Gray flicks the ember of his cigarette off the edge of the roof. It falls like the world's saddest Roman candle. A firework just for them.

Zef tries to summon the words. I was hired to hunt you down. I'm sorry. They blackmailed me. I can't do it, and I'm scared of what they're gonna do to me and my family, but I think I'm more scared of what they'd do to you if I go through with this.

Gray gives Zef's shoulder a nudge, derailing his thoughts. "Night's still young. I've got more for you. And I think this stuff'll be a winner. Turn that frown upside down."

Gray offers to help him off the roof ledge. Zef tentatively takes his hand, Gray's fingers solid and warm as he tugs him back towards the fire escape.

Later, Zef thinks. I'll tell him. Just not now. He planned this night, and you already sorta ruined it. Don't wreck the rest.

Miraculously, the bike is still where they left it. Gray drives them out of the slum he grew up in and onto the highway. They don't have to go far—a stone's throw South, and they turn off a ramp into a world so alien from the one they left behind Zef thinks he's been abducted.

Sprawling mansions hunker behind elaborately curling gates and carefully cultivated topiary, tall palm trees and glittering turquoise pools surrounded by zen gardens just visible through breaks in the gates.

"Gray, where the hell are you taking me?"

"You'll see."

"You don't need to tell me. This is Goldhill, isn't it?"

"The one and only."

Goldhill. The pinnacle to which all caps aspire. Only the most plush of off-shore accounts and egregious wealth hoarders could possibly afford it. Far enough removed from the smog of Neorleans proper, close enough to commute. Right on the oceanfront, high on artificially constructed hills so they could look down on the peons who made them their fortune.

Zef's practical side kicks him in the teeth with reproof. Of all places, they really shouldn't be here.

"I feel under-dressed."

Gray throws a sly smile over his shoulder. "I'm sure we can find something more appropriate to change into."

This does the opposite of reassuring Zef, but that sly smile is hard to resist.

They come to a stop outside a twelve-foot, golden gate that looks wrought to resemble the pearly gates to heaven. Beyond, a sweeping driveway is surrounded by lush gardens obscuring the view of the house. The road's dark and forbidding, but Gray rumbles right up to the gate and gives the security a once over before his tattoos glow, and the gates peel aside without a squeak of defiance.

Zef says, "Are we trespassing right now?"

"We're just borrowing someone's holiday home, darling."

"No one's home though, right?"

Gray twists the throttle, and they ease through the gates, which start closing behind them. Zef feels just a little trepidation.

"One way to find out," Gray says.

Okay, a lot of trepidation. "Gray. You checked, right? With your techie superpowers. No one's home. Right?"

The driveway curves round in a large arc. Neon blue spotlights turn on one by one along the edge of the road to guide them. Flowers blooming in the gardens smell sweeter than the sucrose-injected confectionary found at a fairground. Around the bend in the driveway, the gardens fall away to reveal a palatial McMansion in all its offensive glory. There's a pool in the front yard and, from the turquoise glow beyond, the backyard, too. The front doors are tall and ostentatious enough to admit royalty.

In a darkened car port, a series of garage doors lie closed. Gray parks the bike in the port. The sudden quiet after he cuts the engine turns Zef's blood cold.

They're so far removed from the city, it's silent. The noise of traffic and drunk neighbours had been a comfort. Here, the silence is forbidding. Like if he breaks it, he'll reveal himself for the trespasser he is.

"You all right?" Gray asks.

"Could you get a light or something? It's creepy."

Gray flicks his wrist, but before he can turn on the lights, Zef catches sight of movement in the red glow of Gray's tattoos. A figure marching mechanically out of the blackness of the car port. Moving towards them.

The figure raises its arms. Even in the low light, Zef knows what it's holding.

A gun.

Zef nearly pees his pants on the spot. Uselessly, he screams, "Man! Gun!" Really just giving the shooter an easy target.

Gray's tattoos flare, illuminating the figure completely. Not a person, Zef realises. A security bot. It lowers the gun, emitting a series of cheerful beeps that seem tone-deaf in the currently ice-pick-brittle atmosphere. After Gray's intervention, it says in a mechanical voice, "Welcome. Might I fetch you refreshments?"

