I groaned as sun rays hit my face from the curtainless window. It took my brain a couple of seconds to turn on, feeling like I had been asleep for three years. It wasn't fully the sun that forced me awake, though. It was the sound of an obnoxious couple fighting outside, next door to my room.

The woman was screaming, her voice failing a couple of times, not from emotion but from being a smoker. I knew that kind of rasp anywhere. And it wasn't shade at Cedric.

Or maybe it was.

They went on and on, fighting about who stole whose money, who fucked whose sister, and who finished the coke line on the kitchen table without telling the other. Eventually it got so irritating to listen that I pulled the pillow over my head and tried to suffocate myself.

But it didn't help. Not one bit.

I forced my eyes open and stared at the ceiling, then the empty room, then the single mattress I slept on last night with no sheets. It was a bit scratchy, but it wasn't the worst thing I'd slept on.

My arm stretched towards the outlet as I picked up my phone and ripped it out of the charging cable. There were two messages from Cedric and Elijah. I rubbed my eyes and wondered why they were both messaging me so early, since the messages dated back around three hours ago, when it was still night.

Cedric's message just said he was coming over during lunch. And Elijah's was just him telling me he couldn't sleep, which was often. It made me feel bad for him, and I wish I could help.

Sorry I missed your text, I was fast asleep, I responded to Elijah.

He replied quickly: It's okay, I had company.

I squinted my eyes at the phone. I wasn't sure if that was a joke because of his . . . because of the voices, or if he genuinely had company. I didn't ask him to clarify, in case he was serious. I wouldn't want to ever make him feel bad about it.

Did you just wake up? He texted again.

Yeah. There's a couple fighting outside.

He sent a photo a few seconds later. My eyebrows went up as I opened the picture. It was his bulge. And under the photo he sent another message: He's also awake :(

I usually suffered from morning wood, it was just a normal occurrence for most guys, but the couple outside blocked that for me today. This picture on the other hand was reviving the morning condition.

Why are you hard? I asked.

Honestly, I had no idea what to respond with. But I also didn't just want to stare at the photo for an hour and forget to respond to him. The photo was nice, it clearly had my attention, in more ways than one. He was wearing black shorts with some crazy designs that looked like tattoos, and no shirt from what I could see, but the photo was only showing his lap, directly over the hard-on.

Thinking of you. Your pretty pink lips. That day wasn't enough, I kinda wish I had a normal blowjob to remember.

Me hanging upside down wasn't normal, true, but how was it not at least rememberable? The image was stuck in my head, and forever, probably. I could maybe agree that I wished we had a normal sexual encounter so that I could have enjoyed it a bit better, since having all of your blood in your head was not a comfy situation whatsoever.

I'd suck it again. Preferably not upside down, I sent.

I was getting hard at these text messages, and then I realized . . . were we technically sexting? Chance and I never did that, he'd usually just come over and we'd either fuck or he'd end up sucking me off.

Pleaaaseeee

I laughed and could almost feel his pain through the screen.

He sent a video. My heart raced as I played it and watched him palming his bulge. His dick was long and I wasn't sure how those shorts were keeping him tucked in, they were pretty short. He squeezed his fingers around it, dragging it down the length and squeezing it more at the tip. The video ended there.

Stop teasing, I told him.

Let me see yours and maybe I'll pull it out for you.

I swallowed nervously. Sure, he'd seen it already, but I'd also never sent nudes before. What if it didn't look good on camera? What if I was just bad at taking pictures? I was already terrible at selfies, so what did this mean for dick pics?

I pulled down the sheets covering my body. I was wearing shorts and a shirt, which was my usual sleep attire; sometimes I went shirtless and just stayed in my boxer-briefs, but I got used to being clothed sleeping next to Dorian, even if we were comfortable around each other.

My bulge was visible. Not surprising since it was fully hard. I lifted my shirt to the middle of my chest and lowered my shorts just a bit, enough to give a small preview of the base of my cock.

The photo was taken and sent, and Elijah responded with full caps: NO, DON'T YOU DARE TEASE DADDY.

What if I want to be daddy? I said back.

Dreams can come true, baby boy.

As I was about to send a snarky remark, he sent another video. I played the video and held my breath as Elijah pulled down his shorts to let out his long hard cock. He stroked it gently, sliding his hand all the way up, massaging the tip with his thumb. Eventually he drew back his hand and turned the phone around to record his face as he stuck out his tongue and licked his thumb, then flipped the phone again and smeared the wetness over the head.

"Touch yourself for me," he ordered. I couldn't see his face as he said this, but his voice was enough to send chills down my spine straight to my dick. He was so fucking hot, it just wasn't fair. I would never be able to be daddy.

