From the Inside Out

by Talya Andor

  "The beer is here!" Alec announced with a triumphant air.

  Brandon and Lucas set up a cheer.

  They flocked to the kitchen and another round of introductions was made. Sloane met Alec, and Soren was introduced in passing to his older brother Zack. Alec tucked a few bills in his brother's pocket and Zack departed, wishing them all a "rocking good time." Not long after, the pizza arrived and they settled on the couches again, three pizza boxes laid out on the long low coffee table in between them all.

  "Look," Alec said, beer already in hand, "No offense, Bran, but if we're going to watch an alien movie, I'm going to go get Aliens from my room."

  Brandon shrugged. "Fine," he said, with a display of wounded dignity. "If no one but me can appreciate the brilliance of that movie…"

  Lisa punched him the ribs. "Brilliance, my ass."

  Alec glanced over at Sloane, giving her a brief, flickering grin. "Seen Aliens?"

  "Oh, sure. Wouldn't mind seeing it again; it's a classic."

  Alec rose to his feet, giving them all a flippant two-finger salute. "I shall return."

  "We can watch Species if we get drunk enough," Lucas offered.

  "Oh, come on," Brandon said. "Lucas, you of all people should be able to appreciate the beauty of that movie."

  Lucas grinned. His beer was balanced on the wooden arm of the leather futon-sofa and he had one arm around Soren. "I ain't sayin' nothing. Hey, in my position, would you?"

  "Ahh, you're no fun anymore," Brandon complained, but it was good-natured.

  Alec returned with the DVD and set it up in the player, then settled beside Sloane on the couch. Altogether they had a good time, demolishing the pizzas in record time before the Marine team hit the surface of the seething planet, and downing a great deal of beer besides. Soren found himself sinking gradually toward Lucas and they exchanged anticipating smiles. By the end of the first movie almost everyone was quite thoroughly soused.

  "Species," Brandon said. "Come on, let's watch it, Lucas said we could if we'd had enough to make it fun."

  "Did I say that?" Lucas sat up from where he'd sunk into a comfortable-looking tangle with Soren on the opposite couch. "Huh, maybe something like."

  "Let's test for drunkenness," Lisa suggested, and Alec straightened on the edge of the sofa, reaching for a pizza crust and one of those plastic tubs of garlic butter, cold by now. "Who's the light-weight, here?"

  "Soren," Sloane said at once.

  "Whaaat?" Soren, still slumped back in the embrace of the sofa, tipping slowly onto Lucas's shoulder beside him, tried to sit up. His cheeks were hot. "What…makes you say that?"

  "Hey, Soren," Lisa said, waving a hand to secure his attention. "Do this." She extended her arms and began to touch her nose with her index fingers, alternating hands.

  Soren balanced himself on the edge of the couch. With great dignity, he extended his arms in turn and touched first one, then his other index finger to his nose, though it seemed to take more concentration than it ought, by rights.

  "Gen-X Cops it is!" Lisa declared, pumping her arm with enthusiasm.

  Beer and pizza night was progressing quite well. Soren was glad to have Sloane meet his new friends at last.

  Their beer-drinking fell off sharply, and combining a renewed lucidity with the frenetic energy of Gen-X Cops left them all more wakeful and alert by the time the movie had ended.

  "My God, it's still early," Sloane said. "I mean, it's only nine…"

  "Well, that's a good thing, isn't it?" Beside her, Alec blinked owlishly. "Gives you time to sober up before you drive home. Or you could always crash here."

  "There is that."

  "Now we have to watch Species," Brandon said smugly. "It's the only movie left."

  "Oh, no we don't," Lucas declared, rising to his feet and swaying for a moment.

  "I thought you were on my side!"

  "I don't take sides." Lucas remained rooted where he was for a moment, gaining his equilibrium, one hand still connected to Soren slumped on the sofa behind him. "I'm on my side. My side wants to get some tonight. Love, let me go, I'm going to get a movie."

  "I'll come with," Soren said, rising from the sofa with ease. His buzz had worn off once he'd stopped drinking beer at the end of Aliens.

  "No necking," Sloane called after them, and they answered her with incredulous snorts and chuckles.

