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For the most part, Isaac and Riley had everything figured out. Who did the dishes, who cooked, which bed was whose, if they fell into the void they'd come back in some fucked-up death loop of roof-crashing. Life in purgatory, or, as they'd been calling it, Hell, wasn't too bad so far. No jobs to work, no bills to pay. Just lazy days filled with a whole lot of nothing.
The nothing that Riley did in his free time was fun, at first. Writing things he never had time for, playing games with Isaac, putting the fridge on the roof. Over time, though, it grew boring to sit in his own silence. He didn't fill the time with sleeping, like Isaac did. Instead, he just sat around and ruminated. Those ruminations led him down many paths of thought he didn't particularly enjoy lingering in. But, when you're stuck in Hell, it's probably not supposed to be fun.
He laid on the steps of the house, hooves dangling over the vast emptiness before him. Isaac played on his phone next to him.
"What do you think you did?" Riley mused as he stared at the stars, which weren't really stars, just something to fill the space.
Isaac blinked at him before looking back at his phone. "What do you mean?"
"To deserve this. I mean, we're in Hell for a reason."
Isaac put his phone away, and watched Riley for a long time before looking out at the stars with him.
"I guess I don't know," he hummed in his gravelly voice. "Do you remember what you did?"
Riley blinked at the stars, and they blinked back. He remembered something. Something about another man and kissing and cuddling and a hot, heavy feeling in his chest. Something about a sin, one he was warned about by his mother.
"I think so," Riley said back.
"Well? What was it?"
"I'm not telling."
"Did you, like, kill someone or something?"
"What? No? You think I would kill someone?"
Isaac laughed. Something hot and heavy rose in his chest.
Riley remembered growing up more than he did the later years of his life. Maybe that was part of purgatory, thinking of your innocent days to recompense for your later sins. Anyhow, he remembered growing up different somehow. Always called something, always the artsy kid uninterested in sports, always sitting alone in the corner. The furthest, fuzziest edge of his memory showed him as a young man sitting alone at a school dance while all his friends danced with their girlfriends.
"Riley?" Isaac said, oddly soft for his rough voice.
"Yeah?"
"You zoned out."
"Sorry."
"It's okay…are you okay?"
He nodded, trying not to watch Isaac track his face with his dark eyes.
"Are you going to tell me?" Isaac asked, moving to sit next to him on the bottom step.
Riley fiddled with his hooves nervously. "I…I think I was gay or something."
Isaac stared at him, laughed, composed himself, and started laughing again.
Worry rose in Riley's stomach. He had never actually known Isaac's opinion on queer people, so what if he just cursed himself to an eternity of torture from a homophobe?
"I was kidding. Forget I said that," Riley muttered.
"No, no. Sorry, dude. It's fine. I wasn't laughing at you."
Riley, ever kind of whiny, just looked away from him.
"I'm serious," Isaac said. "It's okay. I wasn't laughing at you, just laughing because…you think you're here because you're gay? That's just some weird religious bullshit."
"Well, we're in Hell, Isaac."
"That's just what we've been calling it. It has nothing to do with Christianity or anything, I think."
"Yeah, you think. There's no way to know," he moped.
Riley rolled over and put his face against the cobblestone of their porch, sighing into the grooves of the rocks.
Isaac watched him pout for a beat before sitting up straighter.
"Well, I have an idea."
Riley peered at him through his arms. "What?"
"What if we, like," he cleared his throat mid-sentence, "kissed or something."
Riley felt all his body heat rush to his face. He stared at Isaac blankly for a long pause as the void grew colder and his face grew hotter.
"What if we get sent to SuperHell or something?"
"Then, I guess we'll know why we're here. But, I seriously doubt that's going to happen."
"How are you so sure? Besides, won't it make you uncomfortable?"
Isaac shrugged. "You can't be that bad of a kisser."
Isaac laughed as Riley just wrung his hooves together in his lap nervously. Heavy and hot.
"I mean, we don't have to," Isaac said.
Riley felt himself get weirdly defensive of the idea. "It's a good experiment. We should."
Doubt lingered. Did he want to know if loving was a crime? Did he want to know by finding out with Isaac, who he had grown oddly comfortable with? Isaac who looked so much like this man in his hazy memories? Maybe he'd like to kiss Isaac, sure, but would it be worth it?
Without much more ceremony or fanfare, Isaac inched a little closer. He leaned over Riley, studying him for a brief pause. Riley screwed his eyes closed without much choice, and as he did so, felt the tiniest little peck on his lips.
They both paused, looking out into the void and waiting. A clap of thunder, a swarm of locusts, a giant meteor. Punishment. Something. Anything.
"See? Told you," Isaac shrugged, grabbing his phone and walking inside.
Riley laid on the cobblestone and tried to remember how to breathe normally.
That night, as they fell asleep beside each other, they laid a little closer than they usually did.
Riley was left to wonder, again, why they were here. It wasn't because he was gay, as they had proven, but it had to be something. It was a question that he ruminated on as they cuddled closer every night and, on occasion, decided to kiss again. For experiments only, duh.
Riley grew more convinced every day that Isaac had just wanted a kiss, but he wouldn't complain. They were already in Hell, after all. What was the point of holding back?