Song of Pebble Lake

[Cristoval de Azcarate]

"They invited us for drinks, and then to hang out with them and go for a swim," Cris whispered, now horribly embarrassed over what he'd just done. He smiled weakly at them, waved limply, then turned back to Edel. Who didn't look fazed.

Because he wasn't the one tearing off to hug his friend like a maniac.

Yes...

No...

"You speak English, right? Come with me. They have booze. A lot of it. And they're actually really nice, I don't know what I was worried about."

[Edel Ziegler]

"Sounds..." He looked over at the pair again. Drinks, hanging out, swimming. Honestly, after being stuck sitting on a flight forever, he was down. Edel looked back at Cris with a smile. "Lovely."

What else were they going to do, anyway? Go into Cris' place and talk? The talk would have to come. They both knew it. Cris had to talk about it. His dad. His feelings on what happened to his life. What he might have come here to ultimately do. But it could wait. Maybe Cris needed this right now. To just be normal for a bit.

He grinned. "I do speak English," he said in English to show off. "One of the better things my daddy gave me." He slung an arm around his best friend's shoulders and started up the neighbor's driveway.

"Yeah, they look super scary," he teased, getting a better look at them as they drew closer to the front door. They didn't. They looked like two of the friendliest people he'd ever met. The taller one was grinning from ear to ear.

"Are you boyfriends?" he asked, and without a lick of context, the words took Edel aback.

"What?" He moved his arm from around Cris' shoulders. "No! We're best friends." What kinda question was that to ask somebody he didn't even know? Shit...

[Cristoval de Azcarate]

What a relief to have Edel here! Not only did he speak English, he provided the necessary support that Cris needed to not be an awkward loner. Back home it was easier to fit in because the people he mingled with were people he had grown up with. He was comfortable with them and he felt safe with them, even if he knew deep down that most of them were only around for the perks. The parties, the things money could buy, the entertainment.

Almost everyone abandoned him once his father fell from grace. Only his true friends stayed—Edel, Jen, Jaime. Jaime was honestly a surprise and he claimed that he was here because of Jen, but Cris knew better. Even Jaime had a shred of decency in him. A very little shred, but a shred nonetheless that redeemed some of his worse qualities.

"You show-off," he grimaced horribly, peeved that Edel felt the need to say that in English to prove a point. Everyone knew Cris' English was awful. He never got the hang of it despite his friends seeming to have no issues. Even Jen got fed up with teaching him and he gave up eventually, turning to German to scrape a pass to graduate.

Cris shot him a dirty look for the scary neighbors comment because it was uncalled for—and inside he was glowing. Warm. These kinds of jokes were sorely missed. Edel knew just how far to push him and just how to get slightly under his skin. Asshole. But his best friend, too. "Shut up," he muttered as they walked up to Hanale's house together, Cris' arm around Edel's waist.

ERRR.

He side-stepped very quickly. "No! No! We're friends!" YIKES! That question was coming back to bite him in the ass now! Cris laughed awkwardly and wished a hole would open up under him.

Hanale laughed too but nudged Kylar in the side. "You little imp! Are you tipsy? I think you are!" He grinned. "Come on guys, another round of drinks! You must be Edel, right? Nice to meet you! I'm Hanale. This is Kylar, my maybe boyfriend if this weekend goes well."

[Edel Ziegler]

"Yes. I'm Edel. ...Maybe boyfriend?" Edel asked politely. Odd way to introduce a guy. So, was this their shot at figuring out if this was a boyfriend kind of relationship, then? Edel slightly raised his brows. Did they... not... do it yet? Oh... Edel felt like they were invading something, interrupting something important. He glanced at Cris apprehensively but Hanale and Kylar seemed friendly and insistent on allowing them to join them.

Kylar practically bounced as he blurted out, "Yes!" The way he looked at Hanale was very Telling. These two were not maybe boyfriends. Maybe that's what they were calling it right now but they were definitely in that honeymoon phase of a new relationship. Edel smiled to himself. He remembered that feeling all too well.

"This is kind of our first date," Kylar continued as they entered the neighbor's lake house and they were led to a nice bar. The lake houses out here weren't cookie cutter suburban things, so it was vastly different from Cris' place. But it was equally expensive and beautiful, if in a different way.

"A mutual friend of ours set us up," Kylar said as he hopped onto a stool in front of a fancy looking yellow and red drink. "Usually, he's terrible at match-making but I think this time he struck, um, gold."

Edel smiled as he took a seat next to the empty glass... which he had to assume was Cris'. Hopefully nothing too strong. Hopefully not too much. He side-eyed Cris before resuming smiling at Kylar.

