In the movie, a goat's leg slams onto the sunroof of a jeep, and Gray startles hard enough he knocks Zef's teeth together.

"Shit."

Zef winces, rubbing his jaw. "Is the movie freaking you out?"

"No," Gray says sullenly. "Still don't know what this has to do with chickens, is all."

But as the movie continues, Gray's bravado deteriorates. Once or twice, he turns his face into Zef's neck. His hand spasms to clutch Zef's arm. By the time they get to the bit where velociraptors stalk two kids in a kitchen, Gray's half buried in Zef's shoulder.

One of the raptors jumps on a counter and Zef says, "See, just like the chicken."

Gray says, "You're more insane 'n me, thinking those're the same."

Zef cranes his neck to study Gray's face. He's got a deep crease between his brows and his body bunched tighter than a corkscrew.

"You're scared," Zef says.

"Ain't scared."

"We can turn it off."

"I said I ain't scar—"

One of the velociraptors screeches towards a girl trying to hide in a cabinet, and Gray flinches when the raptor impacts her reflection in stainless steel.

Zef bites his lip to keep from squealing. He pauses the movie and props himself up on his elbow. Pins and needles race up that arm, having lost sensation while Gray used it for a pillow, but he doesn't care. Gray gives him a sullen look, caught out.

"You're so fucking cute," Zef says.

Immediately, he could kick himself. Men like Gray don't appreciate being called 'cute.' Tattooed men with sneers for smiles. Trans men, too. Cute sometimes came with a slant of infantilization. Feminising.

Gray doesn't protest. Slowly, he flushes to his ears and a smile tries to tug its way out from lips caught between teeth.

He's not offended. He's shy. Flattered even.

It never occurred to Zef that was an option. Gray kept his softer side well-guarded. Only the hard edges on show. Maybe a youthful, ungilded Gray had been bashful and sweet. He'd said he couldn't remember what he dreamed of, but maybe it wasn't car chases and drunken bar brawls. Maybe those things were part of him now, but once upon a time he'd wanted a thing of fairy tales.

Wrong city for stuff like that, but Zef finds it painfully endearing, finds himself hoping he can fulfil that secret wish. "We can turn the movie off if you want."

Gray stops biting his lip to speak, but the words come on the crest of staggered breath. "That's not what I want."

Heat rises. It glows in Zef's chest and spreads into his throat, making words harder. "Or we can keep watching—"

Gray silences him with two fingers to his lips. Zef's heartbeat drowns out the distant noise of a car alarm and nightclub bass and a room service bot's squeaky wheel. Other than his own pulse, he can only hear Gray's shallow breath. He looks meaningfully between Zef's eyes and his lips. Halting, as if second-guessing himself before he can commit, he rises onto his elbows. Moves to replace his fingers with his mouth.

Zef only has the presence of mind to think Oh, before Gray kisses him. His lips press so gently, and then Zef is thinking oh, oh, oh with a lance of want taking him through the chest. Gray kisses like he's trying something new and frightening. Like it's their first.

His mouth parting from Zef's makes a sound so ephemerally intimate, the ghost of it lingers. He looks at Zef with hooded eyes, tongue running the perimeter of his lips, heartbeat thudding under Zef's hand. His expression is hard to place, a bit like when he held an inky needle over Zef's skin.

Half, I want this. Half, This is going to hurt.

Zef never thought of himself as a highly desirable person. Not the sort who would drive any man wild. Rather the kind who got by on his personality. The way Gray looks at him? It does a lot to rewrite the story he told himself.

Gray whispers words close enough Zef can taste them. "Before. When I said you're always assuming what I want. You never asked me."

Zef sounds completely breathless when he says, "What do you want?"

He licks his lips. "Ain't never just...made out with anyone before, you know? Like teenagers in no rush to go places. If you, uh?"

Don't sound too eager. "Fuck, yes." Nailed it.

Gray's grin is incandescent. He guides their mouths together, ecstasy exchanged. This time the gentle question of the first kiss blooms into an interrogation. It's a kiss with more than lips. The firm guidance of hands in Zef's hair and a sweet noise of relief made in Gray's throat and a tongue begging entry.

Zef gives in. He tilts his head. He rolls over Gray, hovering on elbows and knees, greeting his tongue with the slide of his own. Zef thumbs the hinge of Gray's jaw and groans when it makes Gray open his mouth wide and submissive. Their body flushes hot and needy, and it's a small miracle Zef manages to stay propped up, fighting the allure of pressing Gray into the sheets.

It's fun like going two-hundred on the highway, like throwing themselves naked into the sea, but it also heals. Sutures over a wound Zef didn't know he had. A missing boyhood he'd excised as inaccessible, gone to boys like him who didn't figure out who they were until they were men.

All the things Zef mourned he'd missed out on, Gray resurrects them with a kiss and a moan and a leg hooked around his hips.

Which is pushing Zef over the edge. Gray arches up into him and rakes his fingers down Zef's ribs, grasping his hips, and he crumbles. Welcomed into Gray's arms and thighs, restraint is a slippery rein. Gray grabs handfuls of Zef's ass and notches their bodies together like he could accept Zef inside of him if not for the thin fabric of underclothes.

It's too much.

They part with a wet gasp.

Zef says, "Should we—?"

Gray let's his head fall back against the pillow so Zef's staring at the bobbing cork of his Adam's apple. "Yeah. That's— good. That's good, darlin'."

