A RISK WORTH TAKING

The cute boy in the oversize black hoodie has been sitting alone in the backyard for the good part of the last two hours. Leo has sacrificed his Friday night out just to watch him – not that there was something better to do, anyway. He fucked half the people at this party and there is a very good reason if he didn't fuck the other half.

He came here hoping the universe would gift him with some new faces, and the universe just delivered.

The boy seems totally oblivious to the music blasting from inside the house and to the people coming and going out of it. At some point he even took out a scrapbook and started drawing as if he was at the park and not at a frat house party. Leo has no idea if he came here alone or with someone – he didn't see him arriving because he was probably making out with the captain of the football team in that moment – but he doesn't look like someone who belongs in a place like this.

“What are you doing here? It's half past one, you should be cruising and risking STDs by now.” Adam approaches him with a beer in his hand and a genuinely surprised face that would be offensive if Leo wasn't busy with something else. And also if he cared. “I thought you were being kissed stupid by that girl of the Lacrosse team. What is her name? Lucille?”

Leo reaches out for his beer and takes a sip of it. “It's Lucinda and that was at least three hours ago. I've been with two other people since then.”

“Right, that's exactly the type of thing I would broadcast,” Adam comments, and then he shakes his head when Leo tries to give him back his beer. “Keep it, I don't know where your mouth has been tonight.”

“Unfortunately not where I wanted it,” Leo says dreamily as he goes back staring at the mysterious stranger.

“What are you looking at?” Adam leans forward, following Leo's line of sight.

“Do you know him?”

Adam squints his eyes for a moment and then nods. “Yeah, that's Cody Petersen. He's in my life drawing class.”

Leo looks at him with beady, hopeful eyes. “Did he come here with someone?”

“I don't really—Leo, no!” Adam instantly engages damage control mode, which is his personal containment system to prevent Leo from doing something stupid. So far it has never ever worked. “Forget him.”

Leo whimpers as if all his desire of going there to Cody couldn't be contained in his body anymore. “But look at him! He's so tiny and cute,” Leo says, his hands making a grabbing motion in the air as if he could already feel the boy's body in his hands. “He looks like a doll!”

“He also looks like someone you could destroy,” Adam scolds him. “He's not even your type. You like people who can slam you into walls. He can't do that, so leave him alone.”

“It is true that I enjoy strong handling,” Leo says honestly, “but I could settle for doing someone like him for a few days straight. I can be versatile when I want to, Adam.”

“That's exactly why you should turn around and find someone else,” Adam insists, he looks really anxious now. “He's nothing like you. He's gone through some stuff and he doesn't need you to take him and leave him over the week end.”

Leo rolls his eyes. “I'll be nice with him, alright?” He offers. “Besides, it's not like I ever forced anyone. If he comes with me, it'll be because he wants to.”

“It's not that easy,” Adam frowns. “Not everybody works like you, Leo. Sometimes things get confused if you don't pay attention and you never do. Can you please let it go and find someone else? If you really need to have sex tonight, I'm sure all you need to do is take a step in the living room and someone will drag you to one of the bedrooms upstairs.”

“Jesus! What's wrong with you tonight?” Leo snorts. “I never said I'm gonna have sex with him. I just wanna talk!”

“That's how sex starts with you!”

“Yeah, well, even if happened, it would be none of your business, don't you think?” Leo frowns, but then he realizes he doesn't want to fight with his best friend and sighs. Besides, fighting puts him off the mood and he hates that. “Listen, I promise I'll be my best self, alright? I'll be the nicest guy he ever met. I'll ask him out, nothing more. I'll be totally PG, safe for kids and everything."

"Leo—"

"Can you trust me?" Leo looks at him, meaningfully. "Please."

"I trust that you won't force him," Adam explains, trying to be conciliatory. "But he's fragile and you can be... overwhelming sometimes. You don't know him."

"Know him is exactly what I wanna do. So, please, now go get another beer and have fun in whatever way you artsy jocks have fun," Leo turns around and marches straight towards the backyard. "I have an acquaintance to make."

Leo slides gracefully into a chair near Cody, startling him a little. "Hi," he says with an open smile. "Do you mind if I sit here?"

Cody looks up at him, with big frightened eyes. "You're already seated," he notices in a whisper.

"Good point," Leo offers him his hand. "My name's Leo. Nice to meet you."

Cody backs off, swallowing. "I know who you are." He grabs his sketchpad and shoves it into his backpack.

Leo frowns, a little hurt. "Wait, you said it like it's a bad thing. Have you heard something bad?" Leo knows he probably has. People don't embrace his policy of one-night-stands.

"No, it's just that—" Cody shakes his head quickly and then he stands up, like a little alerted animal. "I should go now."

"Please," Leo refrains from reaching out and grabbing him only because he noticed the way Cody cringes every time he moves too quickly. "I just want to talk. I promise I won't bite."

Cody hesitates but then, slowly, he sits back down.

This is going to be a challenge – that is pretty clear – and Leo is risking to receive the biggest pullback of his entire flirting career (is that a career?). But looking at Cody's baby blue eyes and at the dainty features of his doll-like face – he's the cutest boy Leo has ever seen, he looks unreal, like the main character of Japanese comic – he decides that Cody is a risk worth taking.

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-CONTROL
(that I don't have)

It's all a matter of control, Blaine had said. Everything must be in your hands at any given time. Not only the scene that you're playing, but your emotions and those of your sub as well. You decide what he gets, what he doesn't get and what he must feel about anything. Cody is not only yours to use for pleasure, but yours to make, to mold and shape into something you like. Telling Cody what to do and how to do it is not a problem. Leo always knows what he wants from him and he likes giving orders, but when it comes to control himself, that's another story. Leo is not used to deny himself something if he can have it.

Bent over the armrest of the couch, his naked ass up in the air and his arms tied behind his back, Cody moans again, asking him, please, to take him. He will be good, he promises, he will never disobey again. Leo knows he will, so he can't cave in and give him attention, let alone touch him in any way. He's supposed to be occupied with something else, but his eyes wander. He's supposed not to care for his sub's body lying there and ready to be taken, but he is restless. He's supposed to control himself, but he's hard. In moments like these he truly wonders who exactly is punishing whom.

He stands up, walks the room and gives Cody's ass a hard, quick spank before groping it possessively. Red, he thinks to himself. If Cody won't call it, he will. It's been two hours already and that's all he can take. He might not be that good at controlling himself, he grins as he unzips his pants, but he's always willing to keep trying.

RAIN

Cody looks at himself in the mirror holding two different shirts to his chest. One is a cute t-shirt with the head of happy panda printed on the front and its wiggly bottom printed on the back. The other is a casual black shirt with a few slashes on the stomach he could wear with a neon tank top underneath. Both are okay for an afternoon date, he thinks, but Leo didn't tell him where they are going and this makes him anxious.

He tried to convey his problem to Leo – although vaguely and only hinting at it, because he didn't want to sound annoying – but Leo is always so at ease with himself that he didn't even suspect there was a problem at all. Cody can't really blame him. Leo always seems to know how to dress at any time, and even when he doesn't, he's at ease anyway. He has no problem being the center of attention, speaking up or being silly in front of strangers. He's just that kind of person that doesn't see social events as a probable cause of embarrassment for himself. How can he even understand someone like Cody, who has more problems with being in public than your average shy person?

Plus, Leo is a lot of things, but he's not exactly tuned in with other people's feelings. As Adam said once, Leo only understands other people's problems if they reflect his owns, and in any case he always gives priority to himself. Cody thinks this is a really mean thing to say, but it's true that Leo never gets right away a problem he never really had. He knows Leo would make any change Cody needs, if Cody told him directly, but he can't. On one hand, he likes Leo's natural enthusiasm – sometimes it's overwhelming and embarrassing, but it's genuine and it's never ever ill-conceived – on the other hand, Cody is ashamed of being so problematic even in the simplest things, and so he'd rather suffer through them hoping not to horribly break down than looks annoying.

Cody looks at both the shirt and decides that neither of them are good enough. Half his wardrobe is scattered on the bed, the other half is messed up in the drawers, and still he has nothing to wear. It would be way easier for him if he knew anything about dating, but he's completely unprepared. The only dates he has ever had were with Williams, and they were all pretty much disastrous.

One will be always burned in his memory forever.

It was Spring, somewhere around April, and it was the sunniest day Cody could remember. They were supposed to go to an outdoor event – that's how William had called it – in a big park near Lost Creek. From William's description, it sounded like some kind of festival. Cody had imagined booths and fair games, this sort of things, so he had dressed casual, a pair of white shorts, a tank top, something comfy to face the hot day and easily walk around. William didn't make any comment when he picked him up at the house, but when they got there, Cody instantly realized his mistake. It was an outdoor event, a festival no doubt, but what he hadn't understood – what William forgot to mention, that is – was that the park was property of the local Country Club, which meant the festival itself was held by the Country Club. Everywhere Cody looked there were men in fancy polos and long shorts and women in cocktail dresses. Cody stood out like a sore thumb.

He asked William to go back home and change, but he refused. He said that would serve him as a lesson on how to dress properly instead of going out looking like a slut. And then he walked him around the whole afternoon, preventing him to hide behind himself and introducing him to everybody. He looked like a child hanging out in a place for grown ups. It was one of the most embarrassing days of his life.

He shakes his head, trying to return that memory to the back of his mind.
Then, he grabs a pair of black skinny jeans – they're casual but still elegant enough – and he chooses the most subdued t-shirt he owns, which is black with a splash of purples and pinks on the front, all sprayed with glitter. It's a silly t-shirt, but it looks fancy, one of those designer t-shirts on which sometimes celebrities put their names and sell in cheap stores. So, it should work either if it's a casual event or a glamorous one. Cody really hopes it's not the latter, tho.

Three hours later, when Leo comes to pick him up, Cody is waiting for him outside, sitting on the short wall that goes around the apartments complex. He doesn't want Leo to come inside, both because he didn't have the time to put all those clothes back in the wardrobe, and because he knows that if he lets Leo in, they won't go out at all. Cody is still on the fence about doing more than make out with Leo, but Leo knows how to make the most of it nonetheless.

Leo's black SUV pulls in, and before anything else, he fumbles with the radio, trying to tune in that weird pop rock band he's been obsessing over recently. Then he turns to the side and smiles. “Hi,” he says, his hair is a cute mess. His curls are literally going in every direction. He follows Cody with his eyes as he walks around the car and get in, then he kisses him. “Are you still in for the date?”

Cody blinks at him, confused. “Wasn't... wasn't it planned?”

“Yes, but you didn't seem at ease at the phone,” Leo shrugs. “We can stay, if you want.”

Cody blushes. He was worried sick about what to wear and how to dress, but it never crossed his mind to call the date off, like it wouldn't be possible. Now that he knows it is, tho, he doesn't want to. “No, please, I want to go,” he whispers, forcing himself to look at him. “I just didn't know what to wear.”

“You're very cute,” Leo says, starting the car.

“Is it proper for where we're going?” Cody finds the courage to ask. At least he knows Leo will let him go back and change.

“Yes, you're perfect,. And, really, you have nothing to worry about. I promise. It's the most casual, relaxed place ever, and I think you will love it,” Leo says, smiling again. But then he seems to realize something and quickly adds, “But if you don't, we will go somewhere else. You only have to say it. But I really think you'll like it, you know? Still, I'm not saying you have to.”

Cody chuckles. “I know, don't worry.” That's another reason why he doesn't tell Leo all the things that make him nervous because he starts to blabber like that. “So, can I at least ask questions?”

Leo seems to think about it for a moment. “All right, but only yes or no questions.”

“Deal,” Cody chuckles. “Is it a big place?”

“Yes.”

“Is it inside?”

“No.”

Cody pauses for a moment, the old memory coming back. “Is... is it a fair?” He asks, trying not to sound too scared or too disappointed.

Leo doesn't seem to notice, tho. In fact, he smiles as he turns into a huge parking lot Cody has never seen before. He was so focused on asking questions that he didn't look at the road. “No, it's not a fair,” Leo chuckles.

And it's not, Leo is right. A fair – or even a carnival – recalls a specific image in Cody's mind. He thinks about little booths selling toys and food, a carousel, a shooting gallery, and maybe some farm animals. This place has everything but thrice times over. It's so big Cody doesn't even know what place in Lima can hold it all. They haven't even entered yet and he can't see the end of the first row of booths. “What... what is this place?”

“This is the old Lima's Spring Festival,” Leo explains. “But, since nobody would go to the other nearby cities' Spring Festivals, they decided to have just one big fair here in Lima. I read it about on-line.”

“It's gonna take two days to see it all,” Cody blinks. “Where do we start?” Then, a kid passes him by holding a little piglet on a leash. That catches his attention more than anything else. “Oh, look!”
He squeaks so loud and so happily that Leo can't help but chuckle.

“We have a winner,” he says, taking Cody by the hand. “I know where they keep the piglets. Let's go see them.”

Their visit to the piglets turns into a forty minutes stay with the piglets, and then give food to the piglets, and take a picture while holding the piglets. At some point Cody just stops using words and expresses himself only with squeaks, little excited moans and little screams every time a piglet does something funny, sweet or apparently dangerous. So, every time. Leo is more interested in Cody, of course, but he has his embarrassing moments with the piglets too, and Cody gets to hear him speak to them in the silliest way ever.

After that, they go for a milkshake, which leads them to candy apples, cotton candies, chocolate donuts and a big bag of candies. Everything is so cliche at that point that Leo insists on winning him a stuffed animal, which he does. And, with Cody holding a bear as big as himself, they move towards the amusement rides.

That's when it starts to rain. It's a sudden, heavy rain that forces them to hide under the first tarpaulin they find. They watch the people screaming and laughing under the rain. Those who manage to find shelter are safe, the others don't look for one anymore because they are already drenched, and so they enjoy the unexpected shower. But the dirt on the ground turned to mud, everything is wet and the temperature is dropping. It doesn't seem the right weather to go at a fair anymore.

“I'm sorry the day turned out like this,” Leo says. He looks over to Cody, expecting him to be sad. Instead, Cody is smiling as brightly as Leo has never seen him smile before.

“You can't control the weather, can you?” Cody jokes, moving closer to him and resting his head on his shoulder.

“No, but the day is still ruined.”

Cody keeps smiling. “No, I don't think so,” he says in a whisper.

All his awful memories of his dates with William are alight, the sun is so shiny in them he can barely see, and yet they are sad and terrifying. This date, instead, will be a gray and damp and muddy memory, but a happy, loving one. And he likes to think that for the first time in history, he wants the rain to wash away the sun.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND

Leo and his friends began space traveling a few years ago.
None of them had the smallest idea of what to do with their life after graduation, so putting some money together and exploring the farthest galaxy they could reach with a class two spaceship for rent was an idea as good as any other. In time, it became an habit.

Now, every three months they leave Earth – which is not exactly exciting anyway – and all together they take a few weeks off work to explore the outer space. It's a good thing their government promotes these kind of travels, in order to map as much territory as possible in the shortest time. The more unknown the planet you reach, the better. And as long as you come back with a new map officially charted under US flag, all the trip expenses are covered by the Department for Space Development.

Of course, leaving for unknown places and, possibly, risking your life in hostile territories is not the only way to travel. There are well known routes and completely colonized planets that represent no danger whatsoever. Some of them have equipped resorts for tourists and theme parks. In others animals are preserved in well-controlled areas, so that the whole planet is just one big safari. You can go somewhere to enjoy alien art, to meet other friendly cultures, to play new sports and so on. In 2155, the creation of the Mainstream Planets Circuit – a group of certified safe planets – has sensibly increased space tourism; but those are destinations suitable for families, elder citizens and newlyweds who wants something more exotic than Paris for their honeymoon, especially since half the city was razed to the ground by the meteor rains.

Young people want adventures, danger, the thrill of being part of a real expedition in mysterious lands like those brave men who dared the jungles of South America in the early 20th Century. In the last ten years the number of young people who regularly leave to find new planets has multiplied. They form real teams, they are equipped and organized, armed in most cases. They stay out enough to be back with things valuable for the DSD, and in return they receive what officially are mere refunds, but that in time pay off the purchasing of the ships which are no longer rented. For some people this is not an hobby anymore, but a very lucrative job.

