

Fritz canted confusion at him.  “How do you know that? You’re gay.”

“He’s gay,” Kaiser stated, then lifted his nose into the air.  “You cannot comprehend my sexuality.”

”C’mon, man.  I’m trying.”

“Wait,” Max cut in, finally.  He had been shaving his legs, an act which required the utmost concentration from what Ness understood.  “Wouldn’t Ness be Bi if he picks up girls?”

“He’s gay,” Kaiser repeated.

“But chicks!”

“GAY.”

With all eyes on him, Ness simply nodded.  

#

It was almost a double date though with some platonic energy on the side.  Wait, were Fritz and Max also planning to pick up one girl?

Kaiser was planning to do that with Ness, apparently.  “I want a girl tonight.  You can jump in if you want.”

“What if…?” But Ness had not yet met the girl in question.  He’d ask her later if she had an interest in thirds.  He shook his head finally and said, “That’s fine.”

“Just fine?”

“Sure.” He left off how happy he was Kaiser has chosen to discuss any adventures with him this time.  Well, maybe discussing was a strong word for “I want a girl” said like Kaiser had ordered his steak au bleu.  “If you’re trying to make me jealous, I don’t do jealous.” Ness had thought that went without saying.

Kaiser though squinted at him in the mirror they were sharing.  He made a sound of curiosity and very close to Ness’s hand still fussing with the screws on his diamond studs.  “After what happened with Lavinia, you tell me that.”

“Let’s not talk about…”

“You weren’t jealous then?”

“I wanted to be with you.  That wasn’t her problem.”

“I see.  So, why not? That’s a conscious choice.”

“That you made too.” Ness emphasized this by pretending to scribble on the inside of his thigh.  He’d meant it to lighten the mood, but in the motion he felt Ray Dark writing Elvish on his skin.  He ended up shuddering, trying to play that off with a laugh.

“Answer me,” Kaiser said, not unkindly.

Ness sighed and did as he’d been told.  At least he got his eyebrows combed while he was at it.  “I hate feeling jealous, so I don’t.  It makes me bite my lip.  Like I need to chew it off.  And that’s just the outside part.”

 “Tears you up inside, does it? So you turned it off.  Click.  And done.  Ness The Magician sliced one of the most human emotions out of his heart.”

“It never did anything for me.  It’s silly to be jealous of your parents liking your siblings better.  Feeling that won’t change their minds.”

There was a pause as Kaiser shifted into his makeup box.  He took out the Abyss eyeliner pencil and started to circle Ness’s eyes.

Ness found he didn’t flinch when this happened.  Not anymore.  Not even on the next question. 

“Did you try talking to your parents?”

“Twice.  Once when I was eight.  Then the day I moved out.  I haven’t seen them since.” He believed the “and that’s what I talked about with Noa the day we met” lived in the suggestion.  That had been a rough discussion, especially since he’d barely known Noa at that point.  And maybe he still didn’t, but he knew him better from an odd distance of telling him point blank: “I’m estranged from my parents.  Not emancipated.  I’m not sure how that works with the lawyers and everything.”

It felt like someone else had said those words, yet he remembered them so clearly.  

His thoughts slid into Kaiser stating, “And you don’t miss them, just like you didn’t miss that brute who kept you locked in his attic.”

“I miss what I wanted them to be.”

“Tragic.”

Ness lifted his face to Kaiser at the word.  Kaiser seemed to mean it.  Mean it like sorrow for a shipwreck on the other side of the world.  Careful not to smear his makeup, Ness reached along his jaw and into the blue spaces of Kaiser’s bangs, curling them aside.  “You’re jealous a lot, aren’t you? But you kind of like feeling that way.”

“It’s kept me warm in the winter,” Kaiser answered.  “I don’t see anything wrong with wanting what other people have.  I know I can take it now.  I got you from the man who saved you from your incubator and sperm donor.”  

“Yeah, you did.” Though Ness would have said wicked stepparents , even if there was no step.  

They kissed, matching lipstain in the mirror.

#

Bar Zephyr was full of fruit and people.  Ness had never been to a bar he could smell from the evening streets before, but now he had.  It smelled like everything good too.  Liquor crowded with herbs back behind the scampering bartenders— all dressed very down, he noticed.  The patrons were on the casual side, but that was good, that was fine, that was Max pointing out the Sriracha bottle on the one rack behind the counter as if hot sauce was somehow all he’d ever wanted out of a drinking establishment.  

“It’s a little older in here than I thought,” Fritz mentioned while they were still darkening the doorway.  

“You absolutely want that with girls,” Ness explained.  Kaiser meanwhile bounced on his toes as if that would make an empty spot appear.  

Fritz thought for a moment, then hit his a-ha moment at the same time Max did.  “Wait… Experience! We want experience.”

“I seeeee,” drawled Max.  He then clapped Ness on the back so hard a few people looked around to see what had made the sound.  “You’re so good at this, especially for being gay.  If you don’t mind me saying.”

