Ash

The television screen threw flickering blue light across the living room. The only sounds were the tinny clash of swords and the crackle of a health bar teetering near empty. Ash was leaned all the way forward, elbows on his knees, controller held in a white-knuckled grip. He had been at this boss for two hours. Two hours. The attack patterns were burned into his brain by now. Dodge left on the overhead swing. Parry the second combo. Roll through the fire wave. He was on the last phase, health bar a sliver of red, and his thumb was steady on the dodge button, waiting for the tell.

"Yeah, that's it, that's it, come on, you big ugly bastard," he whispered to the screen, not blinking.

The couch cushions sank down beside him. Ash didn't look. He couldn't afford to look. A leg folded up into his peripheral vision, a flash of bare thigh above a striped cuff. His eyes betrayed him anyway, flicking sideways for a fraction of a second. Thigh-high socks. Black with the little white stripes at the top. On your legs. On the couch. Right there.

The boss's sword came down. Ash mashed dodge a third of a second too late.

YOU DIED.

The words bloomed across the screen in that same smug red font they always used. Ash stared at it. His character's body lay crumpled in the middle of the arena, and the boss had already straightened up, bored, ready to do it all again.

He set the controller down on his knee and laughed. It came out short and a little cracked. He leaned back into the couch, rubbing the back of his neck, and gestured at the TV with his chin.

"Bro, this boss is bullshit," he said, as if the game had personally cheated him. "They gave him a whole new attack in the second phase, no tell, no wind-up, nothing. I was reading him the whole fight." He grabbed the controller again and jabbed the restart button with a thumb. "Not my fault. Zero percent my fault."

He angled his body away from you by a few degrees, which put him at an even worse vantage point, because now he could see the socks out of the corner of his left eye and the sliver of thigh above them, and the way the cushion fabric had wrinkled up under their knee. He stared at the loading screen and pretended to read the tips at the bottom. The tip was about stamina management. He read it twice. He did not have a single thought about stamina.

The match had been going well until a server hiccup booted Ash back to the main menu for the third time in a row. He sighed, tossed his controller onto the couch, and pushed himself up. His stomach grumbled loud enough to hear over the game's menu music. He wandered toward the kitchen, following the smell of something frying, already opening his mouth to complain about the lag.

He got two steps through the doorway and stopped. You were at the stove, back to him, wearing those tiny shorts. The ones with the hem that barely covered the curve of your ass. You were reaching up to grab something from the top shelf with one hand, the other still working a spatula in the pan, and the whole line of your legs from ankle to hip was right there in the overhead light.

Ash's feet carried him across the kitchen tile. His hand reached out and closed around a handful of your ass like it was the most natural reflex in the world. He squeezed. Once. Firmly. Then his brain caught up with his hand, and a strangled little laugh escaped him before he could stop it.

"Yo, got you!" he announced, yanking his hand back and staggering a step away. "You just got pranked, bro. That's the classic, uh, the classic kitchen prank." He backed up and parked himself against the counter behind you, leaning there with his arms crossed, one ankle over the other, casual, completely normal, nothing to see here.

Ha, that was a good one, he thought, staring at the back of your head and definitely not the shorts. That was a joke. You only grope a bro as a joke. If it were real it'd be weird, and it wasn't weird, so it wasn't real. Also he's, like, basically dressed like a girl now, and it doesn't count if the person is dressed like a girl. That's the rule.

He shifted his weight. The front of his jeans had gotten a little tight, and he hooked a thumb into his waistband and tugged the denim down a quarter inch under the guise of adjusting his belt. He wasn't looking at your legs. He was looking at the ceiling. The ceiling was very interesting. There was a crack in the plaster he'd never noticed before and he planned to study it thoroughly.

"Smells good, chef," he said, nodding at the sizzling pan like he was evaluating it. "You know, you're kinda domestic about this whole cooking thing. At this rate you're gonna make someone a really good wife one day." He laughed at his own joke, but felt something in his chest do a weird little flip. He barreled on before it could settle. "Anyway, I'm starving. Is it done yet?"

Ash had no idea how they got here. His memory of the last twenty minutes was a smear of laughter, of hands landing on bare skin in the name of a joke, of a game of gay chicken that had escalated at a rate no chicken game had a right to escalate. He remembered the couch. He remembered how the strip layer of the "joke" had come off one hoodie at a time, with both of them cackling the whole way, and he remembered thinking this was the funniest bit they had ever come up with.

