adventchallenge 2010: 8+9/25 (for rykaine & rimbaum)
I am totally still writing adventchallenge stories! I will even finish my list! ...Eventually. >_>
Prompt from rykaine: The required social appearance at the office Christmas party. And a little too much wine.
Prompt from rimbaum: A necromancer and his rival, and a winter-holiday truce. Slashy, perhaps? :D
I didn't expect to combine prompts, but these two fused in my head and refused to be parted. They were MFEO! IT WAS DESTINY!
for December 8th & 9th, 2010 (rykaine & rimbaum)
Thane hated office holiday parties. He'd rather be in a graveyard raising putrified corpses than stuck in his boss's cramped apartment on Christmas Eve pretending he, too, had been infected with Holiday Cheer. That, and the desire to make nice with Drake, the boss's nephew and star necromancer-who, coincidentally, was hired right out of college as head of the necromancer division.
Over Thane.
Thane, who'd worked for Bob's company two full years already, and had spent his undergrad summers interning at necromancy companies, learning the ins and outs of the business. Thane, who was more than qualified to run his division, and had proven that during the four months immediately following the old director's retirement when Bob had essentially given him the director's job while he looked for a suitable replacement. Well, Bob clearly didn't know the definition of "suitable"-he'd shunted Thane back to underling and hired Drake. Drake, who spent his undergrad vacations partying through Europe, and probably picking up enough STDs to require a necromancer himself. Drake, who even Bob-his uncle-said was a man-whore. Not that Thane was a blushing virgin, exactly, but Drake flirted with anything with a sex-able orifice, and had taken a shine to flirting with Thane just to laugh at him when he went red in the face.
Drake was an ass, and clearly Bob was too, since he preferred picking his underbosses from the family registry. So what if Drake could raise an entire graveyard in a night? Thane could totally do that-assuming he were also an idiot. Raising that many zombies at once meant splitting the necromancer's focus in far too many directions to allow for adequate control of said zombies. Which just went to show Drake was an idiot, and Bob was even more of an idiot for putting an idiot in charge of the necromancers on staff.
Not that anyone else had a problem with it. The accounting and IT staff were clustered around Drake, making plastered attempts to plaster themselves to his unfairly sleek body. They looked unsteady as zombies, and, paired with their adoration-glazed eyes, Thane wondered if anyone would mistake him for drunk if he used necromancy to jerk layers of their dead skin so that they spill their drinks on Drake. It'd serve him right, sucking up all that attention like it was his due.
Before Thane could tell himself using necromancy on the living was against company policy (among other things, like the law), Judy derailed his thoughts entirely by bellowing "Merry Christmas!" way inside his personal space. She laughed when he startled, and bumped shoulders with him way harder than usual, which made her fumble the beer in her thick fingers. Her nail polish today was the color of blood, which filled her ruddy face like a virulent, creeping rash. "Cheer up, Thane!" she crowed. "It's Christmas! It's a party! Isn't it awesome?"
Thane bared his teeth at her, hoping inebriation would make her think it a smile. "Awesome," he said. "Almost as awesome as being at home."
"Ooh, after party!"
"Alone."
"Aw," she pouted. "Solo party." She frowned at the floor, then grinned suddenly. "I bet Drake would like to have a solo party with you," she cackled.
Drake looked up from his cluster of simpering idiots. "What would I like?" he asked.
"I will shoot you," Thane hissed.
"Thane wants to party with you!" Judy called, raising her beer.
A few cat-calls sounded around the room.
Thane glared at everyone except Drake, who didn't deserve his attention, and then noticed Judy falling just in time to catch her beer and not the rest of her as she overbalanced and collapsed into a laughing heap on the floor.
"Thane!" she yelled, as if he were on the moon and not standing right next to her. "Solo party on the floor!"
Thane raised an eyebrow at her. She'd clearly had too much, and would suffer a killer hangover in the morning. She smiled up at him. He smirked back and held out her beer. "For the party," he said. He hoped her Christmas morning hangover made her feel like the freshly-raised dead.
"Kind of you," Drake drawled, voice ghosting over Thane's neck.
Thane froze, then looked desperately at the gaggle of office zombies. No Drake-just disappointed faces.
Like his own, he thought, hearing Drake's chuckle far too close for comfort. A warm hand settled on the small of his back, and Thane manfully resisted both leaning in (Drake was a cocktease who could actually deliver, and Thane had entertained himself far too often with ideas of said delivery) and wrenching away (Drake was a man-whore and a job-stealing jerk, and had no right to touch Thane like he owned him). "Hello," Thane said, trying not to make it sound like the "go away" he very much meant it to be.
"And how's my favorite necromancer?" Drake asked, slinging an arm around Thane's shoulders and leading him away from Judy, whose shrill rendition of "Silent Night," accompanied by the Christmas muzak from Bob's stereo, sounded like a wailing banshee just begging to be put out of its misery.