This gave way to a series of unpleasant phenomena, like feuds between different US teams (or between teams from different countries), some improper use of weapons to the detriment of both local species and other human beings, risk of unknown disease breakouts and other pleasant disasters of that sort, and since it's still a pretty recent activity, everything falls into the endless gray area of awaiting regulation, which is what makes these journeys quite dangerous and, therefore, extremely fun.

For Leo and his friends this is not a job, and they're not even a proper team, but they've been doing this long enough to be considered one. After years of renting they also bought a ship. A class one cargo ship, not very fast but extremely resilient, and most of all fitted with enough room for five people to live in it comfortably for weeks. The Prince of Persia is more like a traveling holiday house for them, and a real house for Matt, who lives in it whenever they go back to Earth. Being a cargo ship, it is not armed. They have a weapon storage, though. A little thing, not bigger than a broom closet, with a couple of shotguns they never used, a plasma gun they seriously hope they will never need to use and various low voltage stun guns, which is what they carry around just in case.

Adam is the one insisting on the weapons. He's not crazy about them, but as the self-appointed captain of the ship, he had to make a choice. Space is a dangerous place – a very infinite dangerous place – and it's either risk to lose all of his friends to some alien hostile force or take the chance with arming them, hoping they're not going to shoot each other out of clumsiness.

Leo is not a big fan of weapons. Mostly because he is more likely to shoot himself in a foot than hit anything that's supposedly attacking him. He's not a man of action, he's got a different set of skills, so to speak. His main task, whenever they do explore some close to unknown planet somewhere in the galaxy, is to interact with the sentient population. He's got a way with words, and he easily makes friends. Or, as Adam put it once, for some inexplicable reason, everyone likes him. Possibly because they don't know him yet.

“Aren't you forgetting something?” Adam asks. He stands between Leo and the ship's hold door, blocking the way.

Leo already knows what he'll see in Adam's hands when he looks up. One of the stun guns. “Oh, come on! This planet is supposed to be safe,” he complains instantly.

“Only 30% of this planet is charted, Leo. So, it's not supposed anything.”

“Technically, since most of it is not charted, thus not known with certainty, everything is supposed on this planet. That's what supposed means.”

Adam frowns. “So you agree, this is not a safe planet.”

“No, I'm just stalling,” Leo pouts. “I don't want one of those things.”

“You have a choice. You can take this stun gun with you as a sensible way to defend yourself in case some alien lizard attacks you to eat your heart out, or I use this stun gun on you right now and you don't leave the ship.”

“It's not much of a choice, is it?” Leo frowns, aggressively grabbing the stun gun from Adam's hand.

Adam steps aside and lets him pass. “It depends on how you look at it. I could have stunned you and be done with it,” he smiles, pleasantly.

Once everybody is out and the hold door closed with an ominous screeching sound, which promptly forced Matt to add fix the door again to his endless mental list of repairs, Adam rounds them up for a recap and the usual pep talk. They have just landed on a remote and small planet, just a few hours from Pluto. Despite its proximity to one of the oldest and most important member of the Mainstream Planets Circuit, this planet and hundreds of others are yet to be fully explored, on account of the bad stretch of space which separate them from Pluto, where a meteor belt makes very hard to navigate. Many a team just think that the risk of damaging or losing their ship is not worth the chance of visiting little planets. Luckily for them, Annie could drive the ship in any condition – included the explosion of two out of five engines, which she did – and so, moving past the meteor belt was no problem whatsoever.

“Meredith, what does the guide say?” Adam asks, scanning the area around the spaceship. It's a small clearing, a few feet from a small scrub of trees that look like spruces, except that they are icy blue, like those plastic Christmas Tree they sell in the malls. So far, no visible threats.

Meredith quickly browses on her tablet. “The guide says basically nothing,” she announces, without looking up from the screen. The little guide the DSD made available on-line for this specific planet is about five pages. “Air's okay. No noticeable temperature range. It's basically always spring here. That's good. Blah, blah, blah, intact environment, blah, blah, blah, presence of fauna and flora similar to those of Oetune, which is to be expected, since the two planets are very similar configuration-wise, blah, blah, blah, any and all findings, including but not limited to animals, plants, new species and resources, must be reported to the Department for Space Development through forms C to S, as stated in paragraph three of your travel license, we know all this. Oh! This is interesting.”

“What?” Adam asks, half annoyed by his own need of abiding the law, which prevents him to ask Meredith to just skip to the important parts. The law requires them to read the travel guides and guidelines before any expedition as part of their mandatory preparation, and the fact that they always read quickly through them just moments before starting to explore, when they are already on the planet, is breaking the law enough for Adam's adamant sense of duty.

“It's said here that the planet was the object of two previous explorations, during which the presence of a small settlement in the South-East was reported, but the two teams involved in the discovery never engaged the local population for some reason. The people is described as somewhat primitive but nothing more, they were possibly uninteresting.”

“What about the rest of the planet?” Matt asks.

“Nothing,” Meredith answers. “Apparently nobody cared enough to take a look.”

“Or they cared and there's nothing,” Leo suggests. “Maybe we should ask ourselves why this planet is so close and yet unnamed are unexplored.”

“I think it's the perfect way to start this vacation. The planet is on the map, but it's unexplored,” Adam instantly intervenes, stopping Leo before he can complain about whatever he wants to complain about. “So, we can warm up with something easy before leaving for something more... demanding.”

“So this is basically the stretching part of a space traveling work out,” Annie chuckles. “I like it.”

“Thank you,” Adam says, grateful for the support. “So, we are gonna split to cover more ground. Now, I don't like this one bit, but since we decided to spend only a couple of days on this planet, there's no other way to proceed. The rendezvous is here in five hours. Please, make sure you walk only long enough to be able to come back in time. I don't want another Cheron experience.”

Everybody fidgets awkwardly. The incident on Cheron is something they don't easily talk about. What happened was that for some reason – possibly the high amount of a toxin in the air they didn't know about – some of them just walked and walked, allegedly enthralled by the exotic black and hell-like landscape of the planet, until their radio batteries died out and they found themselves nowhere near the spaceship with the prospect of spending the night in the wilderness without being proper equipped for it. At the time they were supposed to meet back at the ship, only Adam and Meredith were there, and they had to leave right away for a rescue mission, before everybody else died of hypothermia. Adam was so angry at them that he swore they were never gonna hear the end of it. In fact, they never did. They don't talk about it, but Adam brings it up every time he can. It became a cautionary tale.

“If any of you finds any trace of alien sentient life, you contact the others and we regroup to decide what to do,” Adam continues, saying things he has been repeating forever in the past years. “You are not to engage the local population, no matter how friendly looking it is, alone. Speaking of which, Leo, I think I should come with you. Just this time.”

“I really think you shouldn't,” Leo shakes his head.

“I do trust you,” Adam says, implying that he kinda doesn't, “but we want to make sure that nothing, you know, happens.”

“For the umpteenth time, Adam, those girls definitely didn't wanna kill me,” he says, rolling his eyes. “A guy can't even be kidnapped by a all-girl tribe to become their God once that you never trust him again. Geez, you should really learn how to give people a break, you know? It happened six months ago!”

Matt chuckles. “You're not helping your cause, bro.”

“If you don't want me to come with you,” Adam insists, “maybe you can take Matt.”

“I'm not gonna take you or Matt or anybody else. I'm gonna go alone and enjoy my stroll on this probably very boring planet, where the chances of being taken hostage by an horde of beautiful women is sadly close to zero,” Leo says. “Are we free to go now, Cap'n?”

Adam frowns, but nods, dismissing them. He watches them as they take different directions, hoping nothing's gonna happen and deep down knowing that he's not gonna be this lucky.

*

Despite its boredom and possibly the absence of beautiful creatures ready to mate with him during fascinating and mildly creepy rituals, Leo must admit that the planet does seem beautiful. He didn't want to come here because he's not the kind of explorer who likes the wilderness – he's more likely to enjoy interacting with new civilization, learning the language, fraternize with the locals – but it really looks like the perfect planet to spend a couple of days before leaving for a big, dangerous adventure.

He's walking along a path of strangely emerald grass among icy blue spruces. It feels like being in one of those snow globes with a tiny Christmas village inside. The planet's colors are saturated, giving off the impression that everything here is made of sugar or glass. And it's weird, because everything looks cold and sparkling with snow crystals, sort of wintry in a way, but the weather is warm, definitely spring-like. Every time he touches the leaves of a plant or the vaguely sugary dust on a rock, he expects his hand to come away wet, but it doesn't. It takes him a while to get used to it, but he likes it.

When he reaches the end of the scrub of trees, the path opens on a wide clearing, the strong green of the grass standing out against the outline of the icy mountains he can see in the distance. The sight is absolutely stunning. “Wow,” he whispers as the beauty of this place really hits him for the first time. He grabs his tablet and after updating the map, he takes a couple of pictures, which leave him quite unsatisfied because, despite the high quality of his camera, digital images can't do justice to what his eyes are seeing.

He decides that this is the perfect place to end today exploration. He has walked enough anyway, and he can't go further if he wants to get back to the ship in time. Plus, the lake bank seems the perfect spot to rest and have something to eat. The lake is big and vaguely flower shaped. Leo has never seen a water so blue before, and even if he knows better than dive into waters he knows nothing about, he still reaches out to wet his fingers to discover that the water is warm too, despite looking cold.

He's still lazily moving his fingers in the water – a thing Adam would scold him for, because doing that is almost as dangerous as diving in – as he savors the sandwich he carefully prepared with his own hand back on the ship, when something rustles behind his back. Leo turns around, a hand to the stun gun at his hip. But the clearing is empty. There's only him, the lake and the trees. Leo takes a deep breath, trying to calm down. “My bad,” he murmurs. “I keep forgetting not to let my guard down just because I'm sitting next to a pretty lake in a fairyland place.”

The rustle comes again though, always behind him. This time he stands up, gun in hand. He didn't even know he could be so quick at holding it. He scans the place, but he can't see anything. Leo is not a contemplative guy, and he's definitely not patient. Being alone in the wild just gives him paranoia. “Alright,” he says aloud, mostly to give himself courage. “I see that my brain doesn't agree on staying here any longer. Let's grab my things and go back.”

But when he turns to retrieve his backpack, he finds himself looking into blue eyes. He takes a step back, stumbles and barely manages to keep standing, the stun gun shakily in his hand, proving to be completely useless in his hands. “Hi?” That's the first thing that comes out of his mouth, and it doesn't get him anywhere.

The creature in front of him looks human enough, the size and look of a fourteen years old boy.
He's got straight black hair, blue eyes and cat-like tail and ears. And he's barely dressed in a very short tunic and Leo's jacket, which he's apparently wearing as a weird headpiece.

“Hi there,” Leo tries again, waving his hand. “My name's Leo. Who are you?”

The creature listens to him very carefully, but then seems to decide that Leo is not interesting enough at the moment. All the weird-looking little things scattered on the ground catch his attention tho. He crouches on the grass and tentatively nudges Leo's equipment with a hand, like a cat would do with his paw. When nothing fights back nor move – thus proving to be completely uninteresting to him – he goes back looking at Leo, who hasn't moved an inch. When the creature opens his mouth, Leo is almost expecting to hear a meow, but what comes out of it are definitely words. Not words he can understand, but words.

“Ah! You talk. That's prefect!” Leo smiles, friendly. He presses a hand to his chest repeatedly. “Leo,” he says slowly.

The creature tilts his head on the side as if pondering what he just said. And then he smiles a feline smile, little pointy teeth showing behind his lips. “Leo,” he repeats quite right. Then he presses his open hand against his own chest. “Cody,” he says.

Leo smiles widely. “Cody,” he repeats. “Nice to meet you.”

Cody takes a couple of steps forward, and Leo doesn't feel the need to step back. Cody smells sweet – weirdly candy sweet, actually – and he doesn't seem dangerous at all, despite those teeth and the fact that he looks like an hybrid between a human and a feline, which could mean cat but also lion, and other combinations that wouldn't be exactly safe.

“Cody,” Cody says, touching his chest again. Then he touches Leo's. “Leo.”

“Yes,” Leo nods, slowly.

Cody watches him intently, his big blue eyes fixed on him, following his every move. His stare is so intense to give Leo a little chill, but underneath it there's a subtle, yet powerful, vibe of pleasure. Something that should make him think this through, but it doesn't. As Cody gets closer and starts smelling him, his lips slightly parted as he registers the smell, exactly like a cat would do, he starts purring. The sound is strong and low, echoing deep inside Leo's body.

He doesn't need to speak to Cody more than their names to know that he's gonna be late for the rendezvous. There might be no female tribe ready to seduce him, but Adam's got a big problem coming his way anyway.

TELL ME WHAT YOU FIND WHEN YOU READ MY MIND (A BADLY DRAWN GIRAFFE)

Board games have been banished among them a long time ago.

They still play video games together, of course – nothing could keep Leo away from his consoles – sometimes cards and even role play games, when Adam feels confident enough to pretend he's something is not, doing stuff he's not really doing, in a place he's not in. But anything with a board, fake money, tokens and such has been buried away, forgotten, because it triggers the memories of them being the drunkest they have ever been in their life so far. All it takes is a die, and Adam remembers the awful feeling of losing control over his own body. Leo is once again bended over the toilet bowl, really believing he's going to puke himself dead (and vaguely wishing so at the same time). And Annie can feel again the sore in her lower back when she fell down from the table, after dancing half-naked and shamelessly so.

They were young, that was high school and they didn't know none of them couldn't handle vodka.

Tonight, it should be fine, tho.
They are in college, now. They are adults. And they had plenty of time to learn what drinks they are allowed to drink and in what quantity. There's no reason not to play a board game together. Actually, that's the best idea to spend some time together and get to know Cody better. He and Leo have been together for weeks now, so it's about time Adam and Annie meet him properly.

“It doesn't have to be Pictionary,” Cody offers, as he looks at them eyeing the game box suspiciously. The air is so tense around the table, it's almost hard to breathe. “I only said that because it's my favorite, but we can play something you like. Monopoly, perhaps. Or even Scrabble if you like words more.”

“It's not that,” Leo says, knowing that Cody feels easily self-conscious if he thinks he did or said something wrong. He put some safe cans of coke and two bowls of pop corn and chips on the table, and sits down opposite to Cody.

“We had a bad experience involving a board game,” Annie adds, smiling sweetly to Cody. And then she proceeds to explain. They were fourteen, she had the house to herself for the first time, she had the boys over, and they had the tragic idea of mixing a classic board game with a drinking game. As it turns out, you don't want to drink every time you have to pay when you play Monopoly. “We haven't played a single board game in six years.”

“Too many memories,” Adam nods, and then he opens the box of Pictionary, proving himself the hero among them once again.

“Did you really feel so sick?” Cody asks Leo, as he takes out the pencils and the little blocks to draw on. There's a vague amused tone in his voice, but he doesn't dare to laugh. He has seen Leo drink – drink heavily also – but he has never seen him so drunk as to be sick or even out of himself.

“Are you kidding me?” Leo says. “I threw up twice in Annie's room before reaching the bathroom.”

“And all the way there,” she reminds him. “There was a line of two days worth of meals along the stairs of the first floor.”

“Eeew,” Cody makes a face, but he can't help but chuckle this time.

“I thought I was gonna die,” Leo says dramatically. “And I though Annie might be dead already. She fell from a chair on a table straight on the only piece of floor without any rug. Her ass made an ominous sound hitting the ground.”

“I remember seeing her on the floor, whining and trying to roll on her side,” Adam says, shuffling the cards. “But every time I tried to stand up to go to her, my legs gave in. I think I managed to move two inches that night. It was horrible.”

“And then what happened?” Cody asks.

Leo sighs. “Annie's parents came back, and laughed at us a great deal. Then, her father gave us this disgusting concoction that tasted like rotten egg or something, I swear I can still taste it, and then called my fathers and Adam's mother. We were all grounded for, like, forever.”