"I met my boyfriend at a party."

"I thought you said you weren't boyfriends."

"We're not," Edel said with a laugh, gesturing a hand between his chest and Cris' chest. "We've known each other since primary school. Like I said. Best friend." He cleared his throat. "Can I get a whiskey neat?"

[Cristoval de Azcarate]

If everyone would stop talking about their boyfriends now... Cris thought somewhat miserably as he trailed along after the happy maybe-couple. For a second, after Hanale introduced Kylar as his maybe-boyfriend, he looked a little unsure. Then when Kylar practically leapt to say YES, Hanale's grin could have lit up the sky.

Clearly they were in that kind of a relationship—the kind that started out with fireworks and pure bliss. Where did that go though? Up? Higher? Or downhill once they got to really know one another? Hard to tell. Cris wished them nothing but happiness but at the same time, that little bit of a cynic in him hoped that the fall wouldn't be too hard. They were really lovely people.

A lot of the exchange in English went over his head, so he went back to his seat nodding and smiling and repeating 'friends only' to convince them that there was nothing between himself and Edel. Drunk kisses didn't count. The one over at his place, their first kiss—a cool night, drinks and drugs, the moon glinting off the lake and a smile. Not even really an inviting smile, just... a happy smile. The first kiss caught him off-guard so he didn't push Edel away. The second one, he had no explanation for.

Then a few weeks later, another party. Some club or other with the throbbing music in his veins and again—drinks. Drugs. He was giddy and high and he'd pulled Edel away from the crowd to dance with him. They did that a lot anyway, whether at a club or a bar or just in their own homes, having a good time and fooling around. Another smile though. Happy. Content. And another series of kisses he hazily remembered the next morning when he woke up next to Jen.

And so it went, here and there, a smattering of blurry memories.

Cris cradled his newly-filled glass and sipped it. Hanale had handed Edel one as well, and was asking him about coming all the way to dinky Hazleton from Spain. Was it nice in Spain? Sunny? He'd always wanted to go, he said with a bright handsome smile. "Maybe we should go some time, Ky," Hanale grinned as he took Kylar's hand again, slipping into a nickname for him rather quickly, Cris noted. But by now they were all two or three drinks in (except Kylar who apparently was a light-weight).

"Hey is your boyfriend joining you guys later then?" A perfectly normal question for Hanale to ask, Cris thought. He buried his face in his glass.

[Edel Ziegler]

There was talk of Spain, weather, the usual introductory chatter. During the conversation, Hanale and Kylar seemed to be completely entranced with one another. A little part of Edel's heart felt the pang of wistfulness at their happiness. Despite all his arguing with Cris and Jaime about how much he loved Rey, sometimes, it was so difficult to be with him. But they had been this happily aglow... once.

He wondered if Rey was okay. Edel had left so abruptly and he hadn't explained anything, per Cris' wishes. Guilt filled his chest at the thought. He lifted his glass to take a long drink. Edel claimed to be better at holding his alcohol but really, he wasn't. Since getting together with Rey, he didn't drink nearly as much. Hardly ever, really.

Annnnd talk was back to Rey. Edel had purposely left things short and vague regarding Rey, knowing full well how Cris felt about him. Annoying. Clingy. Paranoid. Cris never had a single nice thing to say about him.

"No," he said after a pause. "It's just us out here." He looked over at Cris. "It's been a while since we had time to ourselves, between his girlfriend and my boyfriend and work and everything."

[Hanale Noem]

Wow. Two handsome guys. And one extremely captivating, gorgeous, funny, sweet, charming maybe-boyfriend. Hanale couldn't accurately describe how it felt to introduce Kylar as a maybe-boyfriend. It had been that long since he let anyone in that close that the words felt foreign on his tongue. He was mostly joking but... part-way not. And it felt so right afterwards, when Kylar agreed with him. Maybe-boyfriend. If the weekend went right.

It was getting off to a great start already!

Hanale watched Cris drinking from his glass with a little smile, noting the way he looked at Edel. By the way he ran out on them earlier he would have said 'only friends' was a blatant lie but he didn't want to make things awkward for them. There was something there, he could tell. And also—okay cheating a little bit, but he peeked at their hearts' lights and he peeked at the lines of fate between them. There were connections to other people, some strong, some not. And their connection to each other...

"Oh, that's adorable! Making time for your closest friend, that's so sweet." Hanale topped up everyone's glasses as he beamed at the two of them. Was Kylar seeing what he was seeing? Awkwardness when it came to the subject of significant others. Interesting... "Well I say we get your trip started off right! Let's get down to the lake and test out my giant rainbow float!" They'd all had enough drinks to loosen up, right? Hanale was warm and happy and maybe a little light-headed. The perfect state to go down to the water and have a bit of a splash around, and then maybe... have the rest of the evening alone with Kylar.

