Right Back After This

Episode 15

"You're so fucking lucky." Riz mutters this as he steps up in front of Ares, who still, somehow, is surprised by the swear leaving Riz's mouth. "You scared the shit out of me and normally I'd be so angry."

Ares tilts his head to the side. His dark gaze is hard to read, but there's a playful smirk that he's trying to suppress, and Riz looks at it only because he needs to kiss someone right now and Ares is here. "Normally?"

"That's what I mean. You're lucky." Riz grabs him by the lapel and kisses him hungrily. "You're lucky I am too desperate right now to be mad."

"Oh. Is that so?"

Riz glares at him. "Don't waste my time. Where are we doing this?"

"Where? You don't even want to talk for a minute? Just right into-?"

Riz tightens his grip on Ares' shirt for a moment. "Ares. Please. I agreed to all this because I want you to fuck me, okay? I will say it again, you're lucky I am desperate."

Ares takes a step back, forcing Riz to let go of him. "I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I don't appreciate this- this tone. I am not just a cock, Idris."

He is as far as Riz is concerned. Still, maybe Riz did get a little too honest. He performs as he always does, slowing down, grabbing at Are's waist instead. "I'm sorry," he purrs. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm just- you know, it's sooooo hard, being out here all alone, not allowed to touch anyone. I just need you. I'm sorry."

The pout seems to do it, and he drinks in the starstruck look on Ares' face. He pities the fool if he thinks this is anything more than acting to get what he wants.

Riz adds in for good measure, "...please, Ares."

"Thank you," Ares says, sliding his arms around Riz's waist. There are ways you kiss because you don't know how to kiss, ways you kiss because someone is hot, and ways you kiss because you're in love. Ares is far too gentle about the way he presses his lips to Riz's, lets it linger, doesn't want to push it too deep. He doesn't like it when Riz tries to turn it into messy making out. It's annoying, so Riz just pulls away, tugs on Ares' belt, and silently asks the question it was apparently too rude to ask out loud earlier.

Ares sighs under his breath, and takes Riz's hand, leading him down the hall. "We're going to my room," he's saying, whispering now like he's afraid someone's still going to overhear them. "I don't trust us to have privacy anywhere else."

"Sure." Riz doesn't give a shit, exactly. "Are we going to be seen going there?"

"Not if we're quiet," Ares whispers, as they approach the door to the manager's staffroom. Ares opens it slightly, waits a second before pushing it all the way. Riz takes the chance to stare out the window Sonja was so close to before. The angle's changed, and his stomach still swoops at the sight of the wormhole, so large now that he can clearly see what's on the other side. Hole isn't accurate- it's more of a cut across space and time, as if the fabric has been torn haphazardly to let them crawl through from one end of the Milky Way to the other.

He doesn't get long to fear falling into it before Ares pulls him through a door, and his hand is let go in a dark room. It's small. There's a single bed fitted with standardised sheets, a factory desk, a tiny ensuite bathroom with plain white tiles. It looks like a motel room you'd find on Deliquet, or some similar silverworld; not good, not comfortable by Arbo's standards, but a roof over your head, and not too many bugs. Riz saw a few places like it, in his time as a nameless assistant to Frater Raro's church. Another place where he had to follow the rules, and suppress himself, in order to keep quiet the secret that was saving lives. At least then, his role wasn't so pivotal and public.