  *~*~*

  It was torture of some kind to sit beside Soren for so long and not run his hands over him, touch him, pull him close and kiss him the way that he wanted. Lucas seized the chance when it presented itself, and took Soren back to his bedroom on the pretext of picking another movie. A flushed, beer-pliant Soren swayed in front of him every step of the way as they went back to the bedroom together. Lucas set his hands to Soren's tempting little waist, to the sweet slice of skin bared by the top that had ridden up, or maybe the pants had ridden down.

  Whatever the result, Lucas enjoyed rubbing his thumbs against that bared skin as they walked up the hallway in step together.

  Soren flashed him teasing, half-drunken looks over his shoulder. "Lucas…" he murmured, and the look in his eyes was more than enough lure to draw Lucas onward.

  "C'mere," Lucas murmured, stepping close to Soren and shoving his door shut with the heel of one foot. He crowded against Soren, not shy about pressing his body flush to Soren's backside.

  "Mmm," Soren tipped his head to one side.

  Lucas grinned and skimmed dark hair away from Soren's neck, placing his lips there. He nibbled with his lips, molding himself to Soren from behind and sneaking his hands round front to settle them on the points of Soren's hips.

  "Lucas," Soren said with a moan. "We can't, we've gotta…they're waiting. We have to…to pick a movie." He pulled away, looking over his shoulder and blinking owlishly at Lucas.

  "Maybe that takes a bit of time." Lucas advanced on Soren, who widened his eyes and backed up until his knees hit the bed.

  With an eep, Soren tumbled backward.

  Lucas pounced, pinning him to the spread and kissing him breathless.

  "Lucas…Lucas," Soren panted in between kisses. "They're expecting us."

  "So?" Lucas nuzzled beside Soren's mouth, slipping a hand up Soren's shirt to tweak a nipple. "We still have to negotiate what movie we're bringing back. Going over the whole collection can take some time." He pulled back to hover over Soren, raising his brows in lascivious inquiry.

  "Oh," Soren reached for Lucas's nape, fingernails scratching gently beneath his hair. "What movies do you have?"

  "I'll tell you," Lucas said. He grinned down at Soren, nudging their noses together. "A kiss for each film."

  "Ooh, I see how it is." Soren tipped his nose up, directing Lucas's up and to the side as well. He planted a sweet, warm kiss full on Lucas's mouth.

  Lucas grinned. "Meet Joe Black." He eased a thumb over one tiny nub of nipple.

  Soren made a little noise and arched up against Lucas, his eyes fluttering. "Nnn…that's a…romantic sort of…chick flick, isn't it?"

  "Yeah," Lucas said, wrinkling his nose.

  "Well, what do you have that isn't a chick flick?"

  "Trying to cut to the essentials, hmm?"

  "Yeah…mmf." Soren buttoned his teeth over his lip, looking up at Lucas wide-eyed as they eased together.

  Lucas grinned down at him, unabashed over getting hard against Soren, enjoying the way Soren pushed up against his stomach as he did the same. "That's going to cost you a full minute of makeout time for trying to speed up the proceedings."

  "Hmm." Soren pretended to consider before releasing one of the sexiest incoherent noises Lucas had heard, and stretching up to capture his bottom lip, initiating the kiss.

  Lucas captured Soren's mouth in a full-out kiss, making him squeak before he stroked his tongue in and got his undivided attention.

  Soren's hands went up his shirt and he ground up against Lucas as Lucas stroked his tongue in. "Ahh…mm…" Soren panted in his ear as Lucas kissed h
is way down Soren's neck, lingering at the pulse point and tonguing before forming a seal, sucking with increasing pressure and teeth.

  "Lucas…ah!" Soren was whimpering and making soft, needy sounds beneath him. His hands clenched at the small of Lucas's back.

  With an effort, Lucas pulled away, hovering over Soren and stroking his disheveled dark hair. "I've got the Terminator movies, The Matrix, Mission Impossible, and Mortal Kombat."

  Soren hummed, acquiring a thoughtful look.

  Lucas couldn't help himself. He bent his head and kissed at Soren's mouth again. They moved together for a long moment until Soren's teasing hip-rolls made Lucas groan and start to hump him down into the bedspread.

  "Okay, no," Lucas gasped, breaking away and propping himself up over Soren's gorgeous, entirely willing self. "We are not dry-fucking in the bedroom while they're waiting for us to come back with the movie."