Then the pants came off. Then the underwear. And the laughter had gotten thinner, breathier, until it wasn't laughter at all. Now the two of you were on his unmade bed, and Ash was on his knees behind you, and he was so hard it ached, and there was no version of this that was still funny.

You were on all fours on the sheets, back arched, hips up, facing the wall. Ash's eyes traveled down the dip of your spine and the curve of your ass and got stuck there. A low sound came out of his throat. He reached over to the nightstand, fumbled the drawer open, and grabbed the bottle of lube he kept in there for reasons he had never examined. His hands weren't quite steady as he flipped the cap and slicked his palm. He wrapped his fingers around himself and stroked, jaw slack, watching the way you shifted your weight on the mattress.

This is still a joke, he told himself, and the thought felt like a life raft. We're still doing the bit. We're just doing it really thoroughly. Nobody commits to a bit like we do. And anyway, this whole thing started because I was winning at gay chicken, so really this is me winning, and winning is the opposite of gay. It's like a tournament. And I'm basically a pro gamer.

He lined himself up. His cock pressed against your hole, warm, slick, and a full-body shiver ran up his back. He froze there. His mouth was suddenly dry. Somewhere in the middle of the worst and most brilliant justification of his life, a small honest thought pried its way through.

"Bro," he said. His voice came out low and rough, hardly above a whisper. "Is this still, like… is this still a joke? Because I can keep going, I'm just, I'm checking. So... you good?"

The mattress creaked hard in a steady rhythm under Ash's knees. His palms were planted on the backs of your thighs, pushing your knees back toward your own shoulders until you were folded almost in half beneath him, and he was driving into you with a force that had already knocked one pillow off the bed. Sweat ran down the side of his jaw. A strand of hair was stuck to his forehead. He didn't care.

He couldn't look away. That was the problem. He'd meant to be cool about it, maybe stare at the wall or close his eyes, but your face was right there below his, flushed and open and making sounds he was going to think about for weeks. Your thighs were trembling against his grip. He watched his own fingers dig into the soft skin and saw the little pale marks they left, and his hips stuttered, and he had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from finishing right then.

Third time this week, the back of his mind noted. It all started after that game of gay chicken that spiraled into him fucking you from behind. He pushed the thought away. This is fine. It's just stress relief. It's been a rough week. A guy's gotta decompress somewhere, and it's not like we're dating or anything, we're just two bros blowing off steam. That's basically a gym membership. We're basically at the gym.

"Yeah, that's it, take it," he grunted, which was not something he would have said to a gym partner, but he was too far gone to edit himself. He hooked your legs a little higher and changed his angle, watching your face the whole time for the reaction. His arms were starting to shake.

"Fuck, bro," he said, half a laugh, half a wheeze. "You feel so good, bro. Like, objectively." He swallowed hard and kept his pace, because stopping to continue to justify this would mean stopping. And there's no way he could stop now.

The thing about it was that it had stopped being a special occasion a while ago. What had started as a joke in the kitchen and a bit of gay chicken on the couch had turned into something that happened most nights now, and Ash had a whole shelf of excuses for it that he rotated through like a podcast queue. Stress relief. A joke that got out of hand. A competition he was winning. Tonight it was the couch one, the "we were already half undressed anyway" one, but the couch had gotten uncomfortable so they had moved to the bed, and now his hips were snapping forward in a rhythm he didn't have to think about anymore.

He was braced over you on both arms, and he had given up on keeping quiet, because the sounds you made every time he bottomed out were the best part of this. Better than the game. Better than winning. He wasn't going to say that out loud, but his body knew it, and his body was currently running the show.

He felt every inch of you clench around him and had to grit his teeth. Warm, slick, tight in a way that made his eyes want to roll back. He watched himself disappear into you over and over and something hot coiled low in his stomach, building. This is just the best cardio, he thought, another excuse on the list. Cardio is so healthy. I'm training to be an athlete.

Then your body arched beneath him, your back bowing off the mattress, and you made a sound he hadn't heard before. He felt it. You came, spilling across your own stomach and chest in thick stripes, twitching around him, and Ash's brain shorted out. He slammed in twice more, buried himself to the hilt, and finished with a long, ragged groan, emptying into you. He didn't pull out. That was on purpose. Pulling out would have made a mess to clean up, and this was easier, and he was a practical guy. He told himself that as he caught his breath, still sheathed inside.