It's a compliment and a conclusion, albeit a reluctant one. Zef accepts the gentle direction, sitting up. The hazard of this is seeing Gray spread like a Rorschach test against the white sheets, inked chest heaving, thighs cocked apart, the dark of his boxer briefs wetly darker between his open legs.

Zef's mouth fills with too much spit. He gets up hurriedly. "I should shower."

"Zef."

Zef pauses, looking back.

In that split second where Zef turned his back, Gray went from looking like a sex dream to looking scared. "Was I— it not enough?"

That fumbled pronoun has Zef tripping over himself to go back to the bed and kiss Gray's lips. His chin. Each cheek. The crown of his head.

"No," Zef says.

"You ain't feelin' blue balled?"

"No! No, this was— Fuck, 'a dream come true' sounds so cheesy, but it's true. I'm just— I don't—" He stumbles to the words he needs one at a time. "That was incredible, but I'm trying not to look at you disrespectfully, and you're really really hot, and I need a cold shower, like, now. Now as in five minutes ago."

The fear in Gray's face melts away. "Okay." He leans in to kiss Zef once more. A chaste, comforted thing, except he lingers a little too long. Sucks a bit on Zef's lower lip. And when he breaks away, he says, "Think of me while you're in there."

Zef nearly faints, but he manages to get the shower running, climb in, and figuring he has permission and he absolutely cannot help himself a second longer, he touches himself.

It's an act he usually avoids because of the dysphoria involved, but as with most things involving Gray, all his rules go out the window. Plus, he's desperate. His fingers are slippery, his dick like a burning hard ember.

He thinks of Gray the whole damn time.

Gray takes a shower after him, and by the time they're ready for bed, it's nearly morning. Zef really hasn't been the best influence for a healthy sleep schedule, but the heist had to happen at 3AM, and they have the day to rest before the party that evening.

The heat between them reduces to a simmering affection by the time Gray slides into bed with him, taking Zef's hand and winding it around his waist.

As Zef slips into sleep, Gray stirs and whispers his name.

Zef opens his eyes. "Mm?"

"You awake?"

"A bit."

"Sorry. Go back to sleep."

"No, I was awake," Zef lies. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing wrong, just..." A shrug Zef can feel. "At night, hard to ignore some o' the stuff I'm trying not to think about during the day."

Ah, yes. The way anxiety seems to lie in wait under your pillow to ensnare you the second you lie down. Zef can relate. "What's on your mind?"

"You..." His chest inflates sharply. "Hard to tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"How much I..." Another sharp breath. "Look, I ain't good with words or heartfelt confessions, but this— I'm—"

Zef seeks Gray's hand in the dark. When he finds it, Gray's fingers lace gratefully through his. He clasps Zef's hand to his heart.

"Wanting you," he whispers. "It's scarier than any stupid dinosaur movie. I'm fuckin' terrified of how much I want this. I ain't never had nothing like it."

"No— boyfriends?"

A humourless huff. "Had a man who said he was mine until a text message breakup. Didn't like how drunk I had to get to let him touch me. Don't blame him. I know I ain't easy to love." He sighs and it quakes along traumatic fault lines. "Nothing's ever mine long."

"I could be." Zef's heart joins Gray in its frantic race. He hadn't thought before saying it, though he means it completely. He stuck around for a reason. Refused to leave for a reason. He had it bad for Gray from the start. "You told me once you'd help me transition, not 'cause it'd be easy but 'cause you didn't care if it was hard. I don't care if this is hard. I don't want someone simple, I want you."

Gray goes very still. "That's more terrifying, darlin'."

"Why?"

"Means I got so much to lose."

Zef pulls him in close, snaking one arm under him and around his shoulders. Tight like he'll never let go. "You're not losing me."

"Rylan nearly killed you once, already. If she finds us again—"

"If."

"If she knows what you mean to me."

"If," Zef insists, heart aglow like warm coals. What you mean to me. "A lot of if's."

"A lot of risks," Gray says.

"And who taught me I should be taking more risks? You only have yourself to blame. Besides. Biggest risk would be letting go of...whatever this is." Zef snuggles closer, his nose brushing the nape of Gray's neck, smelling the sweetness of damp skin and coconut shower gel. If Gray's willing to open up this much, show a little vulnerability, Zef can do the same. "No one's ever seen me the way you do. Made me feel like a man before I'd figured out what kind I wanted to be."

Gray turns in Zef's arms and, quick as a viper, plants a kiss on his lips. It's so abrupt, Zef doesn't have time to react before Gray turns back over and snuggles back into the pillow.

"G'night, darlin'," Gray says.

Zef has to fold his lips between his teeth to hide the kiss like a secret. Joy dances through him. Makes him want to jump and pump his fists in the air. Can't do either, so he hugs Gray.

He falls soundly asleep.

And wakes once more to Gray whimpering and shifting in his sleep. Another nightmare. Zef's arms are trapped, one under Gray's head. The other Gray holds hard enough Zef's knuckles pop. Either way, Zef can't stroke his shoulder to gently wake him.

Feeling stupid, he noses the crook of Gray's neck, saying, "Gray? Are you okay?"

Little bumps rise along Gray's nape where Zef touched him, and then his whimper resolves into a moan.

Oh. Oh, shit.

Gray is not having a nightmare.