  "No, no we're not," Soren agreed, but he was stroking his hands up over Lucas's ribs beneath his shirt. He sucked in a breath. "The Matrix…"

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah, it gets me hot." Soren gave Lucas an impish little grin. His eyes fluttered again as Lucas pressed down against him.

  "We've got to get back," Lucas reminded him, pulling away and grinning as Soren murmured a longing 'nooo' and attempted to cling to him. He managed to get up from the bed, but dragged a rumpled Soren along with him. Soren pouted and hung from his neck like a millstone.

  They returned to the living room side by side, jostling one another and giving each other satisfied, somewhat sheepish grins. Soren's sweetness, his unashamed sexy advances, were turning Lucas on so much that all he wanted to do was take him right back to the bedroom, but they would sit through the last movie and being social for somewhat longer.

  Brandon threaded an arm around Lisa's shoulders and spoke up as Lucas returned with Soren. "What are we watching, then?" He seemed resigned to the inevitable now that Species had been dismissed multiple times.

  Lucas opened his mouth to answer, but Lisa's phone interrupted.

  She pulled it out of her pocket, and stood to drift from the rec room area to someplace more private. "Hello…?"

  Sloane fixed Lucas with an expectant eye. "So? What did you bring for us?"

  "The Matrix," Lucas replied, burrowing his face into Soren's hair, one hazel eye trained her way. "My selection criteria was most stringent."

  "Oh? You picked by what turned Soren on the most?"

  Lisa returned to the rec room, phone still gripped in one hand. "Brandon, can you drive? Forget it, we can get a cab. It's my great-aunt, she's at St. Vincent Hospital and they don't expect her to last much longer."

  Brandon plucked the phone from her hand. "Let me call a cab, we'll go over together." He gave them a brief, look. "Sorry, guys, I guess beer and pizza night is over."

  He and Lisa departed not long after, when the toot of a horn had announced the arrival of their ride, and a bare fifteen minutes beyond that Alec had invited Sloane to go out clubbing with him. It wasn't much of a surprise to Lucas that Sloane had accepted, knowing they were both into the club scene. He was more surprised they hadn't met before.

  "Now I have you all to myself," Lucas said, settling his hands on Soren's shoulders as the front door shut behind roommate and friend. Soren had the most adorably confused look on his face, as if he'd missed the bus and wasn't sure if it had even been the right one. "Although under the circumstances I should feel bad about rejoicing."

  Soren tilted his head, causing a wing of dark hair to slide from behind his ear and cascade over his shoulder.

  Lucas tucked it back, noting the darkening hickey on Soren's neck. That explained Sloane's look of suppressed mirth. They'd been hardly subtle, but then, they'd been side by side on the sofa for over two hours sharing little more than body warmth. After so much restraint, Lucas had felt entitled. "Come on, let's get you up," Lucas said, patting Soren, prodding him into action. "The night's far from over, and I wouldn't worry about Sloane. She's a big girl."

  "Funny, I think I said something like that…when we first started going together. That I'm a big boy and she doesn't have to worry."

  They relocated to the kitchen bar, perching on stools and picking over reheated pizza with drizzled garlic butter. Lucas set a giant tumbler of water in front of Soren. He was being protective, and wanted to ensure Soren wouldn't experience too much of a hangover the next morning. The way he'd staggered on their way to the bar indicated he wasn't nearly so lucid as he appeared.

  "I don't know," Soren said, reviving somewhat as he ate. "You know Alec better than I do but it seems weird that they went out together."

  "It's not weird at all. People go clubbing together all the time. It doesn't have to mean something. I'd be really surprised if they ended up dating. Alec is, well, hot, but he's not really into dating right now."

  There was a hint of a smile on Soren's lips. "He is hot. I think I prefer towheads, though."

  "Towheads." Lucas grinned. "I hope I'm the only one you know."

  "As far as I can recall," Soren said, reaching out and curling his fingers over a lock of Lucas's hair. "Such gorgeous hair…you must've gotten teased a lot, though."