“Kaiser says it’s my social intelligence.”

Kaiser also grabbed Max by the hand, hauling towards a four top that already had two.  The bastards politely asked if they could bring chairs, and the two women laughed, one insisting she’d pick up her own tab before Kaiser, of all people, had gotten everybody’s drink orders.  He insisted on placing those himself and at the bar.  Max went with him to ask what came with Sriracha.  Ness realized he hadn’t given his choice, so he was about to be stuck with whatever Kaiser brought him.  

That had a rose petal floating in it, besides being light and not too sweet.  Kaiser meanwhile held something that seemed to be mostly red wine and shiso leaves.  Ness couldn’t tell from his expressions if he liked it.  Fritz and Max shared an orange and salty globe while the girls’ drinks grew fresh berries.  

Costanze declined to taste the spicy glass.  Johana started fussing with her chandelier earrings, the light dancing up and down her neck in the liquor bottle dim of Bar Zephyr.  Ness and Fritz met eyes.  Ness nodded.  He asked her about her earrings.  Fritz and Max leaned closer together, entranced by the small spectacle that was Ness gently plying her.  He made sure to lean across the table to admire her, elbows be damned.  She started the eye contact though.  The earrings were blue topaz.  Did he know anything about gems? And there was something of a half-glance at Kaiser from her then.  Kaiser lifted his empty glass, and excused himself for a refill.  So he’d actually kept his word and done that if anyone showed interest in Fritz and/or Max (which Constanze was certainly not doing.  She looked bored enough to chase Kaiser, but even that didn’t happen.)  At the last slide of a second he could have used, Fritz pulled in, “I don’t know anything about gems.  Why don’t you tell me? That’d be cool.” Which was laying it on kind of thick, but so be it.  They talked about cleavage, because apparently gems had that and the table was roaring about it, just drunk enough for the term to sound funny.  They talked about pearls and about swimming since you got pearls by swimming.  Johana only swam in public pools.  Fritz had a story about losing his shorts in a lake once and that tripped into his mom dying.  Both girls were trying to hold his hands then as he was telling them no stop it’s OK .  Then Constanze said something about Ness’s Portuguese amethysts to change the topic.  That was her and Max playing with Ness’s ears.  Soon enough, Fritz’s hand ended up on Johana’s and then it was where do you work.  Neither Constanze nor Johana believed they were footballers, but it felt a little like Johana was feigning ignorance.  Besides, then she had to go and say, “Michael Kaiser wouldn’t drink here, if that was supposed to be him.”

Ness glanced around.  Kaiser hadn’t come back.  “Well, I guess he’s not now,” he said, and stood up with a laugh.  

Fritz took his place at the table, indicating his attention with every shred of what he’d picked up from Ness.  “You’re really fun to talk to!” But the rest of what he said was gone in the bar noise in a few steps.  Ness wasn’t going to interfere anymore.  Fritz didn’t need help if his night was really meant to end in Johana’s bed.    

Kaiser had not, in fact, escaped.  He was sitting at the strand of tables facing the back wall beside a stunner of a woman: golden blonde hair, starry eyes, comb with enameled flowers in her hair.  Ness could see the suggestion of her hourglass even through the long, light coat she wore.  He also had to notice— she was a good bit older than Kaiser.  As in maybe as old as the two of them put together.

Well.  Kaiser had also taken the experience part of Ness’s advice to heart.  Ness chewed over the implications of her, right there.  Then he swung in on her other side.  

She tried to look,  Kaiser kept her with him on the tail end of his words.  “That’s what I think.  I haven’t really talked to anybody who’s seen that movie.  He won’t watch it.” That was the gesture to Ness.

“I said when I have time to enjoy it,” Ness explained.

“You don’t enjoy One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest .”

“Then maybe you’re right and I don’t want to.”

“You should see it,” said the woman, pulling around in her seat to look him in the face.  “Even if it’s a little old for you.”

Kaiser put his hands up, passing any responsibility whatsoever.  “Anyway, how we got on the topic of movies, doesn’t Lina look like Greta Geschwind?”

“That again!” She was laughing to a faint flush. 

Ness studied her, making theatrics of it.

Greta Geschwind was Greta Callbeck’s original name.  Greta had been a sort-of kind-of well known actress in Germany back fifteen, twenty years ago? Before Ness had any solid memories.  She’d starred in a few “really beautiful” dramas; again, Ness didn’t remember her and from what he’d seen of Der Regen it was boring, not even any worthwhile sex scenes.  Her career had taken off with her new name and her new home in Hollywood Proper.  Greta Callbeck brought femme fatales back to the brig screen.  She’d been an assassin in her last movie.  Something about Kill All Super Heroes Of Some Description.  Ness’s media literacy was not at all it should have been.  All of that said: Lina did, in fact, resemble Greta Geschwind.  Ness had seen Greta on news about some FIFA event, hanging on someone’s arm like a piece of very expensive candy.  It hadn’t been Dark, had it? Anyway, Lina’s eyes were wider, more open than Greta’s.  “Not to be cheesy, but you really do,” he ended up telling her.  