“The best part of ninth grade's first semester,” Adam supplies. “Or at least that was the initial sentence. Then it was reduced to the first two months as mutually agreed by all the parents involved.”

“They probably didn't want to permanently damage our social life,” Leo reasons.

Once the board is set, two tokens – one blue and one red – are already on the starting line, the cards are all in their boxes and the sand timer is ready to be turned over, they look at each other. “So, what are the teams?” Annie asks.

“Well, we have two people who can actually draw,” Leo says, “and they can't play together. So I say me and Annie, we take one of you each.”

“Am I allowed to choose your boyfriend?” Annie asks, knowing the answer already.

Leo doesn't even turn towards her as he grabs a handful of pop corn to shove in his mouth. “No.”

“Couldn't you just say I wanna play with Cody, suit yourselves?” Adam asks, forever annoyed by Leo's need to make everything more complicated.

Annie chuckles. “Then, I'm stuck with you, Walker.”

“Don't be too excited about it,” Adam snorts. “You're embarrassing.”

Annie chuckles louder and throws a pop corn at him. “Oh, come on!”

Cody looks at the three of them and smiles sheepishly. They've been friends for so long and it shows. The way they talk and deal with each other, the way they always seem to know what the others are going to say or want next. It's a warming thought, but it makes a little hard for him to blend in. It's easy to feel the outcast when those three are together, because it's almost like dealing with one single person. One he doesn't know.

“Are you sure about this?” He asks Leo. “Adam is way better than me at drawing.”

Leo smiles at him. “I don't know about that,” he says. “Even if, I know how his brain works when it's about giving hints, and I'm pretty sure I'm better off with you. Plus, I want to play with you,” he adds, and then smirks. Cody knows what he's gonna say before he says it, and he blushes. “I always want to play with you.” He leans over the table and kisses him sweetly.

“Aw! So cute!” Annie says, watching them as she would look at two puppies.

“No smooching! Stop the smooching!” Adam protests instantly, making them all laugh. “Smooching is not allowed at my table. Come on, Romeo, roll the dice.”

Leo chuckles and throws the dice. “Six” He moves his and Cody's token on the board and looks at the square it ends on. “Yellow. P. What's P? I don't remember the rules.”

Adam took possession of the instruction sheet when the box was opened and he now proceeds to read from it like he's been invested from God himself to do so. “Person, place, animal. You must draw the word printed in the yellow box on the card you choose.”

“And I have to guess,” Cody adds with a smile.

“Good luck with that,” Adam says. “He couldn't draw a stick figure if his life depended on it.”

“Shut up!” Leo snorts, choosing a card. He reads it and nods. “Okay. I got it,” he says, putting the card away.

“You've got one minute. Are you ready?” Adam asks, ready to turn the timer.

Leo's got the pencil in his hand already. “Yes.”

“Go!”

Cody instantly kneels on his chair, leaning on the table to have a closer look at the piece of paper Leo is drawing on. Adam wasn't wrong, Leo can't draw. None of his lines are straight and he's got no sense of proportions at all. But he's very lazy and, as it turns out, that's a good quality for this game because he draws only what he really needs, which translates into a lot of different hints drawn and changed very quickly.

The circle with two eyes, some sort of snout and two ears on top of the head tells Cody that this is an animal. He tries with dog and wolf, but Leo shakes his head. He draws... horns on the head, maybe. So Cody tries with moose and deer. Then Leo's pencil goes down, drawing the longest neck line ever, something that would make a five years old green with envy in a kindergarten.

“Giraffe!” Cody screams. “It's a giraffe!”

“Yes!” Leo puts down the pencil and gives his boyfriend an high five. It took them no more than twenty seconds.

“That was easy,” Adam snorts. Rolling the dice. “I wanna see you two with a real challenge. Five. All play.”

“Meaning?” Asks Annie.

“Both teams compete with each other. The designated players draw the same word, the first team to guess wins.”

Adam chooses the card, and he and Cody read the word printed in the red box. The word is nuclear plant, and they both frown. Cody's face is so dark for a moment that Leo loses all hope to even get close to the meaning of what he's about to draw. It must be a hard one.

When the sand timer is turned, Cody and Adam start to draw. They're both so focused on the pieces of paper in front of them that it almost looks like this is serious business. Adam's trying to be precise and detailed, to be as clear as possible. But Cody knows Leo. So, instead of drawing a random nuclear plant, he draws the chimneys of the one Homer Simpson works in, with Homer on the side for good measure. In the same style The Simpsons are drawn in. It takes Leo a little more than thirty seconds to get it.

“Homer, Springfield, Work... Plant! Nuclear plant!” He screams, slamming his hand on the table.

Cody chuckles at his enthusiasm. “Yes.”

Annie looks at Adam's drawing, that looks just like a square thing for now. “How was I supposed to get that this is a nuclear plant?” She asks, genuinely confused.

“Well, I was trying to draw a planimetry, first. I was getting to the chimneys later,” Adam answers, almost outraged that Annie hasn't thought about that. Annie just shakes her head.

In the turns that follow, Adam learns how to be a little quicker and less precise, so Annie can guess vampire, warm and a very hard to rain. But it's Cody's perfect rendition of Marie Antoinette (with the head rolling!) and Leo's sad excuse for a platypus (consisting in a circle with a beak on a side and a spatula tail on the other, and four little legs) that make them win the match. The victory is celebrated with a lot of smooching, of course.

Later, Adam and Leo are on the couch, drinking a beer and watching some match or other – Leo doesn't really know. Adam was there, and he decided to join him. Annie offered to take Cody home after the game, possibly because she wanted some time alone with him, and so it's just the two of them now.
“You really suck at drawing, man,” Adam says, looking at Leo's scrabbling leftovers from the Pictionary game that lie scattered on the table. “Really suck.”

“Well, that's why I'm studying to be a lawyer and not an artist like you.”

“With your handwriting, it was either lawyer or doctor,” Adam reasons. “And you suck at bedside manners.”

Leo chuckles. “You're just mad because you can draw, and I still won.”

“Nah, you're just lucky as fuck,” Adam shrugs. “And Cody is proof enough of that. He's a doll, and you don't deserve him.”

Leo frowns, playfully. “Should I be worried? Are you gonna make a move on him?”

“If I was gay, I probably would,” Adam snorts. “Just to spite you.”

“Too bad I'm not gonna let go of him, so...”

Adam refrains from saying the only name in the world that would disprove that sentence.
He knows that that would turn a perfect lovely day into shit in no time, and he doesn't want that.
Just for this once, he can believe Leo will be true to his words. Instead, he grabs Leo and rubs his head sore with his knuckles, enjoying the little, undignified screams that he lets out.

If anything, they make up plenty for his defeat.

SCENES FROM A WEDDING

If ten years ago someone had said to Leo that he was going to marry a woman and three men at the same time, he would have laughed hard enough to give himself convulsions. Not only the idea was so impossible to sound totally preposterous – a human beings are gonna fly like eagles kind of thing – but it was also an extremely illegal concept. So, thinking about it, nobody would have actually dared to say something like that ever, not even as a joke. This kind of jokes weren't very appreciated back then and, in the best of cases, would lend you with a Decency Department Inspection.

The Country had known a very long period of freedom and acceptance before the NCP came in, the National Conservative Party, but Leo doesn't remember any of that because he was born after the change in government. Actually, he was born more or less in the middle of it, and he was too young to remember, so the only things he witnessed with his own eyes were the consequences of the NCP government, and growing up in them, he considered them quite normal.

He was five when he found out that over the wall that surrounded his playschool there was another playschool for special children, boys that looked a little like girls and girls who liked to be boys. He was ten when those schools were closed and all those special children taken away. But he didn't know what was happening back then. His father didn't explain and the newspapers were simply too vague for a kid his age to fully understand.

In a very short time – the few years he needed to grow up – words like homosexuality, bisexuality, transexuality, genderfluid, genderqueer were completely erased. And not only those specific words, but every term that could refer to sexuality in every form, even the only one that was legally permitted.

Marriage between man and woman was naturally encouraged, but highly controlled.
Everyone was expected to live by a set of very strict moral rules that would have been unthinkable and laughed at just ten years prior. The Country had gone back almost a century without even a flinch, and everybody who didn't agree was buried in the ghetto or dead.

Leo grew up in the City, and the ghetto was already part of it by then.
Nobody would go there, except the police or the politicians when needed, and nobody would talk about what was in there. As much as he's ashamed of this now, he didn't question anything until Blaine made him. He was accepting the situation, even though he wasn't quite content with it. He didn't fit the stereotype of the perfect boy as Meredith didn't fit the one of the perfect girl, but they would try to survive in the world they lived – by bending the rules for one another – rather than really fight against it, partialliy because they actually didn't know another way was even possible.
Press and news were controlled, the net and the borders were closed, and while the rest of the world was moving forward, the Country was trapped in a bubble that looked dangerously like a very bad copy of the 1950, one of the eras the NCP loved and approved.

The change, when it happened, came from the ghetto itself – and it was the most obvious place, really. Hundreds of people locked away and forgotten by the normal people like they didn't even exist, forced to live in shacks, in a gray place with no law to protect them, no life, no future.
The least it could happen was a revolution.

Adam had fled the city at the age of ten to come back years later as a hero. Following the footsteps of his parents, he finished what they had started, bringing down the government with the help of the UN, and taking temporary control of the nation. Ghettos were instantly dismantled everywhere, the people liberated and the wall of ignorance fell, forcing everybody to see what the reality was, forcing them to accept that no matter how tight they closed their eyes, people different from them were still there, and they were going to continue to be different because different was okay.

Adam had opened a communication channel with every part involved.
For a very long time he had really just listened to everybody. He had helped those in need, but he had also reached out to those who were his enemies. He had been perfect, and as a result, he was elected President in the following legal elections. The Nation was ready to give him – and the colorful circus that inevitably came with him – a real chance.

Leo was proud to have been part of this.
Helping the revolution had been a direct consequence of his finding out what was happening. There was no way he was gonna stay idle after he discovered the truth. And not only because Cody was in the ghetto and Leo had fallen in love with him. The people in the ghetto were the living proof that he and Meredith were not weird, and he was going to fight for them.

Now, almost two years later, some things are different, others are on their way to change, but the Nation is open again to the rest of the world, and people can be what they want to be without fear of repercussion, at least not from the government itself. Problems are still there – some of them brought a lot of people to the hospital, Adam and Cody included – but nobody is gonna stop for that, and that's what matters.

There's a whole new kind of freedom to do whatever makes you happy, which for Leo means – among other things – being together with the four people he loves most in the whole world. Somewhere along this relatively short but life changing journey, he found out that he can't just love one person. As Meredith so beautifully put it, he feeds on love, which can sound sappy but it's quite true. He fell in love – real love – with all the people that are in his life right now, and he couldn't do without a single one of them.

Actually, up to a while ago, the number was just three.

Three were the people he was with – Meredith, Cody and Blaine – but then Adam swept in, or came back (but had he really left? Leo's not sure), to be with Cody. It was hard for them to accept the fact that they were going to have to share him, but they did somehow. And that is why by 10 a.m tomorrow they're all gonna be married.

That, of course, if all the preparations don't kill them all first.

*

The ceremony is taking place in the house.

They had very few options in that sense. The wedding had to be impressive but safe, with Adam being the President at all. They had some great locations in mind, but Casey rejected them all for safety reasons – and also in the hope of postponing the whole affair indefinitely – and after a few months of mounting frustration, it was down to having the ceremony in the house or not having a ceremony at all, which at that point looked like a good option too.

Luckily the big mansion they currently live in – a generous non voluntary gift from Meredith's late father, who would have rather committed suicide than letting his only precious daughter live in it with her boyfriend and her boyfriend's many boyfriends – seemed to respond to all the requirements Casey had set in order to give the wedding green light.

The house has been decorated with white and pink roses all over the banisters of the stairs and along the doorframes. The main room has been dismantled and refurbished just for the occasion with tables and chairs, and a stage for the strings quartet to play on. The hall – which is in fact a studio in normal days – where the actual ceremony will take place has a new white carpet, two wings of chairs to accommodate the guests and a beautiful antique table to hold the registers for the signatures. The entrance hall is a triumph of flowers around the white wooden arches that will welcome the guests that are expected to arrive soon.

Even without guests, the house is already crammed anyway. Besides the bride and grooms, there are the bride's hairdresser and make up artist, Casey and a whole command of his men, a few chosen photographers and close relatives, even though their number has been reduced to three – Leo's father and Cody's parents – after the rebellion and their consequent abjuration by many of their loved ones.

Cody's parents have been fretting around their son all morning, leaving Leo's father alone in the big house. The poor man doesn't know what to do with himself; with these many people around, he doesn't think Leo needs his help, and he wouldn't know how to help anyway, so he's basically stepping aside here and there, trying not to get in anybody's way.

Dave has taken the news of his son marrying four people discretely well, all considered.
He had just barely found out that Leo liked both boys and girls alike, and he already had to understand the concept of polyamory, but he did a great job being all accepting and whatever floats your boat, son. The point for him is not acceptance. There's no question that he loves his son and accepts him no matter what. But for his simple and very traditional mind this is all very confusing. He knows what all the labels mean – he comes from the time when they were actually created – but some things are new for him too. And one of the newest thing, of course, is Cody and the fact that he's genderfluid.

"It means that sometimes he feels like a boy and sometimes like a girl," Leo tried to explain to him at the beginning of all this.

"But he's a boy," David replied.

"He was assigned male at birth," Leo corrected him, being specific was part of his job as a lawyer for equal rights. "But he's neither a boy or a girl."

At that point, the desperation was clear on Dave's face. He even liked the kid, he was so cute and funny, but he couldn't understand him for his life, and that made him feel at fault. "But he has to be something," he whined, unable to grasp the multifaceted concept that is Cody's sexuality.

"Just think of him as Cody," Leo offered. "It's easy as that."

It's not easy at all for him, but Dave accepted the suggestion and tries to go with it.
Besides, it doesn't happen often that he has to discuss Cody's sexuality with him and, once he got used to see him wearing skirts and dresses – something that David did pretty quickly because Cody looks extremely good in them and it's easy to forget all together that he's been assigned male at birth as his son put it – he had exactly zero reason to ponder on him any further since Cody is adorable and everybody would consider themselves lucky to have him as a son-in-law, as he is about to do.

Leo sees him smiling at one of their photos hanging in the hall as he passes by looking for the other grooms. As a matter of fact, he finds them in Cody's room, getting ready for the ceremony. Blaine is still in his shirt – his jacket resting on the bed – and he's helping Adam with his tie. "It is unacceptable that you don't know how to tie your tie," He says. "You are the President."

"I must have missed the passage in the constitution where it says that it's one of the requirements," Adam snorts.

"Well, it should be," Blaine replies. "A well dressed man is always a delightful sight, and God knows if this Nation needs good things to look at."

"We could dress him in a suit and throw him to the people next time he speaks in public," Leo suggests, entering the room. "They won't even need to give him back."

Adam is about to reply with something equally mean, but Blaine beats him. "Don’t' even start, you too!" He scolds them, and then sighs. "Leo, did you even try to look presentable?"

"I am presentable!" Leo says outraged, showing himself off. He's either totally oblivious to the shirt sticking out from his pants or he doesn't care, not to mention that he's wearing his tie loose around his neck, as a long strip of silk.

"Come here," Blaine says, pulling him closer by the jacket. "Aren't you wearing a suit every day to work? Is this how you go out?"

"No, Meredith fixes me," Leo explains, while Blaine puts his shirt back in his pants and makes a perfect knot to his tie too. "I don't understand why we couldn't just dress casually."

"I don't know," Blaine chuckles. "Maybe because this is a formal occasion, and you're marrying the President of the United States?"

"Ah! I knew it had to be Adam's fault," Leo jokes.

Adam was trying his jacket on, but he stops just to make a show of writing on his hand. "Look at me, I'm drafting a Divorce Bill just for you."

Leo genuinely laughs at this. "You're a prick!" He says, in between laughs.