Thane knew better than to ask "which necromancer,"-Drake would just take his flirting up a notch. So he said, "At his boss's uncle's apartment for a mandatory Christmas party."
"Aw, Thane," Drake said, sitting them on a love seat, "always so formal! Call me Drake!"
"Right," Thane said. "Deck the Halls" started playing, and Thane stifled the urge to kill when he realized they were right by the speakers. No wonder Drake was breathing down his neck. Thane scooted closer to the arm.
Drake pouted and scooted still closer. "Why don't you like me?" he half-shouted in Thane's ear.
Thane's eyes narrowed. Which list? Instead he asked, "How much have you had?"
Drake looked confused.
Thane mimed drinking.
"Oh!" Drake grinned. "Liquid courage only," he said proudly. "You?"
"Water," Thane said. Thank god; he had few filters when drunk, and as a lightweight, drinking at an office party with the sexiest man he'd ever hated walking around would be a bad plan.
"No punch?" Drake asked. "It's awesome!"
"It's spiked," Thane muttered. And then repeated when Drake couldn't hear him, and said so with his mouth grazing Thane's ear. "Judy spiked it," he continued, carefully turning his head to avoid Drake's shiver-inducing lips.
"Really?" Drake frowned. "I did too."
Thane rolled his eyes and tried not to laugh at Drake's confusion. He was adorable when he wasn't a jackass.
Drake caught him smiling and grinned. "Uncle Bob took my keys," he said, wrapping both arms loosely around Thane's shoulders.
"That's because he doesn't want you to kill yourself on the way home," Thane said slowly, trying to pry one of Drake's fingers from his shoulder.
"I know, right?" Drake laughed. "He's so cool. Like you! You should take me home!"
"No," Thane said.
"Why not?" Drake whined. "You never want to take me home." He pouted at Thane's glare, then brightened abruptly. "You should come home with me!"
"Bob!" Thane shouted, standing abruptly.
Or trying, really; Drake dragged himself up by Thane's shoulders, adding weight and keeping Thane caged within his arms, which were around Thane's waist by the time Thane got to the man responsible for dropping Drake into his life as his boss.
"Oh! He found you!" Bob said.
Thane's eyes narrowed. "He says you have his keys."
Bob patted his pockets. "Yeah, they're…here!" He tossed Thane a shiny set of keys and shooed them away. "I really appreciate this, Thane. You're a saint, taking him home." Bob's cell phone rang before Thane could tell him he hadn't asked to have the keys, much less so he could drive Bob's stupid nephew home. "Cab company," Bob mouthed, and cast Thane such a look of gratitude that he sighed and gave up.
Then Drake's lips pressed against the side of Thane's neck, and Thane's world narrowed to getting them both out of the apartment and down to his car, where he could buckle Drake into the passenger seat, and his stupid man-whore mouth couldn't reach Thane's skin and make his breath catch.
Drake was unhelpful getting buckled in, and still less helpful directing Thane to his house. He fell asleep halfway there, and only Thane's GPS and a call to Bob saved them from getting hopelessly lost in the city. It was nearly 1am on Christmas morning when Thane pulled his middle-class car into a brightly lit guest spot in Drake's upper-class apartment building garage, and half-dragged, half-carried Drake into the elevators and up to the thirteenth floor, most of which was apparently his apartment. "Great," Thane muttered.
Drake hummed an affirmative against his shoulder.
Thane would have snorted-what did Drake think was so great?-except he was trying to unlock Drake's door and not to drop Drake, whose fingers were playing electric guitar on Thane's stomach. "Stop that," Thane snapped. The door opened, and Thane pulled Drake inside and tossed Drake's keys on a small table against the foyer wall. "You're home now," Thane said, pulling Drake's hands off of him with slightly more force than was necessary. "Think you can take it from here?"
"Yeah," Drake said, not sounding nearly so drunk now, and crushed Thane against the door, shutting it with their combined weight and startling Thane so badly he froze.
"You never answered my question," Drake said, eyes laughing at Thane.
Thane glared up at him. "You're not drunk."
Drake shrugged, expression more proud than apologetic. He stuck his thumbs in the pockets of Thane's jeans, and tugged Thane's hips against him.
Thane's breath caught, and Drake's lower lip looked way too good to be anything but bad.
"You want to fuck me," Drake said.
Thane could feel himself flushing even as he smacked Drake's arm with righteous indignation. "You're an ass. Let go."
"See, I would," Drake said, "but you haven't told me why you hate me yet."
"What, faking drunk to get me in your house and then trapping me here wasn't enough?"
Drake had the gall to look hurt. "I just wanted to talk," he said.
"Then back off and we'll talk." Thane shoved hard, and Drake, mercifully, backed up. "Thank you." He huffed and strode past Drake into the apartment, turning on lights as he went. "Where do you want to do this?"
"In my bed," Drake drawled.
Thane stopped to glare at him.