Lina laughed and told him to shut up.  Well, the second part was also directed at Kaiser, along with, “How did you forget Greta Geschwind/Callbeck/Whatever’s name? When was the last time you even saw a new movie?”

“I don’t remember,” said Kaiser.  “Work keeps us pretty busy.”

“Kaiser,” Ness found himself cutting in.  “Did you tell her yet?” He was thinking of the laughter the girls at Fritz and Max’s table had given up, and were giving up now, all intoxicated.  

“My life story?” sniffed Kaiser.  “No. We’re talking about Lina.” 

Something Lina had opinions on, very close to Ness’s face as a matter of fact.  “Did you just call him by his last name? He said he was here with his friends.”  

Friends? News to him.  Ness almost laughed.  Again.  His teeth snuck out of his smile.  He couldn’t help it.

Kaiser swung his way back in.  “It’s a work thing.  He’s Ness, by the way.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Ness.

“Wait.  You’re not.” Lina pushed her chair back.

Kaiser and Ness obligingly leaned into the space she had left.  They smiled.

“Shut up for real,” Lina concluded, her eyes squeezing on her smile so tightly now it looked almost like she was going to cry.

“Ness the Magician will be buying your drinks this evening if that’s alright,” said Ness.

“And YOU,” she rounded on Kaiser.  “This isn’t a joke? My son watches you two on TV.”

Kaiser pulled serious all of a sudden.  “Maybe I’ve never had a girlfriend because the girlfriends I’d prefer would look a little too interesting to people who aren’t literate when it comes to human sexuality.” With that remark, he finished his drink.  It had been a gamble on his part if Lina here had seen that particular clip.

Something in the cant of her words as she asked him, “What about you?” told Ness that she had.

Kaiser offered him the most subtle eyes up from over Lina’s shoulder.

Ness went for it.  He placed his hand on Lina’s thigh and said, “I’m shy.”

After a pause, they were all three laughing.  They switched places too, Lina to one side, Ness and Kaiser to the other.  Ness asked who her son’s favorite player on the team was.  The kid liked Mensah a lot and missed him being team captain.  How cute, though the captain thing was out of their hands.  What about Lina? Who did she like? She wouldn’t say, that or much about her job.  She worked in a law office, so that made sense.  She was divorced, but it had been amicable.  She had a lot of fond summer memories of driving through the country on the slow, back roads and she loved old movies, but damn was the Criterion Collection putting out some strange boxed sets lately.  She thought Kaiser would look good with smokey eyes and she could not believe the sizes of their feet when they snugged in close together with their shoes off.  Kaiser also took the time to run his toes up her calf while he was there.  Ness had been handling her gently by the hip for the better part of their conversation.  She had really soft hips, so when she said… 

“If I have to pick one of you.”

His heart and his magic leapt.  Thankfully, his dick chose not to get involved.  “You don’t.  Unless you’re really not into me.  No hard feelings.  The magic can’t make that happen.  I accepted that a long time ago.” He pulled to the side, clasping his hands to his chest as though he was wounded.

“Do you two joke around like this in bed?” Lina asked.  One of her fingers swam in the last swig of her own rose petal drink.

“It’s been known to happen,” said Kaiser.  “But he’s right.  All you have to do is sign the stupid NDA.” This came wrinkled from his jacket pocket.

Ness still didn’t know where, or how, he’d gotten a paper copy, let alone the ‘Sign Here’ sticky notes, or if it was even real.  He nonetheless had the best time watching Lina sign, initial, date, and finally kiss the last page before shoving it at Kaiser.

Fritz and Max’s table had other people at it.  There was no sign of any of that foursome, as a matter of fact.  

They left Bar Zephyr with Lina between them.  It was chilly out and one of the last trees with leaves up the street shed those into their hair.  People met their eyes and dodged around them.  They spoke too loudly and Kaiser pulled Lina into a shadowy corner for a kiss while Ness stood watch.  Apparently, this was hilarious.  More than that though: this was how picking up people was supposed to go, fresh dawn to galactic night compared to the whole Lavinia situation.  Ness’s palm stung as his mind turned that over just once, but then they were back at DO & CO heading for one of the upper rooms with the vaults in the ceiling and the mirrored walls.  They made no effort to disguise that Lina was with them, but the clerk wasn’t paying attention.  And why should they? It was after ten.  The clerk had probably signed an NDA to somebody else long before they stumbled past her.