Blaine looks at the two of them affectionately.
This is how they should be all the time. This is how they used to be when they were little, Blaine remembers it very clearly. Adam was Leo's shadow, and there was nothing Leo would do without including Adam.
Adam would usually go all No, we can't do that before following his friend anyway, knowing that Leo would find a way to hurt himself or get scolded if he didn't tag along. They lived according to the unwritten law of friendship that's better to be grounded both than leave a friend alone.

That forces a stupid sound of tenderness out of Blaine's throat. "Aw, you were so cute," he says aloud, following a line of thoughts the other two know nothing about. "Why can't you just be like this all the time?"

"Because he fucks my boyfriend," Leo promptly answers.

"Excuse me?" Adam replies. "I could say the same about you."

Leo snorts. "As a matter of fact, you can't. If anything, you're the lover that we decided to keep because that would make Cody happy."

"You make out with this lover," Adam points out.

"And that's totally not the point," Leo replies.

Adam looks at him with the eyes of incredulity. "You're unbelievable! How is this not the point? This is exactly the point, Leo."

Blaine sighs, rolling his eyes. "What is unbelievable is that today you two are gonna marry, and you're still hating on each other," he says. "Adam, you vouched for polyamory to the whole Nation. You're gonna be the first president with multiple partners. And you, Leo, you are the spokesperson for this specific kind of relationship. You are promoting it to the people! Did you two even listen to yourself?"

They both clear their throats and looks down, like little kids. Sometimes Blaine really wonders why he put himself in this situation. Why he had to hook up with people so much younger than himself. Most of the time it's like running a kindergarten again.

"So," Leo clears his throat again, casually, "have you seen Meredith yet?"
Blaine wasn't expecting an apology by any of them.
They can be persuaded to apologize about pretty much every other matter, but when Cody is involved, the only good result you can manage is for them to stop momentarily, and it's a miracle if you do it quickly. Sometimes they just go on for days and a lot of screaming, pouting and door slamming is involved. "No, it's bad luck to see the bride before the wedding," he answers. "But Cody said she's a vision."

"Cody saw her?" Adam frowns.

Blaine chuckles. "He firmly believes the tradition can't work on genderfluid kids because when the tradition started, genderfluid kids were not acknowledged. He called it a loophole," he explains.

"Also, I'm feeling like a bride today," Cody offers in his own sweet voice, showing up at the door, "and the tradition says nothing about brides seeing other brides before the wedding."

The three men turn around and three jaws drop simultaneously.
Cody's wedding dress is a weapon of mass destruction, and none of them had the slightest idea that it was going to be like that. The kid wears the shortest pair of lace shorts they have ever seen on him under a white, fluffy tutu, and a tight, creamy white corset of military inspiration, with a fake double-breasted fastening and golden buttons. On his head, he wears a simple crochet headband that just makes his face look all the more feminine. And yet, he's not exactly a girl.

Leo is not aware of taking a step forward until Blaine stops him, grabbing him by his shoulder. "Where do you think you are going?" He asks. "It's best for everybody if you don't get near him right now."

"That's unfair!" Leo protests instantly. "Have you looked at him?"

"That's exactly why you are forbidden to touch him until after the reception," Blaine confirms.

"After the reception?!" Leo almost screams.

Adam pats him on the shoulders. "Sorry, bro," he says sincerely, he can feel Leo's pain right now, "we're trying not to scare the guests by banging each other stupid right in the middle of the ceremony. They might misinterpret the gesture."

"How?!" Leo keeps screaming, and it's not clear if he's more distressed by the temporary imposed celibacy or by the guests' supposed failure at seeing why they would want to have sex with Cody, in any case he's taking Adam's word seriously.

Cody chuckles and has pity on him, getting close enough to give him a comforting little kiss before stepping back again – he loves him a lot, but he also knows him, and if he wants to be presentable at his own wedding, he can't orbit around Leo much. "Don't worry, Leo," he just says, winking. "I'm gonna keep the dress."

The shift in color of Leo's eyes says everything Cody needs to know about what's gonna happen when the wedding is over and the banishment is lifted. Leo goes crazy for him in a skirt, especially if said skirt is a tutu. That might be one of the reasons why he asked the fashion designer to add one to the original design of his wedding dress. If he knows anything, Leo won't even take the dress off him.

Leo realizes the same thing and lets out a frustrated moan, letting himself go face first on the bed. "You're not helping," he whines. Then, he crawls back up, trying to put himself back together again. "You could make amend by telling me what does Meredith look like right now."

"I would never do that and ruin her moment," he says with an impish smirk. "You will see for yourselves soon enough."

*

Soon enough is actually three hours later, which is not soon at all on Leo's clock. Luckily, he's been passing all this time shaking hands and nodding left and right without knowing what he was actually nodding at, and being generally nervous.

It turned out that Casey's commando is not the only armed group present at the wedding. Casey is so nervous about the whole event – according to him, any kind of criminal act can be potentially perpetrated today from a simple shooting to a meteor rains maneuvered with non-existent technology to literally crash the house – and so he called backup, and the head of all these separate groups of armed men all want to check in with the President and the head of the house. The fact that the two figures don't match is driving everybody crazy.

After this roundabout of reports and What do you want me to do about that, sir?, it feels quite relaxing to be finally at the register table, waiting for Meredith and Cody to arrive. At least, none of Casey's gorillas can approach him with yet another question.

Behind the table, the functionary is already preparing all the papers they will have to sign besides the register itself, after he has done his speech. The three of them are standing in front of him, Leo in the middle with Adam and Blaine on each side of him. The room is quickly filling with people. Front row on the left side there is the small group of their relatives, the biggest absent being Meredith's mother. They have reached out for her several times in the past two years, but she was always adamant about not wanting anything to do with her daughter, or any of them for that matter.

The fact that she hates them more because they are four queers than because they were involved in the killing of her husband is proof enough of her being an evil woman. Meredith tried to talk to her and explain why they did what they did, that the rebellion had tried to reason with the man for years until they were left with no other choice, that people were suffering and something had to be done. Meredith gave up on her completely when she said that all those people – Meredith's people and Meredith herself – deserved what it had been done to them, and that her father had shown mercy on them, instead of putting them out of their misery as he should have done. From that moment on, Meredith has no mother anymore, and there was no reason to be sad about it because probably she never had one.

That makes him realize something about them being a very big group of people.

Organizing this wedding has not been easy – if traditional weddings are no piece of cake, try and have one with five people involved – and they had to think a million details over and all agree on each and every one of them, but among all the things they discussed, their honeymoon night never once came up. And Leo has really no idea what they're gonna do tonight, and it's not a small problem at all.

They are a mostly non-sharing polyamory group, that's the definition he himself came up with to explain the different typologies of these kind of relationships to the general public. Their dynamic is quite simple, really. He is sexually involved with any other member of the group (Adam included, if he takes the few times he, Adam and Cody had a threesome into consideration), but they don't have intercourse with each other, with the sole exception of Adam and Cody. And then, there's Blaine's peculiar situation. He's a father figure to Cody – no other feelings involved there – and, on some level, even to Adam, and he's gay, which means that he has no sexual interest whatsoever towards Meredith, despite loving her very much as part of the family.

Usually, this situation isn't a problem at all, they take turns with Leo according to their needs and that's it.
But tonight things could be much more complicated. Even if Leo spends his wedding night with Meredith – which is probably a given, since she's his original fiancée, so to speak – and Adam spends it with Cody, given that Adam is on tonight that is, that leaves Blaine alone on his honeymoon, which is not even an option. But Leo is the only one who can spend it with him, and that would mean leaving Meredith alone.

There's evidently too little of him to go around today.

"We have a problem," Leo hisses, leaning towards Blaine.

"What?"

Adam frowns at both of them. "Be quite, you two!"

But Leo has no time to be quite (when does he?), not when a catastrophe awaits them. "You don't understand, Adam! Come here!" He insists, pulling Adam closer, so that they can huddle. "We have a problem."

Adam sighs. "It's actually us who have a problem, but we decided to keep you, don't worry."

Leo doesn't even register his words, and that says something. "I mean about the wedding," he clarifies, looking at them as if they could read what the problem is on his face. They can't.

Adam is aware that his joke missed, and he knows that it can only mean one thing. "Leo, if you're having cold feet now, I'm afraid it's too late," he says, patting him on his shoulder. "Cody and Meredith are about to arrive, and Casey won't let you run away. Nobody is allowed to enter or leave the room without his consent."

"I mean tonight!" Leo insists, frustrated. "What are we gonna do tonight? How?"

Blaine and Adam look at him and realization suddenly dawns in their eyes too.
There's no sensible way to divide into couples and they can't be all together either. The mere idea of spending the night somewhere near Cody when he's with one or both of his boyfriends makes Blaine wants to cry. It's already hard enough to come to terms with the fact that he's somehow marrying him, but they can't ask him to do more than that. "Don't expect me to find a solution," he says, taking a step back and shaking his head, knowing that whenever Leo's got a problem, he turns to him.

Panicking a little, Leo turns to Adam. "Tell me that at least you're off," he says. "It'd be one problem less."

"Are you kidding me?" Adam snorts, and there's a vague hysteric undertone to the sound he makes. "I haven't touched Cody in two months to be sure I'm gonna make it tonight. If I don't have sex, I'll burst."

"But you can't do it!" Leo protests, and this time his complaint has nothing to do with Cody. "If you have sex, what am I supposed to do? Flip a coin? I can't go with Meredith and leave Blaine alone, or the other way around."

"Overdo it," Adam suggests him. "First one room, then the other."

"What? No! I don't even do that on normal nights!" Leo says, plainly outraged. "It'd be gross and totally not romantic. You suck at giving suggestions, Adam. You're not helping."

"And how are you helping exactly? It's you who goes with everyone, it's your problem."

"It wouldn't be a problem at all, if you hadn't tagged along," Leo replies, struggling to keep his voice low. The guests are starting to guess that they're not just chatting. "You make us an odd number."

"Excuse me? Without me, you'd have two people waiting for you to finish with the third!" Adam points out.

"At least they would keep each other company!"

Blaine wonders once again why he hasn't just moved to Bali and lived the rest of his life surrounded by tanned boys, none of which emotionally dependent from him. "Listen," he says sternly, the organ player has already sat down and the general vibe of the room tells him that their brides are coming, so he needs to be very quick about this, "we are going to be in Ibiza tonight. We go out, we get in the first club we see and we drink and dance ourselves stupid, until we fall asleep on the dance floor. The first night is gone, we can easily divide those that follow equally. There, problem solved."

"That's perfect!" Leo says. Apparently, avoiding first honeymoon night's awkwardness was more important than having sex for him. This is a first.

Adam doesn't agree with him, but he doesn't have another solution, so he accepts his fate bravely.
There's no more time to discuss anyway because, after a nod from the functionary, the organ player starts to play the wedding march. As a full hall of people stands up to greet the brides, Leo, Adam and Blaine turn around and their jaws struggle to stay in place for the second time in three hours.

If Cody alone was gorgeous, he and Meredith together are simply breathtaking. Their dresses are so well matched that they don't outshine each other in the slightest. Instead, they seem conceived to be looked at together, one not fully complete without the other, exactly like the beauties who wears them. Meredith's long blond hair is collected in a bun on top of her head and decorated with the same lace Cody's shorts are made of. There are flowers on her elaborated corset and she wears a big, fluffy skirt made of fabric waves that leaves her long, pale legs naked. Leo has never seen her look so gorgeous, and he can feel his own legs shaking just looking at her.

He must swallow pretty hard at the sight, because Adam chuckles at his side. "Are you still sure you wanna skip sex tonight?" He asks, smirking.

"Shut up. I hate you," Leo says, unable to tear his eyes off Cody and Meredith.

"That must be the reason why you're marrying me," Adam whispers to his ear. Luckily, there's no time to reply, 'cause Leo truly is speechless this time.

*
One hour and a great deal of signatures later, they are stuck with a hundred people – Leo doesn't really know how they can possibly call it a intimate ceremony with so many people around – in the main room, while the quartet plays a romantic but joyful song and Casey is really busy embarrassing himself with a speech he's clearly not fit to give.

At some point he started clinking a knife against his glass and insisted to say a few words.
He even stood up but the twins have not been blessed with height by Mother Nature, so it didn't do much for his scenic presence. Luckily for him, he's got a strong, assertive voice, so nobody dared to look away or get distracted. More than giving a speech, he's taking their guests hostage.

"I will say this," he starts, pointing at them. "These people are a real mess, and I hate them all. They are... Well, for starters they are too many, and they are stubborn, annoying and impossible to keep safe. All in all, they are unable to take care of themselves."

"Well, it could have been worse," Blaine murmurs sarcastically to the others.

"Yes," Adam nods. "He could have turned his men on us."

"For one," Blaine says.

"If they end up making my little brother suffer," Casey continues, speaking to the guests as if the five of them weren't even there. "I'm gonna kill them all, that's for sure."
"If anybody is shooting a video right now, it's gonna be viral by tonight," Leo comments, looking at what seems like their end, here played by Casey.

"Maybe I should stop him," Cody sighs, taking a step forward. But then he stops, hearing what Casey is saying next.

"But the point is this, you see?" Casey says. He looks over to them, and his expression doesn't really change – it's still the stubborn, angry frown it always is – but it's got a sweeter look to it, one only they can get. "They are unable to take care of themselves, that's why they need each other. When they're not fighting over stupid things, they are the less idiotic group of people I've ever seen."

Cody smiles, tenderly at his brother's words, and he's not surprised when he hears his voice tremble and his eyes get lucid. He feels the same way after all.

"Is he crying?" Leo asks in shock.

Blaine chuckles, amused. "It looks like he is."

"Oh, my God! We have to take a picture, so we can blackmail him later!" Leo says, looking frantically for his cellphone.

Blaine stops him from doing anything as he hugs him from behind. "Shut up," he whispers, leaving a tender kiss on his cheek. Leo feels Meredith's hand slip in his and Cody's featherweight against his side as Adam presses Cody against him with his own body. This morning he was scared about this marriage, but the truth is they were married before this and no signature can change the feelings that were already there, it only makes them more real, and so stronger and better. Point is, he doesn't know what's gonna happen next – not tonight, not the nights that will follow. He only knows that he's never been happier, and if that's the start, there's no reason for him to fear the rest.

CONVERSATIONS ON THE INVALUABLE WORTH OF OBLIVIOUSNESS

Getting used to a polyamory life has not been easy for Leo, and in fact he never did.

The idea of sharing Blaine with two more people has never really suited him. Even when he was still an escort and he knew for a fact that Blaine was seeing other boys like him, he had always considered Blaine something his, and their relationship something special, if not exclusive. Being him an escort, he couldn't demand real exclusivity from Blaine, but he had come to think that if there was some gradient of exclusiveness to be reached in their situation, they had reached it. So, when he found out that he was not gonna be the only one living in the big Hamptons house with Blaine, he was pretty pissed.

Now, he hadn't lived his whole life dreaming and waiting for a knight in shining armor to come and take him away from the horrible life he was living. One, he was not living an horrible life. He lived in a two bedrooms apartment in Manhattan, working a couple of hours a day tops with only selected clients, for a sweet amount of money, health and dental care included. Two, he was a romantic guy, but not a complete idiot. So, he didn't spend his time hoping for something that would possibly never happen. He would have done with a rich partner alright, but if none was available, he was not gonna lose his sleep over it.

But then Blaine had come along, changing everything.

He was incredibly handsome and generally more charming and well mannered than half the other clients Casey would throw his way – money doesn't equal class most of the time – and he seemed inclined to not only receive pleasure, but give it also, which was a pleasant surprise for Leo, who loved to be handled more than he loved to handle things.

In time, Blaine stopped being a normal client and became something more.

He would even come over the apartment outside Leo's normal schedule and without paying anything, breaking two fundamental laws in this line of work. Clients are not supposed to make surprise visits to your home and under any circumstances they should be allowed to get a ride for free, no matter how gentlemanlike they are, or how much they make you scream in bed. And bypassing Casey was not a great idea either. The guy cared very much for his percentage for obvious reasons.