I followed his orders, pulled out my own cock as I watched him jerk off. He was really slow with his hand movements, and I wish I could be there to be the one to get him off.

When the video ended, I recorded myself jerking off. I had never done something like this, so I tried my best to make it look hot. I couldn't be as slow as he was, I desperately needed to jerk off before I exploded from the tension.

As I recorded, I wondered why Elijah found my cock so pretty. It was around seven inches, which meant I was blessed with a good size. I was uncut, but I could pull it down when it was hard to expose the smooth tip. It wasn't fully pink, but it was definitely close. There were at least two visible veins and the cock was as pale as I was. Honestly, I felt self-conscious about it for a long time. I always thought every guy preferred the opposite of what I had, but no one ever gave me negative opinions, it was always overwhelmingly positive.

It made me think how things we were self-conscious about were just in our heads. We always tore ourselves down for things we couldn't control, and usually the things we hated about ourselves were things others loved. It was a good message, but a hard one to accept.

I sent Elijah the video of my pretty cock and waited for a response.

When I saw the new video pop up, I played it. It was Elijah's face and he groaned as he rolled around in his bed. I noticed when he first sent his bulge picture he was sitting on a chair, then moved to a couch in the video, and now he was in his bed.

"If I could frame this video and put it on my wall, I would. I want to suck you so bad, Lucian."

The video just ends out of nowhere, and my dick became even harder when he said that. Hearing him say my name, after saying that, almost made me finish, not going to lie.

Elijah followed up with another, in which he jerked off, harder and faster this time. He was speaking, telling me about all of the things he wanted to do to my body, and then correcting himself by saying things he was going to do, not wanted. He instructed me to jerk off with him, and I did. We were stroking at the same time, at the same speed. He was moaning my name, spreading his legs under the sheets as he fucked his hand roughly. As he was getting close, he told me to cum with him. I wrapped my hand tightly around my cock and didn't hold back, twisting and pumping, moving my hand up and down as I listened to Elijah's voice.

He moaned my name deeply as he started cumming long and hard over his shirt. I felt the tingly sensation as my balls tightened and the first wave happened. The orgasm had me closing my eyes, the room spinning, as I spilled over my stomach, with a bit landing on my shirt. I bucked my hips into the feeling, clinging onto the orgasm as long as I could, until every drop came out of my flushed cock.

I laid there for a few minutes, panting loudly, dick twitching. My head felt so numb and my eyelids were heavy. I ran my fingers through my hair and pushed it back, sighing and catching my breath.

The sound of my phone kept me from dozing off, but also more people were being loud in the building, so there was no hope for me to go back to sleep. I picked up the phone and read the message from Elijah.

Hope you enjoyed it. I'll be making you cum a lot more, baby.

Elijah was going to drive me crazy.

-

Around lunch time I received another text that Cedric was on his way. I hadn't heard anything else from Elijah since our morning session. I had no idea what they were up to or what they did during the day. I wanted to be a good friend and ask them, get to know them more, but their jobs were . . . not welcoming.

What would I even ask? Hey, Elijah! Kill any more people lately? Hey, Cedric! Deliver anymore drugs? Like what the fuck? I wanted to be there for them and show them I cared deeply and would never want to do anything to ruin our friendship, but I wasn't so sure that knowing what they did while they were gone would be good for my sanity.

Ignorance is bliss.

When I heard the knock on the door, my heart jumped. If it weren't for my phone, I would have died of boredom. There was nothing to do in this apartment and I wasn't brave enough to go outside, so having company over was my current antidepressant.

I opened the door and was greeted with not one, but two hot men.

"Hey," Cedric muttered, annoyed as he eyed Elijah next to him.

"Sweetcheeks!" Elijah exclaimed, acting surprised to see me.

"Why are you both—"

Elijah tackled me gently, wrapping his arms around me, and I got a big whiff of the bag he was holding. I let him hug me for a few seconds, but the smell of food hit me hard.

"Is that food?" I asked, moving back to point at his hand.

"I bought you food, too," Cedric muttered again, still annoyed.

"Come in," I told them.

"I would love to come in you, darling," Elijah said, happily walking in and moving to the kitchen.

Cedric brushed past me and placed a hot bag on the kitchen table alongside Elijah's. They looked at each other in silence, but there was something there, much louder than their lack of words.

"Can you guys . . . not?" I sighed.

Cedric crossed his sexy arms over his sexy chest and Elijah went and did the same thing, while keeping a subtle side eye on him. Cedric noticed, scanning Elijah up and down like he couldn't believe it.