Ness fussed with the door while Kaiser pushed Lina against him.  They were kissing again.  He had his hand up between them, resting on one of her breasts.  The fussing took longer than Ness had anticipated.  When the door finally sprung, all three of them toppled into the room, Lina first and dancing.  Her skirt and her coat spun out around the curves of her thighs.  “I won’t ever be able to tell my kid this.  Even if you hadn’t made me sign that thing.  But I’ll know.” Her voice was so airy and sweet.

Even as Kaiser told her, “We didn’t make you sign anything.”

The implication being it was all her— true —but before she could answer that, Lina caught sight of her own panties in the mirror wall.  Somehow, this got her to gasp.  “That’s more mirror than I was expecting,”

“So much mirror,” agreed Kaiser.  

Again she twirled, shrugging off her coat this time as she did.  Her skirt went higher still, so Ness could see the upper seam of those panties (plain pink, so cute).  Lina ended up catching the hem and pinning it in her mouth.  She presented herself to be admired that way, and she was. 

Ness kept his eyes on her as he removed his jacket, then placed that carefully aside of hers on one of the chairs.  Kaiser covered that with his own.  They were each reaching for her when she took her teeth out of the skirt and she said, “Would you kiss for me? Just once? Just a little?”

They said nothing, but their attentions settled on one another.  Ness let Kaiser lead, let him pull him close, let him thread his hands behind his neck to coax him upwards.  Ness was also blushing at this point.  Not that they didn’t kiss in front of other people because they certainly did.  But Lina sat so close and Kaiser was holding him so tenderly.  He brought their lips together, the simple way at first.  He pushed gently for entrance.  Ness gave it to him.  His eyes closed and his mouth flooded with Kaiser’s tongue.  The kiss ran so deep he couldn’t stop himself from making soft sounds about it and he went so pink with it all, Kaiser plundering into him and Kaiser’s sigh tickling his cheeks.  

He was dizzy when he came out of it finally.  The same might have gone for Lina.  A heady, “Ohh…” trailed from her lips.

Kaiser licked his.  “Tell me you’d bother resisting that face.”

She said exactly nothing.

So, everybody’s shoes got pitched into the one corner.  Ness made a show of helping Kaiser out of his shirt, mouthing his tattoo as he went and letting his hands skim almost to his belt.  Kaiser snatched that off himself and lighted beside Lina on the bed.   

Ness took more care undressing himself.  He had some sundries to unload from his pockets and onto the table.  He was still in his trousers when he joined Kaiser and Lina on the bed.  Lina’s comb lay aside on the nightstand.  Kaiser had his fingers knotted in her hair and he was pulling her into their own kiss.  The sounds she made were pitchy and charming; the kiss, messy.  Lina left a print on Kaiser’s mouth that he licked off as Ness was nuzzling at Lina for his own taste of her lips.  She was all flowers and sugar and something like silk, possibly from biting her skirt, a little shy about it too, but Ness didn’t mind.  

There were definitely other things she wasn’t shy about at all.  She undid her own skirt and made a display of letting it fall.  Kaiser handled her blouse, clicking his nails along the buttons until the garment slid from her shoulders.  Lina wore a pink mesh bra that almost matched her panties.  She was heavier chested than Ness had thought.  The idea seemed to have gone for Kaiser.  Something gleamed back behind his eyes about that part of Lina.  Ness remembered his interest in Lavinia had rested there too.  So Kaiser liked breasts, but there was something more to the look on his face.  Like he almost seemed scandalized that Lina’s had come to be in easy reach.  Still, his want was palpable.  Lina put her hands to it, and over his cheeks.  Kaiser blinked hard, and didn’t quite slip back to himself, not even as Lina held the two of them in a place where they had to look each other in the eyes.  They did.  For a moment at least.  Kaiser wrapped his hands around Lina’s wrists and pulled her away from him.  Then he pushed her back on the bed.  

“I’m going to suck on your tits.  Unless you’re uptight about it.  Then I’m going to fix that.”

“Not really,” Lina giggling in surprise. “They’re not, well, if that’s your taste, I guess you know.”

Lina’s bra also happened to be one that hooked in the front.  Ness reached over and unfastened it.  

Lina spilled out.  A dab of Kaiser’s spit struck her before the fabric of her clothes receded from her body.  Her breasts were big and bell-shaped, stretch-marked deeply on the upper curve and up to her unshaven armpits.  Her nipples, even half-hard, spread tight in sandy peach.  

Kaiser let go of one wrist to catch her.  He brought her to his mouth, opening wide and losing more spit down his chin.  As his lips closed on her skin, he shut his eyes.  Ness saw him sigh, and then the way his cheeks puckered as he started to… suckle.

He wasn’t using his teeth, but his tongue was pressing hard.  So.  Yeah, suckling.  Lina gasped about it.  He must have been doing it hard too.