But Leo was willing to risk Casey's anger – or better, he blatantly ignored the possibility that Casey could find out and get angry – just to let Blaine spoil him disgustedly. When the man offered Leo to come and live with him in the Hamptons, it took Leo exactly zero seconds to answer yes. Finding out that he wasn't the only hooker Blaine had rescued was brutal for him. Leo was outraged – he often is – and offended – he often is too – and he didn't want anything to do with Blaine anymore, or with those other two for that matter.

But Blaine's deal was clear: it was all three of them or none of them. And after a great deal of cuddling, cooing, and being given the bedroom closest to Blaine's, Leo got over it and accepted to share his man with two other boys.

Then, as often happens with him (and as Blaine knew it would happen), Leo grew quite fond of the rest of the family – very fond in Cody's case – and as soon as he got himself the chance to know the others better, he found out that he liked them. He hadn't had many friends back then, and having friends was fun.
Not only he got accostumed not to be the only one for Blaine – even if the most spoiled – but the boys started to have their own routine when Blaine wasn't there or when he was with one of them. Everything fell into place, and a few months after Blaine took them away from New York, Leo was quite content with his new life.

That is why Casey's sudden reappereance set Leo off again.

But it's not just Leo this time, Adam is pretty upset too by the situation. And he never is, so this should be proof enough that something really is not right. Casey is not the most pleasant of people at best, and he has the uncanny ability to annoy everyone with one single action, in this case showing up at their house randomly and unannounced. Either he wants to spend some time with Blaine (that is fucking with him) – a thing he's supposedly not allowed to do – or with Cody (and it's still debatable doing what), someone is bond to get really angry at him. Not that this changes anything.

"I hate him," Leo says, entering the kitchen. Adam's already there, drinking one of his high-protein shake, ready to frown upon Leo's coke as soon as he gets it out of the fridge.

"Must be Friday," he comments, tilting his head back to get the last two drops of what looks like chocolate milk but most likely is not.

Leo glares at him from behind the fridge's door.
"Ah ah, you're definitely here 'cause you're funny," he replies sarcastically, deciding that just a coke is not what he wants. Seeing food made him hungry. Just like seeing certain people makes him horny. He's a very simple guy as far as his urges go.

"And what would you be here for, then?" Adam replies.

"Boys, boys, calm down," Blaine joins them in the kitchen, a smile on his face. He's been quite happy all the time, lately. Having three younger boyfriends tends to do that to you, despite all the drama three young men barely out of puberty can bring onto you.

"He's hating on Casey," Adam explains.

"Must be Friday," Blaine comments. He goes to the coffeemaker and pours himself a cup of coffe, which judging by the hour, should be his second or third one. It's still morning, but he wakes up way earlier than any of them, Adam included.

"Would you stop doing that?" Leo protests, stacking slices of cheese and ham like his life depends on the sandwich he's making. He always eats like there's no more food in the world. "I'm not even angry half the time you say I am."

Adam makes a very meaningful face.
"Now, let's just not talk about that," Blaine says, averting the storm before it can even happen. "Why are you hating Casey today?"

"What is there not to hate about him?" Leo asks, taking a bite of his sandwich.

"Silly me not to be more specific," Blaine says, chuckling at Leo's glaring face. "What exactly are you hating about him? What did he do?"

"Except breathing and living and existing in the same reality Cody and I exist?" Leo asks, sitting on the table. Why using chairs like normal people do, after all? "He showed up without even a call and took Cody away, messing up our whole schedule. Not mentioning his inappropriate behavior with Cody."
It's not clear which one is Casey's biggest crime, taking Cody away when he was supposed to hang out with Leo or his inappropriateness, a word that doesn't even begin to cover the way Casey hugs, touches and kisses his twin brother on the mouth any time he feels like it. Both things are equally upsetting for Leo.

"He's his brother, Leo." Blaine always tries to use logic with him, even tho it never works. Leo's brain starts to work only after a great deal of emotion-ridden reactions.

"Oh, yeah? How do you know?" He asks. "Maybe next time me and you make out, we're brothers too."

"Well, you do look disturbingly alike," Adam offers, half serious.

"Why are we keeping him, again?" Leo asks Blaine, nodding towards Adam.

"'Cause he's cute, same reason you're all here," Blaine answers calmly as if this was a perfectly normal question – which it is, all considered. He leans in to give Leo a kiss, before going to pour some more coffee into his cup. "Anyway, Casey does nothing wrong with his brother."

"Blaine, you can't be serious," Leo says, big blue eyes open and filled with incredulity. "You live here, you have eyes. There's no way you could have possibly missed it."

"Yeah, I'm with the brat on this one," Adam agrees. "The guy's creepy."

Blaine sighs. "The guy's a guy," he says, blowing on his cup. "And Cody can be very hard to deal with when you are a man. You both should know that."

Leo has been shameless about the strong, overwhelming desire he feels every time Cody comes too close to him. Cody literally can't sit next to him without having Leo all over him in some way or another, and despite having sex together only when Blaine is breaking the rules and having it with Casey (it's both a form of compensation and a way to calm Leo down, stopping him from breaking the furniture), they always mess around anyway. So, Blaine said nothing new about him.

Adam, on the other hand, has never seemed interested in Cody in that sense. Actually, he never seems interested in sex in general. He has it with Blaine, he likely takes pleasure in it, but sex doesn't make him thrilled as much as it should do, at least according to Leo. "Wait, are you saying that the Ice Queen here is hot for Cody too?" He asks, smirking. "Elsa, what are you hiding? Let it go!"

Adam snorts so loudly that the sound coming out of his nose is ridiculous. "Why every time you open your mouth, I can hear bullshit?"

Leo smirks. "Blaine, Adam's withholding something, and I reckon this attitude is in direct contrast with our fully disclosure policy."

They don't have a real policy in the house, but they do have a rule to be honest and open with each other. Since the main reason of disagreement seems to be jealousy (that is, when it's not Casey), Blaine decided that nothing can happen behind anybody's back. "Come on, Adam," Blaine encourages him. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about."

"I'm not embarrassed!" Adam says, right away. "I just don't wanna say it to him, because you know what he does."

"Blaine!" Leo whines again, insisting for the man's intervention.

Blaine chuckles. "Let's say Adam was victim of a series of unfortunate events in the kitchen."

"It was an accident!" Adam protests. "I wasn't even thinking about it. I was leaning on the counter and Cody came near me, reaching out to the top shelf and..."

Leo's smile has progressively become bigger and bigger while Adam was talking, and now he looks like the Cheshire Cat. "And you humped him, didn't you?" He asks, knowing the answer already. He could read it on Adam suddenly red face.

"See?" Adam cries out, turning to Blaine. "Did you see that? I told you! That's why I didn't wanna say it. He always does that!"

There's nothing better than seeing Adam fretting for whatever reason. He's always so calm that Leo thinks he needs to be shaken every once in a while. "Oh! I'm so proud of you, Adam." He chuckles impishly. "You shouldn't be embarrassed. This only proves that you are human, after all!"

"It was an accident!" Adam repeats frantically, in a high pitched voice that comes from the deep and dark abyss of his embarrassement. "And I know that it doesn't matter how someone is dressed, but he never is! He's always hanging around half-naked!"

"Oh, it's way worse than that," Leo says nodding. He looks like he knows what he's talking about. "'Cause, you see, if he was just naked, you wouldn't mind so much. I mean, he's cute and all, but nudity is not so shocking. The point is that he's always dressed like he was ready to be undressed or if had just been ravished a moment before. Sometimes, the sight of his shorts barely covering the curve of his ass makes you cry in joy. What are we supposed to do?"

"Well, leaving him alone?" Adam tries, frowning.

"You didn't," Leo points out.

"It was an accident!" Adam repeats for the third time. They are talking about Cody's clothes as if they justified sexual harrassment, and that's not okay. This is why the whole thing makes him awkward. "I don't want to say that the way he dresses forces us to put our hands on him. But I really wished he didn't do....what he does."

He closes his eyes, sighing. He's really distressed, and that makes Blaine smile affectionately. "I understand what you mean, Adam," he says, calmly. "But I can assure you that Cody doesn't do anything."

"Yeah, he just likes to dress like that, but he genuinely has no idea of the effect he has on people," Leo says, nodding. "I mean, he knows he's cute and everything, and sometimes he does do that on purpose, but those are the times that he's really lethal. Once I had him coming into my room with some frilly pants from last century or whatever and a girly shirt, and he knew I would go mental – which I did. But most of the time, he's just himself and that's enough to make people crazy."

"He's completely unaware of his potential," Blaine explains. "That's his charm. The way he moves..."

"What he does..." Leo adds.

"Yes, also what he does," Blaine chuckles. He can see the little red hearts in Leo's eyes every time he talks about Cody. "Nothing is planned with him. That's just who Cody is. And he's got a certan effect on people, his brother included."

Leo's blissful face turns into a frown in a second. "No, that's exactly the point. The fact that he is his brother should prevent him from wanting to bang Cody."

"I don't think he wants to have sex with him," Blaine says, implicitly correcting Leo's register. "He's just not immune to Cody's charms. Besides, they are twins, and twins always have a special bond. That together with Cody's magic results in some..."

"Weird shit," Leo concludes for him.

"I was about to say unusual conduct," Blaine says, sighing.

"Whatever it is, I don't think it's right," Leo continues. "Cody makes us all crazy for him just barely walking into a room in his pajamas, which is both a torture and an insanely exciting thing. And it's okay if it happens to us because he's your boyfriend, which kinda makes him our boyfriend too. But you wouldn't let some random man on the street humping him, would you?"

Leo makes a little pause, and Blaine realizes that he's actually waiting for an answer. "No, of course not," he answers, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Right! Because it's a fucking random man. And Casey is something like that."

"Well, he's not exactly random. He's his brother," Blaine protests.

"Yes, but that's totally not the point. We can't let everybody have a go with Cody just because he's this overly sexualized individual who doesn't even know that he is."

"Nobody's doing that, Leo!" Blaine says, shocked. "Casey is his brother, and he's not doing anything to him. He's overly touchy? Yes, maybe. But they are twins and you can't consider this whole situation as if he were a stranger. Plus, Cody can decide for himself, and he seems okay with this."

"So you won't do anything about it?" Leo asks. He was probablye expecting Blaine to take action.

"Well no?" Blaine answers. "I mean, what should I do? Stop them from seeing each other? I don't think Cody would be happy about it. He loves his brother."

Leo shakes his head and cleans the table from the bread crumbs he left behind. "Yeah, the problem is that Casey loves him too much," he mumbles, throwing the crumbs in the sink. "Anyway, when he's back, I call dibs."

"Excuse me?" Blaine arches an eyebrow.

Leo shrugs, nonchalantly. "We were supposed to go out and Casey took him away. It seems only fair that I get to spend time with him."

"Oh, so that's how it's gonna be?" Blaine says. "You were so mad that he was here, and now you're stealing him away from me?"

Leo doesn't worry because he can hear the playful tone in Blaine's voice. He walks to him and leans on his shoulder. "It must be his sexuality working his magic on me," he whispers on his lips, a smirk twisting his lips upward.

"Oh, I see," Blaine nods. "So you're not sleeping with me tonight?"

The question is pointless. Even if they hadn't already decided that tonight was Leo's night to be with Blaine, Leo would have always answered yes. "Of course," he answers, giving him a quick kiss. "Eleven o'clock. In your bed. We are gonna have sex, in case you were thinking oterwise."

"When aren't we?" Blaine calls after him with a sigh, as Leo leaves the kitchen. When Blaine looks up, he meets Adam's questioning eyes and his even more meaningful arched eyebrow.

"Why are we keeping him?" He asks, mocking Leo's word. "Cuteness can't be enough in his case."

Blaine's chuckles. "That's his charm, you know?"

"Being a a spoiled prick?"

"Being so good at being spoiled that I actually want to spoil him more, I guess." Blaine has no better explanation for the things he's willing to put up with for Leo. Except that he loves him, of course. In fact, the two things could be connected. He loves to spoil him because he loves him, and he loves him because of how good it is to spoil him.

"I see. So, one is unhealthily sexy and he doesn't know, the other is too demanding and he doesn't care," Adam summirizes. "I guess you have some masochistic kink you don't acknowledge. What flaw did you choose me for?"

"You're too good to be true," Blaine answer promptly, pulling Adam towards him.
Adam chuckles and Blaine kisses his smile.

As a matter of fact, none of them knows the effect they have on him, and he decided not to tell. He already knows that he's gonna die having sex, he just wants to postpone the moment as long as he can.

IT'S SUNNY, THEN IT'S NIGHT

Blaine's house is a three stories mansion perched on a hill just outside the city.
You can see the whole of it from up there, from the columns of the Government Palace to the spires of the Temple, and the long, light blue line of the river dividing the circular city into two perfect halves.

The first time Leo got to see the house, it was the day he was brought here to be given as a wedding present to Blaine. Now, the memory of that horrible day and those that followed are slowly fading from his mind, drowned by the love and blatant favoritism Cody and Blaine shower him in every day, but you can't really forget the day you've been sold as a sex slave. He remembers how dark and scary the house looked to him, entering from the servants entrance. The hall where Blaine approached him with his deepest, hoarsest voice was cold and bare. It was designed to be used by errand boys and waitresses to come and go from the house without being seen. It was a thing of practicality, not of beauty.

For a few days Leo had only see that entrance and the dungeon where Blaine had kept him to break him – not that he managed, but anyway – and that was his whole new horrible world. A dark room where he was chained and starved, and an hall where he was forced to give blow jobs. Not exactly the best place to start for a love story. But, surprisingly enough, that's exactly how it went down.

Even when he was finally admitted to the private rooms, in the best part of the house, where Cody lived, the house didn't look better. All he could see was another place where he was going to be forced to do things he didn't want to do, chained as an animal and given orders to. On that premises, his own little room – which was actually bigger and more comfortable than his bedroom in his parents' caravan at home – looked like a prison no more than the dungeon's cell did.

Everything was horrible, back then. It took time, Blaine's threats to him, Leo's threats to Cody's safety, and a lot of convincing on both parts before things changed. If he looks back now, he can't believe he grew so fond of them that he refused his freedom when it was legitimately offered to him. Not that he doesn't want to be a free man on paper too, but the Law says that a freed slave must leave the house, and he would never do that. Not even in exchange for his freedom. So he stays, and makes everybody crazy by getting angry at Blaine's inability to both set him free and keep him.

He's officially still a slave, especially outside the four walls of their home, but Blaine and Cody treat him as one of them, a third party to their marriage, if such a thing even exists, and as a consequence of that the house is not a prison anymore. It's home.

The house is not huge as those of some of the other lords of the city, but it's big enough that it takes Leo at least ten minutes to go from one end of it to the other, and he enjoys it immensely when he can use that amount of time to annoy as many servants as it's humanly possible.

The house servants, they all hate Leo with a passion. He stands for everything they find unacceptable and, as if this wasn't enough already, he gloats about it. First of all, it's customary for a lord, especially of Blaine's standing, to get rid of his sex slaves the moment he marries. Since a sex slave basically lives in the lord's private quarters, it's considered unbecoming to keep one inasmuch as the lord's spouse would be forced to share space with him. According to the Law, sex slaves are freed after they have carried out their purpose, which would be prepare the lord to his married life. Actually, their lord's wedding is something they look forward to because it marks the beginning of a new life. But Leo was indeed a gift for Blaine's wedding, which was ridiculous to begin with.

Not only Blaine didn't get rid of Leo the moment he was given to him, but he somehow fell in love with him, which is preposterous. Now, none of servants would even dream of judging their master for whatever reason, but they can very well judge Leo, and blame him for everything that has befallen the house in the past year or so.

The servants social ladder can be even stricter than the common one.
A servant is born a servant, and can't aspire to be anything else. That is why, when your servant status is high, you stick to it, because it's the only form of pride that you can have. Looking down to those who are below you becomes almost mandatory in order to turn your own not exactly ideal position into a bearable one.
The house servants are the very top of the ladder – one step below craftsmen, who are out of the servants social ladder all together – and sex slaves are the very bottom of it. They are barely considered proper human beings, they are just props lords play with, as much as they would with a racket or a ball. The fact that one of them raised so high in rank to pass the status of the house servants and be allowed to act as a lord is unthinkable.

