October 31st - Almost two months ago…

“Tell me again why I let you get me into these things,” Drew sighed, leaning his head against the passenger’s seat window.

Sebastian pulled his sleek blue Charger into a spot on the dark, tree-lined suburban street and cut the engine, while Drew glared at the sprawling Colonial across from them. Purple and green strobe lights flickered from the wide-open garage, and through the large front windows, he could see a throng of people milling around.

“Because you never go out and have fun anymore. It’s beyond introversion - it’s unhealthy.”

“This from the man who turned his living room into a cave for months on end?”

“Uh huh. Takes one to know one. And speaking of my brief time as a hermit, you’re here because you owe me,” Bas reminded him, leaning over to check his artfully messy, dark hair in the rearview mirror. “Two months ago, when my little brother was jetting off to St. Brigitte with that overgrown golden retriever he calls his boyfriend, you told me I had to get my ass off the couch and come with you. Stop wallowing, you said. The plane crash happened more than a year ago, you said. Your parents and Amy wouldn’t want you to be this way, you said. Help your brother, you said.”

Drew sighed again.

“And when I wouldn’t listen, you yelled at me,” Bas continued, flipping the mirror closed. “Cursed a blue streak, called me an asshole, said Cam deserved a brother who wasn’t a… how did you put it? Hmmm… A self-absorbed prick who was too busy wallowing in grief to save the only family he had left?” He nodded. “Yep, pretty sure that was it.”

Closing his eyes on a wince, Drew shook his head. “Right, fine. I remember.”

“And then you hit me.” Bas touched his jaw as if the long-healed injury might still be tender. “Hard. Aaaand, I went with you to help Cam. So this is what we call payback.”

Drew folded his arms over his chest. Bas had conveniently forgotten a few pesky facts, as he tended to do. “Your brother was following a guy who was not yet his boyfriend to a remote island. A guy who happened to be an FBI agent and was related to the pilot we all thought had killed your parents and my sister. And you had just figured out that there was a connection between our parents’ oldest friend and the plane crash. I shouldn’t have had to hit you to get you to come.”

“Eh. All that’s irrelevant. You did hit me. Hard,” Bas repeated, blue eyes wide and guileless. “It’s not about right or wrong here, McMann. It’s about you hitting me, and payback.”

Drew shook his head and thunked his head back against the headrest repeatedly. “Serves me right for trying to help your sorry ass. And Cam’s. No good deed goes unpunished.”

“No good deed goes unpunished,” Bas mocked, sing-song. “Listen to you. It’s a Halloween party, Andrew. With a bunch of old friends we haven’t seen in a decade. Costumes, and candy, and spooky music. Hardly a firing squad in sight.” He shook his head, pulling the handle to open his door. “I thought we decided a long time ago that I was the pissy, dramatic one in this friendship.”

“Who decided that?”

Bas waved a hand in the air. “Who remembers? Point is, it’s been that way forever. We can’t be changing the rules thirty years down the line. I won’t know who I am anymore.”

“Yeah, right.” Drew opened his door and pulled himself out to stand on the sidewalk. “You’ll still be Sebastian Seaver,” he said gloomily. “Millionaire heir. Tech genius. Too single-minded to care about other people’s boundaries.” Or their hatred of loud parties, costumes, and high school ‘friends’ they hadn’t seen in a decade. “But somehow people like you anyway.”

He walked around the hood of the car and stood next to Bas for a second, staring up at the house. “Meanwhile, I am a humble lawyer…”

“Humble,” Bas scoffed.

“A humble lawyer,” Drew repeated loudly. “A man who has more than a dozen people reporting to him, a mother to support, and a reputation to uphold - and I’m letting you drag me out, dressed like this.” He looked down at the thick work boots, flannel shirt, necklace, and jeans that made up his costume. “Nobody’s going to get who we are, you know. I look like a grunge musician, circa 1990-something.”

“Okay, first, these are kick-ass costumes!” Bas said, offended. “The Winchesters from Supernatural? Everyone with a brain will get this. And second, I chose these outfits for you because I knew you would want something low-key! You should be thanking me, man. I debated making you come as a Pokémon.”

“Like hell. There are limits,” Drew told him, leaning back against the car.