Ness, watching, felt like the bottom had dropped out of his dick.  He did not know what to do with what he was seeing, hearing, feeling there beside them.  His hands slid to Lina’s shoulder.  He was coaxing off her bra and blouse.  She squirmed.  Once he had her things, he brought them to the chair.  There was a snap and a shriek from Lina as soon as he’d turned his back.  Kaiser had pulled the elastic of her panties when he shoved them down.  Not pulled off of her, but in half.  

Luckily Lina thought this was funny.  She stuffed one of the pillows under her shoulders.  This let her tuck Kaiser against her.  He made the neediest sound when she did.  One of his tails trickled through her fingers as she suggested he try the other one too ‘if it was easier to latch’.  How meekly Kaiser told her yes, though there was nothing but purpose in the way he brought his tattooed hand to her lower lips.  He skimmed her there, stringing her slick between his fingers.  Ness thought he would suck them.  He didn’t.  Instead, he gave them to Lina and then broke off to kiss her once and lightly between moving to her opposite breast.  His fingers visited her between her legs once more, and stayed.  He plucked into her folds until he had all her tender foreparts in his grasp.  Lina was stroking his hair in earnest now, the blue tangled between both of their shoulders.  Her little words of encouragement faded into yes and more .  Soon she had dabbed a wet spot on the bed.  

Ness finally shook himself out of the trance the two of them had put him in, and sat again, tracing his hands over Lina’s temples and sometimes Kaiser’s.  He couldn’t see Kaiser’s dick from where he sat, but he could scent Lina’s arousal, and hear it churning between Kaiser’s fingers.  She smelled clean and not so much like powder as some women he’d fucked.  

Ness swallowed.  His senses briefly filled with powder from long ago and someone was asking him why.  

Still he could hear them, feel them so clearly.  Kaiser stirred up Lina.  She met Ness’s eyes off and again, and he smiled back at her, sliding down, little by little beside her.  Kaiser was utterly gone in whatever sensation he’d found nursing on Lina.  So, once Ness had brought himself down beside her, he took a taste too, only he nipped, only he slung an arm around her waist as he held her on his mouth.  Kaiser gave him one hazy-eyed look and Ness started to suck too, not quite the same way, but with all of his mouth and his own kind of hunger.  He really hadn’t expected Kaiser to want to do this with Lina.  It felt good, Ness would have said, but it didn’t seem like a Kaiser thing, even though there Kaiser was writhing beside Lina.  His tattooed hand flickered over her, the tension easing up her body.  She was pink-cheeked and gasping at the ceiling when he finally sunk his fingers into her.  She was also that wet that Ness heard, felt it.  There were slippery sounds all around him as his own eyes drifted closed, as he sucked.  

Kaiser didn’t bother to pull off to goad her into coming.  Lina shook off the bed all airy orgasm noise and a shudder like a downbeat cresting off of her whole body.  Ness let her pop out of his mouth and kissed hers instead while Kaiser squeezed and held and jerked her as hard as he could.  

All three of them crashed down, softly but still.  

Ness ran his tongue over his lips.  Kaiser gave Lina one last gulp and pulled off of her, saliva trailing between her nipple and his mouth.  He still had his hand between her legs.  “I can do this all night if you want.  Say the word.  You’ll come yourself blind.”

Lina didn’t really answer his question.  Instead, she swung her arm up to cover her eyes as she laughed. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

”Why not? Big, soft tits are the best.”

“Oh, my god.  You’re serious.”

“And he doesn’t have any.”

She laughed, swatting lamely at Kaiser, who bit her on the side of the hand.  

“If he did, I’d still want yours.”

“That’s… Wow, you know, I believe you.”

“You should.”

“But wow.” She peered at him then, out from under her own shadows.  “And I want some dick.  If it’s not too much trouble.”

Kaiser and Ness both glanced down at Kaiser’s cock.  It wasn’t as hard as it could have been.  Ness was the one to remark, “You’re flagging a little.  Let me help.”

Lazily, Kaiser swung himself over the far edge of the bed.  He spread his knees.  Lina rolled over to watch.  He fed her her own spunk again as Ness settled into place.  

Ness looked up at Kaiser with affection.  Maybe a little too much of it, considering what they were in the middle of, but he couldn’t resist, not with the scents mingling on the air, with Kaiser smiling down on him.  He took a deep breath and he gave him the most show-offy head suck, with slurps and draining tongue and everything.  He made sure to meet his eyes, except for the glance or two he shot Lina.  His pulls were very gentle, even when Kaiser grabbed him by the back of the head and nudged him down.  Ness diligently slurped on, laving Kaiser’s dick with the meat of his tongue, soft insides of his lips.  He niggled his foreskin back and felt it stretch beneath his tongue for that last lick.

“Oh, my god,” Lina said what might have been again.  

Kaiser shot her a grin.  “Ness, condom.” 

Ness brought up the one he had palmed on the way over.  He ripped the package open and slid the condom onto Kaiser.  Then he sat back to watch.