They think Leo doesn't know his place, and that he acts not only against the law but against what's proper for him and the likes of him. Basically, they reserve the right not to pass judgment upon their master's choice of treating Leo better than he would deserve, but they openly disapprove of Leo accepting the freedom that has been unfairly given to him, instead of politely declining it and acting accordingly to his lower status.

It doesn't help that Leo feels entitled to the freedom he has, and so he makes a show of it whenever he can. He never really considered himself a slave or a servant of any kind – he was an actor, son of actors, accused, charged and imprisoned for a crime he was forced to commit – and so now he's only acting as he thinks he deserves. He walks freely around the house, wearing whatever he wants, sometimes even clothes that belong to Blaine, his arms, neck and ankles always naked to show he's not wearing shackles nor his collar anymore. He leaves the masters' quarters whenever he likes, to go to the gardens or even the library, where he helps himself with Lord Blaine's books and reads them, not to Lord Cody – which would be unusual but not so shocking – but to himself, for his own pleasure.

After all, that would be the smallest outrage compared to the fact that he demands to take all his meals at the table with the masters, that he calls them by their first name and that he sleeps in their bed with them, instead of going back to his room after doing his job. And everybody knows that he's allowed to have intercourse with Cody alone whenever he wants, but nobody talks about that because Blaine would be hard to justify even for them.

Leo knows everything the servants say about him, and he cares exactly nothing.
He enjoys showing off and throwing the whole situation in their faces as much as he can, and when his relationship with Blaine and Cody began to take shape, turning into the closest thing to a marriage they could possibly have right now, he squeezed into it with great pleasure, taking the role that would have been Cody's, if Cody wasn't the tiny precious thing that he is. In this excuse for a marriage – as Blaine's father has put it too many times – Blaine is obviously the head of the family, the man who works and brings home the money, who should be guiding his much younger husbands and ends up being at the mercy of their puppy eyes most of the time instead. Leo takes care of the house, gives orders to the servants and reminds them what their masters like and dislike, and that despite the fact that most of the maids refuse to obey him the first time he says something, and they need to be pushed and screamed at. Leo has no problem doing that, while Cody would, that's why he's the pretty husband who, being legitimate, entertains the guests, attends to official events and is diplomatic for the three of them.

It works, despite all the frowning upon. Maybe that's why everybody is so pissed off about it.

Anyway, this morning Leo is not wandering about casually just to give orders and annoy the maids, he's out on a mission. Cody has been moody for the past three days, and that's weird because Cody is never anything but sweet, happy and calm. It took Leo a lot of coaxing and convincing to make him confess what was going on. It appears like the confinement they have been forced into is starting to weigh on him. Blaine's being busy trying to keep his career together, and he's only going out to attend mundane events he's required to go to if he wants to keep his job and status. Those are the only times he leaves the house, and he's not always taking Cody with him because he wants to shelter him from everybody's judgment as much as he can. It goes without saying that Leo has never left the house since he got here, because he can't go out alone and now he can't even do it with Cody because it could be dangerous. Sometimes that's hard to accept, but he's used to lash out whenever his anger is too strong, so his rage disappears as quickly as it came. But Cody is not like him. He bottles up. He's rarely angry, but when he is, he pushes his anger deep down inside himself to avoid hurting anybody. And now it reached the brim, and Cody is one step away to break down.

Leo saw it clearly in his eyes this morning while they were having breakfast together without Blaine.
The man has been holed up all night in his office and the idea that he's not gonna come out of it today either doesn't sit well with Cody's desperate need for a change of air outside this house. So, Leo took it upon himself to convince Blaine to go somewhere for a few days, even if he'll have to use violence to achieve that.

As he comes out of the bedroom and takes the corridor of the second floor, he comes across Harper, one of the maids. It's always a pleasure to meet her because she hates him as no one else in this house and Leo could set her on fire with the sole strength of his hatred. Their feelings of loathing clash against each other at such a speed that they almost generate visible lightnings able to warm Leo's self-entitlement filled heart.

She's a short, tiny thing with big blue eyes and dark blonde hair. Around his age, maybe a little older. She would be attractive, if she wasn't so unnerving. But she is, and Leo can only see her tensed lips set in a disgusted grimace as he approaches. “Clean that glass better,” he says as a way of greeting as she rubs the windowpane with a piece of cloth. “It must look like there's no glass at all there.”

“They are clean,” she protests, no trace of respect in her voice. “More than you'll ever be, anyway.”

Leo never gets offended when she – or anybody – just implies that he's a dirty thing just because he was a sex slave. As a matter of fact, he inevitably takes more baths in a week than she does in a month. “Clever for an house servant. Are they training you to repeat smart things like a parrot? Do you want a cracker?”

Leo watches her close her fists for a moment, struggling to keep herself from replying any further, or even from slapping him probably. Leo lives for the moment one of them will try and hit him. “I knew you would quickly run out of good sentences. Parrots usually do,” he comments. “Now clean them again. I'm gonna be back and I want to see them shine.”

He doesn't wait for a yes, sir. They never say it and he doesn't need it. Besides, he's taking enough revenge by having they actually do what he orders, instead of just forcing them to use words they don't mean at all. His good mood lasts until he reaches the private dining room they use when they are alone in the house – not that he has ever been present at official dinners anyway. There are maids here too, and they are setting the table for lunch. And as they do every day, at every meal, three times a day, they just set the table for two. Leo can't deal with it, and that's probably why they do it.

“You know the drill,” he says annoyed. “I don't want to repeat myself.”

“Then don't,” one of the girl says. “Have lunch where you're supposed to have it and be done with it.”

“Here is where I'm gonna have my lunch,” he says coldly, staring back at her. “Now, I know the concept is hard to grasp for you because your brain doesn't process complex thoughts, but things have changed. I came here as a sex slave, I'm not one anymore. Like you won't be servants anymore if you don't set the table correctly. It's your job, and I could get tired of the shit you pull off every day and tell Blaine you're not doing it right. I know you don't like it, but you know he would listen. So, it's up to you.”

They look at each other, uncomfortably. He could be bluffing, but it's true that Lord Blaine doesn't dismiss what comes out of his mouth as quickly as they would like. At the end of this staring contest among them, one of the youngest girls runs to fetch another plate and set of cutlery. Leo nods. “Now, before anyone even thinks about it, don't mess with my food,” he says in a stern voice, “because I'll make sure not to be the only one who eats it. And I know you don't want your masters to be poisoned or eat rotten food, am I right?”
Nobody answers and he speaks louder. “Am I right?” He asks again.

“Yes, Leo,” the governess says. She's way older than the rest of them, older than Blaine, and she's been in the house forever. She's disapproving of the situation, but she's not exactly hating him as the rest of them. Leo still has to understand what's going on with her, but he learned to deal with the old woman when things get particularly ugly between him and the other servants. She only gets annoying when he passes a certain line, but he only does that when they do. So, basically, she and Leo always manage to reach an agreement of some sort.

“Good,” Leo nods again towards her. He can hear the murmuring raising again as soon as he steps out of the room, but he doesn't care. For some reason, he know she won't let his food be ruined – maybe the importance she gives to the decency of the house prevents her from serving crappy food, even if it would mean to prank him – and he's got bigger problems to resolve.

Blaine's office is two doors down from the dining room. It's one of the biggest rooms in the house, excluding the bedroom which is an entire quarter on its own, and it's got heavy double doors that are mostly kept closed. Nobody is allowed in there alone, not even the servants, because Blaine keeps there very important documents concerning his work. Leo lost count of the times Blaine told him the importance of the books and ledgers contained in the bookshelves of his office. He doesn't care. Actually, he doesn't even care to enter the room, so his precious documents are safe. Why would he want to spend time reading war reports anyway?

The only thing that prevents Leo from getting offended by the implications is that Blaine says the same things to Cody, as if they were two children playing ball around very expensive exotic vases. They broke one last week doing just that but they were as far from Blaine's office as they possibly could, so it doesn't count.
Leo has spent so many time coming here to call on Blaine and try to take him out of this room that he would never come here alone for the sake of it. There are way more interesting places inside the house, like the pantry – which is his absolutely favorite place to take Cody and make out with him.

Anyway, before his brain gets lost in images that would distract him too much from his endeavor, he knocks twice and then enters before waiting for an answer. “We need to talk,” he declares, marching inside.

Blaine looks up slowly with a sigh. “I wonder what closed doors have ever done to you,” he says, rubbing his tired eyes.

“Nothing?” Leo says, puzzled.

“Then why are you unable to keep them closed?” The man asks.

Leo frowns. “If I wait for you to answer my knocking, I'm gonna grow old and die,” he protests, taking a seat on one of the two armchairs in front of the big wooden desk.

“Always so dramatic,” Blaine snorts.

“So, do you have a moment?” Leo insists, one dark eyebrow bent in a perfect arch.

“I suppose I do now,” Blaine sighs. “So, what happened?”

Leo's got the habit of playing with whatever happens to be around him, including rocks, precious items and Cody. And he's got a special fascination with Blaine's paper knife. It would be worrying, given Leo's records, but the truth is that the paper knife in question is golden and he likes to watch it spin because it shines. “Cody is sad, he needs a change of air,” he says, giving the knife another spin and sending a few paper clips to fly across the room. “We have to go on holiday.”

“You're right.”
Leo was expecting several kinds of refusals, to which he had several kinds of responses ready, so Blaine agreeing with the proposal confuses him. He looks up, blinking. “Excuse me, what?”

“You're right,” Blaine says, chuckling. “I know he's sad. And I know that makes you sad. And I can't deal with both of you moping around.”

Despite it being a wonderful news, Leo is suspicious by nature. “And where's the catch?” He asks, squinting at him.

Blaine laughs again. “No catch. The situation really is pretty bad around here, I'm not gonna lie. We need to relax, and if we can't do that by going out for a walk in the city, we're gonna change state entirely. I was thinking of taking you both to see the ocean.”

“You're really taking us out of here,” Leo says, in disbelief.

“You seem surprised,” Blaine says, maybe just a tiny bit offended. Every time he feels like that, his expression gets all stern.

“Yes! I mean no,” Leo clears his throat as Blaine glares at him. “It's just, it doesn't sound real that you want to come out of this office, pack and go somewhere with us. We were kinda losing hope, you know?”

“That's because you have no faith, both of you,” Blaine grumbles. “But one thing is true, I'm not gonna pack. You're gonna take care of it. Also, I leave you the honor of breaking the news to Cody. I'm sure that will keep you both occupied for the rest of the morning. Now, get out of here.”

Leo chuckles and pushes the armchair back, making noise.
Blaine looks up to scold him, but he's already out.

*

They leave the house at dawn, two days after Blaine and Leo's talk in Blaine's office.

Blaine refuses to take any servants with him, so they're a small caravan of three people, two horses and a little wagon containing provisions for a week and the big tent they're gonna pitch once they get there. There's enough room inside for Cody to sit when he gets tired of riding with Leo, but he never does. He's so excited by the whole adventure that he seems to run exclusively on enthusiasm.

They're crossing an almost completely desert land to get to the ocean, and there's not much to see except the golden sand and some very sporadic palm tree, but everything looks already interesting and magical to Cody's eyes, even the endless line of dunes that made Leo sick with nausea after two hours.

He rides in front of Leo, one of his big geographic books perched on the horse's neck and he points left and right at this or that particular landmark. Sometimes it's a rocky peak, sometimes the entrance of a cave that is apparently sacred for one nomad tribe or the other. Leo is not really listening to him.

He talks for hours. He asks questions. Every now and then he screams out of pure joy, just because he's so happy about this that he needs to let it out or he's gonna explode. He's enjoying himself so much that Blaine and Leo can't help but look at him with fondness. But at some point all this enthusiasm wears him out and he falls asleep. Leo puts his book away and gently wraps his arms around him, so he won't fall from the horse.

They ride in silence then, the sun burning so bright that Leo wonders what is it about with this people and this land. How could you possibly see such wasteland and think that it's gonna be the perfect place to build a country on. He was born in the northern regions. He's used to freezing winters and gentle springs. He loves running water and snow. Dry sand doesn't sit well with him at all, that's why he can't wait to see the ocean.
It's almost sunset when they hear the sound of the waves breaking on the beach. Leo leans in and kisses Cody on the cheek, waking him up. “I bet you wanna see this,” he whispers sweetly.

Cody blinks around confusedly. “Where are we?” He asks, but then his eyes grow bigger and bigger in awe and disbelief when he catches sight of the last of the desert, slowly declining into the bluest water he has ever seen in his life. “It's the ocean!” He screams, sitting straight up and then wiggling out of Leo's arms and off the horse. “We're here! It's the ocean! Blaine, it's the ocean!”

Blaine chuckles. “Yes, pet, it is.”

Cody screams excitedly and he runs to the shore. On the line where the desert meets the beach, he takes off his shoes and feels the softer, finer texture of the sand under his toes before breaking again into a run that brings him straight to the water. He splashes around, laughing, turning his face towards the setting sun, his eyes closed. The light of the sunset sets the horizon ablaze and turns the water a warm orange color.

Blaine and Leo bring the horses and the wagon towards a group of cluster pines a little far ahead. Once they get the tent set and the fire going, they will provide a good shelter from the wind. “He seems happy,” Leo says, watching Cody as he scurries left and right along the shore, bathing in what sunlight is left for the day, constantly keeping his naked feet where the water can come lapping at them.

“He surely does,” Blaine agrees as he ties his horse to a trunk. “But what about you? Are you happy?”

Leo smirks. “This is the first time I leave your fucking house in almost a year. What do you say?” He replies.

Blaine chuckles. “I'll take that as a yes.”

Meanwhile, Cody picks up shells and chases after crabs, screaming when they decide to chase him back. Blaine and Leo decide to let him play a little longer. He wouldn't be of any use pitching the tent anyway.
In fact, the tent is not a little structure made of fabric and a few poles, but a proper surrogate of their palace at home, something that is not supposed to be pitched by two people alone. Inside, there's room enough for the big bedding they need and the fire pit.

“Aren't you afraid I'm gonna run comes the night?” Leo jokes as he ties to the ground the rope Blaine just passed to him.

“Honestly?” Blaine looks at him from the other side of the tent. He took off his jacket to work, remaining in his short-sleeved shirt. His hair is messy and he's got stains of dirt on his face where he passed a hand on it to wipe away sweat. It's unusual for Leo to see him like this in a place that is not their bedroom. It's an image of intimacy he's used to associate with their little private world. It fills him with pride and a brand new kind of hunger to see him so disheveled and relaxed outside the house. “No. No, I'm not afraid of you running away.”

“And why is that? I know where we are. I know how to get to the nearest city, and I wouldn't need all this stuff to make it there,” Leo insists. He moves on to the next peg and hammers it in the ground.

“I don't doubt that. But unless you take Cody with you, and you wouldn't dare, I calculated that you can't stay without being all over him or me more than two hours. You'd be starving for cuddles halfway through the desert.”

Leo chuckles, knowing that what he's saying is true. “You got me.”

“You're good at this,” Blaine comments, watching him as he secures another rope.

Leo shrugs. “I used to do this with my father,” he explains. Leo never talks about his family because it's too painful, but at least now he manages not to get angry every time that the argument comes up. Possibly because, even if the current situation doesn't let him free to go and find his people, at least he has something he loves to cling too.

Blaine nods, and then leans in to give him a kiss. They both linger in it for a moment, acknowledging without words that there are things Blaine can't fix right now but that he promised to fix one day, and then Blaine sighs, leaving another kiss on his forehead. “Now go get Cody, before he grows fins.”

Leo chuckles and grabs a towel, it's gonna take some convincing to drag him away from the water, but he's got promises of chocolate to make and that always does the trick.

*

“Aren't you cold?”
Cody turns around and smiles at Leo as he approaches him.

