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Nick takes a deep breath before the door opens.
Holds it.
Releases, just as Boston turns, hair a little longer than it used to be but clearly heavily styled, makes eye contact, and the expression on Boston’s face turns from friendly and welcoming to something more complicated.
“Nick,” he says, and nothing else.
Smiling like he doesn’t notice, or really like he does, Nick says, “Hey, Ton.”
Boston swallows and looks him up and down – wonders at him, really, and Nick can feel it working the way it used to, making him all warm and sparkling and giddy, but it doesn’t sweep him away like before.
Makes him smile, though.
Especially when Boston stands in his own doorway, letting his arms dangle uselessly by his side, just staring at Nick.
“Won’t you let me in?” Nick asks.
Boston smiles at that, and it’s wide and growing and happy as he steps back.
This isn’t anywhere near as big as Boston’s place back home, of course, that’s a family home and this is a stylish apartment – or, Nick’s pretty sure, a condo – but it’s just as clearly expensive. The furniture is sleek and black and matching.
He peers at a tiny corner table, black and shiny enough to see his face in, and says, “Oh, this is cool!”
When he stands back up, Boston is staring at him.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” he says.
Nick shrugs and admits, “I got your address from Ray.”
He’d visited Boston over the summer, and it had just taken Nick mentioning – completely truthfully – that they’d been texting and sometimes Nick saw cool art he would like to send Boston, before Ray had eagerly given him the building and apartment number.
“Ai’Ray,” Boston mutters to himself, shooting a glare at the kitchen area, visible from here.
It makes Nick smile.
When they started texting again, Nick went slow. He’d text Boston and then set the entire app to being unable to notify him, so he wouldn’t be able to wait on tenterhooks for Boston’s reply; he’d deliberately be the parts of himself that he was always pretty sure Boston didn’t find cute or interesting, too.
Nick’s pretty sure, now, he knows how to not get swept away in Boston – but Boston smiles at him all teeth and says, “I’ll get you something,” and disappears to a cupboard and Nick isn’t sure.
He returns with a can of pepsi and says, “Sorry, man, I don’t have anything else – Ray didn’t tell me he was sending you.”
“Well, he didn’t send-“
They both turn to the noise at the door – the same electric beeping of the doorbell earlier.
Boston frowns.
Nick closes his eyes and thinks it’s karma for Sand’s birthday, because he didn’t tell Ray he was coming but Boston was expecting someone, and he doesn’t have anything alcoholic in his fancy, expensive condo, three days before New Years.
But Boston doesn’t have the same realisation, saying, “Huh, I wonder who that is.”
He smiles at him and picks up his can; opening it, he decides a week with friends isn’t too much worse than a sexy-romantic surprise visit.
With his ex.
Whatever, they’ve been texting, and Nick might have a boyfriend but this wouldn’t be happening if it was cheating, and…
He’s sinking in his seat a little when the confused, “Nick?” greets him from behind.
“Hi, guys,” he greets them both dimly.
Yeah, of course Sand and Ray are here.
They have a group chat with Boston, he knows, and it’s not used as often as the one they have with him but it’s in regular use and also they’re for sure trying to get out of the blast zone for April and Cheum’s current situation at the hostel – they’re the ones who tried to do the throuple thing, they’re the ones who can handle that awful party. Ray and Sand have had one turn of it.
Nick kind of has too.
Ray’s grinning, and Sand’s eyebrows have migrated to the top of his skull, as they both look at him, and Boston, and him, and Boston, and Nick rolls his eyes and says, “Surprise.”
This is when Boston seems to realise that Ray didn’t send him; he rears back, looks at Nick with new eyes again, and opens his mouth.
Great.
No way are they leaving without answers.
Sand loves it when Ray is annoying.
Right now, he’s interrogating Nick about his presence over the sound of some music playing from Boston’s speakers, echoing through the un-carpeted, shiny condo. Sand is watching, of course, and Boston obviously is as well.
