Unholy Fucking Shitballs
Chapter twenty-one
Dex
So, what are we?
Dex stared at the words on his screen, the light blinding in the dark of his bedroom. His thumb hovered over the Send button, but he couldn’t bring himself to press it. He deleted the text and tried again.
Wanna go on a date? No pressure or anything. It’s cool if—
With a groan, he didn’t even try to finish that thought. It was too pathetic. He had to be more confident. Confidence was sexy, right?
I like you, and I think we should make out.
No, that wasn’t right either.
So… nudes?
“C’mon, Dex, you’re better than that,” he berated himself as he deleted yet another attempt at a text intended for Cya.
Dropping his phone to his chest, he stared up at the ceiling, watching the shadows of branches dance as he let his mind wander.
He thought of Cya’s silky skin, smooth and soft under his fingers.
And the rapid sprint of their heart, and the hitch to their breathing every time he nuzzled the skin behind the ear.
And the way they melted into him when he ran his fingers through their long, satin hair.
They’d come over every day this week after work.
While he was at practice, they hung out with Jasmyn and his mom.
Then he’d come home, and they’d eat dinner together before they played a game or watched a movie.
He preferred the movie because it meant they could cuddle on the couch without it feeling like a big deal or making things weird.
Tonight, though, Jasmyn had insisted on a game. According to her, she couldn’t sit through another movie surrounded by Dex and Cya’s unresolved sexual tension. The fact his kid sister knew what sexual tension was made him queasy, but it wasn’t like she was wrong.
There was sexual tension, and it was wholly unresolved. It didn’t matter how many times Dex beat off to relieve himself, he was constantly on the cusp of popping wood anytime he smelled Cya’s herby, incense perfume. Which was practically all the time now.
Their scent had soaked into the couch and the carpet and the walls.
Several of his shirts carried their ghost, and he was rather ashamed to admit that he’d jerked off last night with one of those shirts pressed to his nose.
He’d come harder than he had in ages, and he’d stupidly used the same shirt to clean up after, essentially mixing their scents together, along with the spicy aroma of sex.
Yeah, he’d immediately needed to jack off again. Which he’d done. Into the same shirt. Ugh, maybe that’s what he should text Cya.
Hey, hope you don’t mind, but I nutted to the scent of you twice last night. Wanna date me?
Normally, he didn’t question himself this much. If he liked someone, he would shoot his shot because the worst that could happen was them saying no. But this felt different. Cya was different.
They were clearly into him; their scent didn’t lie, but even though they low-key held hands and snuggled on the couch every night, Cya never initiated anything more.
Every time Jasmyn—the unintentional buffer—left the room, leaving them alone with Dex, they’d freeze up, and their delicious scent would turn frosty with anxiety.
Every time he walked them to the tram stop, they locked up with nerves, which made his own doubt build.
So they’d stand at the tram stop, awkwardly avoiding eye contact as he struggled to find a way to nonchalantly ask if they wanted to suck face.
Needless to say, he had yet to find an appropriate way to broach the subject, so no face-sucking had taken place, much to his disappointment.
He really wanted to kiss them. He wanted to find out what they tasted like.
He wanted to map their body and discover every secret place that made them gasp and shudder and moan.
And now he was hard again. Fuck his life.
The next morning, Toni walked into the cafe a little after ten, and Dex, Cya, and Rusty all stopped what they were doing.
The Elas looked like he’d aged exponentially in just the few days since Dex had seen him last. His face was drawn, his complexion pale, and his black eyes, which were normally bright with mischief, were empty pits.
He wore sadness like a shroud, and it stung Dex’s nose, even from across the room.
“Hey, Toni,” Dex said, and the Elas lifted a half-hearted hand in greeting.
“You’re back,” Cya said.
Toni shook his head absently. “Uh, no. Not yet. I just gotta…” He gestured down the hall to Quin’s office.
“Oh,” Dex and Cya said at the same time.
Before Toni could disappear down the hall, Rusty abandoned the tray on the table he was clearing and headed him off. He didn’t block the Elas’s path completely, but Toni still stopped, frowning down at the Pyclon in confusion.
Rusty opened his mouth, but no words escaped. He just stared sadly up at the taller man. Toni stared back, shoulders slumped like he was slowly being crushed under a boulder.