“To our friendship?” Bas looked offended.

“To how much I can be guilted.”

“Fine. Four hours,” Bas said. “Then the debt is cleared.”

“Jesus. I smacked your face. Once. I didn’t fatally stab you. They’re going to be getting drunk and playing games like we’re still in high school,” Drew argued. “A time in my life I don’t need to relive. I’ll give you two hours. Tops.” Two hours to nurse a drink so he could get them home safely was plenty.

Bas shook his head as he started walking backward across the wide, leaf-strewn street toward the driveway. “The punch was a betrayal, McMann. It wasn’t fatal, but the pain ran deep. And these people are old friends, so it’s not like I’m torturing you in a dungeon here. No skin flaying. All your teeth will remain intact. Three hours, final offer.”

“Fine.” Drew pushed himself off the car and reluctantly followed his best friend. “Do you realize how often we have followed this pattern? You dragging me somewhere - whether it was summer camp, or some terrible party with warm beer, or that Frisbee golf team - all so you could hook up with a…” He paused, horrified. “Oh, Sebastian. Tell me we’re not here so you can hook up with some girl. Please?”

“We’re not here so I can hook up,” Bas repeated dutifully, throwing an arm around Drew’s shoulder as they reached the bottom of the driveway. Though Bas was stockier than Drew, far more muscular, they were nearly the same height, which meant Drew had to lean toward Bas in order to walk this way. It brought Drew close enough to smell Sebastian - some cologne that smelled like bay leaves, along with the salt and spice that was uniquely Bas. The smell made Drew’s heartbeat accelerate, just as it had since they were fourteen, despite all the very important reasons why it shouldn’t: their lifelong friendship, Drew’s (brief, disastrous) relationship with Bas’s brother, Bas’s (very brief, tragic) engagement to Drew’s sister, and the fact that unlike Drew, Bas was one hundred percent straight.

Drew had to remind himself that it would be weird to sniff his best friend too deeply, that it wouldn’t be cool to lean his head on Bas’s shoulder, that it was playing with fire to be this close.

“I brought you here tonight for altruistic motives, young Andrew!” Bas was saying. “I think we’ve both been under a lot of stress. First, we found out the crash wasn’t an accident, then we found that Uncle Shaw… I mean, Senator Shaw,” Bas corrected himself impatiently, “betrayed his own best friends and engineered the crash. And now we can’t fucking do anything about it because the Shaw kid won’t come forward…”

“Give Cain a break. He’s a good kid, and he loves his dad, despite his dad being an asshole. Not all of us had perfect fathers, recall.”

Drew wondered if his own father was still in Thailand, where he’d fled after his divorce from Drew’s mother was finalized last summer. One thing was for sure - he hadn’t bothered to leave Drew any contact information.

“But I get what you’re saying,” Drew told him. “You want to let off steam.”

“No! Actually, I want you to let off steam.”

“What?”

“Listen. As you so forcefully demonstrated, I wallowed for a long while after my parents and Amy died. And meanwhile, there you were, stepping up and helping Cam run things at Seaver Tech.”

“It’s my job,” Drew reminded him.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it was easy for you to do it. Not while you were grieving. I mean, Amy was your sister.”

Drew nodded, feeling the familiar guilt that hearing Amy’s name always provoked. Losing her had been hard, even though the only thing they’d had in common besides their last name was falling in love with Sebastian Seaver. Drew missed her gentle laugh, the bright-eyed optimism that ran counter to his own sometimes-cynical world view, and the simple knowledge that someone else on earth had come from the same place as him.

Still, the hardest aspect of her death had been dealing with the emotional fallout as his parents’ marriage imploded, as Cam and Bas floundered, and as he wondered why he’d lived to pine for Sebastian, while the woman Sebastian loved had been taken from him.

Survivor’s guilt was a bitch.

“So, I’m saying tonight is your night to cut loose,” Bas told him. “It’s your turn to lose that iron control and lean on me for a change.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you! Pretend you’re not an octogenarian whose idea of a good time is NPR and a hot water bottle. Live a little. Get a little messy.” Bas reached over and mussed Drew’s hair, looking frustrated when the silky strands fell right back into place, as always. “If that’s possible.”