He didn’t know why he’d been expecting something artful from Kaiser when it came to sex with a woman.  He was probably projecting from their time together.  What Kaiser did with Lina was at once very plain and very intense.  It was also decidedly something he did to her .  

Kaiser swanned between her legs.  He spread himself over her, taking more mouthfuls of her, collarbone and cheek this time and also her lips once or twice before they each paused to spit out his hair.  Lina had her fingers in it after and Kaiser had taken her by the knees, drawing them along his sides as he butted the centers of their bodies together.  Lina was the one who reached down and set him to rights so he could slide into her without any side blows, but Kaiser sang out as they linked, almost an echo of the sounds Lina had slid out taking his fingers.  Lina hardly seemed to know what had happened at first, though her body tided back with the motion he thrust upon her.  It took them a while to get going, Kaiser pushing her higher, Lina casting around on the sheets.  She said something like, “Baby boy,” and Kaiser cringed, but he also brought himself all the harder to her.  There was an audible slurp as they met.  Kaiser’s hands tensed.  He swung with his whole body and his hair, in end, smeared along both of them.  

They were all hot smells and sounds.  They were fucking in some kind of sweet vacuum even as Lina laced her hands behind Kaiser’s neck, dragging him into a kiss.  His mouth went so pliant at that particular intrusion of hers and his tongue lolled out after.  He still tried to speak, but the words were like syrup.  He ended up grinning instead, hauling them tighter together.  That’s good , Lina said and he told her he knew, half-laughing  as the bed shook as she was fighting to hold him to her.  Kaiser’s feet scratched on the covers and Lina’s twisted the air.  They were both bare to the mirrors, but neither did anything about that.  Kaiser gazed into her and they started to whisper their moans as if moans were too much for Ness in the room.  Ness himself felt barely a ghost there beside them as much as he loved the sight.  Let them be.  Let them come.  Let them be happy.  The idea whipped at his heart with this giddy energy the two of them sliding against each other didn’t even seem to capture.  He almost wondered if he was getting more out of this than they were until… 

Lina said, “I don’t, umm, usually come from just this.”

“I know,” Kaiser told her.  “You get the next one from the puppy.”

Her “oh” split their ears.  It was starry and wonderful.  It was also her pushing her hips off of the bed.  

Kaiser buried himself in her, balls deep, both of them sweating.  His nails left prints on the skin around her knees.  Their wet faces crashed together in a kiss.  Then she was demanding it of him: are you coming are you coming are you coming.

He told her “Yes.  Dammit!” and got off with his eyes rolling back in his head, his back arched like a seahorse, his exhalations some other kind of ecstasy Ness had seen from him only when he was particularly done in from a long session.  It hadn’t even been an hour, but there he was, bucking and crashing into Lina’s arms.

Ness reached between them as soon as he could manage, swiping Kaiser’s dick out of the way before Kaiser forgot the condom.  He had that off of him and knotted before Kaiser spun out on the bed beside Lina.  

Lina had stars in her eyes.  As soon as she had caught her own breath, she said, “Looks like you’re up.”

Kaiser beside her made some exasperated groans and then started to snicker.

Ness gave Lina his very sincerest smile.  “I am, but I have to show you.” Though she probably got the idea as soon as he stood.  The extra room in the crotch of his pants was doing its job.  He slung those off of his hips along with his shorts and let Lina see for herself.

Lina put her hand over her mouth.  Kaiser burst out laughing.  In fact, he laughed so hard he was beating his fists on the bed.  Lina barely seemed to register the sound or the blows.  

Ness stepped closer and he held his hand out, asking for one of Lina’s.  Kaiser said: “If you don’t want that, I’ll take care of it.  And then you again, because you’ll need that if you see me taking care of him,” as she obliged Ness.  Ness bent to kiss her knuckles, and then brought her fingers to his cock.  A few thoughtful squeezes followed.  She watched his reactions, in his expression and the way the heat of him shifted in her grasp.  Ness didn’t touch her again until she whispered, “Do you have lube?”

Ness nodded.  Once she’d finished with him, and she also seemed very interested in his balls after everything, he went to where he’d laid out their supplies.  Kaiser, mostly recovered from his outburst, snatched the lube packet from him and took to fingering Lina slippery while Ness fussed with his condom.  Ness did this kneeling between Lina’s legs.  He told her, “It might be easier at another angle.  I don’t know what you’re comfortable with or what would feel best.”

She thought and then, “It’s too bad this bed doesn’t have more of a headboard.”

“Who needs a headboard?” Kaiser picked himself up.  He was still trembling with laughter now and again, but he sat, and he held Lina to him, her hands on his shoulders and her face in his chest.  Ness thought he saw her take a swipe at his nipples as he brought his hips to hers.  