Drake rolled his eyes, and led Thane past an open kitchen and bar to the lounge area it overlooked. "Sit," he said. "Drink?"
"Water," Thane said, watching from the surprisingly cozy couch to make sure water was all Drake gave him. If Drake had spiked the punch (like Judy), Thane didn't trust him not to add alcohol to his water. Not that Thane wouldn't be able to tell, with water, but who knew-maybe Drake had vodka ice cubes or something.
Drake came back with two bottled waters and sat next to Thane on the couch-though this time without breathing down his neck. Thane didn't know if he should be thankful or disappointed. "So. You hate me," Drake said, diving in. "Why?"
Thane sighed. "Will answering that question get me fired?"
"No more than sexing up your boss. Who is totally up for that, by the way." He waggled his eyebrows at Thane, who snorted.
"Of course you are," Thane said, trying to keep his voice light.
Drake apparently noted the effort. "Is-are you, uh-you're not one of those anti-sex-unless-you're-married people, are you?"
"No," Thane said, dragging the word out like Drake was slow. "That would be stupid, given the anti-gay marriage laws in most places. We'd all die virgins."
"Okay, what then? You disliked me the minute I came into the office. Is it about me being your boss?"
Thane took a sip of water and considered his next words carefully. "That's part of it," he hedged, setting the bottle back on the table with the other.
Drake actually looked hopeful. "Okay, what's the rest?"
"Why does this even matter to you?"
"I want you to like me."
"Why? The rest of the staff likes you."
"So?"
Thane gaped at him. "So? So-so-what's one person? I'm really not that important." Just ask your uncle Bob, Thane's brain supplied helpfully.
"You are to me," Drake said.
"Right," Thane spat. "And once you've fucked me, what then?"
To his credit, Drake looked surprised.
Thane's mouth kept going. "You're gorgeous, you're a flirt, you fucked your way through Europe-I get it, you're a catch! Congratulations, I do in fact want to fuck you. But seeing as I don't do one-offs-especially with co-workers-and I'm shit at open relationships, I really don't see why you bother flirting with me at all, except to make me pissed at both of us." Finally, Thane's brain caught up to his mouth.
The resultant silence was oppressive. "You really think that?" Drake asked softly. For some reason, Drake without a grin or a leer or some kind of amusement on his face looked…wrong.
"Hey," Thane said, feeling much less proud for putting the sick look on Drake's face than he always thought he'd be, "you're not… I didn't mean it like that." At Drake's dubious look, Thane huffed. "Look, what else was I supposed to think? Years before I even met you, your uncle starts telling me stories about you bed-surfing your way through Europe, and wasting your 'considerable talents' raising med school cadavers during practice surgeries!"
For a moment, Drake's good humor returned. "He told you about the med school?"
"Yeah." Thane smirked. "I wish I'd thought of it, honestly."
"It was pretty genius," Drake said. His smile fell. "He said I bed-surfed through Europe?"
Thane nodded. "Left a trail of broken hearts wherever you went. Bob probably just wanted to make sure I wasn't one of them." He shrugged. "If it helps, Bob pretty much thinks gay equals slut, so it's not just you."
That wasn't nearly as uplifting as it had sounded in his head.
Thane tried again. "Bob totally thought I wanted him during my job interview. He even felt compelled to 'let me down gently,' like I'd cry if he didn't."
No smile. Just a hollow-voiced, "I can't believe he told you about Europe."
"So…it's true?"
Drake slumped against the couch, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Yeah," he said. "But I don't do that anymore."
"Why not?"
"Because I got therapy?" Drake somehow made it sound like a question-specifically, one addressed to an idiot.
When Drake pursed his lips and stared, preoccupied, at the coffee table, Thane let him think; Drake looked as lost as Thane felt.
"My parents don't talk to Uncle Bob," Drake said suddenly. "Haven't since before I was born. Since he started raising the dead for money. My grandmother had to get him in touch with me, and by the time he finally did, I was trying to control my necromancy with sex and anything else I could get my hands on." His expression soured. "It wasn't a good time for me."
Oh. So Europe was-Oh. Thane slumped against his arm of the couch and propped his feet up on the cushions so he could face Drake. He felt like such an ass! Worse, he was an ass who should've known better-in theory, anyway, since all things considered, his experience had been pretty Normal Rockwell. "My parents figured out I was a necromancer when I was thirteen. I raised Fluffy, Mom's pomeranian, and they had to call a professional to put her back down."
Drake's lips twitched.
"Said professional got my parents in touch with the necro community, so I managed to avoid most of the self-medicating and destructive tendencies." He frowned. "Sadly, it meant I never got to run home screaming with an army of roadkill hobbling after me."
That got a laugh.
Thane grinned, pleased he'd made Drake happy, and not the least bit upset by said pleasure-which was good, since Drake was turning out to be fun, all True Confessions solemnity aside. "You're not half bad," Thane admitted, poking Drake with a socked foot. "Well, except you when pretend to be drunk so you can get me to come home with you. You're an obnoxious fake drunk."
