Only the whisper of the wind and the soft rustle of nocturnal life in the forest behind them accompanied them while they ate. The chirp of insects braving the cold; an owl’s hoot. Perhaps that snapped twig was a fox or a rabbit. The drone of traffic still underlaid it all, but it was distant here. Secondary to the immediate world.

Cain’s eyes kept trailing to him, Casper could see that in the corner of his and resolutely, he stayed staring out at the city. Damn idiot buying noodles. Every time they trailed too far past his mouth – the limp, greasy tentacles of a cosmic horror still living in its mum’s basement – his cheeks heated up while he broke them back off into the container. Why did that idiot have to watch him eat? He ate like a ghoul with its face buried in a corpse.

Eventually the mouthful just hurt to swallow, throat tight and dry. His skin itched, down his spine and a flush across his cheeks. Casper gulped it down and forced out the scratch of his voice. “Stop looking at me.”

Wide-eyed, a clump of rice dropped from between Cain’s chopsticks. Who could even eat rice with chopsticks anyway? Especially that elegantly. “What? I’m—I’m sorry I just—”

Casper shook his head, the blood in his cheeks rising to the boil and his eyes fixed on the dwindling pile of noodles. “I can’t eat when people look at me. It—” He jammed his chopsticks in the noodles and rubbed at his scarred cheek. “Never mind. I’m done—”

“No! No, it’s alright. I’m sorry. Here—” Cain’s chopsticks wound a noodle out of the pile of worms and pulled it back with a scrap of cabbage which he placed on his tongue. “It’s still warm. Finish it. I’m not watching, I promise.”

Like he wasn’t too fucking embarrassed to eat now anyway. No matter that when he glanced up, Cain had his eyes fixed firmly out on the city, turned just to the left away from Casper. All lax, easy lines, even his slouch seemed unduly elegant, elbow up on the back of the bench holding the Chinese container up to his mouth. He didn’t look weirded out. Still fucking smiling. Casper sighed and leant sideways against the back of the bench.

“Can we talk at least? I’m making it weird, I’m sorry.”

Cain’s eyes flickered back to him, all soft and sweet and smiling, then away again, and he spoke out to the cityscape before them. “You’re not. Don’t worry. You’re just ... I like looking at you, but it doesn’t mean I get to stare like an absolute creep.”

A shock of warmth bloomed in Casper’s chest, cooling his face to something tropical and heady. He ducked his head and prodded around at his noodles. He’d had to think worms, didn’t he? Big, fat slimy worms...

“You have been staring quite a lot.”

“And here I thought I was being at least a little subtle... I suppose it’s a good thing you didn’t notice me until later at the bar. I don’t think I could take my eyes off you the whole time.”

Shit. Another shock jolted through his ribs, this one in the stutter-stop of his heart. The worms swum in their slick broth, glistening bodies writhing together in an orgy of base pleasure. Juices oozed from those blunt heads, digestive slime eating away at the rotting vegetation they’d dragged into their nest.

“Casper?”

The primal stew almost spilt over his legs as he jumped, some churn of his stomach surging up his throat. Cain was looking at him again, brows drawn together and his empty container set down the other side of him, chopsticks squared neatly on top.

Hadn’t he had like half of that left?

“Casper? Are you alright?”

“I...” Casper glanced down at his lap. Yeah, still worms. “I think I grossed myself out of eating my food.”

“What?”

“Look!” The broth almost sloshed out again as he shoved itout toward Cain. “They look like worms!”

“I mean ... a little, I suppose...”

“It’s like an orgy of blind subterranean worms. Seriously, I can’t eat it.”

Laughter burst from Cain’s lips, bright and sharp like it shocked him to find it. His fingers slid through his hair as he sank against the bench facing Casper. That soft wonder suffused his whole face again, casting the city light that illuminated his eyes to a rose-tinted glow. It looked soft, his hair. It looked as if it’d feel like silk between his fingers.

“If you say so... I can get you something else on the way back, if you like? It’s free anyway.”

It was, but Casper would never take him up on it anyway. Regardless, “I’ll eat it when I get home.” Casper snapped the lid back on and handed that and the spring rolls to Cain when he held out his hand. Everything went in the bag, tucked neatly under the bench.

Cain didn’t mention leaving. Casper didn’t want to. It felt as if he could sit out here all night and still not want to go home, no matter how the cold ached across his cheekbones and through his nose, a deep grumble against the burning chill on his fingertips and the tip of his nose and the rough, chapped skin on his lips. But he didn’t know if that was the place, the isolation, or how home meant nothing but a cramped flat, alone in the dark as he stared at the ceiling, light creeping in and sleep still miles away no matter how high he dragged himself, and each hour brought him closer to the next debasement.

Every job was a debasement when you looked like he did. When you were him. People didn’t buy his body to treat it like a pretty thing. Roach boy was built for filth.

What sick mind was Cain hiding behind that awestruck smile?

Fucking sort it out, Roach Boy. Wallow when you’re stuck by yourself.

Didn’t mean shit that he didn’t deserve it. He was here, wasn’t he? Leech mouth with its ring of needle teeth stuck into his smooth skin. Was it smooth? It’d always been too dim to really tell, but it must be just like his hair. Like silk.

Get to know the guy. That’s what you did, wasn’t it? Ask him what his job is. What’s his salary and how many pushups he can do in one go.

“You seen Star Trek?”

Nice one, you fucking cretin.

But hey, Cain was just about beaming sunshine from that smile. Slam dunk from Roach Boy.

“Obviously,” he said. “Best series?”

“Definitely the original.”

“Oh come on. You can’t say the original, that’s such a copout.”

“What’s your favourite series then?”

“Deep space nine.” A slow crooked smile lifted one corner of Cain’s mouth. “And the original.”

“Ha!” Casper sat up and wiggled his fingers at Cain. “Alright – do you read?”

“Voraciously.”

“There’s my next question ticked off – do you use words like voraciously, you weirdo.”

Cain rolled his eyes. His hand slipped into his trouser pocket and came up with a pack of straights. He put one between his lips and spoke around it. “Remind me to cross it off my list of words to use on a date. Here—” he held out the pack— “want one?

Like he’d still be Roach Boy if he turned down a free cigarette. When he had it hanging from his lips, Cain snapped open a Zippo and they bent in together to light them from the dancing flame. Cain’s shielding hand hid them from the wind and the city beyond behind like they whispered secrets together. Like they hid a kiss from the world.

The flame lent his eyes an amber tint. The glow of the streetlights. A sliver of the sun trapped in the rays of his eyes. They devoured him.

Smooth smoke flooded Casper’s mouth on the rolling sands of the desert, the heat of Cain’s eyes stealing all moisture from dunes that had once been luscious jungle. Casper held it. Lungs straining, heart pounding, he held onto the moment. The heat of the flame against his lips and the slightest tickle of that silken hair against his cheek as the wind rippled through it. The way each of Cain’s sharp breaths came hitched and laden with smoke, lit cigarette still between his parted lips.

He drank it all in until black edged his vision and his eyes fluttered closed and then, behind the thin veil of smoke whisked away on the wind, he leant back. Away. The chill air sunk its claws into his face and shivering, Casper pulled his coat tighter.

“You’re so bloody beautiful,” Cain said, and his words came hoarse like the low, awed breaths, “you know that?”