The sweat cooled. The room got quiet. The afterglow was supposed to be the nice part, but Ash's brain, freed from the fog of the last ten minutes, started doing arithmetic. He pushed himself up on one elbow, still inside you. His eyes tracked down to your stomach, where your own release was drying in streaks across your skin. You came. From the bottom. From having him inside you.

"Yo, bro," he said slowly. His voice was a little hoarse, and he was still inside you. "Did you really cum from that?" He let out a short, uneasy laugh. "You know that's kind of gay, right? Like, the one getting railed cumming like that? Not that I care. You do you, bro. Literally. Just saying, it's not looking great for you right now."

The anime debate had run long. Two hours long. They had gone back and forth about whether the ending was earned, whether the main character's sacrifice actually made sense, and whether the whole second season should be struck from the record. Somewhere in the middle, the conversation had gotten quieter, and the space between them on the couch had gotten smaller, and by the time they were kissing the controller was still in someone's hand, forgotten.

It happened most nights now. They didn't talk about it. Ash had a rolling mental list of explanations he recycled, and tonight's was that the anime had been emotionally heavy, so obviously the mood was weird for both of them, and this was just how you processed heavy media with your bro. That was all. That was the whole explanation.

But this time was different from the usual. He wasn't rushing. He had you on the couch beneath him, one leg hooked up over his hip, and he was moving slow, forehead tucked against the side of your neck, breathing you in. His hand was flat on your lower back. The TV was still on behind him, cycling the menu screen music, and he was barely hearing it. Every roll of his hips was deliberate, and he kept making small sounds into your shoulder that he'd never meant to make. It felt good in a way he didn't have vocabulary for. It felt like something he wanted to keep.

"You feel so good," he mumbled into your skin, and then, before he could stop it, without any ceremony at all, "I love you, bro."

His whole body went stiff mid-thrust. The menu music kept playing. Ash lifted his head and looked down at you, eyes wide.

"Wait, no. I mean, not like that," he said, laughing, a fast, nervous laugh that didn't quite stick the landing. "Like, obviously I love you, you're my best friend, that's a bro thing. Bros love each other. And we've been bros since sixth grade. That's a love you thing. Not a, you know. Not the other thing." He was still inside you, still moving on autopilot, because stopping now was not an option, and he looked down at you with slightly wild eyes. "Right?"

The venue was outdoors, which had been a nightmare to plan, but the weather had cooperated. Late afternoon sun came through the trees at the back of the aisle and laid long stripes of gold across the white runner. Row after row of folding chairs, rented, ninety of them, all filled. The arch at the front was wrapped in trailing ivy and pale pink roses, real ones, because the florist had talked somebody into it. A string quartet was tuning up near the front left, fiddles squeaking softly in bursts. It smelled like cut grass and perfume.

Ash stood at the altar in his tuxedo. The jacket was rented and fit him well enough, but the bow tie was strangling him and he'd already pulled at it twice. He kept his hands folded in front of him because he had been told to, and he kept resisting the urge to wipe his palms on his thighs. The officiant beside him was a broad, patient man with reading glasses and a binder, and he gave Ash a polite nod that Ash returned.

He looked down the empty aisle and let his mind wander back, because so much had happened in such a short time.

He remembered the gay chicken. The couch, the laughing, the way the joke had spiraled past every reasonable stopping point and landed them in his bed with the lube in his hand. He remembered the sex after that, most nights, always dressed up as stress relief or a competition or a bit that got out of hand. He remembered saying I love you in the middle of it and watching his own life flash before his eyes, and he remembered you saying it back, followed immediately by "but not like that," which had been somehow both a relief and a gut punch he refused to identify.

Then there had been the wife jokes. Every time he made one, and he made them constantly, you'd laugh and throw it back at him. He'd told you that you'd make someone a good wife one day, and you'd told him he'd make a good husband, and then one night over takeout one of you had said, well, we should just get married then, and the other had said, yeah, for tax benefits, and then it had become a running bit in a way that required follow-through, because a bit without follow-through was just a lie. So he bought a ring. A real one, with a small diamond on silver band, nestled in a velvet box. He'd gone down on one knee in your kitchen, mostly so he could hold it over your head forever. You had laughed, hard, hands over your mouth, until he started laughing too, and then you'd said yes, still laughing. The not-gay sex they had that night had been pretty intense.

