Chapter Six #2
It wells and wells, rising waters behind a dam, and where he was a solution to a drought before, now I know it’s a flood.
I reel back with a wet gasp. His dark lashes are splayed on his cheekbones, swollen lips parted in ragged breaths.
He’s beautifully wrecked.
“That’s just for us,” I whisper.
Those lashes flutter open. Beat once, twice.
“Kissing like that,” I clarify. “It’s just for us. Not for the cameras.”
Alexo smiles. It’s small and wondrous. “Possessive, huh?”
You have no idea.
The constant, crushing echo of mine is silenced, though. Satisfied. I imagine a contentedly purring lion curled up in my chest.
I sweep my thumb across the diaphanous skin under his eye. “Come on.” I grin. “We have some shit to destroy.”
Because if we stay in this car, I’ll spend the rest of the night learning every divot and dip inside his mouth. And while that isn’t the worst idea, I do want to do this with him, for him.
We climb out and head for the front doors. A few groups are still clustered around; there’s a food truck nearby. It’s late, but the smash room doesn’t close until midnight, and there’s a general atmosphere of relaxed fun as I hold the door open for Alexo.
The main room is small, a glass counter and shelves holding spell components and weapons.
A siren woman with bright blue hair and translucent aqua eyes greets us with a smile, and after signing safety waivers, we look through a photo book of smash room options.
One is filled with electronics, one with ceramic dishware, another with concrete blocks.
Alexo flips through pictures, chuckling incredulously, until he gets to one of the last.
His smile falls. “That one.” He stabs his finger on the picture.
He might as well have stabbed that finger directly into my solar plexus for the way I stagger.
Of all the options, he chose this one?
It’s a room filled with religious statues.
Not unlike the shelves I have at home, but whereas most of the stuff I collect are antiques, these are sculptures of various sizes depicting gods.
It’s meant for friendly competition between customers with patron gods; one time when I was here, that room was reserved for followers of two rival gods of charity, and they were duking it out in a controlled, safe way before they were due to collaborate on a project.
I nod at the owner, smiling to cover the pitch of my nerves. “Is it free?”
She looks from the room picture to me and her eyes brighten with recognition. “Oh, you’re Orok, right? It’s been a while since we’ve seen you around. Heard you went and got famous on us.”
My smile is tighter than I mean it to be. I wasn’t sure if she’d remember me; it’s been about four years since I last came here. “Ah. Yeah. Moved away,” I say with a shrug.
She takes pity on my clear discomfort and lets it drop to check her computer. “The room’s free. Our records say you usually use a sledgehammer—would you like that again? We can get extra Urzoth statues set up to—”
“No,” I cut her off. “It’s, um, fine the way it is, I’m sure. But we’ll take a”—I look at the glass case—“fireball potion? And…”
I turn to Alexo. And I know I come across as pleading, hoping he didn’t connect several dots.
He smiles and points to the shelves of weapons. “I want a mace.”
My brows hitch up.
The one he’s pointing at is almost as tall as he is, a long black leather-wrapped pole with a gruesome spiked ball on the end.
But I don’t question it, too busy picturing him swinging that weapon and decapitating a statue of Urzoth.
Or, ya know, any of the dozens of god statues in that room, whatever.
I swallow, throat thick. “Yeah. Anything he wants.”
The smash room owner rings us up. She hands me a vial of fireball potion before hoisting the mace off the wall and passing it to Alexo.
He takes it, his slender arms bulging with the effort, but his face is impassive as he hikes it onto his shoulder and stands there, waiting for me, other hand on his cocked hip.
The bright white light in here shows all the facets of his rose-gold hair, burnished and gorgeous, and his eyes are alight with excitement.
He sees me gawking at him and his bottom lip snags between his teeth.
I clench the fireball potion, suddenly grateful I’m wearing sweats for the extra room, but also horrified I’m wearing sweats for how little they do in the way of hiding my current problem.
A problem that started in the car the moment he kissed me and is in danger of persisting the whole damn night at this rate.
“The room’s ready for you,” the owner tells us. “It’s warded to protect you from shrapnel as soon as you enter. I’ll activate an extra ward of fire protection as well. Have fun, boys.”
She sends us off with a knowing smirk, but I honestly don’t care. There’s nothing subtle about what’s happening. This is the kind of obnoxious sexual tension Seb and Thio always have, and wow, if this is what it’s like for them, it’s a wonder they ever get anything done.
