It takes a minute for Zef's eyes to adjust to the dark.

The industrial-sized kitchen is large enough to feed a cancerous number of caps. Given the sort of conferences held here, it needs to be.

The staff have long-since clocked out for the night. Zef startles at the movement of his own reflection gleaming in stainless steel. Gray pulls open the first refrigerator in a long line of them, searching for the creme brulee batter, looking too at ease with breaking and entering. Zef follows his lead and finds several vats in the third fridge. He pulls the lid off one.

"It's in here."

Gray joins him and takes the bag from Zef, unzipping it. "Well, this should be interesting."

They pull out syringes and glass jars filled with ambiguous, clear liquid.

"Pfft. Looks like the junk I used to take my T once upon a time," Gray says.

Over their comms, Damo says, "Try and get those measurements bang on. That shit's expensive, so I only gave as much as I figured you'd need."

The vials don't contain testosterone. They contain a hallucinogenic drug called Prisma, synthesised by CyberSuite for use in virtual reality simulators. It won't hurt anybody, but it enhances the senses and decreases inhibitions enough to make tomorrow's dining experience a squirrely one. A perfect distraction while Zef and Gray abduct their marks to ensure a pair of drag queens attend the conference instead.

The best part? It's unlikely to raise Rylan's alarm bells. Anybody who looks into the mysteriously drugged desserts will assume CyberSuite's involvement, not Gray's. Just standard cap on cap sabotage.

In the thin beam of a mini flashlight, they measure out enough for the fifty-six litre vat. Several syringes get squirted into the thick custard. Gray goes to find a spoon to mix it. Quick as they can, they spike the vats with Prisma and give each a vigorous stir.

As Gray shoves the last one back into the fridge, Zef perks, thinking he heard something. Just the echo of the door closing in the cavernous space, or...?

"Done, now let's—"

"Sh!" Zef slaps a hand over Gray's mouth. Gray stares down at the offending hand, incredulous. Then he hears what Zef does, and the incredulity melts into the clearest oh shit expression Zef's ever seen on someone whose face is mostly obscured by a ski mask.

Whistling.

Before they can move for the exit, a door not six yards away from them swings open. A man in a bellhop's uniform comes through—whistling 'Old McDonald had a farm,' of all things—and he heads straight toward them.

For a terrifying moment, they think they're caught, but the bellhop stops, still merrily whistling, eyes adjusting to the dark like theirs did.

He blocks the direct path for the exit. The only escape is another door hidden by the line of refrigerators next to them. Zef grabs the handle and pulls as quietly as he can, ushering Gray in behind him.

Pitch black within, Zef makes out the shapes of machines and cages. He thought it might be a freezer room, but in lieu of goosebumps pimpling his skin, he hears low coos and smells the unmistakable sawdust and barnyard excrement of chickens.

Live chickens. The rich really couldn't settle for the middling luxury of real meat, they had to have it so fresh it'd been plucked that morning?

Gray piles into the room after Zef, but there isn't much room, and in the dark he bumps into a machine that seems purpose-fit to pluck, butcher and prepare the birds for the chefs. A metallic clang rings cartoonishly loud. Zef's eyes bug, and he claps a hand over Gray's mouth to stifle any more noise, pinning him to the door to hold it closed in the process.

They stay frozen like that, listening.

Into the silence, a voice says, "Hello?"

Gray's eyes pinch apologetically. Zef gives his head a little shake. Maybe the bellhop will think a pot fell over. Move along.

No such luck. The voice continues, "Might have to call security if you don't come out." More quietly, he adds to himself. "Might have to explain I'm here sneaking snacks, but—" His voice gets closer. "Hey, did you hear me? Come on out of there, or I'll call security!"

"What now?" Zef mouths.

Zef can feel the tension of grinding teeth under his hand. Then Gray jerks his chin towards the chickens, raising his eyebrows. Zef releases him. Only in that moment, with the heat of Gray's breath on his palm, he realises Gray let himself be manhandled against a wall without flinching.

Outside, footsteps venture closer.

Zef's pulse buzzes like an electric current in his skull. If they're caught, the whole plan could go up in smoke. The hotel staff would check to make sure nothing was stolen or contaminated. But he can't see a way out. No other doors, the only exit putting them in clear view.

Gray sneaks over to the cage of live birds, clucking and cooing. He opens the door.

Zef can't speak, but he screams internally. What are you doing? Gray hands him a bird. A flapping, shrilly clucking bird. Zef doesn't know what to do with it, but Gray already has another bird under his arm and is herding the others out and towards the door.

Zef bounces impatiently. Any moment now the bellhop will round the fridges and—

Gray boots the door open and throws—actually throws—the chicken. It flaps through the air, bok bok-ing like a war cry. The other freed birds flock past his ankles. Zef can't believe what's happening, or how his body follows Gray's lead by tossing his own chicken.

They hear the bellhop scream, "What in the hell?!"

He's distracted. Gray grabs Zef's wrist and pulls him out. The kitchen has a square centre surrounded by a concentric ring of counters, grills and cooktops. There's a gap in these a few yards away. Past that, the counters can offer them cover.