Nick is still in the definitely-for-a-date slightly fancy clothes he was wearing when Sand arrived, but the rest of them are dressed casually – Boston for lounging and Ray and Sand for travelling. Ray has changed one part of his outfit, though, from the thick pants Sand insisted on for walking through the New York winter into a pair of shorts that come to about a third down his thigh. Also bought by Sand, obviously.
The left leg of them is riding enough to expose the lyric tattoo Sand had watched him get.
It’s where his gaze likes to rest.
Ray nudges, and cackles, and gets in Nick’s space, and Sand watches the furrow in Nick’s brow deepen and deepen, until-
“Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about here. You think exes can’t be friends? Weird and homoerotic friends who like to watch their boyfriends make out until they bleed?”
Boston snorts and Sand laughs as Ray pouts.
“He’s not really my ex,” Ray insists, the way he likes to when people mention it or when Sand talks about the time they were fucking behind Mew’s back, because Mew and Ray have decided between themselves that that wasn’t cheating, actually, and they do expect everyone else to agree.
And Sand contributes with a lazy, “Hey, only Top ever ended up bleeding.”
It makes Nick laugh and nod, and he seems less annoyed as he looks at Ray, more… confused.
“Actually,” he says, “There’s something I always wondered about, with all that.”
Ray blinks at him inquisitively, and Sand doesn’t like how wide and airy Boston’s apartment is – he can’t just reach out and squeeze Ray to him from all the way over here.
Nick continues, “You and Mew, I mean, but not that time.”
“Us being friends?”
“The time you kissed,” he says.
Ray shifts uneasily and Boston sits up slowly, like he’s seen something interesting and wants to get a good angle on it; it makes Sand shift too, turning so he’s facing the corner Nick and Ray are huddled together on, facing the same way as Boston about half a yard away.
Boston says, “Back before you knew us?”
“Yeah,” Nick agrees, probably as oblivious to Ray’s discomfort as Ray was to his – not at all oblivious, in other words, just willing to ignore it – as he presses, “The time that you recorded.”
Recording is a topic that makes them all glance at each other uneasily, and normally Nick is the most sensitive to it, but he’s been growing in himself and his confidence all this while, Sand has seen, and he sits up straight as he mentions it.
He looks Ray directly in the eyes, and Sand can only see Ray’s reaction from behind but he seems to almost be shying away, as much as he ever does, as Nick stares at him.
“Why did Boston and Top both think you guys fucked?”
Sand blinks, surprised – they have an answer to that, don’t they?
Ray seems confused too, looking over at Boston and saying, “Well, Top thought that because Boston told him. But Boston didn’t really believe it, he saw everything.”
“You guys absolutely fucked,” Boston tells him. “Top knew it because I showed him the video of you guys fucking – my bad.”
Now Ray is shaking his head and insisting, “We made out!”
Sand can’t believe this is happening – he looks over to Nick and sees Nick looking at him, a smile on his face that looks like amusement and something simpler, the kind of joy he gets glimpses of, sometimes, when Nick is texting his guys.
Boston being one of them.
Apparently.
The squabble is friendly, but it’s not getting anywhere, so Sand raises his voice enough to be overheard over them as he says, “Hey! Hey, guys, come on, chill. Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened, huh?”
That part’s for Ray alone, and his voice drops into the warm amusement he reserves for Ray.
Raising his chin at Boston like he’s declaring victory, Ray says, “Okay. I will.”
Boston shakes his head and rolls his eyes, friendly and annoyed in equal measure, but he looks at Sand and nods.
Sand sits back.
“You confessed to Mew, then you kissed him, and he kissed back a little before he stopped it and told you he didn’t want to. That’s how you explained it to me,” he prompts Ray.
Ray nods eagerly and Boston smirks to himself.
Then Ray says, “That’s how it happened. But- we didn’t stay stopped.”
Not what Sand expected.