[Kylar Sheridan]

Hmmmmmmmm. Kylar couldn't help it. Even after he asked if they were boyfriends and they denied it, Kylar couldn't stop seeing it. They sure seemed like they could be boyfriends. Or that they were really into each other. They both had significant others, so that must have really complicated things. But man! The chemistry was there. It was cute! It was like watching teenagers back in high school dancing around the truth of their attraction.

Kylar might have been tipsy but even he noticed the way those two drank. They didn't sip like Hanale and Kylar did. They drank like they were trying desperately to either get drunk real quick or to erase something bouncing around in their heads. HMMMMMMMMM indeed! Kylar looked over at Hanale and exchanged what he thought was a secret Look. Surely he wasn't the only one noticing this?!

"Yes, yes~" Kylar sang as he stood a little too quickly. His head spun and he laughed as he leaned against the counter.

"That thing out there?" Edel asked sounding somewhat amused. "Are we going in full nude or...? I forgot to bring something to swim in."

Kylar blushed despite himself. "Wh-what? I... I have swim trunks. But I only brought one pair..." He glanced at Hanale. Did he have extras...?

[Cristoval de Azcarate]

"Whoa, careful!" Hanale made a quick exit from behind the counter so that he could throw an arm around Kylar to keep him steady. Cute, Cris thought. It was the little things that really counted, wasn't it? The way he held Kylar so carefully, the laughter in his voice and eyes, the way he looked at his maybe-boyfriend.

"I have a couple of pairs in the bedroom. Hold on. You. Come with me, I don't trust you to walk to your room alone." Laughing, Hanale pulled Kylar with him and disappeared from view.

Cris drained whatever was left in his glass, feeling much less tense now with... three? Four? Glasses in him? He might have been drinking before this... He might have been drinking long before this, and sustained that state of inebriation for days. Weeks.

He fell against Edel as he pushed his empty glass away and rested his head against Edel's shoulder. "I'm--I'm going in naked!" he declared as though he was about to solve world hunger. Firmly. Decision made. Totally going in naked. Why not? Who cared? They all had partners. All of them had partners. All of them. It didn't matter anyway. Didn't matter who saw him naked. They all had partners.

Unsteadily he pushed off and started stripping right then and there, with a daredevil light in his eyes that only seemed to emerge when he was drunk.

[Edel Ziegler]

All right then. Extra swim trunks for all. And then it was just the two of them. Alone. With alcohol in their bodies. Cris seemed to have a lot more in him than what had been shared by the maybe-boyfriends. No way was he that drunk from those... how many glasses did he drink? How many did he have before Edel arrived?

Edel laughed softly as Cris leaned against him and he raised a hand to touch the back of his friend's head when Cris suddenly declared that he was going in naked. Uh. Edel's hand paused and then slowly dropped back down. Why was his mouth so dry at the thought? It wasn't as if he'd never seen Cris naked before, either. They shared baths on occasion when staying overnight together. Cris showed him how to jerk off for the first time. They'd gone skinny dipping, he'd seen him in the locker room. Naked Cris was nothing new.

"Don't," Edel said in a warning tone, holding a hand out to Cris' chest, as if that would stop him. "Don't even go there."

But he was. Cris was stripping down with that crazy, mischievous, troublemaking glint in his eyes that always seemed to appear when he'd had a few drinks too many.

"You are such a show off," Edel said with a slight roll of the eyes.

[Cristoval de Azcarate]

No nonono no no, no stopping him now! Cris was naked in the blink of an eye. He was good at taking clothes off--his own, other people's. Call it a lesser-known skill. He grinned as he flippantly tossed his underwear over Edel's head--the way a stripper might if they were, like, really bad at their job.

"It's not showing off if you like it! It's stripping. I'm stripping for you!" he laughed, drunkenly, as he grabbed the last of the other two's drinks and polished them off too. There! Buffer for the rest of the evening! He was going to hurt in the morning but right now he was God. Naked God.

"I have a good body. Right? I think I have a good body!" He grabbed one of Edel's hands and placed it against his abdomen so that Edel could feel the muscles there. Then he moved it around, up and down, so that Edel had the full experience. "See? See I didn't let myself go! Feel that? Feel it?!"

Without letting go of Edel's hand he leaned in close and lowered his tone. His gaze was on Edel, suddenly serious. "You need to get naked with me."