Ness held her close, but not too tight.  She spread like a blossom around him, the sensation bright and juicy.  The condom changed this not at all.  The real joy of her was the sensation of her fuzzy labia brushing onto his own crotch.  It left him glinting with her slick and the lube.  The first few thrusts between them they both panted and gasped and made sounds like they’d tripped.  They got used to each other soon enough.  Lina liked an upwards swing on the out thrust rather than a downward on the in and even though she was facing away from him.  She made the cutest noises when he did that for her.  Her scent, mingled with the cherries in the lube, filled Ness’s lungs.  Kaiser really had wonderful taste in women.  Ness meant every flit of joy he gave Lina and not simply for the fact he felt them himself.  She was an experience and he wanted to be that for her too.  And not just because she was furiously making out with Kaiser while he fucked her, which was definitely one of the top five hottest things Ness had ever seen.  

He’d meant to ask her if she could come without anyone handling her clit.  That question ended up irrelevant.  All of a sudden, she reared up moaning.  “I’m gonna… Oh shit! I’m gonna…”

“Damn.” Kaiser said back and he might have put his hands to her breasts again.

Ness went a little harder with her.  He didn’t want to change what he was doing too much if it was getting her off.  His hands tightened and he leaned over her, caught in her sway and putting more of himself to her.  She must have been bucking up at him for half a minute before she shrieked in Kaiser’s face.  She shook all over when she got off, her pussy snatching at him like a hand and her legs going jelly soft beneath him.  “Fuck, you’re amazing,” Ness told her since she was still doing it, still fluttering up his senses.

Which gave way soon enough.  He knew he asked her if he should stop and he felt her shake her head.  Lina rode him all the way into shuddering himself.  Coming was a hard shot of pleasure all through his nerves. It got his eyes watering too, but he mopped that away before Lina could see.  Kaiser got a look though.

Ness sat back on his heels.  He knotted the other condom.  Lina lay in Kaiser’s arms, slowly kicking her feet like a younger girl at a beach.  Ness tickled one instep before he lay down across the bottom of the bed.  Kaiser and Lina both took to poking at him with their toes.

“Are you two always like this?” Lina asked.

“Absolutely not,” Kaiser told her.  “It’s usually just him and me, but you don’t get to tell anybody that.”

Ness didn’t correct him, that it wasn’t just the two of them anymore, that it didn’t sound like it ever would be again.

He realized as they were arguing about who was going to turn out the lights— it wasn’t all stress and strange people when it came to his station as public use.  He did like being available, especially if it got him nights like tonight, people he wouldn't have been able to get to know this personally otherwise.  

Besides, open relationships were fairly common in the gay community, whatever that meant to Ness, here, who belonged to Kaiser first and Bastard München second and nothing else with as much as those two entities consumed his world.  Besides, they were in bed with a woman right now, and she wanted to cuddle.

Ness took one side and Kaiser the other.  Their arms laced over Lina and they stayed awake talking around her soft snores.

#

Ness got up to piss about two in the morning.  Lina made an incidental snort, but she had rubbed into Kaiser during the few hours between now and when they’d finished.  He didn’t expect anything more from her.  They’d had fun.  Now was the slow, restless time before they went back to their lives.

While he was up, Ness checked his phone.  There was Lorenzo asking if he’d gotten some (cat emoji) and himself stumbling onto the search bar.

He found Greta Callbeck on Ray Dark’s arm  at the Met Gala Ball in 2016.

Weird.

But not weird enough to keep him from more sleep.  

He wondered if she smelled like powder or actual girl before he drifted off again.

Chapter Text

One of Kaiser’s Instagram girls suggested it.  She even sent along the stuff to try for themselves.  

Ness and Kaiser rigged a curtain rod and some Velcro straps along the bottom of their window.  They used this to suspend the latest Chartreuse bottle outside in the cold.  It was trying to snow in Munich that afternoon and a few flakes chased each other through the open window before they got it mostly shut again.   

The two of them hung around with the rest of Bastard München for the evening.  Almost everyone had clustered in the weightroom, not because it was particularly warm, but because if they were using the machines, they could sweat and pretend to be warm.  Grim and Gesner had headed out with their girlfriends, though Ness didn’t know which girlfriend in Gesner’s case.  Anyway, it was no surprise that Max went, “I thought it was cockwarming weather.  What are you two doing down here?” when Kaiser and Ness entered the weight room.  He also had a genial smirk and a high-five from Fritz.  

“Did you know cockwarming is boring?” Kaiser mentioned.  “You just lie there and think happy thoughts.”

“Ah.  I see why it didn’t work for you.”

“Exactly.  But, if you want to try…” He grinned, and thrust Ness Max’s way.  “He’s booked tonight, but tomorrow looks open.”

Ness nodded.

“Hey, who booked Ness for tonight?” Max called into the weight room.  There was a smattering of “not me” before Kaiser rolled his eyes and simply said, “He’s mine, remember?”

“No one is ever going to forget that~,” Ali sing out from one of the presses.  “And speaking of which, I could use an extra guy for Friday night.  How do you feel about avant-garde Shakespeare, Ness?”