  "Yeah, it was no big deal," Lucas said with a shrug. He closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of Soren toying with his hair, pushing locks back over his shoulder, tugging softly on the ends and twisting a few together between his fingers. "It's always been this color, of course, but I started growing it out when I was younger. When my mom was still alive. She helped me take care of it, trimmed it like yours did, encouraged me not to dye it when I got older, just to fit in."

  "You never talk about your mom," Soren said. His eyes were intent, but he wasn't looking at Lucas's eyes; the lock of hair in his fingers, maybe, or the hollow of Lucas's throat.

  "No, I…" Lucas started, and his throat closed on him. Soren's fingers left his hair and he returned his attention to pizza. "I miss her. A lot. I used to live with her, you know." He snuck a sidelong glance at Soren, who set down his pizza and met Lucas's eyes again, a soft kind of sympathy—but not pity—dwelling there.

  "What happened?"

  "She died," Lucas said, swallowing hard. "It was sudden, you know? You get up and go to school every day and everything's fine, then suddenly you're getting called out of class to the principal's office when you didn't do anything wrong. The principal hugged me, and told me what happened, and I pushed her away and called her a liar." He frowned down at the corrugated cardboard of the empty pizza box that remained on the counter.

  "I'm sorry," Soren whispered, reaching out but stopping short, leaving his fingers within range.

  "Not your fault," Lucas replied, summoning up a smile. He slid his fingers across the counter and twined the tips with Soren's. "It's still hard. I went from that, from a life with someone who loved me, to my dad and Irene, where everything was like a museum, all a front for other people to look at and admire. Even me, I was like another item in their collection. It was like I only mattered if I got the right grades, had the right look…"

  "But you kept the hair."

  "Yeah," Lucas said, and grinned a bit over that. "You can't imagine how many fights it caused. They wanted me to cut it, thought it would darken if I got a buzz cut or something. I kept the hair, wasn't going to get it chopped for any reason. It was like the last tangible piece of memory from my mom that I got to keep."

  "A buzz cut wouldn't suit you," Soren said snagging the last gluey piece of reheated pizza and examining Lucas's features closely.

  "Well, yeah, that was definitely a factor…Hey, you…how was your day? You never said."

  Soren finished his pizza with deliberation. "With good reason," he said, and swallowed. "Mom cornered me when I got home. She wanted to talk about the career materials again."

  "Isn't it a little late to change majors?"

  "You'd think," Soren said with a snort. "Oh, she mentioned I could spend an extra year in university if I changed majors…I've alread
y changed once to suit her and I don't know if I want to do that again. I could stay on campus for an extra year, though." His eyes flicked sideways to meet Lucas's, almost shyly.

  "Well." Lucas finished chewing on his crust, reflecting on that. "Don't let me influence your decision. And as far as your Mom goes, I'm sure she means best, but maybe it's time to stand up to her, if she keeps pushing like this."

  "Lucas says, right after advising me not to let him influence me." Soren laughed. He shrugged, hunching over the bar. "I don't know. My parents never really pushed me before now so I guess I don't have a lot of drive or direction, on my own. "

  "I think that's normal."

  "Oh, and what about you?" Soren prompted, demeanor teasing, leaning into him. "You've got everything figured out, it sounds like."

  Lucas was quiet for a moment. That was an opening he could use for so many things. He shook his head. "Not really," he said quietly. "I just have general ideas. My dad did a pretty good job herding me into a path that could follow his own track really well, but I've always wondered…if it had been different…"

  "What would you have wanted to do?" Soren asked him. His dark blue eyes still held a hint of sleepiness but his gaze was focused on Lucas, alert.

  Lucas shrugged. "Something in art, maybe graphic design. I could probably still do it…well, maybe. I'm a sophomore. I know that my father would probably threaten to cut off financial support if I changed my major so drastically, though, so I'd really have to consider my options. Like getting student loans…even that would be hard because my father earns too damned much money."

  "It's too bad," Soren murmured. "That you think he'd be so closed-minded."

  Lucas shrugged. "That's the way it is." He cocked his head. There was something in the distance, like the faint peal of a summer locust. "My phone."

  "You're not going to get it?" Soren asked, when Lucas made no move to leave him.

  Lucas shrugged. "You're here…can't think of anything else that would be important enough to make me pick up." He thought briefly, uncomfortably, of Kerri. She might still have his number.

  Soren laughed, looking flattered. "Nice of you to say so."