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“You what?”
Zeke's eyebrows crinkled his forehead up into his hairline, his mouth curving into a disbelieving grin.
“I broke up with Delilah,” Casey repeated casually. His eyes shifted toward Zeke in the ensuing silence and then rolled upward as Zeke continued to stare incredulously. “Oh, don't be a moron. Of course I let her break up with me. She had no clue that it was my idea.”
“Jesus.” Zeke scrubbed a hand through his hair and smirked. “My next question was going to be: 'How are you going to manage to get through life without a dick?'”
“Shut the fuck up,” Casey retorted mildly. “I've got more balls than you.”
“I suppose you do, at that,” Zeke allowed, his tone amused as he studied Casey's profile in the deepening twilight; it got dark so early this time of year. “You survived both Marybeth and Delilah.”
Casey snorted. “I should get a fucking t-shirt made.” To Zeke it looked like Casey shivered slightly as he pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans... it was getting colder, too.
Easing his ass away from the trunk of his car, Zeke retrieved his cigarettes from his back pocket and shook one from the pack. He blinked away the flare of the lighter from his retinas and found Casey watching him from where he leaned against the carriage house post. He raised the pack in Casey's direction. “You want one?”
Casey scowled and pulled his jacket tighter, folding his arms across his chest. “No. I wish you would stop asking me that.”
“Why? Because you're tired of saying no, or because you're afraid that you'll say yes?”
“Fuck you.”
Zeke pulled a long drag from the cigarette and leaned his hip sideways against the warm spot he'd left in the metal. “So,” he said quietly, lightly. “How are you?”
Casey's smile was sardonic at best. “Never better.”
“Oh, come on.” Zeke hoisted himself off the car and stepped toward Casey, struck yet again by how small he appeared -- all the more remarkable now, because he certainly didn't act small anymore. “You've talked to me about deeper shit than this before.” Which was true: alien invasions, the fallout afterward, the way things were turned upside-down but were just as fucked up as before... Post-Marybeth, Casey and Zeke found themselves to be the only ones who felt the need to discuss such things, and what started out as an uneasy rapport gradually became a comfortable habit.
When Casey remained silent, Zeke glowered down at him. “Spill,” he commanded.
Casey shifted a bit, his brow furrowing slightly with something that Zeke thought could either be annoyance or discomfort. Or both. Casey's eyes flicked over to Zeke and then back to some indeterminate spot in the trees across the street, “I'm... okay, I guess. It was just not...” He licked his lips and shrugged minutely. “It just became so painfully obvious that it wasn't what either of us wanted. And she was trying to keep on like it was all perfect, like we... God, I didn't know how long she might try to drag it out -- to save face, I suppose -- so...” he trailed off, his shoulders jerking in something less like a shrug and more like an attempt to shake off an invisible hand.
Zeke stuck the cigarette in his mouth. “You did the right thing, man,” he said around it.
Casey turned to look at Zeke. “I know,” he agreed, an edge of confidence in his tone.
Casey's eyes dropped to Zeke's lips as they pursed around the cigarette and tightened with the indrawn pull of smoke. His eyes narrowing, Zeke crooked his mouth sideways and exhaled a blue-grey cloud away from Casey's face. “You can still have one, if you want it.”
Casey's lashes flickered upward as his gaze met Zeke's, pausing for just a moment before continuing on to somewhere just over his left shoulder. “I don't want a cigarette, Zeke. I...” Casey's eyes stuttered back over to Zeke's mouth, his voice going from soft to barely audible. “I just want to know what it tastes like.”
Zeke's breath caught as Casey raised his eyes slowly and pinned Zeke with an undisguised stare, the blue of his irises lost behind the pooled shadow of his pupils. Zeke was pulled into their inky depths, leaning, leaning, falling into them unchecked until he felt warm, damp breath against his lips. Casey's breath. Casey's breath from between his slightly-parted lips. Casey's lips inches, fractions of inches from his own. Casey.
Zeke hesitated, a flash of paralyzing confusion searing his brain. And then Casey's lips met his, petal-soft warmth smearing into wet heat as they pressed together and Zeke forgot everything. Everything but the perfect way their mouths fit together, lips opening invitingly, tongues meeting hesitantly and then sliding together and around each other in a perfect, tantalizing dance. Everything but the perfect way their bodies molded against each other, heat unfurling where only cold had been. Everything but the sound that Casey was making, a perfect blend of whimper and moan that made Zeke want to wrap around him possessively and make Casey his own.
Casey.
Casey.
Zeke pulled away with a start, stepping, almost stumbling back, hands held up in something like a defensive gesture. But Casey didn't move; he merely looked thoughtful, eyes downcast, as the pink tip of his tongue crept out and swept across his lips. “Huh. Not bad,” he said conversationally. “I think I could get used to that.” His gaze locking with Zeke's, Casey bit his lower lip experimentally and then smoothed it with a flicker of his tongue. “How long was it before you realized that you were addicted?”
Something warm curled and tugged gently deep in his gut as Zeke stared back at Casey as if he were something new, something utterly unique, astonishing and a little frightening. He blinked, finding he had stepped back toward Casey without even realizing it. “It only took one,” he breathed, dipping his head down, and he felt Casey's lips curve into a smile against his own.
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