Drake snorted. "I'm a flirtatious fake drunk. With you."
"Right, obnoxious-I said that." Drake's glare wasn't convincing; Thane told him so by kicking him.
Drake grabbed Thane's feet and plopped them into his lap. "Would continuing to flirt with you be considered obnoxious? I mean, since you don't hate me anymore now that you've realized you were being a jerk."
"I was no-oh, please don't stop."
Drake ran his thumbs up the arch of Thane's foot again, and as the massage continued, Thane forgot it was probably a bad idea to melt into a puddle of happiness on Drake's couch.
He really should get home, he thought (god that felt good), and also maybe open his eyes again (right there-yeah, it's-yeah), but Drake's hands could apparently render Thane powerless as easily as they raised the dead, and even the fear of popping a boner (a perfectly normal response to massage, Thane was sure he'd read that somewhere) wasn't enough to make him move away from Drake's magical foot massage.
"Thane?" Drake asked softly.
"Mmmm?" Thane's eyes didn't bother opening. His eyelids were smart; light was bad right now. Light, and moving.
Drake chuckled. Thane would have asked what was funny, except, light and moving. Then Drake said something about a blanket and moved Thane's feet. Thane whined and curled up into a ball of miserable jello. He stayed that way until Drake stuck something warm and blanket-y over him, whispered night and something else in Thane's ear while he stuck a pillow under his head, and the light went mercifully dark-taking Thane's once-again-contented jello consciousness with it.
*
Drake cooked Thane breakfast the next morning. Thane thanked him, and took the platter of pancakes to the table when Drake almost dropped it because he was grinning at Thane like it was Christmas or something.
"Damn, it's Christmas," Thane realized while they were eating.
"Merry Christmas," Drake chirped, canting his ridiculous mug of hot chocolate and dissolving marshmallows at Thane.
"I'm agnostic," Thane said.
"Really? Shit, I just assumed-not that you celebrated, really, but it's such a secular holiday now that-"
Thane snorted. "You're so easy," he said, chuckling into his matching mug of equally ridiculous marshmallow-filled hot chocolate.
"You're a jerk," Drake pouted. "You sleep over without having sex with me, and then you bring me Christmas mockery instead of presents."
"Merry Christmas," Thane said. "I don't hate you anymore. That's your present."
"That was my Christmas Eve present. You should give me sex for my official Christmas present."
Thane kicked him under the table. "Right, because you got me…what, exactly, for Christmas Eve?"
"The gift of massage. And a place to sleep." He paused. "And the offer of sex."
"You're incorrigible."
"You're adorable. Go out with me?"
"Adorable?" Thane's eyes narrowed.
"By which I mean manly, sexy, and smart," Drake replied smoothly. "And cute. And funny. And has good taste in men. By which I mean me, who you should date. And have sex with."
Thane couldn't help the laugh that bubbled out of him. "You're ridiculous."
"By which you mean entirely doable and datable, and you want to do both those things with me."
"Right," Thane drawled, trying not to grin at Drake's cheesy leer. "Have you been fake-drinking again?"
"Do I get to kiss you if I say yes?"
"Will I get any peace if I say no?"
"No."
"Then fine, yes. You can kiss me."
"And date you and sex you up?"
Thane rolled his eyes. "We'll see."
*
Thane stayed over most of Christmas day. Surprisingly, Drake proved a gentleman, and didn't sex him up.
Until New Year's Eve, by which time both agreed holding off would only encourage their co-workers to start the threatened betting pool. Besides, they both wanted to be naked together more than they wanted to go to Bob's stupid office New Year party. So while Judy sang "Auld Lang Syne" at Bob's, and turned out the lights before most people could see who they'd be kissing when the ball dropped, Thane and Drake rang in the new year with a Solo Party in Drake's bed.
There, Thane encouraged Drake to sex him up; Drake bestowed upon Thane the fruits of his bed-surfing labors (which had not, in fact, left him diseased); a different bet entirely was made*; and Thane fell asleep wrapped around his unsuitable boss-who, it turned out, was a more-than-suitable boyfriend.
*The Bet: Given a powerful enough orgasm, a strong necromancer could unintentionally raise the dead.
The Victor: Thane, who made Drake come hard enough to raise three cats and a parakeet at the pet cemetery.
The Aftermath: Neither noticed…until they climbed back into the front seat of Drake's car, that is, and found a decomposing cat perched on the hood and giving them the stink-eye.
"That cat looks pissed," Drake laughed, high on endorphins.
"I am so glad we tried it here instead of at the people cemetery," Thane muttered.
"Me too," said Drake. "I'm not sharing you-not even with the dead." He paused. Frowned. "Especially not with the dead."
"You're so sweet." Thane pulled on some spare gloves from Drake's glove compartment. "Now come help me de-zombify these pets so we can discuss my winnings."