Drew shook his head. “I highly doubt it. But listen, I don’t want to drink. Better let me be designated…”

“No! Hell no. You’re not driving us home tonight.” Bas shook his head. “Dude, just have fun. Dance, drink, eat fried food of dubious origin from bowls into which dozens of grimy hands have reached. And I will be here to take care of you.”

Drew blinked and stopped walking. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Sebastian - in thirty years of friendship, he could count on one hand the number of times Sebastian had disappointed him, and most of those weren’t Bas’s fault anyway. It shouldn’t have mattered to Drew that Bas had kissed him once, back at summer camp, and then promptly lost his virginity to some long-forgotten girl named Rai who worked the movie theater at the mall; or that five years ago he’d abandoned Drew at a charity benefit, so he could go home with Misty Sturmacher, whose breasts grew in proportion to her investment portfolio; or that he’d actually proposed to Drew’s sister Amy, even though… even though…

Nope. Drew put a mental line under that topic and moved on.

Drew was just used to being the nursemaid, the one who’d make sure his friends got home safely. Captain Control, as one of Drew’s college friends used to call him. And Drew liked it that way just fine.

“I don’t get why it’s important to you that I get drunk.”

“It’s not about you getting drunk. Drink or don’t, I don’t care. Just don’t worry about it if you do. Loosen up. De-stress, before you die of a heart-attack.” Bas shook Drew’s shoulder before releasing him, and Drew took one final inhale of Bas-scented air before straightening up, fortifying himself for what would undoubtedly be a long fucking night.

They made it to the top of the driveway, and a vaguely-familiar, petite, dark-haired woman wearing a skimpy bunny costume greeted them. “Ohmigod! Sebastian Seaver! I can’t believe it! I haven’t seen you in, like, ten years!”

Bas smiled and stepped forward to press a kiss to her cheek. “At least! Vanya. It’s great to see you, too.”

Vanya turned to Drew, and she let out a tiny but incredibly high-pitched scream as she launched herself into his arms. “Oh, and oh my god, Drew! You guys are still together! How long has it been now? Fifteen years or something?”

Drew blanched. Together? “N-no. No, God. No. No. We aren’t. No.”

Sebastian laughed easily and elbowed Drew in the side as he explained to Vanya, “Lawyer. Makes his living with compelling arguments like that. Defendants quake in fear.”

Vanya blinked in confusion, like she was still waiting for someone to answer the question.

“We aren’t together,” Drew was finally composed enough to explain. “We’re just friends. We’ve only ever been friends.”

He debated adding something about Amy, but her engagement to Bas had never made the society pages - it had been too new at the time of the crash - and bringing her up now felt cowardly. An unspoken, See? Here is the evidence that I have never had untoward thoughts about my straight best friend. Instead, he added, “Bas is straight.”

“Oh. My. God,” Vanya said again, and Drew remembered this had been her favorite expression back in high school too. One that had a hundred different connotations based on inflection. “But you were always together! Like, literally every time we hung out. I was so sure you guys were a thing! Wait until I tell Keisha and Jen. They will die.”

The hairs at the back of Drew’s neck shifted uncomfortably. They would die when she told them what? That Sebastian was single? Suddenly, Drew was strangely eager to bind himself to Bas for the rest of the night. He absolutely hated… hated… watching Bas flirt.

“Come on, Bas,” Drew said, clapping an arm on his shoulder. “I really need a drink.”

“Yeah, go!” Vanya waved them off with a smile, likely eager to go and tell everyone her new info. “Bar’s in the garage. Geller Conroy is mixing drinks tonight and he’ll hook you up! The punch tastes like cinnamon red-hots!” She paused for a second. “And I love the sexy lumberjack look, or whatever you two are going for!”

“Yes! Yes, that’s it. We’re a pair of sexy lumberjacks,” Drew agreed, trying to restrain his laughter. He couldn’t resist whispering in Sebastian’s ear, “Told you so, Dean.”

“Not another word, Sam,” he warned, steering Drew toward the bright lights of the garage bar, where he accepted a tall plastic cup of deep red liquid.