Sand looks bowled over and Nick feels kind of guilty for bringing it up, but…
Well, Ray was being annoying, and also it’s not like Sand is jealous over Mew anymore – you kind of can’t be jealous of a guy whose boyfriend you did a multi-day sexcation with even if you are monogamous by nature. Nick’s pretty sure that’s a rule.
And Boston is still looking certain he’s right, so Nick says, “How didn’t you stay stopped, huh?”
Ray mumbles something.
“Huh?”
“I tripped on him when I got up a bit after,” he repeats more loudly.
Nick coughs his laughter at that, and he can see Boston snorting at the same moment – the synchronicity makes him feel warm, and a thrill goes through him when his eyes meet Boston’s.
He ducks his head away, still smiling, and says, “Uh huh.”
Even Sand looks amused and disbelieving.
“I know that move,” he tells Ray.
Ray flicks a middle finger and makes a face at his boyfriend but shamelessly agrees, “Yeah, it was on purpose. He kissed back and he kept making eyes like he was curious – I wanted to see how curious. So I tripped into his lap and made eyes until he kissed me again, Sand.”
It’s so funny how easily those two make each other jealous.
“And then you fucked,” Boston says conversationally.
Ray makes another face and tells him, “We didn’t,” looking around at himself and Sand for support as he repeats, “We didn’t. We made out for- I don’t know, a while,” looking all red. “And yeah, we did some heavy petting, but it was all over the clothes and-“
He looks at Boston, and Boston looks back at him, and Ray rolls his eyes.
“And I came in my pants, okay? That’s all. We didn’t fuck, me and Mew talked about it – we just made out and I got ahead of myself, it wasn’t sex.”
Boston has a grin on his face but he shakes his head and says, “It wasn’t just heavy petting, I saw – man, what moves count as that to you, huh?”
“Those moves,” Ray insists.
Humming something surprised, Sand says, “Why don’t you show us? You two have your opinions, but we,” and he points to Nick and to himself in an oval motion, “Don’t have ours, yet.”
“You want me to trip on your lap,” Ray immediately flirts back.
But Nick points out, “You guys will definitely make it sex, come on. And you won’t remember you’re supposed to be demonstrating anything. Nah, it should be the ones who were there who demonstrate.”
“Ray and Ton?”
“Ray and Ton.”
Boston looks curious, challenging.
Belligerent, Ray says, “Fine. I’ll do with Ton what I did with Mew.”
He hadn’t thought he’d ever be a fan of watching Ray make out with someone else, especially not to prove a point, but Sand feels kind of okay with this.
It’s only him and Ray, Nick and Boston here – they’re all people he trusts, Ray with his heart and the other two with the higher honour of Ray himself. This isn’t threatening.
No, Sand’s current problem, as Boston spreads his legs only a little, sitting with exaggeratedly-proper posture in an impression of Mew, is that-
Ugh.
Sand loves making Ray cum in his pants, is the problem.
He gets too desperate to take them off, or too intent on watching something Sand’s doing for him, or sometimes Sand just won’t let him take them off because he likes to grope him through the fabric sometimes, and Ray gets panting and mewling and squirming and, just.
Mew won’t have appreciated it.
Clearly didn’t.
But he got to do that to Ray, see it, and Sand is never jealous of Mew anymore but he hates the idea of someone getting that sweet and wanting Ray and not knowing what to do with him.
Ray doesn’t trip onto Boston’s lap, just takes a seat there as Boston bats his eyelashes and says, “But Ray, I’m saving myself for a hotel heir-“
“Man, shut up,” Ray cackles, as Boston puts his hands on Ray’s hips to steady him.
The shorts are riding high, still, showing the lyric tattoo.
And Boston says, “You weren’t sitting like this.”
“We were at first,” Ray tells him.
Boston squints, like he’s struggling to remember, and says, “Oh! Yeah, it was like,” and he makes what has to be his surprised-Mew face and stares dramatically at Ray before leaning in, over him, and kissing him.