I lead Alexo down a hall lined with shut doors, each one spray-painted with hints at which room it is. The one we head to is covered in religious symbols, and I push it open without looking at the Urzoth one right above our heads.
Inside, the space is long and narrow, the walls graffitied in an unbroken wave of more religious signs.
Statues of dozens of different gods fill the room.
It’s a wonder no god or their group has gotten pissy about their images being used like this—although, maybe they have.
Hell if I know what drama this place might be embroiled in. I wasn’t here that often in college.
Just often enough to have the owner recognize me years later.
The door thuds shut behind us, and Alexo prowls the room, examining the statues. He bypasses one of Urzoth. A few more for gods of the ocean, the sky, one that’s a god of wealth.
He stops near the back of the room at a statue of a winged being. From here, I see only concrete feathers on either side, so it might be a god of birds.
“Are we good to start?” Alexo calls without turning.
I wind my way toward him. “Yeah. Whenever you—”
He braces his legs, hefts the mace back, and fucking clobbers that statue.
It explodes in a shower of dust and rock chunks, the satisfying crash of his mace into the stone echoing off the walls. A piece of the statue comes rolling toward me—the head, its face in a vicious snarl.
Alexo follows after it and crushes it with the mace.
He’s panting when he looks up at me, his lips peeling into a feral grin that pops his dimples.
“Oh, I like this,” he gasps, adjusts his stance, and wails on another statue.
I forget to take the fireball potion. I don’t even need to destroy anything; it’s far more entertaining to watch Alexo go absolutely wild on this room.
He decimates a statue of a nature god with a manic giggle that has heat crawling across my skin before he takes the arms off a war god.
Each swing comes with grunts and curses and the occasional ecstatic chirp, and after a particularly good hit that explodes an entire statue in one swing, he turns to me with an excited, childlike look of Did you see?
I grin, covered in concrete dust from following him around the room.
After a few minutes, Alexo holds the mace out to me. “You haven’t done anything.”
“I’m good,” I assure him. “This is what I wanted.”
One of his eyebrows flares, shit-stirring a little. “You’ll be back soon on your own anyway, right?”
My smile stiffens.
Alexo clocks it, and his expression drops. “Never mind. I have secrets; you can, too.”
I grab the mace handle as he turns away. He blinks up at me, a streak of gray on his cheek where he scrubbed the back of his hand across his face.
“That,” I nod to the statue behind him, the one he just destroyed, “was Warnock the Fierce. A god of piracy and sailing.”
Alexo glances back at the rubble. “Huh. Thought he was some kind of fashion god. All those ruffles.”
I’m already turning to the next debris pile he left in his wake.
“And that’s Zurduq, a god of war, but surprisingly not violent wars—only the wars that are friendly challenges, like, believe it or not, thumb wars.
And that”—I don’t pause for his amused snort—“was Evidione, a goddess of pollen. This place goes through a ton of her statues every time allergy season kicks in; it’s cathartic. And over there…”
I go around the room, naming the gods he’s taken the mace to, and Alexo trails me, eyes bright with interest.
When we’re back to the beginning, the original winged god he smashed, I point at the fragments of its head. “And this was one of the demon lords of hell. I thought it was an avian god at first, but that snarl—it was either Foul Brariock or Dimardion. Either way, a ruler of the Demonic Plane.”
Alexo’s lips part. His cheeks are red, and I don’t think it’s entirely from exertion; he’s been calm for the few minutes I’ve explained who these statues were.
“Do you know all of them?” he asks, waving around the room.
“Yeah.” I stuff my hands in the pocket of my hoodie. “I have a Mageus in Theological Evocation. My apartment’s full of relics from various religions.”
“Holy shit. Really? Why?” The last word comes on a winded laugh, and one side of my lips goes up at his wonder.
“Shocked a beefcake jock has an interest outside of rawball?”
Alexo taps the mace on the floor and considers the question. “Kind of. But you keep surprising me, so I shouldn’t be surprised.”
My smile holds, even as I say, “I grew up in the Church of Urzoth Shieldsworn. My parents had a lot of expectations for me because of it. Still do. And … eventually, it became comforting to be reminded that my family’s god isn’t the only one. He isn’t invincible.”
The breath leaves Alexo’s lungs in a punch. He looks out over the room again.
“Are any of them invincible?” he asks, a tenuous whisper.
That feels like another loaded question, but I answer simply, “No.”