“Cinnamon red-hots? Your favorite candy in the form of an alcoholic beverage?” Bas said, nudging his shoulder. “Pretty sure this is fate telling you to drink up, counselor.”

Drew shook his head as the scent of his best friend’s cologne washed over him again, and lust, hot and proprietary, crashed through his bloodstream like a tsunami.

Drew didn’t believe in fate. Not anymore. These days he placed his trust in his own self-control - self-control that hadn’t faltered around Bas since that fateful day at summer camp almost sixteen years ago.

One drink, he told himself. You handled Bas and Amy getting engaged and managed to keep your mouth shut about your feelings. You can handle one little drink.

“Sounds delicious,” he agreed. And he tipped his cup back, covering Bas’s scent with the pungent smell of cinnamon.

“Cinnamon red-hots are the devil’s tool,” Drew told Bas nearly four hours later, but somehow it came out garbled, like some component of his mouth was malfunctioning. He carefully ran his tongue over his teeth, and found to his horror that he couldn’t feel either. “Are my teeth gone or is my tongue?” he demanded, opening his mouth wide for Bas’s inspection.

Sebastian, who was sitting next to him on the carpeted stairs that led to the second floor, obediently looked at Drew’s mouth. “All still there,” he promised, his smile wider than Drew remembered seeing it in a while. “I wouldn’t let you misplace them.”

Drew nodded, slow and deep - the only kind of head movement he could manage currently. Of course his teeth and tongue weren’t missing. Of course his best friend in the entire universe, Sebastian Seaver, would never let anything happen to him. He went to lean his head on Bas’s shoulder, as a sign of his trust… and found that it was already laying there.

Huh.

Bas smelled fucking delicious.

“Uh, thank you?” Bas snickered. “I think. Just don’t get any cannibalistic ideas, drunk boy.”

“Oh, fuck. I said it out loud when it was a secret!” Drew said in a horrified whisper.

Bas laughed, loud and long. “You have totally repaid any debt you owed me. This is priceless.” He braced his hand in the middle of Drew’s back, and Drew forgot what he’d been worried about.

“It is the most fun I’ve ever had in a long, long while! Thanks to you.” Drew beamed up at Sebastian, who was so handsome, Drew couldn’t remember why he wasn’t supposed to kiss him. “We can stay longer if you want.”

“Long as you want,” Bas promised, wearing the smirky grin Drew had loved for years.

Years. Friends. No kissing friends.

Drew sighed.

“Aw. Everything okay?” Bas asked. His hand rubbed Drew’s back in a slow circle that made Drew’s arms and legs prickle with electricity that felt dangerous somehow. “They’re playing cards or something in the other room if you want.”

“Yes,” Drew decided. “Cards.” He heaved himself to his feet, pleased to see that he was steady.

“One more water before we go,” Bas reminded him, steering him toward the kitchen first.

“Water is not delicious.”

“So true, McMann. But it is gonna help the hangover you are one-hundred percent gonna have tomorrow.” Bas handed him a plastic cup and Drew sucked it down obediently before tossing the empty cup in the recycle bin.

“Why does there have to be a hangover? Why can’t good things just be good and we don’t have to… pay?”

Bas blinked, and his eyes got soft as he guided Drew to the living room. “You know, I think I like Drunk Drew. You’re so philosophical.”

“I’m always phil-sofal. I have thoughts a lot. But I don’t tell you because they’re so crazy.” Drew waved his hand with the coordination of a newborn. “You wouldn’t believe it.”

Bas looked down at his shoes like they were fascinating, but Drew caught the edges of his mouth tipping up, his lips pressing together the way they did when he was trying to hold back laughter. “Yeah? I thought you told me everything!” Bas joked. Or at least it seemed like a joke.

But Drew couldn’t help but reply honestly. “Not everything.”

“Sebastian and Drew!” Vanya called out excitedly from a spot in the middle of the room. “Come sit by me!” The living room was large, with two sofas, a love seat, and a pair of chairs all clustered around a low, wooden coffee table. However, none of the seats were in use, as everyone was sprawled on the floor.

Vanya was sitting with her back propped against the front of the love-seat. Her eyes were half-mast and unfocused, but she smiled as Drew plunked down beside her.