The wedding planning had been a whirlwind of tuxes, dresses, venues, and cake tastings. A honeymoon package in the resort town on the other side of the state. Then the invitations went out, which said nothing about tax benefits. Both of their mothers were sitting in the front row, and your mom had been teary-eyed since she sat down.

He felt like a fraud. That was the thought he kept circling back to. It's just a bit. It's just for the tax benefits. They don't even know what the tax benefits are, they googled it once and got distracted. It's a bro-marriage. It's a funny joke on the government. And then tonight they'll consummate it at the hotel, because that's the bit, that's the punchline, that's what makes the whole thing funnier. It's all a bit.

The quartet found their pitch. The first notes of the processional rose up over the lawn, and the ninety people in the folding chairs went quiet all at once and turned to look at the back.

Ash was sitting on the edge of your bed, then standing, then pacing, then sitting again. His leg bounced hard enough to rattle the little plastic bag of snacks you'd left on the desk. He checked his phone for the time. It had been exactly four minutes since the last time he checked the time. He ran both hands through his hair and let out a long, uneven breath at the ceiling.

Okay. Okay. I'm cool. This is just the best birthday gift in the history of the universe, and it's not weird, because it's about the outfit. It's about Mai. I've been hyping Mai for months. Literally months. If he's dressing as Mai, then of course I'm gonna react. That's just being a fan. It's cosplay appreciation. It's not about him. It's about the costume.

He could picture it too clearly. The damn outfit. Black leotard, high cut, the little floppy bunny ears, the white cuffs, that tiny bow tie at the collar. He'd seen enough Mai cosplays to know how the fabric hugged the hips and showed off the legs, and now you were in there, probably struggling with the zipper, probably already half-dressed, probably wearing nothing but that stretchy black material and the ears and maybe the little bunny tail, and his pants got uncomfortably tight for no reason at all.

It's about the character, he repeated, pressing the heel of his palm against his thigh. It's literally just accurate cosplay. If a guy gets excited about a well-made cosplay, that's not gay. That's being a man of culture. This is just... art appreciation. I'm an art critic. I'm a goddamn art connoisseur.

He stood up again and walked to the closed door. He could hear the faint rustle of fabric on the other side, and his heart slammed against his ribs. He leaned his forehead against the wood, then caught himself and stepped back, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Bro." His voice cracked on the word. He cleared his throat and tried again. "You almost ready in there? I'm, uh, just checking. No rush. Take your time. But also hurry the hell up."

Ash sat rigid on the living room couch, both hands flat on his knees like he was waiting outside the principal's office. The paper bag from Spirit Halloween lay crumpled on the coffee table. It was quiet in the apartment except for the faint rustle of fabric coming from behind the bathroom door.

He replayed the last hour in his head, trying to find the exact moment the joke had stopped being a joke. The two of them had been walking down the costume aisle, laughing at the cheap wigs and the overpriced fake blood, when Ash had spotted the sailor uniform. The little navy blue miniskirt, the white blouse, the red bow at the collar. It had been a joke. Obviously. He'd nudged you and said you'd probably pull it off better than half the girls at school, and then you'd both laughed, and then somehow it had ended up at the register, and Ash had paid for it, and now you were in his bathroom changing into it.

It's a joke, he told himself, and his knee started bouncing. It's a Halloween costume. From Spirit Halloween. It's not weird. This is just goofing around. It's not like I'm waiting to see him in the skirt. I'm waiting to see the costume. Big difference. Huge difference.

He pictured the uniform again. The blouse was probably a little tight around your torso. The miniskirt would sit high on your waist and show off your legs, especially with the white thigh-highs he'd grabbed at the last second, claiming it would complete the look. The red bow would sit right at the top of your chest. He swallowed, then reached down and adjusted the front of his jeans and told himself it was because they shrank in the wash.

"Bro, you fall in or something?" he called, voice coming out a little strained. He tried to laugh, but it was more of a wheeze. "It's literally just a costume, it's not that serious." A pause. He dragged a hand through his hair. "But like, come on out already, bro."