Zef doesn't get a lot of time to respond to Gray's suggestion. Behind them, the screw shouts something unintelligible. "VELCRO FUCKER FITWIT," is what Zef hears, but that can't be right.

Gray, meanwhile, chugs his entire beer in an impressive two seconds, stomps across the bar and smashes the now empty bottle over the screw's head.

No word of a lie, his skull makes a noise like a goddamn church bell.

The bartender, released from the screw's grip, backpedals away. The screw whirls on Gray, winds up, and clocks him across the jaw with a fist amplified with metal. It should dislocate and break Gray's face, but the tattoos, now completely visible across Gray's back, glow violently red. He only reels back a couple steps, a little blood seeping from his lip, which he wipes with the back of his hand.

Looking over his shoulder at Zef, he says, "Care to join me?"

Like they're at high school prom and he's asking Zef to dance.

Whatever muted horror had fixed Zef to the spot evaporates. Most of the logical, thinking side of his mind flees the premises alongside a good portion of the bar's patrons. Once upon a fairytale time, Zef wouldn't even entertain the notion of whaling on a total stranger. He once thought he didn't have a violent bone in his body. Maybe it's the booze. Maybe it's the dizzy high of falling ass over tits onto the mat after riding a mechanical bull. Or maybe it's just years and years of repressed rage and frustration at the futility of trying to make it in a world designed for people richer, straighter and more cisgender than him.

Rule number one: stay out of trouble.

But he'd broken that one so many times already.

He charges at the screw.

The screw's back gives a chiropractic pop as it connects with the edge of the pool table. Zef opens fire with a punch to the gut, doubling him over into his waiting knee. The screw shoves him back, and Zef nearly trips, except Gray's there. Catches Zef and steadies him.

He says in a tone of genuine pride, "Nice one, darling."

Through the furor cloudling Zef's vision, he registers the electric touch of just a tiny bit of Gray's pinky brushing his upper arm.

Someone screams, "Bar fight!" in tones of vicious delight. It's followed by enthusiastic roars from more patrons. The bartender says, "Oh, Christ, not again."

It turns the three-person fray into a mosh pit. A riot. Before Zef knows it, his head is ringing. A cracking pain goes through his skull like a bolt of lightning. His vision swirls with the muddy figures jumping over pool tables and seizing whatever weapons come to hand. Chairs. Pool cues. Memorably, a dildo. Zef isn't sure where that came from, but he now knows what it feels like to be slapped by twelve inches of heavy silicone. His own fists find doughy places or clasp in clothing for purchase while he delivers a kick. He would have lost track of Gray if not for the lit tattoos. He looks like a neon avenger marching towards the guy who punched Zef in the ear. He says, "Goodnight," and the man's implant lights up briefly while his eyes roll back and close in sleep. He crumples onto the pool table, snoring.

Zef can't say he remembers everything as it happens. Events become a wash. Physical pain fades away, something primal replacing it. Adrenaline, probably. Zef doesn't question it. He just knows that it feels good. Beating the snot out of a guy twice his size and getting knocked around hurts, but it also feels good.

Flashing blue and red replaces the amber lights of the bar. Someone screams, "COPS." They came without sirens. Uniformed bodies block the doors.

Gray seizes Zef by the sleeve. "That's our cue to go."

They run. Unfortunately, even in this bizarre, animalistic state of mind, Zef remembers that he hates running. Gray seems to have him running a lot.

Luckily, it isn't for long. Gray dives into a coat check to retrieve his leather jacket, then leads Zef down the hall, into the toilets, and yanks open a window there. It's up high. They have to clamber onto the sink to crawl through. Gray gestures for Zef to go first. Zef blushes furiously as he kicks his way up the wall while Gray's hands shove insistently at his ass.

Zef's brain sings helpfully, Gray's hands are on my ass! Gray's hands are on my ass!! Gray's! Hands! Are on!! My ass!!!

He manages to scramble through, and Gray follows. He tugs Zef towards a parking lot crowded with cars. Many headlights turn on as escaping bar patrons rev their engines. It's hard to see through the glare, but Gray pulls up short of a motorbike with a devilish gleam in his eyes.

It's a pretty thing. Neon yellow and black like a wasp. Gray strokes its sleek hide, implants flaring red, and the bike purrs to life like a living animal reacting to his touch.

Drunk on beer and a bloody nose, Zef thinks, same, motorbike. Same. "Is this one yours?"

Gray grins. "Naw. Nothing's ever mine."

It punches Zef harder than any of the knuckle sandwiches he ate from the bar. "What do you mean by that?"

A shrug. "Said you wanted to ride a motorbike."

"I didn't say a stolen one." He's touched, and he knows his face shows it. Was always dead shit at hiding how he really felt.

Is this whole night not just an apology, but an attempt to show Zef the good time he'd never had? Give him all the bucket list wishes he'd named?

"We're just borrowing her," Gray assures him. In one smooth motion, he swings a leg astride the bike and gives the engine a rev. "You comin' or what?"

Zef hesitates. "You drank that beer real fast."

