***GABE***

There's nothing like waking up next to someone who shows you their love by pawing clumsily at your morning wood. I mean, Harris ought to have a better idea of how to handle another guy's junk like it's his own. Then again, he's had precious little experience being intimate with the male of the species, and I've given him all that experience myself. (I almost found myself saying "sexperience." Yeah, yeah, Justin Timberlake I'm not.)

In between the involuntary moans that escape me as Harris' hand covers the cotton on my crotch, I roll over, away from him, and mutter, "Not now, buddy."

"Good morning to you too, sweetheart." He stops trying to tease me with his hand and works instead with his mouth on my neck. And his dick poking my butt cheeks through a total of two underwear layers.

"Can you not?" I push away from him and wind up falling off the bed.

"Oh shit! You okay?"

With my back turned to him, I make a huge show of tugging on the waistband of my briefs (forest green with a well-placed Slytherin snake - Harris' birdbrained but funny idea of an early Christmas present) to inspect my boys for damage. "I think I might've bruised one of my balls."

I sense Harris creeping around me, trying to get a look, so I take my hand out of my underpants. "Can I kiss your boo-boo away? Please?"

I growl to myself as I finally stand up and walk away. "Why the fuck are you so horny this morning?"

"Oh God, stop making me watch your ass! You're making it worse!"

"Don't look at my ass, then!" I shut the bathroom door, shuck off my T-shirt and briefs, and turn the shower on, waiting for it to warm up.

"I can't help myself!" Harris cries from right outside the door. "It's like it's made out of candy! It's ass candy!"

"Don't tell Bertie Bott's," I laugh as I get into the shower, finally. Still cold, but I can live with that. Maybe a cold shower will...oh wait, I tried that once, and it only increased my arousal.

You know what? I change my mind. I think I can do with fooling around a bit this morning.

"If you're still out there," I tell Harris, "come on in."

He does, and he gets his own shirt and boxers off in record time (leaving me only wishing I could pull them off with my own hands) before joining me in the shower. "Still want me to kiss your boo-boo?"

I stroke his hair as he goes down and gets just as wet as I am. "Do your worst."

He complies, and it's a testament to how horny I am that I come in under a minute. Then it's his turn, and he's almost as fast as I am. The way his eyes roll back, his mouth hangs open, all his muscles stretch taut, and his grip tightens on my head...I've grown my hair a little more, getting closer to his length and style, and I have to say, I love the feeling of him grabbing handfuls of my hair when he comes.

We have to clean ourselves up a lot before coming out of the shower. We've both made messes of each other's necks and chests. What, you didn't think we swallowed, did you? I want to, really, but even in the Second 'Verse, STDs are still a pretty serious specter. (I hear it's only in the Third where they're not, the Third being a literal dream world and all.) That, and we just haven't been intimate long enough to really consider it. It wasn't until a month ago that we started, in fact. Beyond getting snuggly, I mean. And while I do love a good snuggle, it's an inferior level of pleasure, and once you get beyond that, it's hard to go back.

Though I won't lie. The two of us soaping each other up to get rid of any lingering DNA traces, then doing some slippery hugging and kissing while the cold shower pounds us from above? That's what really wakes me up this morning. What really gets my heart beating at a rate higher than resting again.

I'm actually kind of pissed when he jumps out of the shower and runs out of the bathroom dripping wet. My guess, he's afraid one of us will get hard and want to fool around some more. Would that we could waste the whole day doing that...but today can't be that day. Because it's the last day of finals for this first semester of our senior year at Garrick High School in Second 'Verse Spellman. They moved us all to the Bay Area after our place in Bearville got bombed out, and Annie set us up in school, assuring us that we'd catch up quickly on what we'd missed in our months as Guardians.

Suffice it to say that while we all found the job fulfilling, it was never a substitute for school, and what about those of us who'd had other jobs in mind? Like Fionna, for instance. After meeting that doctor in the Terminal - Dr. Kwong, I think her name was - she started reconsidering her old dream of being a doctor herself.

Me, I'm still thinking about what my future career could be, but maybe with a little less seriousness. I'm having a little too much fun being, well, fun. Personified. I call it Harris' toxic influence, but then that's Harris for you. He'll happily screw off on his studies, but somehow gets nearly straight As. (Except in physics, where he had to get his girlfriend back on Earth to tutor him just to ensure a B. I, unfortunately, can't offer him the same services.)

The good news is, today's finals aren't hard-science-related. Spanish for Harris and French for me, followed by English for both of us. Pretty much every senior at Garrick has the exact same schedule, with some variations depending on which elective you choose from which category. Like, yesterday, Harris took his stats final, but I took calculus. The classes themselves tend to be pretty small, though. Sure, there are plenty of teenagers who die every day, but thankfully there are enough that the school (hell, every school in this 'verse) has only a small handful of students to its name. Garrick's student body numbers only about 120, I think, with thirty in each grade, give or take a couple.