"You guys are being annoying," I said.

I pushed them out of the way and went looking inside the bags. I took out every piece of food and opened whatever I could to start digging in. I didn't care if they wanted to stare at each other till the world ended, I was going to eat this food in peace and fill my stomach with something other than air and tap water.

"So, did you have a good morning?" Elijah said, popping up in my view with a smirk.

I didn't forget what we did this morning, I just wasn't expecting him to bring it up. And not in front of Cedric. I just ignored him, stuffed my mouth with as much food as I could to block any possibility of answering, and when he looked at me again, I just nodded.

"Why is he here?" Cedric finally spoke, not keeping his eyes off Elijah.

Now that I thought about it, it wasn't obvious if Cedric was jealous or if he honestly didn't trust Elijah. For a second there I let myself believe I was some hot piece of meat that everyone wanted a bite out of, but that might have been the hunger—I was not the egotistical type.

My brain needed to work harder at remembering the fact that they were both in real gangs, and not in the same ones. All I knew for sure was that they weren't friendly with each other. So it was okay for Cedric to feel this way.

"Guys . . ." I said, taking a moment to swallow the food to talk again. "I trust you both. I mean it, so please try to get along."

"They branded you," he pointed out, mentioning the tattoo on my neck.

"To be honest, I'd rather have a tattoo than to go through another human sacrifice," I said nonchalantly, waving a french fry.

Elijah's head snapped in Cedric's direction. "So it's true? You guys really do human sacrifices? I heard how weird Devilian is . . . I can't believe it's real."

"Weird? WEIRD?" Cedric said, his voice getting louder. "You wanna talk about WEIRD?"

"Sure," Elijah said innocently.

Cedric caught the death stare I was giving him and closed his mouth and swallowed whatever insult he was about to give Elijah. "Nevermind. And no, we don't do human sacrifices. We don't do anything weird."

Elijah's shoulders slouched. "That's disappointing."

"Elijah really tried to help me, Cedric," I told him as I brought the food to the small dining table and joined them. Cedric wasn't sitting though, he was too cool and macho for that. "But he's just one person. He tried his best, and I believe him, otherwise I wouldn't be here."

Cedric noticed I was having a hard time swallowing and speaking and went to the kitchen and opened another bag I'd left alone because it felt cold. He pulled out two cans of soda and brought them over to me, but as he went to put them down in front of me, he accidentally bumped his leg on Elijah who was sitting absurdly close to me.

"Ow! Fuck!" he cried as he bent over and rubbed his leg. "Is your leg made out of metal? Jesus Christ!"

"It is!" Elijah seemed excited as he moved his leg out and lifted his pants to reveal his prosthetic left leg.

Cedric just stared. "Oh, you were serious."

"After I recovered and got out of the hospital, I made some connections and found this amazing group of people that I hired to make me ten different prosthetic legs."

"How did you lose your leg?" he asked as he bent down and studied it.

I just sat back, chewed my food without a sound, and prayed to every God imaginable that these two got along. I had hope ever since their first interaction, but only I could ruin this, so I needed to tread carefully around these two and not set off any negative emotions that could force me into a Twilight moment.

Although I wouldn't mind if they took off their shirts randomly.

But clearly my version of this story was pants. Not shirts.

"I was kidnapped and tortured," he said without hesitation. "They tried for two years, but I never broke, and it really annoyed them. So around a month before I was found, they broke my leg and then chopped it off. I passed out from the pain."

"How did you not die?" Cedric sounded astonished and fascinated at the same time.

"Oh, they did many things to me, but they had a doctor to keep me alive through it all. They didn't want to kill me, but I think they would have if I spent more time there."

"You had the strength to keep your mouth shut for two years . . . but here you are with someone from Devilian," Cedric said, standing up straight and leaning back against the kitchen counter while he watched us. "Not to mention the fact that you risked it to save Lucian."

"I can't help it, he's adorable."

"I'm literally the most basic white boy you'll ever meet," I said in a low voice, hunched over my food. "I won't accept blame for your lack of taste."

"I disagree," Elijah said.

"So you're gay?" Cedric questioned, eyes going suspicious.

"Sometimes I say I'm gay, sometimes I say I'm bi, but I never say I'm straight," he answered truthfully, looking at Cedric. "Sexuality is confusing, I don't want to say what I am because people change all the time. Not all of us have clear feelings, so it's better if I just say . . . I'm whatever." He waved his hand casually over the word whatever.

"Women are pretty, but romantically I cannot," I added, cracking a cold can of soda and taking a big gulp. I accidentally burped, unable to hold it once the bubbles hit my throat.