Gray's tattoos flash a reminder. "Turned that metabolic setting down, not off. I'll walk a straight line if you ask nicely, though." He tilts his head. Like a goddamn puppy. Should be illegal to be endearing and a death wish at the same time. "Or you could trust me?"

Zef doesn't have time to wonder or question his impulse to say, "God, I want to." He jumps on. Then hesitates. The rush wears off just enough for him to recall a few salient details.

Like where he's meant to put his hands.

"You sure you don't mind if I—?" Zef nearly sits on the ass of the bike to put a healthy distance between them.

Gray looks over his shoulder at him, brow raised.

"You said you don't like being touched," Zef supplies.

Gray's eyes gleam. "It's all right, darling. Won't bite ya this time."

This time, Zef thinks, but the words slither down his throat and constrict around his heart. Gray's giving him permission. I want to trust you. Do you want to trust me? Zef remembers the papery weight of the letter in his hands, light but full of gravity. He's trusting Gray by getting on this bike with him. But Gray's trusting him, too.

A lance of startling pain strikes Zef through the chest. I don't deserve it.

Behind them, the noise of gunshots pop off like fireworks from the bar. He pushes the thought aside. Slips forward on the seat, ass squeaking against leather. Gingerly, he puts his arms around Gray's waist, hands feather light on Gray's hips. He's not going for reverential or cautious, but a combination of both fill him up.

Gray huffs a little under his breath. "You're sweet."

Then he takes Zef's hands and winds him in so they're glued together. Skin-warmed leather against Zef's chest. Gray's sinful ass between his thighs. Zef hopes to Mary, Joseph and Jesus that Gray can't feel his stuttering heartbeat.

"Hold on tight or you'll fall off," Gray says.

"All right."

Gray can be cutting, scary, cold, but he's warm in Zef's arms. Pliant and sinuous as he shifts forward on the bike and revs the engine, booting the kickstand up, then firing out of the parking spot like a fresh horse loosed from the starting gate. They pass someone who screams, 'Is that my bike?!' on the way to the main road.

Zef experiences a powerful sense of deja vu as Gray starts weaving in and out of traffic. Instead of holding on tight, he's clinging for dear life. Papered to Gray's back. Gray is monstrous in his delight. Cranking on and off the throttle. Leaning hard into turns. Reckless and irreverent as he woops joyously over the motor roaring and the other drivers cussing him out.

Zef has to yell even though he's right in Gray's ear. "Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise!"

He speeds them out of the gritty guts of the city and onto a long stretch of highway. It sidles up to the side of the 'Sippi river, so the road and the riverbank are shoulder to shoulder. The lights of homes on the distant shore skate over the dark water in bright reflections. Soon, the landscape looks more like Zef's home. Fronded by overgrown ferns and crooked trees.

The adrenaline wears off enough Zef can feel his new injuries stinging in the wind. Blood crusted in his upper lip, his nose throbbing from the memory of a fist. Regret licks its way up his throat. That had been an impulsive and reckless fight. With total strangers, too. But... It brought him here. Hanging off the back of a stolen motorbike with his arms full of Gray. Heat coming off his exposed neck like a bonfire by Zef's cheek. The impulse to press his nose against the flicker of a pulse he can see along Gray's tattooed throat is hard to resist, but resist it he does, because somehow that seems more dangerous than bar fights or riding a bike without a helmet.

Zef doesn't know what's come over him, but he decides that tonight, he's letting go of all the coulda, woulda, shoulda's. Letting go of what's smart and taking hold of something new and velvety soft in his grasp.

Fun. He's gonna have an adventure. He's going to let Gray take him on one. Given what he has to do...it could be their last.

But he's not thinking about that. Not tonight.

They're far from the city, the road dark and empty. Gray doesn't take his eyes off the road, just turns enough he's not screaming into the wind but talking into Zef's ear.

"Wanna see how fast she goes?" he asks.

He asked the question once before. In the Vitali that first night, before Zef found himself caught in the snare of the city and all it entailed.

He'd said 'no,' before.

This time, he says, "Fuck yes."

Gray smiles, blood in his teeth. "You got it, darling."

Gray's fingers wind tighter around the throttle in a rippling motion before twisting it. The engine roars. The world gets blurrier, ephemeral, less real. Gray's hair whips Zef's cheek. Exhilaration thrills through him, warming his skin where it's cold from the wind. The asphalt tears past. The broken line dividing lanes betrays just how fast they're going as it blurs into one continuous, never-ending white stream. The needle on the speedometer becomes a number with new meaning. Zef's never done two-hundred miles per hour. Or two-thirty. Two-fifty.

A new feeling bubbles up in Zef's chest. Like he's a fizzy drink shaken too vigorously. About to pop. The feeling is light and airy. He didn't know it could be found here.

Joy. Scraped out from between the cracks of the city's mouldering pavement. Zef can't help but devour it. Squeeze his arms tighter around Gray's waist so he's not holding on but hugging him.

Abruptly, a sort of melancholy weighs over him, too. How many moments can he count in his history that felt like this? Twenty-eight years old, and the answer is, 'too few.'

Is it the same for Gray?