Zef lets out the breath he'd held. "There isn't a curse word in the English language that sums up how I'm feeling right now."

"I set its permissions to recognize us as guests," Gray says. "It won't hurt you now. Look. It's kinda cute."

The bot has its oversized, metal head tilted while it awaits their answer. Its singular eye is, in fact, a camera lens.

"Is it recording?" says Zef.

"Don't worry. I'll scramble whatever it gets. C'mon, let's check the place out."

On the way to the front door, they pass several more security bots, all of them giving polite bows and offering to get snacks or prepare the pool. At the massive double doors, Gray pauses and uses his implants to once again bypass all security and locks. The doors sweep inward of their own accord, and Gray brandishes his arms like he's a wizard using ancient magic to clear the way. Beyond, a modern art chandelier comes alive with curling, sparkly filaments. An open plan living area features a piano and sunken living room. Floor-to-ceiling windows offer an unbroken view of the sea and the city.

Zef walks, entranced, to the windows. Neorleans, at this distance, looks serene. A matrix of quiet light and dancing movement. A distant galaxy viewed through a telescope rather than the heaving, writhing, textured mass it is when experienced from within. He can identify buildings at this distance, even Bionic Capital HQ, spiralling skyward.

The sea is closer, just beneath the cliff upon which this mansion perches. The windows must be thick. Soundproofed. Maybe bulletproof? He can't hear the waves, but the black expanse of water reflects the lights of the city and the slim crescent of the moon, too.

A discordant CLANG of bottles from the other room makes Zef jump so hard he smashes his forehead into the glass. Following the noise and rubbing the goose egg forming on his head— he'll be a collection of bruises by morning, at this rate— he finds Gray hunkered behind a bar, filling his arms with wine and liquor and whatever bottle-shaped-else he finds.

"Gray. What are you doing?"

"Getting this party started!" he declares, trying to pop the cork on a champagne bottle cut like a diamond. He doesn't manage it and screams, "Bot man! Fetch me a bottle opener, please!"

Zef jumps aside as one of the bots appears through a door. It brandishes a mechanical arm, which transforms through a series of tools before settling on a bottle opener. It takes the champagne bottle and frees the cork for Gray without spilling a drop.

Gray frowns. "No, no. That isn't how it's done. Zef, c'mere. Open up."

Zef doesn't know why he obeys. Or, more accurately, why he trusts Gray when Gray is currently holding a hand over the bottle and shaking it vigorously. More froth than champagne ends up in Zef's mouth, soaking his clothes. He gargles, chokes, swallows, then spits up a laugh.

"Stop, are you trying to drown me?"

"My turn," Gray says and pours the remainder of the bottle down his throat. He is not neat about it. A lot trickles down his neck. Zef has the wayward thought, what would happen if I licked it off?

He would probably choke you to death, and not in a sexy way.

"That was good," Gray says. "Tastes like a million creds. Probably 'cause it cost a million creds. How much of this person's money do you think we can spend tonight?"

Maybe Zef's a lightweight and still a little drunk from the bar, but he starts giggling. He takes in Gray, filling his arms with as much booze as he can carry, and can't stop himself. The giggles turn to laughter.

Gray sits back on his heels. Some of the bottles drop and roll away from him. He gives Zef a quizzical, bemused look. "What?"

"Gray," Zef says between helpless laughter. "Gray. Are we being gay and doing crimes?"

Gray rolls his eyes. "Stop being cute."

Zef can only laugh harder. "Fellas. Is it gay for a guy to tell another guy to stop being cute?"

"No disapproval? No telling me off for breaking and entering and stealing the whole bar?"

"We just started a fight and ran away from the cops on a stolen bike." He pauses. Then starts laughing harder. "I'm so fucking dead if anyone finds out."

"No one'll find out," Gray says.

"My fingerprints are all over that window, and yours are all over this bar."

"I'll get the bots to clean. I've hacked all the security cameras. The person— Whoever owns the place won't even know it's been burgled for, like, a year because they're probably like those Canadian snowbirds who only come for winter holidays to see the sunshine."

Zef wipes tears from his eyes. Something about the whole scenario strikes him as just so odd and so hysterical at the same time. Like, why go to all the trouble? And why did Gray stumble just now between saying 'person' and 'whoever?'