They had a pleasant dinner around the fire pit, laughing and joking with each other as they only do in their bedroom. It was nice and Cody cherished the moment, but at some point he couldn't stay inside the tent any longer. With freedom so close at hand – just a step away – he couldn't think of staying inside four walls, even if they are made of fabric. He would sleep outside, if Blaine let him. So, he went out, leaving the other two alone for a while.

“It's not that cold,” he answers, and then the wind betrays him. Apparently, nights on the ocean are not as warm as he had thought. “Okay, maybe just a little.”

Leo produces a blanket and wraps himself and Cody in it. “Blaine didn't get you here to catch a cold, you know?”

“Did you know it was gonna be so cold on the ocean?” Cody asks, snuggling closer to him and resting his head on Leo's shoulder.

“Yes,” Leo chuckles.

“Of course you knew,” Cody pouts. “This is not the first time you see the ocean, is it right?”

“Well, it is the first time I see this ocean,” he answers, leaving a kiss on top of his head. “I went all the other way across the country once. I saw the ocean there.”

“Was it different?”

“No, not that much,” Leo says honestly. “Water is water. The sound of the waves is the same everywhere there's enough water for them to be born and die on the shore. It's a little bit like the Moon. No matter where you are, it's always big, shiny and magical.”

“But the Moon is only one,” Cody chuckles. “It always looks the same because it is the same. It does look brighter here, tho.”

They both look up at the full moon, a huge sphere just above their head. It looks closer tonight too. “It's because there are no other lights,” Leo says. “The city hides her from us.”

Cody frowns. “Then we should live here, so we can watch her all the time. It's beautiful, isn't it?”

Leo watches him, not the Moon. “Yes, it is.”
*

The morning after, Leo wakes up in a tangle of arms and legs, which is what he opens his eyes to every day, the only thing missing is Blaine.

They usually fall asleep hugging in an orderly fashion, gracefully draped around each other, but Leo is a messy sleeper and Cody is hardly less so, and they end up rolling around and kicking each other or Blaine until what is left is a muddle of limbs and faces press against the most improbable parts of a body. It's something everybody got used to pretty quickly – also because there was no other way – so when the number of legs and arms changes, they can feel it.

It's this, certainly not the right amount of sleep he got, to wake Leo up when the sun is not even out yet. He opens his eyes and blinks, seeing nothing but black strands of hair for a moment. Cody is sleeping on him, covering half his body with his own, one leg across Leo's crotch and his left arm wrapped around his shoulder. His face is buried in Leo's neck, and Leo's got black hair stuck in his mouth.

There's not enough light coming from outside the tent, and that can only mean one thing: it is too early to be awake, no matter the reason. He looks around, as much as Cody lets him, he's as heavy as stone when he's asleep, and he notices Blaine's gone. Now, it's not unusual for Blaine to be up and about hours before them to take care of some business or another. But they are on a beach away from everything and everyone, so Leo doesn't see what could have possibly dragged him out of bed at this ungodly hour.

He gently pushes Cody away towards his side of the bedding. Cody grumbles something that sounds like a complaint but he doesn't wake up. Instead, he grabs his own pillow and hugs him, showing Leo how replaceable he could be. “Thank you very much,” Leo hisses, crawling away. “I love you too.”

He finds his pants under the bed, where Cody threw them last night, and a shirt that could be his or Blaine's, he's not sure. He comes out of the tent squinting at the whitish light of dawn and looks around. Blaine's perched on the very same rock he and Cody were sitting last night, watching the moon. He's fully dressed and he's looking at the ocean, holding something in his hand.

“You are being too much of a morning person to be on vacation,” Leo says, climbing the rocks to sit next to him. “You're just not used to relax, aren't you?”

Blaine smiles at him and there's something in his smile that makes Leo cringe. “Did I wake you up?” He asks, pulling him closer.

“Yes, by not being there,” Leo answers. “I got used to have you somewhere on the bed. It feels weird when you're not.”

“I'm sorry about that,” Blaine says.

“So why do you sound like you're sorry for something else?” Leo asks, suspiciously. He's not very good with feelings, especially others', but he's always the first to sense that something is wrong, probably because he never expects things to go right. He nods towards Blaine's hand, there's a piece of paper folded in half in it. “What is that?”

Blaine sighs. “Something I need to talk to you about,” he says, giving it to him. “It's a drafting. A messenger brought it in this morning.”

Leo doesn't know what a drafting is, but it's immediately clear when he sees the seal of the Department of War on top of the page and the first lines of the missive. Blaine is called to the front, and by the look of it, his presence doesn't seem optional. “I don't understand,” he says, looking up. “I thought you were retired. Doesn't it mean that you don't have to work anymore?”

“It does,” Blaine confirms. “But in some special circumstances soldiers are required back on the field. When the army suffered too many casualties, for example. Training new soldiers takes time, the retired soldiers know what to do already. The situation at the front hasn't been good for the past three months. I was expecting something like that.”

“That's why you brought us here,” Leo realizes, suddenly. Blaine expected to see betrayal in his eyes, but there is none. All he can read in them is confusion and panic. Leo has never looked like the kid he is as he does now. “So there was a catch, after all.”

“Don't look at it as a catch,” Blaine says, calmly. “I just wanted to give you two a good memory, in case–“

“When are you supposed to leave?” Leo asks, interrupting him. The expression on his face clearly expects him not to say another world on that matter. But Blaine will, he has to.

“In about a week,” he answers. “There is no need for us to rush back home.”

Leo can't stop reading the few lines composing the letter. Some of the words are unknown to him, but the meaning is still pretty clear. They are taking him away. “Here it doesn't say for how long,” Leo notices. His voice doesn't show emotion, but the way he keeps swallowing is proof enough of how nervous he is.

“It's usually for how long it's needed,” Blaine says. Leo doesn't say anything. His lips close in a hard line, as if he was afraid that speaking he would let out too much together with words. Blaine feels a surge of tenderness and love for him because he is so scared that he can barely keep himself together, but he's trying so hard. Last time he saw him like that it was when they met. He was terrified of him, now he's terrified of losing him, and in both cases, Blaine doesn't know how to comfort him. “Leo,” he sighs, taking his hand and play with it in what he hopes is a soothing way. “Now you have to listen to me, because this is very important.”

Leo looks like whatever words he is about to say will be enough to make him calm down, which, considering what Blaine is about to say, is already a problem. Blaine holds his hand tighter, rubbing the back of it with his thumb. “In the last few days, I took care of things,” Blaine says, looking in his eyes. “If anything happens to...”

“Blaine!”

“If anything happens to me,” Blaine insists, “The title deed to you is in Cody's name, now. You will decide together what to do, of course, but it is important that he can now sign any document regarding you.”

Leo looks away, biting his lips. “Blaine, I don't wanna listen.”

“You have to,” Blaine grabs his chin and forces him to look at him. “I need you to hear this. I need you to be aware of what me not coming back would mean. If you two are left alone, I made sure you will have the means to go on for a while.”

“It won't be necessary,” Leo hisses. “You will be back.”

“But what worries me,” Blaine goes on, ignoring Leo's protests, “is that someone could take advantage of the situation. My father, for once, would try and take back what is mine, based on the fact that it's his name and not Cody's. I need you to protect him.”

Leo snorts a laugh, nervously. “Me? How? From the chains your father would put me in, if he doesn't sell me?” He asks. “No, Blaine. You need to come back. You will come back!”

Blaine hears his voice breaking, and his own heart breaks too. “Cody can do anything he wants, if you help him,” he continues, trying to stay calm for the both of them. “I know you could work this out together.”
“No!”

They both turn around and find Cody standing there, barefoot and disheveled as if he just got out of bed. They don't know how long he has been standing there, but it's enough to look at Blaine in horror as he shakes his head. “No, that's not possible,” he says again, shaking his head slowly and shrugging. “You are retired, they can't ask you to go back.”

He says each word as if it costs him all he has, and as if he didn't believe it either. He knows that the army can in fact call his husband back. He knows – as every husband or wife of a soldier – the rules of the military life. The fact that he hadn't had to live such a dreadful moment until now only means that he has been lucky.

“Come here, pet,” Blaine says, reaching out to him. Cody bursts out into tears the moment he touches him, and Blaine holds him close to his chest. He could tell him everything's gonna be fine, but he doesn't know that. He will have to fight in the field – a thing he stopped doing ten years ago – and he could be rusty, everything could go wrong. He doesn't want to lie to them.

Leo keeps his distance for a while, wanting to give Cody a moment with Blaine, and also trying not to breakdown too. But he does. Suddenly. He lets out a desperate sob that shakes him to the core, as if he had been trying to keep it down until now and it exploded just right out of him. Blaine reaches out for him too, and they all just hug for a while.

When this all weird relationship started, Blaine knew it was going to be hard, but it's nothing – really, nothing – compared to the pain he's feeling right now, knowing that he put them both in this situation and now, going away, he could be putting them in an even worse one. Cody is unprepared. The kid is smart, but he's too young and he wasn't supposed to be alone, taking care of the family name and business. Blaine had married him after he retired to avoid leaving him alone. Leo can help him, of course, but not outside the house, not in official matters. And he can't foresee how much Cody will be pressured for having him in the house without Blaine to act as a disincentive. People can be mean. Politicians can be even worse.

But he can't dwell on it. Not now. He did all he could to help them out, even in the event he doesn't come back. He believes they can do just fine on their own. He has to believe it. “Enough tears,” he says sweetly, when he feels them calming down a little bit. “Come on, look up. Look at me.”

Both kids look up, their eyes red and still shiny with tears.

“I know it's a terrible news but nothing's lost yet, and we won't act like it is,” He says, and the tone of his voice, though sweet, doesn't expect a negative response. They know, and in fact they both nods. “We will forget all about it for the time being, and enjoy our vacation. We will create good memories to cling on to during our darkest hour, and you will get through this as you got through everything else.”

He looks at them until the first kid breaks into a tiny smile, and he smiles back. He can't tell them what they want to hear but he can say the only thing that count.

Whatever happens, you'll be okay.

THOUGH PLEAS'D TO SEE THE DOLPHINS PLAY

Leo looks outside the window and sees the garden in bloom. Trees are a vivid green against the perfect blue of the sky and all the bushes along the path of white tiles that leads to the central fountain have yellow little flowers that will smell so sweet later this month. He's been here for almost two years now, but it's still hard to remember that there's basically no winter in this part of the country. Nights can get a little chilly – nothing in comparison to what he was used to – but that's as cold as it gets.

Cody has never seen the snow and sometimes he asks about it. So Leo sits with him and talks for hours of storms and blizzards and snowmen that melt the first day of spring as if they were legends, bits and pieces of a world that once was and now it's lost. Cody is fascinated by every word that comes out of his mouth and listens to him carefully, eyes shining with the desire to see all those places Leo is talking about. And every time the story ends, he promises Leo they will see those lands together one day.

Leo knows this will never happen. Blaine doesn't even let them go to the market alone without protesting. He would never give them the permission to go all the way across the world to see mountains covered in snow. But he never says that to Cody. He likes the way he gets all excited at the idea of wearing fur lined boots and walk in snow up to his knees. How can he find in himself to tell him his dreams will never come true when all he basically wants is to feel really cold once in his life?

“You look very thoughtful.”

Cody's voice comes through his thoughts and brings him back to reality. It is sweet and childish like the rest of him, always soft as if he were asking for permission, a thing he certainly doesn't have to do in this house. Cody is thin, with black shiny hair and big blue eyes. He is the only person Leo knows for whom the words porcelain skin really fit the descritpion of his skin tone. Cody's skin really is milky white and it makes him look like a living doll.

Leo too has black hair and blue eyes but, apart from this, they couldn't be more different. Leo's got the tanned skin of someone used to be outside all day – his tan has faded in the past two years, but not enough to say his skin is fair – and his hair is curly and always messy. His eyes are narrow, almost almond shaped, giving him a defiant look. He is tall whereas Cody is small and his slim body betrays a past of excercise. Leo looks as untamed as Cody looks unreal.

Leo really doesn't know how Blaine can like them both.

"Actually, I was just looking at the garden," Leo answers, turning towards him with a smile. "It seems to have bloomed overnight."

Cody climbs on the cushioned windowsill, right next to Leo. But instead of sitting there like he does, Cody kneels, placing both hands on the glass and smashing his nose against it. "You're right," he says, after a long pause. "There are a lot more flowers now. Lady Spring must be coming."

"Hasn't she been here for the past six months?" Leo says, amusedly. This story of Lady Spring comes from an old gipsy fairy tale he told Cody once that they were both bored to death, and they had already spent most of the afternoon messing around. Cody were so impressed by the story that it stuck with him. Now he never speaks of normal seasons anymore, but of Lady Spring and Mrs. Summer, Master Autumn and of course, King Winter, who apparently doesn't care much about this country, since he never bothers to show up. Leo never told him that in the original story each season kills the one that comes before to take its place, in and endless loop of death and rebirth, because that's how his people see the turning of the seasons. Soaked in blood and drama, as they see almost everything. Cody wouldn't understand that.

"Ah! But I came here to tell you something," Cody says as he quickly comes down from the windowsill and jumps on the spot a couple of times with his fists closed. "You distracted me."

"What? I didn't do anything!" Leo protests, but then he lets it go. Now that he looks at him, Cody seems quite excited and, most importantly, unable to stay still. "What's with all this energy, anyway? What did they feed you at breakfast?"

Cody blinks. "We had bread and chocolate for breakfast. Don't you remember?" He asks. Cody can't quite grasp jokes sometimes.

"Nevermind," Leo sighs. "What's going on?"

"Oh, yes! I've got a surprise," Cody says, excitedly. He sits down again on the windowsill with a little hop, his naked feet swinging in the air. "Look what came in the mail today!"

Cody produces a scroll out of the folds of the light blue tunic he's wearing today. The scroll is made with yellow parchement and it bears Blaine's emblem in wax on the front. "It's from Blaine and it's for both of us," Cody goes on, pointing at the few lines scribbled in red on the side. "See?"

The missive is actually addressed only to Cody but his name is followed by a dotted L, in place of a second name Cody doesn't have. This little act of endearment brings a smile on Leo's lips. "I wonder how nobody noticed."

"They did," Cody says. "They just assume they don't know my full name, which is true. Half the people in this mansion are not aware that I still have my own surname. They just think it was canceled from existence the moment Blaine married me."

Leo chuckles. Blaine and Cody's marriage is something they never talk about because it reminds Leo that it will always be a step below Cody – even though both he and Blaine deny that strongly – but every now and then Cody accidentally lets something slip. He's never aware of that, so Leo is simply learning to deal with it. "So, what does it say?"

"I don't know yet. I was waiting to open it with you," Cody replies as he tears the sigil open. He unrolls the parchement and gently flatten it out on his thigh.

Blaine has a very tidy and precise handwriting. All the letters are the same size, except for capitals, which are big, frilly and convoluted. In his businesslike style he asks them how they are and hopes they are behaving. In his coded language – where you actually always means you two – this means that he expects them to be discreet since nobody must now that Leo is not just a common sex slave for Blaine and Cody but an active third part of their current and very illegal threesome.

Leo pouts a little, reading those words. They both know how important it is that they keep this a secret, Blaine doesn't have to repeat it every time. They are very discreet. Most of the times, at least. It's not like they have sex in the garden or outside the bedroom's anyway. And nobody enters without Cody's permission, so not only they're not taking any risk, but there's actually no risk to take.

Blaine goes on telling them that the campaign is going even better than expected. The enemy lost all battles so far and it is quickly retreating to the North. If everything goes as planned – and Blaine has no doubt it will – the war will be over before the Summer.

Then, addressing some of their concerns in their previous letter, he says that they don't have to worry because he's not wounded nor he plans to be so. As a retired officer, he has been called back in his capacity of consultant – since he has faced and beat these same enemies many times before – and he's only required to plan the attacks, not to actually perform them on the field. He would be requested to return to battle only in the event of an impending crushing defeat, which it is unlikely to happen at this point.

