Love Is Ǝvil

29 Hi, My Name Is

Denaun made sure next time we hang meant soon, like next week kind of soon. Which felt too soon for Marshall, but apparently he wasn't asked about this, so was the deal with catches.

"You don't have to do this", he said to Nicolas. They were still sitting in his car, parked in front of the strip club. "They're just messing with me, you can opt out. You don't owe them anything."

Nicolas waved his objections aside and got out of the car.

So, Marshall sighed and got out of the car himself and followed his boyfriend inside. Once more these days he had this bad feeling creeping around his guts. All of this felt wrong. That his friends knew he was gay, that he'd spilled his guts to Denaun, that his friends and Nicolas were about to hang out for a whole night. He felt like getting sick again.

He gave a short nod to his friends as he sat down.

"I took the liberty to order for you", Denaun said with a smirk and slid a glass with a bright red liquid to him. "Enjoy."

Marshall rolled his eyes. "Come on, seriously."

Next to him a quiet chuckle from Nicolas. Denaun slid a drink to him as well, a bottle of beer, but Nicolas shook his head.

"He doesn't drink", Marshall explained. "A pop's fine."

Ryan grinned at him. "So, you understand sign language now?"

Marshall rolled his eyes. "That ain't sign language, dumbass, that's knowing each other." He stood up, a short gesture to Nicolas that he would get him that pop. It was just a pull of the fist, easy to remember. The book had turned out to be useful after all and there was a surprising amount of material online. After long nights on his laptop, he finally felt confident enough to use a couple of easy signs with Nicolas. The bartender luckily understood spoken language, though. His boyfriend liked the taste of lemon, Marshall knew, so that's what he got him. When he was back at his friend's table, they all looked at him smirking. "What?" Did he miss something? Had he something on his face?

"Sit down, Kitten", Denaun said. "We're here to enjoy the view, no reason to be antsy. Relax."

Nicolas gave him an amused wink. Probably about the kitten, possibly about the advice to relax, too. Seemed like he'd fit right in here.

Marshall grumbled. This did not bode well for him. The aftermath of his Halloween costume just kept coming, didn't it. Why had he needed to do that? Why had Nicolas asked for it in the first place? Cat? Kitten? They all gone crazy.

Nicolas nudged his side and made a gesture with his thumb and index next to his face, looked almost like he twirled a mustache. No, less twirling, more stroking, short and sharply.

"Oh no", he groaned low. "That's kitten or cat or whatever, ain't it." It wasn't twirling a mustache, it was stroking whiskers.

Nicolas signed: »Correct.«

"I think, we gonna have good fun tonight", Ryan proclaimed and drank from his beer.

That's exactly what Marshall was afraid of.

The first round of questions was easy and boring and not very informative. His friends repeated the things they already new from Marshall's recounting or similar mundane questions, and Nicolas kept nodding or shaking his head.

"So, you work in security?", Von asked. Nicolas nodded.

"You're self-employed, I heard", was his follow-up question. Nicolas nodded.

"You two met via an app?", Rufus asked. Nicolas nodded.

"You read a lot?", Ryan asked. Nicolas nodded.