"Almost there." Gray eases off the throttle. They slow down. The world unblurs. A return to reality.

Gray turns off the highway onto the ramp and circles down into a district Zef's never seen before.

It is and isn't a part of Neorleans. Urban sprawl spread so vastly that it swallowed a neighbouring town. Old-fashioned homes sag and buckle under the weight of lit signs and advertisements, satellite towers and looming factories. Cables and telephone lines scar the night sky. Kids play on the street with toy guns. On a second glance though, Zef isn't sure they're toys.

"Where are we?" he says.

Gray answers, "Where I grew up."

Zef looks back at the pot-holed road, the dilapidated houses, the trash-strewn streets. Gray's home. Where he grew up.

On the surface, it's not so different from the bayou. A run-down neighbourhood with weeds, curbside trash and crude graffiti. Nothing new or shiny here that wasn't made by caps trying to sell overpriced garbage to people who can't afford it without loans 'n layaway. It's the same as Zef's home, yet—

Totally different.

'Cause back in the bayou, there's Matthias. And Leo. And once, there was Ollie.

Zef wonders for the first time who Gray's family is. Or was. It somehow never occurred to him. Like Gray manifested adult and fully-formed. Sprung up like Athena from Zeus's split forehead.

Gray brings the motorbike to a stop on the sidewalk and hooks the kickstand into place with his foot. Zef's arms are still vices around Gray's middle. Delayed, he releases his grip and reluctantly gets off the bike.

"Where you grew up. Huh." Zef looks down the street at the dully lit bodegas and crusty apartments. "So, you brought me here to meet your folks?"

"Trust me, you don't wanna meet 'em." He goes for nonchalance, but Zef sees through it.

"Not on good terms?"

A bitter laugh. "Dad's a donor. Aside from jizzing in a cup, he didn't give me nothing. Mom's...worse." His voice cracks a bit. He covers it up by changing the subject, voice teasing. "Bit soon to meet each other's parents, though, ain't it?"

"Mhm." Zef isn't buying it, but he grew up with Ollie and Leo. If parents are a sore subject, it's best left alone until Gray's ready to talk. "So why'd you bring me here?"

Gray licks his teeth. "Know a guy here who does tattoos. If that's still something on your list..."

Zef gawks. "You trying to fit my whole bucket list into one night? Last I checked I wasn't kicking the bucket anytime soon."

Gray shrugs, but the gesture looks...self-conscious. "If you're scared of needles, you shoulda said."

"Used to do my T injections the old-fashioned way. I'm not scared of needles."

"Then follow me," Gray says.

He leads Zef to a hole-in-the-wall studio squashed between a pawn shop and a nail bar. Inside, the whole place is painted black, and a scrawny guy covered head to foot in ink sits at the desk. Similar to his skin, artwork covers the walls from floor to ceiling in mixed frames. There are also taxidermy antlers. Insects pinned behind glass. Shelves of weird curios.

It's busy in the best kind of way. Zef likes it. But looking at the art, his throat constricts.

"Gray? That you?" asks the guy at the desk.

"Unfortunately," says Gray. "How've you been, Kit?"

"Surviving. Who's your friend?"

Zef awkwardly steps forward as Gray ushers him closer, saying, "This is Zef. He's been thinking about getting tattooed."

"First time?" Kit guesses.

"Yeah," Zef says. "I uh, dunno what I want, though."

Kit shrugs. "So long as it's not an infinity symbol or an eyeball."

Zef hadn't considered either of those things, but a knot is forming in his chest, and he can't quite untangle it to find the source. He looks at the flash on the walls with something approximating— Terror? Grief? Some combination of the two?

Kit says, "Take your time. Have a look 'round."

Zef nods and starts toward the wall. As he does, he catches a look from Gray. Brows knit. A question in his eyes. Zef waves him off and studies the flash.

There are so many designs, many of which feel familiar. Like a face in the crowd that looks like an old friend but, upon closer inspection, isn't. Scorpions and bleeding skulls, thorny roses and twisting snakes. The recognition comes from a sense of having seen some variation of these designs time and again. Traditional, but not what he's looking for...

Which begs the question, what is he looking for?

Kit says, "What about you, Gray? Still not gonna let me add to your ink? Your old time pal?"

"Don't need your scratch." Said with sarcasm.

"I get it. Too good for me. You ever gonna tell me your artist? Just so I know who to be jealous of."

"Takin' that name to my grave, friend."

Okay. So Kit doesn't know the nature of Gray's tattoos.

There's a coffee table in the waiting area with a portfolio book on it. Zef sits in one of the over-worn sofas and pulls the portfolio into his lap. It strikes him as charmingly old-fashioned. Photos stuff the clear sleeves of the book. Instead of downloading a digital portfolio that superimposes an image in his brain, he's looking at grainy polaroids. Not great quality, but still. Similar designs to the ones on the wall are photographed on people's bare throats and arms and chests. These ones look less professional, though. A little shaky.

There are so many that are just dates. Or angels and cherubs with dates. Or hearts with dates. Two years, side by side.

Just close the book, he thinks. Just say you've changed your mind.

He flips the page and stops dead.