Against the Dying of the Light

"Turn around."

Dane did as he was told, and Ken spread the shampoo through his hair and massaged it in. "Feel nice?"

Dane nodded. It did. Shaving had taken nearly all his energy, so it was nice to just stand there and let the other boy clean him.

After shampooing his hair, the dark-haired boy started to lather Dane's body with body wash, concentrating on his pits and crotch.

"I don't suppose I could convince you to shave here too?" he asked hopefully.

"Not on your life," growled Dane.

Ken pouted. "You seem to like the look on me."

Dane opened his mouth to speak, then stopped when Ken raised an eyebrow.

The dark-haired boy laughed. "Good choice."

He carried on lathering Dane until every inch of him was clean and fragrant, then shut off the water.

"Right, dry off, and let's go back into the world."

❧ ❧ ❧

'The World' turned out to be a club called '2Spirit', on the opposite side of town from the clubs Dane usually frequented.

The place was small, the inside of it lit red at the front where the bar and dancefloor were, and blue down the back, where tables and booths lined the walls. Ken took him up to the bar and ordered them both drinks.

the inside of it lit red at the front where the bar and dance floor were, and blue down the back where tables and booths lined the walls.

"What the hell is this?" Dane asked, looking at the tall glass of coloured liquid that was handed to him.

"A champagne cocktail. We're going to expand your mind."

"I'm fine, thanks all the same," muttered Dane, but Ken just put a hand on his shoulder and guided him down towards the booths at the end.

"We're meeting some friends of mine here tonight. We're going to see if this is your tribe."

"My what?" asked Dane.

Ken found them a booth, and Dane slid onto the seat opposite him.

Ken took a sip of his cocktail and sighed happily. He slouched back in his seat, looking very much at ease.

"Your tribe. From what I know of you so far, you've been trying to fit your peg into the wrong-shaped hole."

Dane snorted, and Ken laughed out loud when he realised what he'd said.

"I didn't mean it like that. But you need friends who understand you. Who you don't have to explain yourself to."

"And your friends will 'get' me, will they?" asked Dane. He took a sip of his cocktail and made a face. But then, as he had with the coffee Ken had first made him, he realised the taste was more pleasant than he'd expected. His drink looked purple in the blue light, which made him wonder if it was red or actually purple.

"It's called a 'poinsettia'," said Ken. "It has cranberry and Cointreau in it. I thought I'd introduce you to the concept of 'fruit', since you look as if your body has yet to discover vitamin C."

Dane snorted, and took another sip. It was nice, he decided. If Ken wanted to feed him these all night, he'd find a way to live with it.

"K!"

The man striding towards them made Dane instinctively rise to his feet. It was impossible for him to stay sitting when someone that massive was barrelling towards him.

The man, who looked like a body builder, with close-shaved hair and a jaw like a shovel, came to stand by their table. He put his hands in his pockets, and his arms bulged out of his fitting t-shirt.

Ken gestured to Dane. "Grant, this is Dane. He's a new friend of mine."

The pitbull in human clothing shook Dane's hand. "Nice to meet you. Where'd you come from?"

Ken relaxed back in his seat and stirred his cocktail. "That's a long story. Maybe let's just pretend I picked him up in a bar."

Grant looked confused, but Dane got the impression Grant spent a lot of time confused.

The huge man slid into the booth beside Dane, leaving Dane crushed against the wall, and as they sat, Ken leaned across the table.

"You'll have to forgive Grant, Dane, he's got testosterone poisoning. As you can see, it's taken over his entire body. One of these days, he's going to drink one too many protein shakes and explode in a mass of throbbing veins."

Grant grinned and put his elbow on the table. "sounds like someone wants an arm-wrestle."

Ken gripped his hand, and Grant slammed it into the table.

"Look at that, you're very strong," said Ken. He rolled his eyes while Grant laughed. "Ooh, and Miguel made it too!"

He got to his feet and the new muscle-bound man who approached their table picked him up in a full-body hug and squeezed him before putting him down.

Ken put a hand on the man's bicep. "Miguel, you ever need those muscles of yours worshipped, you know where I live."

"Ken, Jesus!" His accent made Dane think he was originally from somewhere in South America.

Ken slid back into the booth, and Miguel took a seat beside him. He wasn't as massive as Grant, but he was still more muscular than Dane, who Ken insisted was a 'jock'.

"Miguel, this is Dane. Dane, this is the hottest Latin body you'll ever have the privilege of sharing this Earth with. He's from Chile." He said the word with a shudder and a flicker of his eyes.

