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Zee ignored him just like last time, but Ishir didn’t lower his guard. He watched him get ready for bed, pull the sheets down, and then walk over to Ishir’s.
Ishir couldn’t breathe as Zee raked his eyes over him.
“Let’s see,” Zee said, nodding at Ishir’s shirt.
Slowly, wondering if he was in a dream, Ishir lifted his shirt, revealing the crusted flakes of come on his stomach and chest.
Zee stared for a long, long moment before nodding. He didn’t say anything, but the approval was obvious in his eyes. It filled Ishir up, thick and sweet like honey, sticking his tongue to the roof of his mouth.
Zee turned and got into his own bed, leaving Ishir there, reeling.
“Can I…” Ishir cleared his throat. “Can I take a shower now?”
A stretch of silence. “That’s your sleep shirt, isn’t it?”
“…Yeah.”
“So it’s already dirty. Makes more sense to shower in the morning.”
Ishir went hot all over. “Okay,” he whispered. His body felt like a live wire as he slipped under the sheets, turning off the lights from beside the headboard.
Ishir had no idea what kind of mental acrobatics Zee was doing to see this as a perfectly normal, not-gay thing to do, but Ishir liked it too much to poke at it.
He closed his eyes and tried to calm down enough to sleep.
**********
Zee’s first hatty as a Cat came on a freezing cold December night. The Brooklyn streets were being battered by snow, pavement covered in slush. In the arena, it was raining hats.
“I’m officially a Cat now,” Zee crowed as Ishir jumped on him, sliding across the ice from the force.
As if that had been in question. “Baby, you’ve been ours for a while,” Ishir said, gripping the nape of his neck, and Zee glowed.
Zee was all smiles at the bar afterwards, the satisfaction of winning rolling off him in waves. Even in a place like New York, where nothing seemed weird enough to catch people's attention, Zee drew the gazes of every bar patron he passed.
Ishir’s dumb heart thumped as Zee pressed in on the stool next to Ishir’s, head tilted close.
“Too bad it’s notyourhatty, huh?” Zee asked, eyes glinting. Knowing him, he actually meant it.
“No way. This one’s all yours,” Ishir protested.
“We’ll have to think of something real special for when you get one,” Zee teased.
Ishir’s cells were molten, singing at the thoughts that raced through his head.
Their eyes remained locked even as silence stretched, sweet as taffy, between them.
There was something that had been eating Ishir up lately. He could ignore it normally, but the question of who Zee was having sex with, and when, and what it was like, was plaguing him.
He never brought it up. In all the years of their friendship, Zee would share little details with him, and Ishir would laugh or roll his eyes or slap him on the shoulder. He’d mould his reaction until it was appropriate, even as he burned on the inside.
He didn’t ask, though. It was too hard to listen to, and it’d rob him of an excuse to hide his own exploits if he showed interest in Zee’s.
Well, he didn’t have much of an excuse now, did he?
Maybe knowing Zee was hooking up with other people would finally knock some sense into him.
“So,” Ishir drawled, his voice amazingly steady. “ShouldIhelpyoupick up this time?”