"Gray, c'mon, tell me what's going on. Why are we here? Really?"

"Fun."

"Uh huh. You had this place scoped out already, though. Don't look at me like that, you didn't waffle about looking for the right digs. What's the plan?"

Gray looks shifty and plays it off by flipping a bottle into the air and catching it. "You wanna spoil the surprise already?"

"It's not even my birthday. What surprise?"

Gray abruptly stands, half the liquor cabinet clutched in his arms. He instructs the bot, "Carry these for me, would you?"

The bot promptly transforms into a terrifying, many-appendaged monstrosity in order to accommodate the request, taking a bottle in each of its pincered, mechanical limbs.

"Lord have mercy, that's awful disturbing," Gray mutters. "Rich people need to be stopped."

"Useful, I guess," says Zef.

"I guess. Whatever. C'mon. Onward, to your surprise!"

Gray marches them back out the front door. Confused, Zef follows. They go through the back garden, past a sparkling pool and a hidden gate. Beyond is a staircase carved into the cliffside. Their abomination of a bot—carting their contraband—scuttles, spider-like, ahead.

"If I saw that coming towards me in the dark I would pass away," Zef says.

Gray snorts. "Imagine if, when it brandished the gun at us, it did it in that form?"

"With a gun in every hand," adds Zef.

They burst out laughing. It feels good to be stupid. To just go along with Gray's insane plans, whatever they are. Zef can almost forget the purpose of these get-togethers. Let go of the sticky moral quandaries his job landed him in and bask in the deep crackle of Gray's laugh.

As they descend the stairs, a sound previously absent in the bunker of the mansion filters up to them. The soft splash of waves lapping at the shore. The water ahead is nothing but a black void with an occasional glimmering reflection. The cliff is artificial. Must be. Carved so the beach has no neighbours, no idle wanderers out for a midnight stroll. When Zef takes the final stair, his shoe sinks in the sand below. It's a sensation he's never known. The bot scuttles past, bottles held aloft for them.

"A beach?" Zef says.

"Private beach," Gray confirms, sitting on the stair and unlacing his boots. "Take your shoes off, you heathen. Ain't nothing worse than sand in your shoes."

Zef plunks his ass down and ditches the shoes and socks. Standing, he feels almost embarrassed by the child-like urge to laugh. To run. The sand is grainy and warm between his toes. He's a grown man, and he's sure grown men aren't meant to be so enchanted by a sandy beach.

Then Gray says, "Race you to the water," and streaks past. Literally streaks. It's dark, but Gray is pale, and Zef sees the dark curl of tattoos up his spine and the violin's curve of his waist and the bare, full moon of his ass before all of the above splash into the water, raucously loud.

Zef freezes. Looks behind him at the pile of clothes Gray managed to shuck so quickly, Zef hadn't noticed. Then looks ahead as Gray breaks the surface, spitting water.

"Fuck, forgot how salty it is."

Zef, paralyzed, doesn't answer. Gray is naked. Gray is naked and swimming in the sea and asking Zef to swim with him. Zef, who is—even after top surgery—very non-passing and self-conscious and over-aware of how clunky his body feels, even in the dark, but who is also wretchedly falling in love with the memory of Gray's bare ass streaking past him. Gray, who is not normally this free or unbridled. At least, not like this. In a 'committing crimes and getting in trouble' way? Sure. In an openly vulnerable way? Rarely. Never on purpose.

"Do I— In my clothes?" Zef asks lamely.

"You're the one who said you wanted to swim in the sea with no top on, but if you're shy—"

"Wait." Zef feels his face heat, his heart gone molten. "This is the surprise 'cause...'cause it was on my bucket list?"

"Well, yeah," Gray says.

Zef's cheeks flame bright red. He's glad of the darkness because he doesn't blush in an attractive way. More in a sputtering, clumsy buffoon kind of way. He tries to play off the overwhelming heat of his molten heart with a joke, but his voice comes out touched. "You really are trying to fit it all in one night."

"If you can't swim, you shoulda said."

Zef can't. Swimming in the bayou was a good way to get eaten. He'd never been able to afford lessons, and the seaside was mostly owned by the rich and famous.

None of it matters. Right now he's willing to drown for this man.