“I have no idea,” Ness answered.  “I’d love to.”

Kaiser nodded in approval.  Ali had chosen to interpret Ness’s free use as “designated pity date for my girlfriend’s many single friends”, possibly for his own sanity.  It had certainly worked out for Ness who now had a passion for maamoul and was about to learn what Avant Garde Shakespeare was exactly.  In the meantime, he stretched.  Fritz and Max intervened, helping him nudge his legs wider from the middle of his elbow-stand.  He could have done without them bouncing while they were at it, but that was how things went and he felt nicely wrung out after.  He worked his back and his legs and his arms more than he needed to because Kaiser was hanging around the cord machines for a change.  Finally, everyone piled onto the treadmills— Fritz and Max sharing, Sachs jumping on and off with Ndaiye.  Even Kaiser watched the show, tilting away from his blank wall to see the acrobatics play out.  The team showered without incident and left the gym in sweats, just to be greeted by hot bone broth from the kitchen.  They drank it together in the downstairs sitting room while the snow flurried and spun and Ness waited for someone from facilities to say something about the Chartreuse.  No one did and the snow still didn’t quite snow.  

He and Kaiser made themselves scarce early into the late evening complaining.  Their room was only a little cooler than they usually kept it.  The Chartreuse on the other hand was icy cold.  It fogged up Kaiser's moon-and-star goblets.  

Ness had gotten used to the flavor.  He still wouldn’t say he enjoyed it, but definitely liked it better chilled.  He tasted less grass and more flowers this way.  Kaiser seemed to approve of it too— he sat gazing at his goblet for a bit, smacking his mouth the way he did when he’d gotten a piece of toast with a texture he particularly enjoyed.  He ended up draining the pour and taking another before hanging the bottle back outside.  

“I need to thank her,” he whispered to Ness, even though they were alone in the quad as far as Ness could hear.  

“Do you remember which her it was?”

“Absolutely.” That said, it took at least a minute for him to find the designated her.  She got a picture of Kaiser in his sweats with a goblet of Chartreuse for her trouble and she sent back so many heart emojis.  Green, of course.

Kaiser and Ness curled up under their winter quilt, upside-down from how they usually laid themselves out.  Ness wanted to watch the snow which stopped altogether as soon as he made himself comfortable.  He was still working on his first pour when Kaiser also finished his second.  Ness was going to tell him that he felt a little too stretched out for any acrobatic fucking.  He didn’t need to.  Kaiser sighed and reached for a book, something about the Calhoun rat experiments.  Ness scowled.  Kaiser was not going to start with him again about that.  Ness found the whole thing unethical.  But did that mean it was also inaccurate? Maybe.  Anyway, Ness leafed through the latest download from TechnoPussy: Chikuhyou no Hanayome, The Orc Bride.  He’d learned that a lot of the really nasty manga and doujinshi actually had tragic plots despite their contents.  Tonight, a captured elf had his legs cut off and his wrist tendons cut and was given to a pack of pig-like orcs as a wife.  The orcs’s father, who was human, seemed to be trying to help his sons, though in the most perverse and disgusting way possible.  The elf became pregnant despite being male, and then his brother arrived to rescue him at last.  But, the brother slaughtered the elf and all the little orc piglets.  Everyone ended up alone.

Ness read it twice to make sure the Chartreuse wasn’t making him see things.  He paused between with his arm over his eyes.  So, when Kaiser went to the window again, he didn’t see what he did.  The second read, he started to sniffle.  Kaiser refilled his glass without asking.  Ness only managed to drink a little before the snow finally started again.  He leaned back into the floating sensation of the herbs and alcohol.  He watched the snow drift past the window and thought about how unfair the whole story had been.  No one had gotten a chance, not even the orcs’s strange father.  If anyone had showed even a little compassion, maybe the orcs wouldn’t have been fighting the elves in the first place.  Maybe they could have been treated like the dull, but sapient beings they were and not monsters.  Then there wouldn’t have been any fratricide or kidnapping or squished babies.  

The squished babies got him the worst.  But he was swirling away with snowflakes by then and everything turned into this dreamy fantasy of him cuddling little half-orc piglets.  He felt more than he saw or heard it, all those snuffling warm bodies wriggling in his arms.  He might actually have been dreaming though his eyes were half-open.  That or the memory of the window carried in against the other sensations.  Somehow and sideways he realized that the bottle rig was down, dripping ice water onto the floor beneath the radiator.  

His last pour must be getting warm.  That was fine.  He didn’t want anymore right now.  He didn’t want to disturb his imaginary piglets.

Besides, Ness thought, and not for the first time, that he actually did want kids, but it was going to be another ten years before he made any decisions about that.  Maybe he should start a separate savings account for them just the same.  He wasn’t doing much else with his salary.  Kaiser bought almost everything for him.