They dart towards the gap, briefly crossing line of sight with the bellhop. He's too besieged by chickens to notice. He has one by its legs, apparently having tried to wrangle it. It retaliates with a barrage of wing flaps, clapping him around the face while he screams in unadulterated terror.

Zef has to hold a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. This is ridiculous. Their heist has been turned into a three-ring circus. What even is his life like?

Keeping low with counters shielding them from view, Gray leads the way to the exit, crouched like a video game character. Zef's knees tell him just what they think of this treatment, but the chickens make such a racket that nobody hears the dulcet sounds of his knees cracking like dry pasta.

They reach the door. Gray glances over his shoulder before slipping through. What he sees must please him.

"Poetry in motion," he murmurs.

Zef glances back, too. A chicken leaps onto the counter next to the bellhop with a menacing boKOK, talons clicking on the stainless steel.

The door shuts. They run for the mouth of the alley and relative safety, stripping off the ski masks. The laughter Zef could barely contain bubbles out. The wheezing, breathless kind of laughter that only begets more of the same.

That could have gone so badly. It borders on miraculous they weren't caught. That their saving grace was to disguise their kitchen invasion as the mischief of some escaped chickens takes it from miraculous to ludicrous. The sort of story Zef would tell grandkids over and over long into senility, if he ever had any, and they would never believe him.

He can barely breathe.

Gray, equally breathless and grinning, laughs too.

When Zef manages speech, he says, "That was just like Jurassic Park."

Gray says, "What?!"

"Jurassic Park. With the raptors. In the kitchen," Zef wheezes. "Only chickens instead, and—" He can't hold the laughter in. He explodes.

"What the hell is Jurassic Park?" says Gray.

"You've never seen Jurassic Park?!" Zef practically shouts. Now that they're far out of danger, he takes full advantage of volume.

"No, I ain't seen half the shit you reference. Most wasn't made this century."

High on the success of the night, Zef decides they need to fix that.

In order to give them easy access to the party tomorrow, Sami reserved a room at the same hotel. Apparently her own work in the hospitality business came with certain connections and perks. The room is luxurious, with an unimpeded view of the city skyline across the silver tail of the 'Sippi river. It feels like a treehouse atop the tallest boughs of a neon jungle.

One bed occupies the centre. Massive.

It makes Zef's stomach flip. Not because there's only one. They've shared a bed every night previous, helping Gray get more shut eye than when he sleeps alone. It's the way the glass reflects and reminisces upon another time when they'd had a luxurious bed in a mansion by the ocean all to themselves.

How different things are now, as Gray strips off his clothes and collapses onto the bed in his underwear.

"All right. Show me this movie. Make me more cultured," Gray says.

He stretches out on the pillows, hands behind his head, one knee bent and the other outstretched. Turned out a bit, so the stretch of one uninked inner thigh reflects some of the neon lights outside. Indolent and inviting.

Zef pushes the thought away. He changes into pyjama pants from their duffel bag. On his implant, he scrolls for the net archives of old films—the ones no longer carried on streaming services because their production companies went under, so the only means to watch them anymore was to pirate them. He pings the hotel's television—a mammoth thing occupying one wall.

Gray fluffs up the pillow beside himself and slaps it. "Cosy up."

Zef lies down with a respectful distance between them. Always leaving it up to Gray.

Gray says, "Tch," and lifts one of Zef's arms so he can scoot under it.

It elicits a firework of fuzzy feelings that don't match the vibe of the film's opening at all. As a raptor drags a man to his death, Gray turns his head very slowly to stare up at Zef in clear incredulity.

"How the fuck did this remind you of chickens?"

"Shh, not this part. I'll tell you when we get to it."

Gray settles more solidly next to him, and Zef triest tentatively leaning his cheek against Gray's hair.

As the movie carries on, Gray snuggles closer, and Zef finds himself less focused on the movie than the soft expansion of Gray's ribs against his, or the silk of his skin under Zef's fingertips idly stroking his arm.

It feels cosy. Intimate. The sort of things boyfriends do. Cuddle up watching movies in bed.

But since that night in the mansion, they haven't kissed. Haven't touched outside these particular contexts. And it isn't that Zef doesn't want to. Not that it hasn't crossed his mind a hundred times. After the past days spent massaging the knots out of Gray's shoulders and sleeping with Gray tucked like a secret in the circle of his arms, of course his imagination wandered. Of course it took him back to those brief minutes with Gray's legs locked around his waist, Gray's tongue in his mouth, Gray saying, "Fuck me," like it's a last request.

And it probably was.

Which makes things different, now. Somehow less impulsive and more messy for it. This isn't a last hurrah before Gray goes and does something reckless. It's slow and thoughtful. Deliberate. Zef opening his arms and waiting to see if Gray falls into them.

But always on Gray's terms. Always letting him make the call. Zef can't make the first move. He made his position clear. I'm here for you, aren't I? Gray's the one who's guard went up. It's up to him to let it down.

All Zef can do is suffer the burn of atoms between them creating a fission of unresolved sexual tension.

And hope Gray feels it, too.