Thane's Winnings: Drake, against the wall, in a schoolgirl skirt.
(There was little discussion involved.)
Prompt from rykaine: The required social appearance at the office Christmas party. And a little too much wine.
Prompt from rimbaum: A necromancer and his rival, and a winter-holiday truce. Slashy, perhaps? :D
I didn't expect to combine prompts, but these two fused in my head and refused to be parted. They were MFEO! IT WAS DESTINY!
for December 8th & 9th, 2010 (rykaine & rimbaum)
Thane hated office holiday parties. He'd rather be in a graveyard raising putrified corpses than stuck in his boss's cramped apartment on Christmas Eve pretending he, too, had been infected with Holiday Cheer. That, and the desire to make nice with Drake, the boss's nephew and star necromancer-who, coincidentally, was hired right out of college as head of the necromancer division.
Over Thane.
Thane, who'd worked for Bob's company two full years already, and had spent his undergrad summers interning at necromancy companies, learning the ins and outs of the business. Thane, who was more than qualified to run his division, and had proven that during the four months immediately following the old director's retirement when Bob had essentially given him the director's job while he looked for a suitable replacement. Well, Bob clearly didn't know the definition of "suitable"-he'd shunted Thane back to underling and hired Drake. Drake, who spent his undergrad vacations partying through Europe, and probably picking up enough STDs to require a necromancer himself. Drake, who even Bob-his uncle-said was a man-whore. Not that Thane was a blushing virgin, exactly, but Drake flirted with anything with a sex-able orifice, and had taken a shine to flirting with Thane just to laugh at him when he went red in the face.
Drake was an ass, and clearly Bob was too, since he preferred picking his underbosses from the family registry. So what if Drake could raise an entire graveyard in a night? Thane could totally do that-assuming he were also an idiot. Raising that many zombies at once meant splitting the necromancer's focus in far too many directions to allow for adequate control of said zombies. Which just went to show Drake was an idiot, and Bob was even more of an idiot for putting an idiot in charge of the necromancers on staff.
Not that anyone else had a problem with it. The accounting and IT staff were clustered around Drake, making plastered attempts to plaster themselves to his unfairly sleek body. They looked unsteady as zombies, and, paired with their adoration-glazed eyes, Thane wondered if anyone would mistake him for drunk if he used necromancy to jerk layers of their dead skin so that they spill their drinks on Drake. It'd serve him right, sucking up all that attention like it was his due.
Before Thane could tell himself using necromancy on the living was against company policy (among other things, like the law), Judy derailed his thoughts entirely by bellowing "Merry Christmas!" way inside his personal space. She laughed when he startled, and bumped shoulders with him way harder than usual, which made her fumble the beer in her thick fingers. Her nail polish today was the color of blood, which filled her ruddy face like a virulent, creeping rash. "Cheer up, Thane!" she crowed. "It's Christmas! It's a party! Isn't it awesome?"
Thane bared his teeth at her, hoping inebriation would make her think it a smile. "Awesome," he said. "Almost as awesome as being at home."
"Ooh, after party!"
"Alone."
"Aw," she pouted. "Solo party." She frowned at the floor, then grinned suddenly. "I bet Drake would like to have a solo party with you," she cackled.
Drake looked up from his cluster of simpering idiots. "What would I like?" he asked.
"I will shoot you," Thane hissed.
"Thane wants to party with you!" Judy called, raising her beer.
A few cat-calls sounded around the room.
Thane glared at everyone except Drake, who didn't deserve his attention, and then noticed Judy falling just in time to catch her beer and not the rest of her as she overbalanced and collapsed into a laughing heap on the floor.
"Thane!" she yelled, as if he were on the moon and not standing right next to her. "Solo party on the floor!"
Thane raised an eyebrow at her. She'd clearly had too much, and would suffer a killer hangover in the morning. She smiled up at him. He smirked back and held out her beer. "For the party," he said. He hoped her Christmas morning hangover made her feel like the freshly-raised dead.
"Kind of you," Drake drawled, voice ghosting over Thane's neck.
Thane froze, then looked desperately at the gaggle of office zombies. No Drake-just disappointed faces.
Like his own, he thought, hearing Drake's chuckle far too close for comfort. A warm hand settled on the small of his back, and Thane manfully resisted both leaning in (Drake was a cocktease who could actually deliver, and Thane had entertained himself far too often with ideas of said delivery) and wrenching away (Drake was a man-whore and a job-stealing jerk, and had no right to touch Thane like he owned him). "Hello," Thane said, trying not to make it sound like the "go away" he very much meant it to be.
"And how's my favorite necromancer?" Drake asked, slinging an arm around Thane's shoulders and leading him away from Judy, whose shrill rendition of "Silent Night," accompanied by the Christmas muzak from Bob's stereo, sounded like a wailing banshee just begging to be put out of its misery.
Thane knew better than to ask "which necromancer,"-Drake would just take his flirting up a notch. So he said, "At his boss's uncle's apartment for a mandatory Christmas party."