"Turn around," Zef says.

"What, you shy?"

"Well, yeah."

Even in the dark, Gray's expression...it kinda matches what people look like when presented with a basket of baby bunnies. He obliges and turns around, but not before muttering, "Adorable 'lil fucker, ain't ya?"

Zef strips. For some reason, perhaps nerves, perhaps to delay this weird rite of passage of being naked around another person while trans, he goes to the trouble of folding his clothing on the staircase.

Gray talks. Babbles, almost. Maybe to put Zef at ease. "You ever thought about how weird it is that we, like, get changed in private when going for a massage or a pap smear?"

Zef takes off his boxer briefs last. Even though Gray's not looking, he feels the urge to cover himself. Still a man, he reminds himself. And Gray wouldn't see you different, even if he was looking.

"—but then the nurse comes in and sticks a cold-ass plastic speculu-whatsit up your hooha and takes a look up there with a flashlight," Gray continues.

Zef walks up to the shore. The waves lap over his toes, the water pleasantly warm. As an afterthought, he grabs the half-full tequila bottle from the bot. The gold filigree of Zef's new chest glints in the moonlight. The new shape of it gives him a boost of confidence. The back of Gray's head bobs in the waves as he babbles away. Zef thinks, Maybe I should let him look.

"Like. She's gonna see bits of me I ain't never seen, but god forbid she see me taking my pants off, right?" Gray continues. "Lady's seen more pussy than an animal shelter but stripping, god forbid."

"Gray."

"Who made up that modesty rule, huh?"

"Gray."

"Makes no damn sense—"

"Gray!"

"...Yeah?"

"You can turn around now."

Zef's waded in. Only up to his shins. Gray turns around. For a moment, terror seizes Zef, 'cause he only realises what he wants when Gray's eyes are on him.

I want you to think I'm beautiful. And a man. I want someone to look at me and see me and not think my body's wrong.

But in the moment, the terror is all-consuming. What if he can't? What if this is awkward? What if all this wasn't flirting, just platonic affection, and now you've made him uncomfortable and—

Gray wolf whistles. The sound rings sharp and clear against the cliffs. It skips around in Zef's head like a stone skimmed over the water.

"Give us a twirl, boy," Gray shouts in a mockery of construction workers heckling passersby. "Show us your ASS!"

Zef can't help a grin, even though he says, "Don't."

"Man's got pussy so fire the whole ocean gonna evaporate. Where am I supposed to swim, huh?"

"Stop!"

"Pussy so fire you double fucked global warming—"

"Gray, I'm gonna laugh so hard I puke."

Gray settles, talking in his normal (annoyingly sexy) voice again. "There is nothing funny about climate change."

A pause as Zef wades in the rest of the way, up to his shoulders, affording himself a bit more modesty. Though he's— Well, pleased is an understatement. He feels buoyant enough to float unassisted. So warm that the summer sea feels cool.

"Sorry," Gray says, suddenly shy. "Should I ask permission before I objectify you?"

Zef, consumed with the sense that if he doesn't move or do something the inflated balloon in his chest might burst, splashes Gray with a well aimed swipe of his hand.

Gray sputters, "Should I be more respectfully flirtatious, or—?" He splashes Zef, giving just as good back. Zef doesn't even mind how the salt water stings his eyes.

Zef stops splashing. "Flirting," he says. "Are we flirting?"

Gray says, "Zef, we're skinny dipping."

"So..."

"Yeah... I mean, I thought so."

Gray says it with a shuttered look that's all wishful and uncertain with a little bit of humour, glazed over like thin armour. His hair plasters his forehead in inky drips. A glimmer of water droplets shine on his lashes. The feeling stuffed tight in Zef's chest is so incandescent it burns. Hurts. He reaches out, unthinking. Almost touches Gray's cheek before remembering. Don't touch me. Don't ever touch me. There'd been touching tonight but with clothes on. With barriers.

Gray looks at Zef's hand. Meets Zef's eyes. "You can."

Zef's breath catches, certain he misheard. Gray keeps looking at him steadily.

"You sure?" asks Zef.

The tentative smile on Gray's mouth is so slight, so endearing, it nearly breaks Zef's heart.

"You're the only one who asks. I'm sure."