“What are you playing?” Bas asked, as he took a seat on Drew’s other side.

“Either/Or,” a girl across from Vanya said. Drew vaguely recognized her as Vanya’s friend Keisha. “You just pick which thing you like best.”

“I am excellent at picking things,” Drew confided. “Gimme one.”

“Okay, um… Wear nothing but pink forever, or have pink disappear from the world completely.”

Drew blinked. This was harder than he’d imagined. “Wear pink. Nothing should ever disappear from the earth,” he said with the earnestness of the thoroughly inebriated.

Vanya nodded and held up her hand for a high-five. “Good logic.”

“I’m an attorney,” Drew said modestly. Beside him, Bas convulsed with laughter.

“Hey, give Bas one!” Drew shouted to no one in particular.

“Ooooh, I know!” Vanya said, her smile sharpening slightly as her eyes lasered in on Sebastian. Drew had never noticed how much she resembled a fox. “Would you rather… Kiss Drew, or lose Drew forever?”

Drew blinked. What?

He turned to Bas, who was looking at him seriously, though that same little smile tilted the edges of his lips. That smile did things to Drew’s insides. “I’d kiss Drew, obviously.”

“Prove it,” the demon-known-as-Keisha demanded, and even through his alcohol haze, Drew could feel his heart rate climbing, his stomach churning. He wanted it, and he didn’t… either/or.

Bas lifted an eyebrow and looked around at the assembled people uncomfortably. “We’re not twelve-year-olds playing spin the bottle, people. I’m not kissing him to prove something.” He looked at Drew with wide eyes. “Right?”

Drew blinked and nodded. “No. Of course. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“If I don’t want to?” Bas’s eyes narrowed. “It’s… I mean, it’s not that I don’t love you. Just…Not in a kissing way.” He laughed, but it sounded a tiny bit strained to Drew’s ears.

“I get it,” Drew assured him, but somehow Bas didn’t seem assured.

“I mean, you feel the same way, Drew.” Bas rolled his eyes. “You wouldn’t want me to kiss you. Right?” Not again, was the hidden subtext, the reminder of that long-ago summer and the “silly, little” kiss they’d shared.

Drew blinked, caught between what he should say and what he really wanted to say. He was just sober enough to know that there was only one right answer to this question, and just drunk enough - just drunk and desperately in love enough - to wonder if he could get away with telling the truth this once.

He hesitated, and in the end, that was his ruination.

“I think he does,” Keisha whispered. “I think he wants you to.”

The woman next to her, a curly-haired person who might have been called Jen, nodded with alcohol-soaked solemnity. “He totally does.”

“Ah, poor boo,” Vanya clucked sympathetically, pulling Drew into her side. She smelled like cinnamon red hots, which was far less comforting a scent than it used to be. “He doesn’t wanna kiss you, but you don’t need him.”

I do, though, Drew thought sadly. He’s my best friend. I always need him.

The women collectively said, “Awww!” and Drew realized he’d spoken his thoughts aloud again. Oops.

“Jesus,” Bas muttered. “Drew, you don’t know what you’re saying. Maybe it’s time we go.”

“Hey! Leave him alone,” Keisha told Bas, all fiery and defensive. “You’ve been hurtful enough.”

“Hurtful! He’s my friend. It’s not hurtful to say…”

“You look at that face,” Jen said adamantly, staring at Drew like she wanted to leap over the coffee table and hug him. “Look at his eyes. He’s hurt.”

“Drew.” Bas sounded exasperated, but when Drew turned his head, Bas’s eyes widened. “Jesus. Do you want me to kiss you?”

Drew shook his head, and it wasn’t really a lie because he didn’t want Bas to kiss him like this. Not with an audience. Not when Bas wasn’t into it.

But apparently, the subtlety of his thoughts was lost in whatever emotion Drew was wearing on his face.

“Oh, fine,” Bas said, rolling his eyes. “This is so not a big deal.”

Bas grabbed Drew’s jaw between his thumb and forefinger, turning Drew’s head until they were facing one another. He sidled closer so their thighs were pressed close together, and leaned forward.