"Aw, Thane," Drake said, sitting them on a love seat, "always so formal! Call me Drake!"
"Right," Thane said. "Deck the Halls" started playing, and Thane stifled the urge to kill when he realized they were right by the speakers. No wonder Drake was breathing down his neck. Thane scooted closer to the arm.
Drake pouted and scooted still closer. "Why don't you like me?" he half-shouted in Thane's ear.
Thane's eyes narrowed. Which list? Instead he asked, "How much have you had?"
Drake looked confused.
Thane mimed drinking.
"Oh!" Drake grinned. "Liquid courage only," he said proudly. "You?"
"Water," Thane said. Thank god; he had few filters when drunk, and as a lightweight, drinking at an office party with the sexiest man he'd ever hated walking around would be a bad plan.
"No punch?" Drake asked. "It's awesome!"
"It's spiked," Thane muttered. And then repeated when Drake couldn't hear him, and said so with his mouth grazing Thane's ear. "Judy spiked it," he continued, carefully turning his head to avoid Drake's shiver-inducing lips.
"Really?" Drake frowned. "I did too."
Thane rolled his eyes and tried not to laugh at Drake's confusion. He was adorable when he wasn't a jackass.
Drake caught him smiling and grinned. "Uncle Bob took my keys," he said, wrapping both arms loosely around Thane's shoulders.
"That's because he doesn't want you to kill yourself on the way home," Thane said slowly, trying to pry one of Drake's fingers from his shoulder.
"I know, right?" Drake laughed. "He's so cool. Like you! You should take me home!"
"No," Thane said.
"Why not?" Drake whined. "You never want to take me home." He pouted at Thane's glare, then brightened abruptly. "You should come home with me!"
"Bob!" Thane shouted, standing abruptly.
Or trying, really; Drake dragged himself up by Thane's shoulders, adding weight and keeping Thane caged within his arms, which were around Thane's waist by the time Thane got to the man responsible for dropping Drake into his life as his boss.
"Oh! He found you!" Bob said.
Thane's eyes narrowed. "He says you have his keys."
Bob patted his pockets. "Yeah, they're…here!" He tossed Thane a shiny set of keys and shooed them away. "I really appreciate this, Thane. You're a saint, taking him home." Bob's cell phone rang before Thane could tell him he hadn't asked to have the keys, much less so he could drive Bob's stupid nephew home. "Cab company," Bob mouthed, and cast Thane such a look of gratitude that he sighed and gave up.
Then Drake's lips pressed against the side of Thane's neck, and Thane's world narrowed to getting them both out of the apartment and down to his car, where he could buckle Drake into the passenger seat, and his stupid man-whore mouth couldn't reach Thane's skin and make his breath catch.
Drake was unhelpful getting buckled in, and still less helpful directing Thane to his house. He fell asleep halfway there, and only Thane's GPS and a call to Bob saved them from getting hopelessly lost in the city. It was nearly 1am on Christmas morning when Thane pulled his middle-class car into a brightly lit guest spot in Drake's upper-class apartment building garage, and half-dragged, half-carried Drake into the elevators and up to the thirteenth floor, most of which was apparently his apartment. "Great," Thane muttered.
Drake hummed an affirmative against his shoulder.
Thane would have snorted-what did Drake think was so great?-except he was trying to unlock Drake's door and not to drop Drake, whose fingers were playing electric guitar on Thane's stomach. "Stop that," Thane snapped. The door opened, and Thane pulled Drake inside and tossed Drake's keys on a small table against the foyer wall. "You're home now," Thane said, pulling Drake's hands off of him with slightly more force than was necessary. "Think you can take it from here?"
"Yeah," Drake said, not sounding nearly so drunk now, and crushed Thane against the door, shutting it with their combined weight and startling Thane so badly he froze.
"You never answered my question," Drake said, eyes laughing at Thane.
Thane glared up at him. "You're not drunk."
Drake shrugged, expression more proud than apologetic. He stuck his thumbs in the pockets of Thane's jeans, and tugged Thane's hips against him.
Thane's breath caught, and Drake's lower lip looked way too good to be anything but bad.
"You want to fuck me," Drake said.
Thane could feel himself flushing even as he smacked Drake's arm with righteous indignation. "You're an ass. Let go."
"See, I would," Drake said, "but you haven't told me why you hate me yet."
"What, faking drunk to get me in your house and then trapping me here wasn't enough?"
Drake had the gall to look hurt. "I just wanted to talk," he said.
"Then back off and we'll talk." Thane shoved hard, and Drake, mercifully, backed up. "Thank you." He huffed and strode past Drake into the apartment, turning on lights as he went. "Where do you want to do this?"
"In my bed," Drake drawled.
Thane stopped to glare at him.
Drake rolled his eyes, and led Thane past an open kitchen and bar to the lounge area it overlooked. "Sit," he said. "Drink?"