As I get dressed, I think about the presentations I'm supposed to give today. A PowerPoint on Candide for French, and in English, a video Harris and I made with Fionna, Kensi, and also Yash and Aditya Patel from the Terminal, who were convinced to put their acting skills to good use when we promised them free movie tickets for Warcross. Thank God we've got no more exams - the calc final was murder, and I feel like it might have brought my grade down considerably.

At least I don't have to worry about Mom crawling up my ass for not getting a minimum 3.0 GPA anymore. I mean, it hurts, not being able to live with her and Alex anymore, especially now that Christmas is coming. I can't begin to think how sad it'll be at home in Heaven, Mom and Alex trying to make it look like it's Christmas like normal, but my missing presence eating them alive until they both start crying.

"You okay?" Harris embraces me from behind. He's gotten dressed too, I notice. "I heard you crying."

"Was I?" I wipe my eyes and find tears on my fingers. "Yeah...just, you know, holiday depression."

"You usually get sad this time of year?" He unwraps his arms from my waist, then tugs on my hand and brings me to the kitchen. "Or is it just 'cause-?"

"It's just 'cause."

He reaches up to my face and looks me in the eye, but I avert my gaze, feeling a lot like Alex as I do so. This is exactly what Alex does - avoid talking about his feelings, not because he doesn't want to be seen as weak, but because he feels like being so emotionally earnest is an unnecessary burden on those who love him.

I don't want to think I'm embodying his primary flaw in his absence, but it wouldn't surprise me if I were. Fionna claims she's done the same at times.

"Hey, don't forget to eat, though." He pushes an empty plate into my hands. "Brain food, sweaty elf boy!"

I step up to the counter, where the toaster waits for me. "Aren't they gonna have free stuff at school? Like, fruits and muffins and paper boxes of coffee?"

"Oh yeah, they used to do that at Independence back home," Harris says with a smile. "Though this school isn't exactly Independence's doppelgänger."

I tap the counter while waiting impatiently for my freshly sliced bagel to toast. "Do buildings have doppelgängers?"

"Some do. Like, there's an Empire State Building in all three Prime 'Verse dimensions. And a Transamerica Pyramid, though Hell has it in New York, right?"

I smother a laugh. "You should've seen my face when I first found out San Francisco in Hell didn't have that building. Totally wrecks the skyline without it."

He whistles the Fringe theme as he butters and jams his own bagel, which I hadn't realized he'd already toasted. "Yeah, sure, they're gonna have that extra food, but so what? We can stand to eat a little more. We're big boys. Still growing. Well, maybe not you..." He cranes his neck comically like he's looking at a giant instead of me.

"As long as I don't toss my cookies all over Madame Ferris," I laugh, "I'm good."

Harris tears out a third of his own bagel and downs it in one. "How do you say that in French?"

"Tosser mes biscuits?"

He takes out another sixth, leaving half his bagel left. Breakfast math in action - it might have helped me do better on the calc final yesterday. If ever I stop whining about how horrible that was, you'll know it's time to sell me to science. "Gabriel, yo siempre sé cuando me sassas en francés."

"Harris, c'est parce que je t'aime comme un chocolat chaud."

"Now I know what that means." He breaks out the packets of hot chocolate mix from the cabinet near the oven where we keep our coffee and sugar and other assorted fixings for breakfast-y beverages. Annie, as our landlady of sorts, tells us to only use them sparingly, but of course neither of us listens to her. Especially not Harris, that coffee addict who spent our first month and a half or so here wasting all the mint syrup to make a rough approximation of his old Earthen fave, Mintee Mochaz. Coincidentally, it was after the syrup was all gone, and after Annie put her foot down and refused to restock it until we adopted the overly strict austerity measures she drew for us, that he started really craving phallic nourishment served neat from a certain towheaded wellspring.

(If you're wondering why I'm metamorphosing into someone a little more loquacious, it's because I'm trying to keep all the vocab for the English final in mind as best I can.)

Five minutes later, we're leaving this little apartment of ours. Breakfast - eaten. Last check to make sure we've got all our clothes on properly, no backwards or inside-out anything - done. Backpacks - slung over our shoulders. Hands - held. Door - locked.

What is it about the Second 'Verse and apartments, anyway? It's like they don't have a concept of houses around here. To be fair, though, even in the suburbs, they've got no sense of urban planning the way mortals do. Open space in the city? What's that? That could be a good career path for me, I bet, taking up architecture and/or urban planning. Though when I broached the subject to Harlan over lunch one day, he immediately told me it would be impossible to get a job in that field, because the industry just isn't there in this 'verse.

Wow, Harlan, way to shame a guy for wanting a cool job. I think he was sober at the time, though, which might have explained it. He gets crabby without his weed, and Annie's been forcing austerity measures on him too. I guess in the absence of both Troy parents, as well as Russell, Annie's taken up mothering for all of us.