[Edel Ziegler]

"For me?" Edel said in a skeptical tone. Cris was too drunk, he thought. If he wasn't drunk, he wouldn't be declaring stupid things like that. Maybe he thought he was Jen for some reason. Or one of Jen's... playthings. One of their playthings? Edel wondered sometimes but he didn't ask and Cris didn't talk about it.

"You--" Edel's words were cut off when his hand was taken in Cris' and placed against bare skin. Now that was not something they had done. Jerking it off in front of each other once during their younger teen years was one thing--that was kinda normal, wasn't it? This... Edel tried to move his hand back. It felt like he was doing something distinctly wrong. He tried hard not to even look at Cris' naked body, although it wasn't easy.

"You're drunk."

Cris didn't let go of him though. In fact, he kept holding onto his hand, pressed against his warm skin. Close. Way too close. Face to face. Gaze to gaze. That serious expression did not match the words that came out of Cris' mouth. Edel, despite himself, laughed. He laughed and he tried to withdraw his hand.

"I think I'll wait for a swimsuit."

This... was not the time or place for what Cris almost seemed to be suggesting. Was there ever a time or place for that?

[Cristoval de Azcarate]

"Yah... YAH! I'm drunk!" Cris laughed because Edel laughed. He loved Edel's laugh! It was another little taste of home to hear such a familiar sound. The warmth from his laugh went straight to his chest and Cris grinned like a goofy teenager. He felt like a goofy teenager again, to be honest, standing there naked and trying to convince someone he liked to get naked with him.

Finally he let go of Edel's hand but snorted dismissively. "Chicken." Pfft. Swimsuit. There was a burst of laughter behind him and he turned to see Hanale with swimming trunks over one arm. Cris was too drunk to even feel embarrassed. He grinned even wider and shrugged his shoulders as if to say--"What're you gonna do?"

"Are we all going naked?" Hanale asked with an amused smile and a lift of the brows. "Lake's pretty cold..."

[Edel Ziegler]

"You know I'm not."

Chicken, that was. Edel wasn't ashamed of his body. And as mentioned before, he had been naked before Cris before. They used to be naked around each other all the time. Before, when they were kids and there was no awkward tension. And then later, when the tension had to be imagined. And then...

Edel turned to look at the counter, but his glass was conspicuously empty. How many glasses had he had? Not as many as Cris. Enough to be buzzed, though. Enough to hear the chicken comment and feel like he had something to prove. Enough to hear the amusement in Hanale's voice when he asked if they were all going naked.

"Is a flimsy pair of shorts going to change that?" Edel asked with a grin. Now they weren't standing so close and skin wasn't on skin, everything was back to normal. Without another thought, Edel shed his clothes, too, despite the way Kylar's eyes widened at the sight of two naked men standing there in front of them. He looked to Hanale like he could help him, like he was floundering.

"I don't..." Kylar said and it was obvious that at least one of them was shy about being naked.

"Last one in has to let the rest of us take body shots off him!" Edel shouted in English before racing off, naked as a jaybird down to the lake and without preamble, leapt right into that cold, cold water.

[Cristoval de Azcarate]

"Hnnn." That noise was the sum of all of Cris' skepticism rolled into one half-snort. Right, he wasn't chicken. That was why he wasn't stripping down right now and joining Cris in all of his naked glory. It was true—they had never been body-shy around one another. They did everything naked, it felt like, for no good reason. Just because.

Before the weird drunk kisses started happening they were just buddies and it wasn't awkward to be naked together. There were... complications, yes, but Cris imagined that was nothing more than curiosity on his part. Young guys, handsome guys, they were all around him. He was curious but he had a girlfriend and that was the way things were.

"Well... actually that's a good point." Hanale conceded with a low laugh, turning to Kylar. His smile faded a little when he noticed Kylar's reluctance and after a moment, he set the trunks down to begin undressing too. "I think I'll still wear a pair of these, just in case it helps." The smile went back to being amused—clearly he didn't think it would but it was cute that he was trying not to force Kylar to be the only not naked one.

Cris grinned and turned back to the sight of Edel almost completely naked too. Hah! He wasn't the only one good at getting out of his clothes! See—there was a reason they were best friends. But then Edel shouted something in English that Cris didn't really understand—body shot? Boxing?—and he was gone. Cris blinked; his brain was severely hampered by alcohol. It wasn't until Hanale grabbed Kylar and ran too that he realized this was a race and he bolted down too, fast on their heels.

"Damnit!" Cris shouted, last one in the lake by half a step. Hanale was laughing hilariously as he pulled Kylar with him into the water, dunking them both. After huffing for a moment, Cris threw himself at Edel. "What did you say earlier?! You jerk you know my English is bad!"