"Water," Thane said, watching from the surprisingly cozy couch to make sure water was all Drake gave him. If Drake had spiked the punch (like Judy), Thane didn't trust him not to add alcohol to his water. Not that Thane wouldn't be able to tell, with water, but who knew-maybe Drake had vodka ice cubes or something.
Drake came back with two bottled waters and sat next to Thane on the couch-though this time without breathing down his neck. Thane didn't know if he should be thankful or disappointed. "So. You hate me," Drake said, diving in. "Why?"
Thane sighed. "Will answering that question get me fired?"
"No more than sexing up your boss. Who is totally up for that, by the way." He waggled his eyebrows at Thane, who snorted.
"Of course you are," Thane said, trying to keep his voice light.
Drake apparently noted the effort. "Is-are you, uh-you're not one of those anti-sex-unless-you're-married people, are you?"
"No," Thane said, dragging the word out like Drake was slow. "That would be stupid, given the anti-gay marriage laws in most places. We'd all die virgins."
"Okay, what then? You disliked me the minute I came into the office. Is it about me being your boss?"
Thane took a sip of water and considered his next words carefully. "That's part of it," he hedged, setting the bottle back on the table with the other.
Drake actually looked hopeful. "Okay, what's the rest?"
"Why does this even matter to you?"
"I want you to like me."
"Why? The rest of the staff likes you."
"So?"
Thane gaped at him. "So? So-so-what's one person? I'm really not that important." Just ask your uncle Bob, Thane's brain supplied helpfully.
"You are to me," Drake said.
"Right," Thane spat. "And once you've fucked me, what then?"
To his credit, Drake looked surprised.
Thane's mouth kept going. "You're gorgeous, you're a flirt, you fucked your way through Europe-I get it, you're a catch! Congratulations, I do in fact want to fuck you. But seeing as I don't do one-offs-especially with co-workers-and I'm shit at open relationships, I really don't see why you bother flirting with me at all, except to make me pissed at both of us." Finally, Thane's brain caught up to his mouth.
The resultant silence was oppressive. "You really think that?" Drake asked softly. For some reason, Drake without a grin or a leer or some kind of amusement on his face looked…wrong.
"Hey," Thane said, feeling much less proud for putting the sick look on Drake's face than he always thought he'd be, "you're not… I didn't mean it like that." At Drake's dubious look, Thane huffed. "Look, what else was I supposed to think? Years before I even met you, your uncle starts telling me stories about you bed-surfing your way through Europe, and wasting your 'considerable talents' raising med school cadavers during practice surgeries!"
For a moment, Drake's good humor returned. "He told you about the med school?"
"Yeah." Thane smirked. "I wish I'd thought of it, honestly."
"It was pretty genius," Drake said. His smile fell. "He said I bed-surfed through Europe?"
Thane nodded. "Left a trail of broken hearts wherever you went. Bob probably just wanted to make sure I wasn't one of them." He shrugged. "If it helps, Bob pretty much thinks gay equals slut, so it's not just you."
That wasn't nearly as uplifting as it had sounded in his head.
Thane tried again. "Bob totally thought I wanted him during my job interview. He even felt compelled to 'let me down gently,' like I'd cry if he didn't."
No smile. Just a hollow-voiced, "I can't believe he told you about Europe."
"So…it's true?"
Drake slumped against the couch, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Yeah," he said. "But I don't do that anymore."
"Why not?"
"Because I got therapy?" Drake somehow made it sound like a question-specifically, one addressed to an idiot.
When Drake pursed his lips and stared, preoccupied, at the coffee table, Thane let him think; Drake looked as lost as Thane felt.
"My parents don't talk to Uncle Bob," Drake said suddenly. "Haven't since before I was born. Since he started raising the dead for money. My grandmother had to get him in touch with me, and by the time he finally did, I was trying to control my necromancy with sex and anything else I could get my hands on." His expression soured. "It wasn't a good time for me."
Oh. So Europe was-Oh. Thane slumped against his arm of the couch and propped his feet up on the cushions so he could face Drake. He felt like such an ass! Worse, he was an ass who should've known better-in theory, anyway, since all things considered, his experience had been pretty Normal Rockwell. "My parents figured out I was a necromancer when I was thirteen. I raised Fluffy, Mom's pomeranian, and they had to call a professional to put her back down."
Drake's lips twitched.
"Said professional got my parents in touch with the necro community, so I managed to avoid most of the self-medicating and destructive tendencies." He frowned. "Sadly, it meant I never got to run home screaming with an army of roadkill hobbling after me."
That got a laugh.
Thane grinned, pleased he'd made Drake happy, and not the least bit upset by said pleasure-which was good, since Drake was turning out to be fun, all True Confessions solemnity aside. "You're not half bad," Thane admitted, poking Drake with a socked foot. "Well, except you when pretend to be drunk so you can get me to come home with you. You're an obnoxious fake drunk."