Ray is kissing back slowly, and it’s…
Huh.
Sand is finding it hot instead of wanting to kill Boston. Maybe the pool thing was an outlier.
He watches as Ray, who had been tilted back slightly as if he’d tripped elegantly onto Boston, lifts himself up using Boston’s shoulders for leverage, raises himself until he’s no longer sitting on Boston’s lap but kneeling over it, and Boston licks into his mouth and brings both hands up and around Ray’s neck, not quite squeezing but Sand still frowns, because-
“Did Mew do that?” Nick interrupts.
The two break apart and look over, Ray annoyed-and-dazed and Boston inquisitive.
Sand already knows what Nick means, and he nods as Nick clarifies, “The hands around his neck – that’s a Ton thing, not a Mew thing.”
“Shit,” Boston says. “Sorry, man, it was just one hand, right?”
Ray nods, “Yeah, one cupping the back of my neck, the other one- hey!”
The last part is a yelp as Boston gropes his ass.
And then they go back to kissing, Ray squeezing at Boston’s chest but, Sand will admit, nothing that would be out of place just doing heavy petting.
Ray moves again, then, seeming like he’s winding around Boston as he shuffles his legs over so one is between Boston’s and the other stays where it was, just on the outside – he’s straddling Boston’s leg, and Boston pulls him up it, closer, with the hand that Sand can see most clearly, in its position on Ray’s ass.
And that’s when Sand sees what Boston meant, because Ray isn’t just straddling Boston’s leg but grinding on it, hips working and hands grasping at Boston.
He feels his mouth go dry.
Sand is obviously about to die.
Too much blood in his dick, probably, and Nick understands very deeply.
They need to keep a scientific mindset, though.
Ray is grinding on Boston’s thigh and Boston is kissing him and squeezing his ass in a way Nick remembers with his body when he sees it. The whining is reasonable and respectable, really.
Of course, it’s also standard for Ray – Nick’s still Sand’s roommate, he hears a lot of shit.
He’s listening to the whining from the back of Ray’s throat and thinking he probably has enough to answer his question, but on the other hand…
“Hey, Ton,” he calls over, “He came last time, right?”
Obviously they all know the answer, because Ray said, but he directs it to Boston for a reason.
Sure enough, Boston gets it first, grinning over at Nick all knowing when he languidly replies, “Yeah. But Mew didn’t touch him.”
Nick knew Sand was his brother-in-arms, and Sand is smirking too, now.
Yeah, he’s trying for deadpan, but really fucking badly. He raises his eyebrows at Ray all challenging, because Ray has twisted around to look at Sand, then glance at Nick.
Ray’s eyes widen in surprise.
Then intrigue.
And then he looks around once more, looking carefully at each of their faces like he’s checking in, and then Ray shrugs and says, “Okay.”
When he kisses Boston, he doesn’t look like he’s trying to remember his past script anymore.
Boston definitely isn’t pretending to be Mew.
They’re moving a little more, and Boston’s hands have migrated up to Ray’s neck like they always do- well, not always Ray’s neck, of course. Ray’s grinding, legs squirming, it’s all entirely visible because of the shorts which Nick is assuming were Sand’s choice, considering everything about Sand and Ray.
His legs are deceptively well-defined, actually, and Nick would.
Boston is panting, kind of, and so is Ray, but it’s Boston whose chest Nick wants to watch heave – when the shirt is off it. He’s the one controlling the pace of the kissing and not doing a damn thing about the pace of the grinding, pretty much being pointed in how he ignores Ray’s increasing want.
It looks almost casual the way he kisses Ray, pulls back, kisses again and leaves his face dazed.
Nick prefers it when Boston loses that control.
There’s time until New Year.
Ray is nowhere near being in control, his panting faster and his grinding not rhythmic. He twists again, when Boston releases him from the kiss, to look at Sand.
Those are the pleading eyes that Nick has seen Sand give stupid amounts of anything to.