"Ken, shut up!" Miguel blushed furiously as he shook Dane's hand.

Ken put a hand on the man's shoulder. "Miguel here is, for some reason I can't fathom, shy. I think it's endearing." He gave his friend a considering look, and Miguel gave him a look that had a hint of flirt in it. They'd definitely fucked. Dane could see it in their eyes.

Ken cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the table at large. "Right. Dane, tonight you're meeting my favourite T'd up boyzz. Like you, they know what the inside of a gym looks like, and like you, they have all the manners of a porn star asking a hot girl on a date."

Grant grinned, but Miguel looked miffed. "I treated you good!"

Ken patted his arm. "Yes, you did, dear, I'm just teasing. Now, who wants a drink?"

Both Miguel and Grant indicated that they did, and Ken crawled across Miguel's lap to get out of the booth, heading for the bar with a sway of his arse.

"You're a lucky guy," said Miguel. "He plays all casual, but he'll take care of you if you take care of him back."

"I get that feeling," said Dane. He didn't mention that he'd been brutally fucking Ken to get over his ex. He didn't think that'd go down well.

"So, what you lift?" asked Miguel. "You got some good definition there."

"Benching ninety," said Dane. "I got up to one-ten, but I kinda let it slip."

"Ninety pounds?" said Miguel.

"KGs," said Dane.

He jumped as Grant squeezed his bicep. "Not bad for a little guy."

Little guy? Dane was six foot and weighed eighty-five kgs. Only compared to these two would he be considered a 'little guy'. They must think Ken was a fucking wood nymph.

"Shift over," said Ken, coming back with a couple of beers, and another cocktail for Dane.

Miguel moved to let him slide into the booth, and Ken slung an arm around his neck.

"If you're very good, I might bring Miguel home with us one day," he said to Dane. He looked from one to the other. "I think you'd both enjoy that."

"I know you would, you fucking slut," Miguel teased him, but it was good-natured, and got another grin from Ken.

For a while they chatted, Ken guiding the conversation away from himself, and towards the other three men's interests. But while Dane was definitely more comfortable in the gym than on the dance floor, he was nowhere near as obsessed with his body as Grant was, and found the man to be rather one-dimensional. Miguel interested him more, and while Ken wasn't wrong—the Chilean was very attractive—his size and good looks made Dane feel nervous about his own appearance.

Up until this moment, he'd been fucking Ken, trading on the relationship he'd had with Kian. It'd felt right, and he hadn't questioned whether or not Ken would be into him. But Miguel... well. If Miguel liked pretty men, that wasn't Dane. He'd always thought of himself as reasonably good-looking, but in a typical, normal guy way. Nothing special, but no major deformities.

What would it be like to fuck Miguel? Or would Miguel fuck him? Or would he be left watching Miguel fuck Ken? Would Miguel want him to suck him? How big would his dick be?

He shook his head. This wasn't helpful, and he was missing what the other man was saying to him.

"You watch that Australian zombie movie?"

Dane tried to pull his mind back into the conversation. "New? Ah, yeah, I saw that, good. Enjoyed it."

By the end of the night, Dane was exhausted, despite having spent the last two days in bed.

"Well boyzz, I'm going to take this hot little thang home, before he gets too tired to fuck me." Ken got to his feet. Nice seeing you chaps. Miguel, let's do lunch next week."

After the goodbyes, Ken called a cab, and they headed back to his flat. To Dane's surprise, while they'd been out, the whole place had been cleaned. Not only that, but the lights were on, rather than Ken's usual preference for darkness, and the flat smelled fresh and clean.

"You got fairies?" Dane asked. "What happened?"

"Technically, this is a serviced apartment," said Ken. "Well, when I don't have a depressed lodger refusing to get out of bed."

"Nice." Dane was impressed.

"And, we have a gym, if you want to get back into your gym-rat ways."

Dane laughed. "Christ, you seriously think I'm a gym-rat?" He flexed. "I'm not muscle-obsessed, I just like to be fit."

Ken nodded. "Fair enough, fair enough." He threw himself down on the couch and put on some music. He patted the couch next to him, and Dane joined him. "So, you've met the jocks of Brunswick. What did you think?"

"I think..." Dane chose his words carefully. "I think Grant is..."

"Dumb as a post?" finished Ken.

"Yeah," Dane chuckled. "I mean, I'm flattered that you put me in the same category..."

"No, no." Ken patted his knee. "Really, I wanted you to meet Miguel, but I didn't want him to think it was a hook up. I mean... I wouldn't have minded, but... I figured you weren't there quite yet."