Drake snorted. "I'm a flirtatious fake drunk. With you."
"Right, obnoxious-I said that." Drake's glare wasn't convincing; Thane told him so by kicking him.
Drake grabbed Thane's feet and plopped them into his lap. "Would continuing to flirt with you be considered obnoxious? I mean, since you don't hate me anymore now that you've realized you were being a jerk."
"I was no-oh, please don't stop."
Drake ran his thumbs up the arch of Thane's foot again, and as the massage continued, Thane forgot it was probably a bad idea to melt into a puddle of happiness on Drake's couch.
He really should get home, he thought (god that felt good), and also maybe open his eyes again (right there-yeah, it's-yeah), but Drake's hands could apparently render Thane powerless as easily as they raised the dead, and even the fear of popping a boner (a perfectly normal response to massage, Thane was sure he'd read that somewhere) wasn't enough to make him move away from Drake's magical foot massage.
"Thane?" Drake asked softly.
"Mmmm?" Thane's eyes didn't bother opening. His eyelids were smart; light was bad right now. Light, and moving.
Drake chuckled. Thane would have asked what was funny, except, light and moving. Then Drake said something about a blanket and moved Thane's feet. Thane whined and curled up into a ball of miserable jello. He stayed that way until Drake stuck something warm and blanket-y over him, whispered night and something else in Thane's ear while he stuck a pillow under his head, and the light went mercifully dark-taking Thane's once-again-contented jello consciousness with it.
*
Drake cooked Thane breakfast the next morning. Thane thanked him, and took the platter of pancakes to the table when Drake almost dropped it because he was grinning at Thane like it was Christmas or something.
"Damn, it's Christmas," Thane realized while they were eating.
"Merry Christmas," Drake chirped, canting his ridiculous mug of hot chocolate and dissolving marshmallows at Thane.
"I'm agnostic," Thane said.
"Really? Shit, I just assumed-not that you celebrated, really, but it's such a secular holiday now that-"
Thane snorted. "You're so easy," he said, chuckling into his matching mug of equally ridiculous marshmallow-filled hot chocolate.
"You're a jerk," Drake pouted. "You sleep over without having sex with me, and then you bring me Christmas mockery instead of presents."
"Merry Christmas," Thane said. "I don't hate you anymore. That's your present."
"That was my Christmas Eve present. You should give me sex for my official Christmas present."
Thane kicked him under the table. "Right, because you got me…what, exactly, for Christmas Eve?"
"The gift of massage. And a place to sleep." He paused. "And the offer of sex."
"You're incorrigible."
"You're adorable. Go out with me?"
"Adorable?" Thane's eyes narrowed.
"By which I mean manly, sexy, and smart," Drake replied smoothly. "And cute. And funny. And has good taste in men. By which I mean me, who you should date. And have sex with."
Thane couldn't help the laugh that bubbled out of him. "You're ridiculous."
"By which you mean entirely doable and datable, and you want to do both those things with me."
"Right," Thane drawled, trying not to grin at Drake's cheesy leer. "Have you been fake-drinking again?"
"Do I get to kiss you if I say yes?"
"Will I get any peace if I say no?"
"No."
"Then fine, yes. You can kiss me."
"And date you and sex you up?"
Thane rolled his eyes. "We'll see."
*
Thane stayed over most of Christmas day. Surprisingly, Drake proved a gentleman, and didn't sex him up.
Until New Year's Eve, by which time both agreed holding off would only encourage their co-workers to start the threatened betting pool. Besides, they both wanted to be naked together more than they wanted to go to Bob's stupid office New Year party. So while Judy sang "Auld Lang Syne" at Bob's, and turned out the lights before most people could see who they'd be kissing when the ball dropped, Thane and Drake rang in the new year with a Solo Party in Drake's bed.
There, Thane encouraged Drake to sex him up; Drake bestowed upon Thane the fruits of his bed-surfing labors (which had not, in fact, left him diseased); a different bet entirely was made*; and Thane fell asleep wrapped around his unsuitable boss-who, it turned out, was a more-than-suitable boyfriend.
*The Bet: Given a powerful enough orgasm, a strong necromancer could unintentionally raise the dead.
The Victor: Thane, who made Drake come hard enough to raise three cats and a parakeet at the pet cemetery.
The Aftermath: Neither noticed…until they climbed back into the front seat of Drake's car, that is, and found a decomposing cat perched on the hood and giving them the stink-eye.
"That cat looks pissed," Drake laughed, high on endorphins.
"I am so glad we tried it here instead of at the people cemetery," Thane muttered.
"Me too," said Drake. "I'm not sharing you-not even with the dead." He paused. Frowned. "Especially not with the dead."
"You're so sweet." Thane pulled on some spare gloves from Drake's glove compartment. "Now come help me de-zombify these pets so we can discuss my winnings."
Thane's Winnings: Drake, against the wall, in a schoolgirl skirt.
(There was little discussion involved.)