Doe's POV:

My cheek pressed against the wooden table, watching the raspberries rise and fall in my drink due to the carbonation.

Khloe had just left to look through an old box that Lily found, and Marcus was silently staring at the door as if something was going to barge in and kill him.

Which wasn't really the case. He told us that he was waiting for someone, but he's told us that before and his friend never showed up.

The silence from the both of them rendered me to this, leaving my mind to wander.

And without a hint of a second thought or permission, it just went right back to Xander.

My hands slid down my legging, the memories of his hands there last night setting my face ablaze.

I hurriedly lifted my head and took a sip of the cold drink to fight it off, and just hope that no one else saw it.

It didn't look like anyone did.

Khloe and Marcus were preoccupied, and the few other slaves here looked to be minding their own business.

A silent sigh passed my lips.

Thoughts of him always followed up with others full of confusion, differing how I saw him compared to how I saw the rest of my friends here.

Khloe and Marcus were relatively in the same boat when it came to my initial relationship with them.

Then I look at Xander and it's like I get hit with a bat of sporadic urges and feelings that I cant pull apart and differentiate in time.

It's like... he just touches me and bam! An entire alarm blared through my body.

But with them...

I turned my head towards Marcus, silently holding my hand out to him.

Only his eyes moved from the door towards me, promptly narrowing in confusion at my silent request.

"Hold this for me," I spoke casually, apparently adding to his confusion.

But, after a few seconds of me innocently batting my eyes, he complied, raising his hand to scoop together my fingers.

I always find myself being caught off guard whenever I touch another human and find their body heat instead of the cooler touch Nico and Xander have.

But other than that, I didn't feel much else.

Marcus' touch was purely comfortable given the fact that we were friends, but it didn't rise any of that anticipation on complete and total ease that Xander's brought.

My lips puckered out while I noted the differences.

"You tryna read my mind or something?" Marcus asked, finally fully turning to face me.

"Was it that obvious?" I replied, playing with the wit I no doubt got from Xander.

I squeezed his hand and feigned concentration.

"You're currently thinking about how I'm undoubtedly the coolest person you know." I declared, seeing that slight uneasy look he's held all day shift into an amused smile.

"Y'know I was expecting you to say something a lot more embarrassing on my part." He spoke.

A fair assumption based on the numerous times I've targeted him for friendly jokes and banter.

He just knows how to take it and dish it out all the same, so it was all in good fun.

I just shrugged, "You weren't thinking anything embarrassing, just the cold hard truth," I beamed with the pride of a true mind reader, releasing his hand to take another drink.

He folded his and rested his arms on the table.

"Now if you'll excuse me," I began, scooting back my chair, "My skills are temporarily needed elsewhere."

I wanted to see if Khloe's touch brought anything different.

I sauntered over to the bar where she dug through some unknown objects.

"So, what exactly is all that?" I asked, hopping up onto the chair beside her.

It was then that I saw the almost nostalgic and excited recognition written clearly on her face that only enhanced as she looked at me.

"They're games. A whole bunch of board games and card games. I've actually played a few of them when I was growing up."

"Games..?" I glanced over the differently sized boxes, half of the titles on them I'm pretty sure weren't even real words, "Are any of them fun?"

"A few," She pulled another box out and stacked it on top of another one, "Defends on your definition of fun."

She paused before slowly looking me over.

"I feel like you're a pretty competitive person," She noted.

I opened my mouth for some sort of retaliation, but the knowledge that she was right got to me quicker than the words could.

She laughed at my thought process that was clear as day on my face.

"I'm not saying it as a bad thing. I just think that you'd really like some of them." She clarified.

I looked back at the strange words, trying and failing to make any sense of them.

"We probably have some time until the brothers get done, so I'm trying to look through all of these before deciding which one to show you guys." She said, stacking another box.

Wait that actually sounded really fun...

Xander had mentioned these kinds of games once or twice, but I'd never thought much more about them.

Maybe if I get good at a few of them, I could beat him.

First, though, I need to beat these two.

And before all that.

I stuck my hand out to her this time.

"Real quick, and I'll let you get back to it, I need you to hold this."

She didn't hesitate at all, folding her fingers over mine.

Holy crap she was like... warm.

I already kind of knew that from our time at that clinic, but she still somehow had more heat in her hands than I did now.

Other than that though, there wasn't much else.

It was very similar to Marcus.

The safety in the familiarity. The calm satisfaction in the friendship.

"If your hands were cold, you could have just said so," She said, tightening her grip to warm me up faster, then offering up her other hard to do the same.

I did feel something out of the ordinary at that, similar to that protective pull I have towards Xander.

All with that kind, gentle smile of hers.

I gave it to her with zero hesitation, letting her warm up that hand as well.