Today, Sand gives Ray a sincere-sounding, “Su su!” and a thumbs up.
Nick’s mouth drops open in shock and laughter; Ray actually whines out loud in more of a complaint way than a sexy way.
“You’ve done it before, Ray,” says Boston, calling Ray’s attention back to him and Nick’s with it, “Losing your touch?”
He also squeezes absently at Ray’s bare thigh; Nick is watching his hands.
Ray tilts his head at Boston and gets a competitive look in his eyes and says, “I don’t think so.”
The cool head there instantly seems to depart him when Boston kisses him again and Ray’s hips start tiny little nothing-humps against the muscular thighs that Nick wants around his neck.
Even Boston is getting visibly affected now, gaze getting more intent on Ray’s face like he does when his partn- the guy in his bed is getting close.
He licks his lips, just enough to wet them, Nick only spots it because he’s staring at Boston’s face as it happens and Nick wants Ray off Boston and his own hands on him, on that face and body now.
Ray twists out of the kiss to look at Sand again, and when Nick looks up-
Yeah, there are tears of frustration in his eyes now.
And yeah, Sand looks so horny he’s like, forgotten how to count, he looks stupid with the want in his eyes, but the rest of his face is impressively cool as he tilts his head and purses his lips as if judging Ray, finding him wanting.
Nick shoots Sand an impressed double-thumbs-up, but Sand doesn’t see.
Probably something to do with Ray’s louder whining, more desperate writhing, as Boston moves so both hands are on Ray’s thighs – either to help him along or hold him back, Nick can’t tell.
As Ray obviously cums, he whines, “Motherfucker,” and that could really be for anyone.
He falls forwards, or tries to, but Boston pushes at him with annoyed hands.
Laughing, he says, “Get up, Ray, I’m not Sand – you actually have to move yourself.”
Sand shoots Nick a glare.
That’s fair, it definitely could be Nick’s fault Boston knows that, but then Boston has eyes and also Ray’s phone number, so.
“Fuck off, Ton,” Ray says, but he’s smiling as he manages to stand.
Obviously he immediately picks his way over to Sand and dumps himself against his side, where Sand clasps him with one arm and a heated look.
It’s time for them to go and fuck, so Nick slides a sideways glance at Boston to see if maybe-
“Well?” Boston asks.
“Huh?”
He rolls his eyes at Nick’s question, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth, and says, “Was I right, or were Ray and Mew right?”
“Oh yeah, that was fucking,” Nick tells him. “You guys just fucked.”
Sand, with Ray now propped against his shoulder, nods in agreement and says, “Yeah.”
“Ehh,” Ray says into Sand’s shoulder, waving a dismissive hand, “Sure, I guess. But when me and Mew did it, he didn’t think so. Anything can be fucking if you think it’s fucking, so like,” he makes a noise into Sand’s shoulder as Sand stares at him like he’s a lamb wearing a bowtie that can recite a poem, or something, “It’s not when Mew lost his virginity, is the main thing,” and he’s rambling a little as Nick’s attention gets caught.
Boston stands up, walks over to Nick, and picks his pocket for his phone.
Standing up straight as Nick stares in disbelief, he unlocks it without asking Nick for the code, and is soon holding it to his ear.
“Ton, what the fuck,” he asks, not really expecting an answer.
Boston smiles at him, then hears something on the other end that draws his gaze away as he bursts into a rapidfire, “You actually do know you guys fucked, right? You’re ju- he hung up.”
He’s pouting like he wasn’t expecting that for about a second before he shrugs.
“That’s chill, he doesn’t know my new number. I’ll text him,” Boston says, wandering off in search of a phone.
Huh.
Nick realises that right now, he wants to, like, drag Boston into his bedroom by his hair. He’s so fucking hot and weird with it, it makes Nick feel all fucking caveman about it. There might not be a The One for him like the two idiots who are finally stumbling towards Boston’s guestroom, but he doesn’t ever want to stop seeing this one.