Outside the apartment building, Harris and I only let go of each other's hands long enough to zip our hoodies tightly against the cold. It's a sunny, sunny day, with a bright green sky shining beautifully as the sun rises over the equally green hills east of Spellman, but this close to Christmas, that means extra-cold. Something about clouds serving as insulation. I'd know better if meteorology were an available science class at Garrick.

There's another career track I could take. Weather's not exactly an exact science, and I do better with guesswork sometimes, I think. Though if I guess the weather wrong, then according to my childhood years watching The Fairly Oddparents, I'd be run out of town by a mob carrying torches and pitchforks.

You could ice 'em all, Harris tells me as we cross the street. So conveniently, our apartments are right across from Garrick. Ours, and also the one Fionna and Kensi share. It's like, why even bother putting us in separate buildings?

Sure, I laugh. Ice the pitchforks to their hands, and you summon the flames from the torches to redirect them.

Or I could Dark up the torches and blow them up in their owners' faces.

You murderous ass. I pinch his cheek with my free hand, then look ahead to the front door of the school, through which I get a glimpse of someone pushing along what appears to be a literal applecart. Fresh from the Farmer's Market, I'd think, except the Farmer's Market is on weekends only, not Fridays like today. And when it's a week and change from Christmas, what kind of yield would the farmers get on their apple trees? They're deciduous - I remember that from the example of the apple tree in my family's backyard in Heaven.

Could I be a farmer? Or a gardener? I've been thinking about growing my own garden on our roof when spring comes. And I did used to like tending to the garden back home, when I was at home and not at Castledown. Maybe it's from taking psychology as my second-period elective, and maybe it's from my experience as a once-deceased demon, but I've taken to overanalyzing just about every decision I've ever made in my life. For my gardening yen, my explanation is that I started seeing my mom's plants (mostly ornamental flowers, and also some useful stuff like tomato vines and, of course, the apple tree) as substitutes for the children I'm unlikely to have, and started to really care for them as such.

Inside the center of the school, the contents of the applecart join their citrus brothers and sisters, the oranges on one table. Another is devoted to muffins and donuts (oh my God Krispy Kreme it's so fucking tempting!), and another to juices, and my favorite, the Danishes. Not enough of my favorite cherry flavor, but I'll take an apple one along with the last of the cherries. (Harris pouts at me the whole time as I eat it, but I split the center - messily - and have him lick his half clean, which he does with theatrical relish. Actor, remember?)

"Ready to fail hard, boys?" Fionna saunters up to us with a wave, and with Kensi right behind her. "Ew, only the cheese Danishes are left? Oh no, wait, there's a blueberry. I'll take that."

Kensi chuckles at the sight of the cheese Danishes all going untouched. "Who eats cheese Danishes in our school?"

"Moi, Mademoiselle Stark!" Madame Ferris (no relation to my old Castledown roommate Tanner) comes up behind us and takes one of those for herself, holding it in a napkin but not yet taking a bite.

"Nous disions que nous, les jeunes..." Kensi scratches her head, trying to summon the words. "Nous préférons les saveurs des fruits."

"Mais oui, les fruits sont très délicieux..."

Fionna, Harris, and I tune Kensi and Madame Ferris out for a moment as we take a look around at the next table, where the muffins await us. "Wèishéme wǒ xiànzài zhǐ néng tánlùn shíwù?" Fionna mutters to herself while picking out a chocolate chip muffin.

"What's that?" I ask. "Something for your Chinese oral report?"

She frowns as she chews on a chocolate chip. "Nah, just wondering why all I can think about is food." She crosses her arms, clutching the remains of her muffin tightly. "I swear, if my dad knew they offered only Mandarin at this place and no Cantonese, he'd be going up to those in charge and demanding they honor our heritage properly."

"Mandarin's more important for business, though, right?" Harris asks.

"It is, 'cause it's standard dialect...but still, I'm not used to hearing it from my family the way I heard Cantonese. Trust me..." She guillotines her muffin with her teeth, leaving only the fluffy top part in her hands. "Between the two dialects, there's enough difference to, uh, really make a difference."

"Now you're starting to sound like me," I laugh.

"What, being repetitive when I talk?" She scoffs. "Since when do you do that?"

"You'd be surprised."

"It's one of his superpowers," Harris says. "Repeating shit to trip up his enemies and make them wonder if they heard him right."

Another good career path, being a superhero. Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne, after all, make tons of money doing it.

But before I can contemplate my caped-crusading and/or rocket-armored future any further, the bell rings and we all have to separate, heading for our respective foreign-language finals.

And I barely had any time to get more than that one Danish. Well, whatever. I'll just swipe a glazed donut on the way to French. No time for a napkin, though, so I'll have to use my jeans instead. Don't they say Levi's are America's napkin?

(Don't answer that. It's not on any of my finals, nor is it relevant to a future career of mine, so I can't devote brain space to it at the moment.)