I didn't know how her hands were that much warmer than mine.

Maybe part of it had to do with my circulation since Xander had some of my blood last night.

A clench in my chest at the very thought of it...

Jeez.

"Alright alright," I tried to brush off that sudden feeling, "Thank you for letting me steal your warmth."

"Any time," She winked, letting the air around us feel cool compared to my hands now as she took hers back.

Okay... zero out of two...

I hopped down from my chair with the intent of returning to the table, my thoughts springing into action once again.

Both of them were wildly different than how it felt with Xander.

It was just missing that rush... that excitement, that happiness.

Not to say that they didn't make me happy, because those two definitely did.

It was just... a different kind of happiness.

My feet stopped, eyes widening at the familiarity of that sentence.

A different kind of happiness... Wasn't that what he said to describe how I made him feel?

My brows drew together, another odd feeling stirring to life in me, a heaviness in my chest.

So this was a mutual thing then? Or maybe his was something else, but similar.

My thoughts were cut off by an unfamiliar hand coming into my vision.

I straightened out of surprise, looking to see whose hand it belonged to and finding a vaguely familiar face.

It was one of the slaves, the mole by his eyebrow being the only thing I recognized him by.

I just kind of stared at him, confused.

He had a few inches on me, and that same smirk I remember on him.

His reddish-brown hair hung messily in front of one eye, hazel eyes staring confidently down at me.

"Well, do you wanna try that with me too?" He asked with a tilt of his head.

I guess he'd been watching me do all of this.

My gaze fell back to the hand offered to me.

Eh. What the hell. Maybe it'll give me more to work with.

I took it, much to his apparent satisfaction

At the touch, I felt nothing.

In fact, it was a whole lot less compared to the other two.

Like quite literally devoid of any and all emotion whatsoever.

And his grip was... tighter than the other two.

I rose my head as he began to speak again.

"Y'know, I couldn't help but notice that you-"

He got cut off the second I felt a hand around my waist.

Even this touch was different from what I'd get from Xander.

Whereas I'd usually fall immediately into it and get pulled into his side, Marcus instead pulled me backward and took a calculated step so that he was partially between me and the other boy.

Though I could still see part of his face, and it wasn't happy.

"Don't you have somewhere to be, Austin?" He queried with a certain edge to his voice I'd never heard before.

And even that wasn't comparable to how Xander's voice made me feel on the rare occasions that it took that tone.

The other boy- Austin, returned the glare, his prior calm confidence crumbling down to an almost angry disappointment.

I just blinked, flickering my gaze between the two.

What the heck just happened?

Just as quickly as that expression appeared, it disappeared, the prior one taking its place with a grin.

"Aw come on Marcus. Share a little." He cooed, placing his hands in his pockets.

That tone he took, the taunting undertone of it pulled something up from the depths of my brain that I had put there to forget.

It immediately spread a tension through the room that I hoped only I could feel.

"Don't you have somewhere to be," He repeated, this time slow and calculated.

A warning in of itself, and it sound like it was going to be the last one he was going to offer.

Marcus was in charge around here when it came to the slaves.

I guess I tended to forget that on occasion given how much fun the three of us have.

Austing quickly fell back to the other expression he knew, rolling his eyes with a scoff as he turned.

"Both you and Carlo dude." he muttered angrily under his breath, "So boring."

Marcus and I both watched in silence until he was out of the room, seeing him physically deflate with a sigh once he was gone.

The glare stayed though, staring right at the door.

It fell away once it turned to me.

"Jeez, what's his problem?" Khloe asked as she approached behind me, a small box in one of her hands, "I didn't hear the entire conversation."

Marcus glanced back at the remaining slaves in the room, most of which looked like they were suffering from some serious second-hand embarrassment right now.

"It's... Nothing," He settled with, "Or at least nothing you two should have to worry about. Everyone's still just getting used to having the Princes and you two here."

He looked between the two of us, and I immediately recognized the look on his face since it was just what I was feeling towards Khloe earlier.

"I'm still in the works of laying down some new ground rules, but if anyone here gives you any trouble, please let me know." There was a hint of desperation in his worry.

It felt nice though, knowing that he too was looking out for us.

Even if I didn't quite understand what made Marcus step in, from what I saw afterward, I didn't question a thing.

I bumped my shoulder against his- or whatever my shoulder could reach against his arms.

He was safety too. Both of them were.

"Sounds good to me."

Khloe just simply nodded, relief fully taking over Marcus after that.

My eyes locked onto the box she held.

"So, What did you decide?" I asked, wanting to kick that feeling I hated back down into the depths of my brain as soon as possible.

She rose the box and exposed its name to us.

'Uno'

"I hope you guys are ready to hate each other."