Both Leo and Cody have a very vague notion of the war. Despite the fact that Blaine is a military officer, Cody only read about it in books because Blaine never talks about his job, thinking that it's not a suitable subject for his young and impressionable husband. And as far as Leo is concerned, he had the luck to only experience war as a distant nuisance, the news of an incoming attack forcing his fathers' travelling teather company to move somewhere else. What they know, though, is that war is a bloody and messy affair and they constantly imagine Blaine in a pool of his own blood, trying to make it back to the camp with a knife between his teeth as his only weapon, a thing Blane has never had to do even when he was actually fighting. It's not like they really care about the war or have a real opinion about it – war is still a distant concept they can't quite grasp – but whatever it is, they don't want Blaine harmed. Blaine's reassurances of his wellbeing and mainly staying at the camp far far away from battle works for a couple of days, but since they receive only one letter about every three weeks, they worry pretty much all the time.

In the letter, Blaine goes on saying that he's currently in the Asada region and expects to move towards the city of Lumpur in a couple of days. He gives them the new coordinates to tell the messenger, so they can write him back and closes the letter with a five lines declaration of unwavering love.
No name is mentioned in this last part but he phrased it so skillfully that no unwanted reader would think he was referring to other than his husband, except for his kids who know exactly which line is for whom.

Once they have finished reading one of Blaine's letter, they are always a little dizzy; both because they have been holding their breath for days, and because Blaine's way of expressing his love can be rough but it's also overwhelming and it always leaves them a little shaken.

"I'm glad that he is okay." Cody is the first to break the silence as he carefully folds the letter to put it away in a box together with the others they received.

Leo nods. "He said he's in the... Asada region, was it?" He asks frowning. "It's supposed to be in the East but I've never heard about it."

"You haven't?" Cody looks at him, puzzled. It is a strange thing that Leo doesn't know that. He wasn't born a slave. So he can read and write and since he used to be a travelling actor before he was sold as a sex slave, he knows geography too. He and Cody talk about foreign countries – most of which Leo has actually been to – almost every day. Then Cody realizes something and instantly blushes. "Oh."

"What?" Leo asks, frowning.

Cody looks at him, a guilty expression on his face. Leo instantly knows he must have said something triggering – because that's Cody's reaction every time he opens his mouth before thinking – but he has no idea what it is. "Asada is one of the new territories," Cody explains with a sigh. "It was created after you were... imprisoned."

"Oh," Leo comments dryly. That was almost two years and a half ago, then. He spent six month in jail before they sold him to the slave merchant and it took them almost another month to reach the market where he was sold. Suddenly he realizes that in all this time, he has been too busy adjusting to his new life and he has no idea of what happened or what it's happening right now outside the walls of this house. "So," he clears his throat, "Where is it, this Asada? What was it before?"

Cody gets it, for once. This is Leo's effort not to transform this into a reason to get sad or angry. "I can show you!" He says, instantly. He pushes the box back under the bed where they keep it and runs to his bookcase. He's got tons of books in there, but he knows where everything is. "I've got a book."

He grabs an atlas, with a big wind rose on the front cover.
It's embossed in gold, with the four cardinal points tipped in blue and the other twelve in red. The names of the winds are skilfully written inside each line in that same old and fascinating font treasure maps are sometimes written. It looks ancient, even if it's not. Cody thinks that it looks like something you would find in the captain's cabin on a pirate ship. Blaine bought this book for him because he fell in love with that wind rose more than with the maps inside. This atlas is one of his most precious possessions, and he always finds an excuse to look at it.

He climbs on the bed and gestures Leo to join him as he flips feverishly through the pages. "This is the new atlas of the East, after the Seven Reigns Treaty," he explains, his eyes quickly scrutinizing every page. "It was Blaine's last real assignement in the Army. He was between those who signed the treaty."

"And they were only feeding me bread and water at the time," Leo snorts. "Go figure."

Cody looks at him, feeling his bitterness. "Do you want me to stop? I thought..."

"No, don't worry," Leo smiles at him. "I couldn't help myself. But go on, I want to know."

Cody hesitates for a moment, but then he nods. Once Blaine told him that Leo needs to make snarky remarks from time to time, even when he's not really angry. It's his way to deal with things he wouldn't know how to deal with otherwise. Besides, when Leo is really angry, he starts trashing things and being mean. So, Cody can assume he can safely go on.

"Well, there was a war on the coast. Here," he points at the East coast of the land, the one facing the Twin Oceans. Cody's finger traces a line connecting a few countries and then taps twice on one named Abaet in bright golden letters. "Abaet, which is our colony, won against three other countries that were also our colonies and were rebelling against us. After the war, their territories were combined into one, that was later divided between us and our six allies with the treaty, as a reward for their help. So, what now it's called Asada region were..."

"The reigns of Clare, Freca and Elphine," Leo finishes for him. "I knew those places."

"Have you ever been there?" Cody asks immediately. This is his first question every time someone says that they know a place.

Leo nods. "We used to perform in that area during winter because it was still warm enough to set the tent in the squares instead of renting places as we would have to do if we stayed up North," he says as he remembers his dad demanding to go to Elphine at the first draft because he hated the idea of being even a minute cold. "They didn't always understand our accent there, so we would change some words of the script with easier terms to make people understand."

"I understand you," Cody says. "Even though your vowels are so close."

"I never used my accent with you," Leo says, his tone and pronunciation suddenly changing. "Otherwise, you wouldn't have understood."

Cody shakes his head and covers his face with both his hands. "Stop! Stop! You don't even sound like you!" He says, laughing. "How do you do that?"

"What? Do accents?" He asks. "That's part of the job.... well, it was. I can do almost any accent you want."

Cody eyes glow, and Leo knows what comes next. "Let's play a game," Cody says. Every sentence that starts with those words leads to things that never last less than three hours. "I choose a country and you do the accent for me. If you know it and you prove it, it's a point for you. If you don't, it's a point for me. The winner chooses what we're doing tonight."

Leo watches him blush as he says those words. "How do you know I'm not making a random accent?"

"Well, I trust you," Cody pouts. "Would you lie to me?"

"No, I would not," he replies with a chuckle. "Okay, go ahead. Pick one."

As Cody carefully looks at the maps on his atlas, tapping his finger against his lips, Leo has already decided to let him win. If there's something he likes more than being with Blaine, it's waiting for him to return while Cody tries to tell him how he wants to have sex. That's why, despite all his travels, the only accent he remembers is his own and a couple more.

HOLD ME FAST

Cody is aware of having been walking backwards for the past few minutes, but he has no idea where he's going exactly. He vaguely remembers leaving the house to go to a party – something to celebrate Adam's first solo show, probably – and he's almost sure that he had fun there. The place was not fancy at all, some guy named Chuck's basement, but the food was great and there was a lot to drink. A lot.

Usually Cody doesn't drink. He wasn't an heavy drinker before William and he certainly isn't now with all the meds he still has to take. But he was having fun and Leo was there, so drinking has seemed pretty safe. Everything always seems pretty safe with Leo. Even drinking something or meeting new people at a party. He has talked to people tonight – this much he remembers very well – really talked, not just mumbling incoherent sentences that nobody really listens to after two seconds. He had real discussions about various things, and even showed once or twice that he actually knows things and he doesn't just spend his time sitting in a corner and randomly drawing things.

He had fun. He haven't had this kind of fun in ages, really. That's probably why he drunk a little – okay, maybe more than a little. Adam, delighted about his rightful accomplishment to the point of craziness, kept coming around with beers, and Cody was so caught in his detailed account of the last Comicon – which he attended for the first time in five years – that he didn't worry about how many times he had already reached out an grabbed one. Later, Leo joined him, and he was already tipsy to the point where he becomes all cuddly and just hugs him like a teddy bear, swinging right and left.

Now, Leo isn't doing anything like that.

His hands are quite strong as he grabs Cody by the hips and presses him against the wall. Cody doesn't want to open his eyes enough to see what color it is and find out whose house they're at. If this is a house at all. It could still be the basement for what he knows. He's been with Leo long enough to know how his drunkenness evolves: with the first couple of beers he just becomes more affectionate, which means he is way more touchy than he usually is. It can be a problem, but not really. Cody has learned how to deal with having Leo all over him the moment he sits on a couch or he makes the mistake to orbit around him. In the beginning he was embarrassed by the way Leo would leave random kisses on his cheeks and neck or slip his hands under his shirt to stroke his hips while casually talking with other people, but then he saw nobody paid attention to that, either because they were as tipsy as Leo was or because they knew him. It usually takes Leo another couple of drinks to really lose focus.

When he's really drunk – not completely wasted but still not lucid enough to behave properly – Leo doesn't become sad or extremely happy, he doesn't chuckle for everything like a lot of people do. He completely disconnects from his surroundings. It's not like he doesn't know where he is or with whom, he just doesn't care. You can talk to him and ask him questions and he answers – mostly nods – but all is attention focuses on the only thing he wants, which usually is the girl or the boy he's been flirting with the whole night; lately that happens to be Cody.

It has already happened a few times, so Cody is used to this. The only difference tonight is that he's a little drunk too, so everything is confusing, extremely more intense and his usual ways of slow Leo down are not working, either because Leo is not listening to him very much or because Cody is not being very convincing, considering that his whole body feels extremely heavy and the idea of lying down on a bed – no matter to do what – seems way more pleasant than anything else.

This thought resonates with something that's been hidden in the back of his mind for some time, now. He knows this kind of feeling, this tendency to choose something that he's not really sure he wants to do over something that is somehow annoying, just because the first option seems less bothering anyway.

Suddenly, the door opens and Cody realizes that Leo has been trying to blindly open it for the past five minutes, not wanting to let go of him or stop kissing him. He is getting restless, Cody has already learned to read the signs. Leo touches him with more urgency, barely holding himself from tearing off his clothes. In fact, that's exactly what happens when they finally pass through the door and they are inside. It's Leo and Adam's house, after all. It's dark, but Cody can make out the shape of the old couch when he opens his eyes.

As soon as the door slams behind them, Leo presses him against the wall again. He feverishly starts to unbutton his pants and swears loudly when they don't want to be pulled down. Leo fumbles with them a few moments, but he gets frustrated with them very soon and lets them go.
“Get them off,” he speaks against Cody's lips just long enough to say the words, and then he buries his face in Cody's neck, kissing and biting at it.

William would tell him the same. He would push him on the bed and tell him to undress while he watched. And he would say that when he knew very well Cody didn't want to have sex just to see if Cody dared to disappoint him. And Cody would not, obviously. He loved him, and he knew that it was better to take off his own clothes and enjoy what little pleasure would come after that than make William mad and force him to strip him down roughly, risking to get hurt like so often happened.

The only reason why Cody doesn't freak out to that order now is that he knows very well that it's not one. Even in the confusion of his drunkenness – where he realizes that Leo has taken them to the bedroom only when he actually lands on the bed – he knows that Leo is just desperate, that he has been holding himself back so much that if he doesn't have sex tonight, he will probably have a break down. He won't get mad at him, but he will be very depressed.

He struggles to get out of his skinny jeans because what Leo wants from him and what he's letting him doing are two different things. He wants him naked, but he doesn't want to stop touching him, so he has pinned him down to the bed and he's now leaving a wet trail of kisses along his jaw and neck, his request forgotten.

Cody feels like he's moving very slowly. Everything is incredibly hard to do, only Leo is fast, and he's everywhere at once. He kisses his mouth, his neck, his tummy while his t-shirt get thrown somewhere in the mess of this room. And he touches him everywhere. He grabs him by his hips, parts his finally naked legs and slid an open hand between his tights, tearing a surprised moan from his throat.

In all this, Cody has no power. He gets moved, turned, touched, and no matter what he thinks he's saying – but he's not, actually. All that comes out of his mouth are moans and whines that send Leo the wrong signals and the right ones at the same time – isn't enough to stop Leo.

The first moment of sheer panic comes when he opens his eyes – he has no idea how much time has passed since the last time – and he finds himself face down between the pillows. He doesn't know if it's the sudden realization, not knowing how he got there, or if it's the weight on his back, but he just stops breathing and then starts breathing too fast, his heart pounding so hard in his chest that it's almost painful.

In this state of drunken confusion, he loses track of his whereabouts – that he has so hardly discovered – but most of all he loses track of time. Suddenly he's back at five years ago, and this is another house, another bed, another pair of hands that gropes his body and gets rid of the last of his clothes, leaving him naked and helpless to whatever will come next.

His brain is desperately trying to make sense of what's happening. Like in dreams, the scene has suddenly changed and now he doesn't recognize anything anymore. Everything is upside-down, too dark and excruciatingly too fast. He feels like crying. Yet, he can't move. Every single muscle in his body tenses, and he's shaking.

William has decided he did something wrong – so he must have done something wrong – and this is a punishment. Cody can't see what's going on and William won't look at him for all the time that it'll take him to finish. He doesn't deserve such kindness – he did nothing to deserve it, he's always such a mess in this kind of things – he just has to lie still and not make a sound. But he can't because he's scared.

He whines. The sound he makes just comes out of his clamped lips on its own accord. He brings a hand to his mouth, but it's too late. The moan has filled the air. It broke the silence and he can't take it back. The weight on his back shifts, this much heavier body than his own slides on his back and he feels hot breath close to his ear. He closes his eyes even tighter, he tenses even more, expecting to be scolded, hit or whatever he will see fit.

But nothing happens.

“Cody, calm down,” a sweet voice says, and it's not at all the mocking snarl that he was expecting to hear. Those words are not even an order but a soothing reassurance. “It's okay. It's me.”

Cody blinks and tries to clear up his head. Slowly, he realizes the other body is not moving anymore, that it doesn't weigh on him but it's just curled around him, protectively, so he doesn't feel the cold air on his skin, just the warmth of someone's skin. “You're safe,” the voice says again. “We went to Adam's party and now we're back. We're in my house. In my messy room. In my bed.”

As it goes on, the voice becomes familiar. Its sweetness pierces through Cody's dizziness and fear and snatches him out of that bad place where he inevitably gets lost every now and then. “Leo,” he whispers.

Cody feels him smile against his neck. “Yes,” Leo confirms, softly. “Come on, look at me.”

Leo moves enough to let him turn, his arms still closed around him, tenderly. Cody takes his time to look at his calm face, his heavy lidded eyes, his whole body relaxed against his own. Leo's still drunk and his fingers are still idly caressing Cody's hips and tummy to satisfy somehow his need to touch him, but he doesn't look mad or annoyed. He still looks needy, but not impatient. Maybe Leo wouldn't really be able to wait forever but at least he looks like he's willing to, and that's what gets Cody. What really helps him come back to the here and now. Leo just fought his need and stopped to wait for him.

“I'm sorry,” Cody says, feeling a little guilty. “I lost it.”

Leo shakes his head. “I should have asked you if I could do that,” he says. He speaks very slowly, struggling to find every single word. Cody is half amazed and half amused at how Leo manages to be completely drunk but still lucid enough to stop when Cody freaks out. His brain runs on two different tracks, and sometimes it's unbelievable.

Leo often forgets to ask. It's easier for him to apologize after and Cody is usually okay with that. So, maybe it wasn't that he didn't know what Leo had in mind that freaked him out. It was just the confusion of it all. It was the mess in his head, actually. “I'm fine,” he says. And it's true. His heart beats normally, now. He can breath again. And he knows that's Leo there.

Leo seems to hesitate, though. He doesn't know what to do and how, but he wants to do it. So Cody just smiles encouragingly as he turns around again but tilts his head to look at him. “I'm fine,” he says again. “I know that is you now. Just speak to me.”

And Leo speaks to him. He says silly things against his ear, kissing him when he doesn't find the right words. He follows Leo's voice as he moves on him again, as he enters him, as he moves inside him with the same sweetness he's talking to him, coaxing him to relax again and trust him. It's a long rigmarole of words that make no sense but work as a beacon for Cody, so he doesn't get lost anymore.

When it's over, Leo is still hugging him and kissing him and speaking so softly that those are not even words anymore, but it doesn't matter. Cody can nest between his arms and fall asleep, sure now that whatever happened tonight will still be the same tomorrow.

That whatever mess they make during the night, Cody will still be fine with it in the light of day.
And only that counts for him, really. Nothing else.