Dane shook his head. No. He really wasn't.

"That's your outing for tonight. You want to watch a movie?"

Dane nodded, and Ken put one on the massive main screen. After a while, Dane shucked off his shoes and stretched out on the couch, his head on Ken's lap. Ken stroked his hair absently, and Dane closed his eyes, letting the sound from the movie lull him as he fell asleep.

Sometime later, Ken's voice sounded close to his ear, as the other boy leaned over him. "Time for bed."

Dane pretended to be asleep, and Ken stroked fingers across his forehead. He let Dane stay there in silence, until he fell asleep again for real.

❧ ❧ ❧

Dane woke alone on the couch and found Ken had thrown a blanket over him. He waited for the kick of pain in his gut, and when it didn't come, he got off the couch and joined Ken in the bedroom, wrapping himself around the other boy, warming himself back to sleep.

❧ ❧ ❧

Ken stretched and yawned. He glanced back over his shoulder at Dane, who was stroking his back.

"Well, I do declare," he said in a sultry voice, "there's a sexy-ass man in my bed."

"Yeah?" said Dane. He was distracted, exploring Ken's skin.

"Shall I take this t-shirt off?" the other boy asked. "Get it out of your way? --nngh!" He made a startled noise as Dane gripped fistfuls of fabric and yanked it over his head.

Dane ran his hands over the other boy's body as he kissed Ken's back, licking and biting. He pushed Ken flat to the bed and licked across his shoulder blade.

"No visible marks," warned Ken, as Dane's teeth closed against his skin.

"Shut up." Dane put a hand in the middle of the other boy's back, the muscles in his arm taut as he held Ken's slim body against the bed. "Let's get these off, too."

He grabbed the waist of Ken's briefs and pulled them down to his ankles.

Ken propped himself up on his elbows and looked back over his shoulders as Dane explored the creamy flesh of his arse.

Kian. Ken. Kian. They overlaid each other in his mind, a ghost within a ghost. He was hard for both of them. Dane would always be hot for this body, because he'd loved it. Loved it, hungered for it, would have died for it. For him. For Kian.

He moved down the bed and ran his tongue over Ken's smooth arse, then licked all the way back up the youth's spine to the back of his neck.

Ken sighed and closed his eyes as Dane nipped gently at the back of his neck.

"Lady's choice," said Dane. "What do you want?"

"Why don't you surprise me and look at my face?" Ken said softly.

On all fours, Dane rolled him over and placed a hand flat against the other boy's chest, pinning him there. It was an unmistakable gesture of dominance. Of ownership. Ken's eyes were the colour of the Mediterranean ocean as he looked up at Dane in the morning twilight, his chest rising and falling under Dane's hand, his pale body tight with anticipation.

"He's inside you, isn't he?" said Dane. "You feel it. I know you do."

Ken shook his head. "Sorry, sweetheart, I'm just me."

Dane froze, as an image flashed through his mind.

Back at Highfield, asking Kian if he was a hallucination;

"Am I you?"

Kian, his eyes half closed, stoned on Dane's medication, his fingertips tracing Dane's cheek; "No, you twat. I'm me."

Dane sat back on his heels, a lump in his throat, and Ken propped himself up on his elbows.

"I know you miss him, and I look like him, and that must be... a hell of a mind fuck. But he's not in here, Dane. Please, don't look me in the eye and tell yourself I'm him. I'm not. I never will be. You're only hurting yourself."

Dane stared into nothing, swaying ever so slightly in place, unable to pull his thoughts into focus.

"I saw you," he said, desperation in his voice. "I saw you touch him. I saw him go into you."

Ken sat up and put a hand on Dane's arm. "No. Sweetheart, no. I felt something. I think..." He sighed. "Christ, I was really hoping we could get to now each other a little better before I mentioned this, but... I think, somehow, I inherited his memories."

Dane's focus shifted to the other boy's face. "Really? What do you remember?"

"Weelll, I could be pulling this out of thin air, but I distinctly remember the time that you spent seven hours playing what should have been an hour-long campaign in some godawful console, co-op, piece-of-shit game, because Kian kept picking up corpses and insisting on carrying them everywhere with him."

Dane chuckled. "Fuck. Yeah, I remember that. He kept stacking them in the back of the Land Rover, and we got slaughtered every fucking time."

And between attempts, they'd gotten drunker and sillier, until Kian was sitting half-naked in Dane's lap, while Dane held a can of beer to his lips, so Kian could drag yet another dead NPC into the back of the Land Rover... only to die, all over again.