Men.

"You?" Elijah nodded at Cedric.

He coughed awkwardly. "I . . . just came out."

"I'm the first one he came out to!" I said, proudly taking first place in his conquest to gayness.

"Oh, really? Who else have you told?"

"Just you two," he said quietly.

"Wait, really?" I said, thinking back to our semi-date at the carnival. "Not even—"

"Nope," Cedric cut me off before I mentioned their names.

"I honestly don't give a fuck what anyone thinks," Elijah said. "I've never cared, never will. The only time it mattered was when my family disowned me. Besides that, I rarely think about it. There's nothing wrong with liking men or women."

"I wish I had your mind," Cedric said.

"Maybe eventually you'll learn not to care." Elijah shrugged, completely unbothered by what others may face when dealing with their sexualities. "I was always like this, but I think it became bigger after what I went through, when I realized you could die at any moment. And not just you, but the people you love. We're all going to die one day, so why not learn to not be afraid so that you can enjoy every moment? I mean . . . I know it's hard in certain parts of the world, but if you have the privilege, then just do what you want to do."

Cedric was speechless. "Uh, this is . . . I'm . . . gonna go."

"Wait, why?" I said quickly as he straightened up.

"I have somethings to do," he lied, clearly. I didn't push it, since maybe what Elijah said made him nervous. I could understand if that kind of talk made you face reality. It must be scary for Cedric to come to terms with who he is and it might not be as easy for him as it is for Elijah.

"Okay, text or call when you're free," I told him.

"Sure." He smiled and waved as he went for the door.

"Bye Cedric!" Elijah said, getting up as well.

"B-Bye . . . Elijah?" he said cautiously, his eyes narrowing at the one legged boy as he walked out of the apartment.

"I should go too," he said as the front door closed.

"Why are you guys leaving? I'm so bored here."

"One, I also have things to do," he said, lifting his index finger. "I just wanted to drop by and give you some lunch. Two, I don't want to make Cedric jealous. And three, I'll be back baby."

My face went blank after being called baby. I continued to stab my fries with a plastic fork and ignored him. Hopefully he imagined himself as the fries, but honestly, that might turn him on.

"Alright."

"We should do what we did this morning more often," he said, bringing back the smirk.

I tried insanely hard to not let my face turn red. "Yeah, sure."

He kissed my forehead while I stuffed fries in my mouth, and it made me wonder if he had wanted to kiss my lips but I was too busy eating. I kind of wanted to kiss him and feel how he kissed back. Another time.

"See you soon." He pulled up his hoodie and walked outside. He put on black sunglasses, waved, and closed the door, leaving me in the apartment all alone.

"I'm no baby," I grumbled.

Sometime during the day, while staring out the living room window, I noticed a car parked in front of the building. It took me a while to fully realize that the person in the driver's seat was watching my apartment and my apartment only. It wasn't a big area, and it felt more like a motel, so being able to see the car clearly was easy.

I waited two hours before I decided to say anything. I didn't want to be paranoid, but something about it felt off and I needed to trust my instinct.

I created a group chat and added Cedric and Elijah to it. I wrote, explaining what I was seeing and how the car only appeared after they had left. It was making me feel anxious and I was getting worried that I'd be kidnapped again.

Cedric: Don't open the door for anyone. Turn the lights off and stay away from the windows. I'll be there as soon as possible.

Elijah: wait you can make group chats?

Elijah: hey cedric, can i call u?

Cedric: K

That was the last I heard of them for a while. They never called me, but I followed Cedric's instructions precisely. I was not about to get kidnapped again. I trusted them. I was going to be okay.

_____________________

[Author's Message]: *Laughs nervously* Haha . . . no . . . what do you mean . . . of course I didn't take 3 years to upload . . . no way jose . . . i would . . . never do that . . . *Cries* OKAY, I AM SORRY EVERYONE, I HAVE ISSUES OKAY? But I am back and I WILL be finishing this story, so do NUT worry! Everything happens for a reason, and I feel refreshed and ready to write this story. I've added a lot more chapters, so I'm excited to continue and finally start the romance . . . that I never ... got to ... because i ... abandoned it .... *ugly sobs* I hope you enjoyed the chapter, i hope you missed the story, i hope you keep reading and don't abandon me because you have ptsd from me disappearing ... *sus eyes* but fr fr, i will be finishing this story, so don't worry this time! even if some chapters take me a lil bit longer to write, im not gonna abandon it this time. if you need reassurance, i am a wattpad creator, which means i HAVE to upload, so . . . that should give you peace of mind LMFAO