Holy shit. Drew could feel Sebastian’s warm breath ghosting against his lips. It was agonizingly wonderful and terrifying at the same time. He swallowed hard. If this was his only opportunity to have this, he was going to enjoy every second.

He let his eyes shut as Bas drew him closer, and then, after a decade and a half apart, their lips touched.

It was… well, to be honest it was entirely anticlimactic, which was a little bit heartbreaking. Drew had dreamed of kissing Bas again - and, yeah, fine, a lot more than just kissing, if he was being honest - and here he’d finally done it, only to find that it was actually kinda dry and dull. He’d had better kisses from a dozen guys. He’d had better kisses from Bas’s little brother.

He pulled back, opened his eyes, and cleared his throat. “Okay, then,” he said. “I guess you proved…”

But he never got a chance to finish the sentence. Sebastian made a low noise and pulled him forward again, pressing their mouths together once more, firmer this time. Again and again and again, tiny kisses, parting Drew’s lips, allowing him to taste Bas’s flavor, which was more potent than any Halloween punch. His hands lifted into Bas’s hair of their own accord, clasping in the soft strands.

This was the stuff of dreams, the reason he’d never been able to - and never really wanted to - fall in love with anyone else.

He darted his tongue out to trace Sebastian’s lower lip… And someone - Keisha or Jen, maybe - whistled shrilly.

“That’s what I’m talking about! Kiss him good!”

Drew smiled. This is already good. I have wanted this for so long, he thought. God. Years and years and years. Every time I’ve looked at him.

Bas pulled back and looked at Drew like he’d never seen him before. “What?” Bas demanded.

Oh, fuck. Drew’s stupid mouth had opened and once again, his drunken thoughts had fallen out. Panic began to penetrate the cinnamon-fireball haze, and his mind started to churn.

This was the problem with losing control. This was why he should never have allowed tonight to happen. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

“What do you mean, what?” Drew repeated helplessly. “I didn’t say anything!”

But Bas had already turned his head away and was pushing himself to his feet.

The women had gone quiet. Drew noticed in a distant sort of way that they stared, mouths open, like they were watching a train wreck. In a way, they were.

Bas reached out a hand to help Drew up, then wrapped his arm around Drew’s waist, but he didn’t look Drew in the eye. “I’ll get you home,” he said stiffly, moving them toward the door and then outside, not pausing to say goodbye to anyone.

“We should… maybe we should…” Drew began.

“God, I can’t believe how drunk you are!” Bas said, smiling widely as they swayed down the front lawn. “I would never believe it if I hadn’t seen it.”

“Not as drunk as I was,” Drew told him honestly. “And, Sebastian, I think we should talk about what happened in there. I apologize for—”

“So, so drunk!” Bas insisted. “I swear, I was getting a contact buzz for a second there. Ha ha!” He shook his head as they arrived at the car, still smiling that same forced smile. And even though Drew could have held himself up perfectly well - really, there was nothing like a massive dose of adrenaline to make him sober up quickly - he let Bas open his door and ease him into the passenger’s seat… which was about when he noticed that Bas’s jeans were a little bit snug, and he was pretty definitely sporting an erection.

And that was enough to kill the rest of his buzz.

Was it possible? Sebastian had gotten hard… from kissing Drew?

Oh, they so needed to talk about this, and soon. Drew knew his best friend like he knew his own mind, and if he let Bas fall into his thoughts over this, the same genius brain that made Sebastian such an amazing innovator and problem-solver would turn this issue over relentlessly until it came to some crazy conclusion, maybe five or ten years down the line.

Damage control was the name of the game now.

“Hey, Bas,” Drew said again, once Bas had gotten into his seat and started the engine. “This was just a silly thing. A stupid game. Don’t, ah… Don’t hide from me, okay?”

“Hush,” Bas said indulgently, patting Drew on the shoulder before turning the heat up high. “I’ve never hidden. We’ll talk tomorrow. Just rest, Drew. Close your eyes, okay?”

Tomorrow. Hell, yes, they would talk tomorrow, Drew thought, steeling himself against the lulling motion of the car and the warmth from the vent as he fought to keep his eyes open.

But when he woke up the following morning, alone and hungover in his bed, his best friend had gone, and he wouldn’t be back anytime soon.