Right Back After This

Season 2, Episode 18

Riz leans down to kiss him, to break that barrier. He hopes it'll pop the bubble around him, but it doesn't; he feels even less present than he did high in the garden with Kiel. He clutches desperately at what he can feel. Amello's collarbones, as he brushes his hand over them, to cup Amello's face, to bring him closer. That zap of electricity may as well be tangible. Amello is easy; Amello makes sense; it's grounding, his solid grip on Riz's belt, and it's logical, the way he fumbles with the buckle, too distracted by the kiss to focus.

Riz has made nothing but a series of bad decisions. Being caught sneaking out, if not having sex, hasn't really taught him a damn thing. He's just waiting to fall into a trap, at any moment.

Like, for example, when Amello brushes over the phone hiding inside the crook of Riz's hips. "What's that?" he asks as he breaks away, pulling it out with his manicured hands, staring at this technological artefact he doesn't understand with- is it betrayal?

"Nothing," is Riz's first answer, and he swallows back the guilt of it. He can't process it all now, but he knows that when he compares Amello and Kiel, Kiel is not the one who 'should' know everything. "I mean- okay, it's contraband, and I shouldn't have it, but it's not- I dunno, I'm not secretly recording us or whatever."

Amello frowns. "Why would I assume that's what it is? What actually is it?" He examines the black screen. "It looks like either a weird camera or a tiny phone."

"Tiny phone," Riz says. "Just for messaging. I didn't get it myself. It was, um. A gift."

Amello tilts his head at him. "Who's giving you secret hidden gifts, other than me?"

Riz supposes he hasn't had the exclusivity talk with absolutely any of his- partners? Can he call them partners, or are they just people he's having sex with? Why does his heart race to ask that question? "Um. Does it matter?"

"Yes, it does," Amello says, and Riz can't tell if there's anger in his tone, or just some pouty sadness. "You're not cheating on me, are you?"

On Majadha, that was the assumption: you had one person, and it was wrong to go beyond them, even if they knew, even if they didn't mind, even if they liked it. In the cultural context that Arbo operated within, that goldworlds either lived by or accepted, there was no such feeling. Nothing short of explicit agreement to monogamy was taken as possession. Multiple relationships, or casual sex outside of your normal partner, were common, unremarkable. Riz was glad for it, for this very reason- why should he choose only one thing to have for the rest of his life, when he liked so many flavours?

Which is why Riz should be more indignant in saying what comes out breathy and lost. "We never said we were-" he begins, gasping as Amello begins to pull Riz's pants down, quicker and rougher than before. "Uh- we never agreed on exclusivity."

Amello narrows his eyes at him, bites his lip. "Can we agree upon it now?" he asks, and his gentle grip on Riz's cock feels like a threat, although not one Riz takes seriously. He's no less dizzy than before, although he's surprised to feel that he isn't already hard; that's probably a first.

Riz struggles to keep track of the conversation. "No," he says simply, his first and easiest response. "I don't- that's not..."

"You don't want me?" Amello asks, and he pushes forward, leaning between Riz's thighs. He looks up at him, now, through his lashes, and Riz can see himself reflected in this: begging for something through a guise of cuteness, in the hopes it'll soften the blow.

Riz knows what's happening, but he can't figure out how to answer quite the way he wants to. "Of course I want you," he says, brushing Amello's hair out of his face, "but..."