"You two... gotta say, a little strange," said Ken.

"Are you sure it's just his memories?" Dane asked.

Ken squeezed his lover's arm. "I'm sure, it's only his memories. But Dane, they are so, so precious. Like being handed a photo album you can step into. But... they're his memories. Not mine."

Dane shook his head, lost as to how to feel about this. Ken had Kian's memories. Maybe all of them. Two years of memories. The guy he was fucking had his ex's memories. He started to pull away, but Ken pulled him back.

"There is... one thing I remember, that might cheer you up right now. Do you want to see if I remember how to do it the way you like it?"

There was something in his eyes that made Dane pause. That look. That look! Ken might claim to be nothing like his clone, but Dane knew that look, and it bode very well for him.

With hunger in his eyes, he nodded slowly. "Go on, then."

Ken changed places with him, directing Dane to lie on his stomach. Dane closed his eyes as the other boy began to run his hands down his back, and soon felt Ken's tongue teasing his most intimate place. He shifted his legs apart to give his lover better access, and Ken's fingertips grazed his sensitive balls, sending shocks of pleasure through him.

His building excitement was accompanied by the bittersweet memory of the first time Kian had touched him. How overwhelming it'd been to be touched by an ethereal being who, at the time, he'd thought was a hallucination. Something created out of his loneliness.

He let out a soft sigh as Ken's tongue explored his flesh, running a hot, wet line up the divide between his cheeks, before sliding in further.

Ken kneaded Dane's arse as his tongue made slow circles against his lover's entrance, relaxing Dane into a state of slow-burning arousal.

Before, he'd wanted to fuck the Kian out of his new lover. Now, he wanted... well, to put it bluntly... to be fucked by him. But not yet. Right now, he was enjoying the prelude.

Ken kept coconut oil near the bed, and now he reached for it, dipping two fingers into the viscous liquid, coating them completely.

He drizzled more oil across Dane's buttocks and massaged it into his lightly furred cheeks, then drizzled more into the boy's crack, using his fingers and tongue to ease Dane open.

Dane groaned softly; it'd been so long since he'd had this kind of attention, and Ken knew even better than his counterpart what made Dane's body come alive. After all, Dane wasn't the only man he'd fucked.

"Fuck me," he groaned against the bed, the pillow swallowing the sense of his words. "Fuck me!"

Ken ignored his urgent noises and went at his own maddening pace, his tongue caressing Dane's hole as he slid two fingers in and out of his lover, grazing against the magic place inside Dane that made him moan uncontrollably.

Dane lifted his hips off the bed, so he could stroke himself, and without saying a word, Ken took more oil from the jar and slathered it across Dane's balls, then pushed his lover's hand out of the way and coated his dick for him.

That done, he turned his attention back to eating Dane out, while Dane groaned, his dick now slick and oily and pleasurably hard in his hand.

Feeling Dane was relaxed and horny as hell, Ken added another finger, beginning the real work of stretching his lover out.

Dane groaned, alternating between stroking his dick and pausing to adjust to Ken's working him open. Soon, Ken was able to slide three fingers smoothly in and out, and the pillow under Dane's face was damp with saliva from his constant noises of pleasure.

There was no doubt in Dane's mind now that he was about to get fucked, in the best way.

He thrust into his hand, then pushed against the bed with both hands under his chest when he got too close, half-afraid he'd cum just from the thought of being fucked before Ken got anywhere near penetrating him.

Ken paused his licking, but continued pumping his fingers slowly in and out of Dane's now relaxed passage, as he said; "You want me inside you?"

Dane let out an insensible groan. He clenched his hole against the other boy's fingers as Ken stroked across his prostate, trying to get him to pause there, but Ken just laughed and slid his fingers out.

"How could I ever deny you, when I remember how much fun it is to fuck you?"

He pulled Dane up onto his hands and knees and ran a finger down the centreline of his muscular arse.

"Do you realise, you've never touched my dick?"

With a jolt, Dane realised it was true. Every time he'd fucked Ken, he'd taken his own pleasure without a thought for his lover's enjoyment.

"Well, my friend," said Ken, "today my dick is going to be touching you. A lot."

With that, he slicked oil over his own hard seven inches, and positioned himself against Dane's entrance. "Moan for me, baby."

"Ooohhhhoooo, fuck," said Dane, his head hanging between his arms. He pushed back on Ken's cock, driving it further inside him, more than ready. He'd never been so expertly prepared for sex, never been so turned on.