With a quiet chitter, Rusty reached out and brushed two knuckles over the back of Toni’s hand. It was quick; a blink, and Dex would have missed it. Toni’s hand twitched, as if he was contemplating pulling away, and Rusty’s tail lowered to tuck between his legs, his ears flattening.
But then Toni reached out and placed his hand on Rusty’s shoulder. Dex couldn’t see Toni’s expression fully, but he heard the slight hitch in the Elas’s breathing as his grip on Rusty tightened. The Pyclon’s ears lifted, his tail rising halfway, and he purred, a quiet offer of comfort.
Toni sniffed, patted Rusty’s shoulder twice, then he was walking around the Pyclon and down the hallway, out of sight. Rusty didn’t move until Quin’s door shut. With a heavy sigh, he trudged back to the table and continued clearing it of dirty dishes. Dex exchanged a worried glance with Cya.
“I know I shouldn’t ask, but…” they trailed off, concern tightening the skin between their eyes.
Dex splayed his hands in apology. “It’s not my place to say anything.”
He expected more pushback, but Cya simply dipped their chin in acceptance and turned back to the espresso machine.
Like he had all week, Dex came home to find Cya and Jasmyn in the living room. Jasmyn sat on the couch, crisscross applesauce, as Cya settled on the floor in front of her in a loose coil. They were painting her nails, head bobbing in time to the music blasting from Jas’s headphones.
At Dex’s appearance, they glanced up and smiled almost shyly at him, the gold of their eyes warm and molten. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said as his insides flip-flopped pathetically.
He was going to make a move tonight. When he walked them to the tram stop, he was going to be cool and collected and suave, and he would kiss them.
Well, he’d ask first, unless they leaned in or communicated clearly in some other way that they were into it.
Then maybe he’d go for it and let the chicks fall where they wanted.
After dinner, while Jasmyn showered, Dex stood beside Cya at the kitchen sink as they filled it with hot water to clean the dishes they’d used to bake cookies earlier that afternoon with his mom.
“Do you use the same soap as the dishwasher?” Cya asked as steam rose from the filling sink.
Only laughing at them a little, he shook his head. “No, there’s special soap under the sink for handwashing dishes.”
He crouched behind them, a hand on the back of their tail. Not so high to count as the curve of their butt, but high enough to be a little suggestive. They inhaled audibly through their nostrils, and their scent thickened with a spicy layer that made Dex grin madly.
With the dish soap in one hand, he stood, letting his other hand drag up the side of their tail, until it came to rest on their hip. They wore a thin tunic today, given the summer heat, and it was entirely strapless, revealing their bronze shoulders and prominent collarbones.
Dex had never noticed shoulders before, not really, but Cya had nice ones. He wanted to shape them with his fingers. Or leave shallow indents in them from his teeth.
Framing their tail with his feet, he stood behind them and leaned in until his chest met their back, tipping the soap over the half-full sink and squeezing some into the water.
Cya’s hands gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles straining against their skin, and he tilted his ear so he could more easily track the skip in their heartbeat.
“You gotta use dish soap,” he said as he set the bottle aside and loosened one of their hands from its death grip on the counter. He guided their hand into the hot water and swished it around. “And make it bubbly.”
Their throat clicked. “Bubbles are important?”
“Makes it more fun,” he joked, and they barked a weak laugh.
“Entertainment is essential, I s-suppose.” They stuttered on the last word as he slid wet fingers up their forearm. They’d removed their many arm bangles to do the washing, so he took advantage of all the bare skin.
“Then you take the Scrub Daddy and scrub.” He pressed the pads of several fingers into the delicate skin of their inner elbow.
“Please tell me it’s not actually called a Scrub Daddy?” they asked as they tracked his fingers on their arm with heavy-lidded eyes. “No sponge should ever be that kinky.”
Dex grinned against their ear. “Part of the entertainment, sweetheart.”
Another laugh, this one fuller, and Dex lifted his eyes to meet their gaze in the reflection of the window above the sink. It was cracked open to let the breeze in, and the wind chime hanging beside it clinked its song.
Cya’s eyes were wide, and even in the warped reflection, their cheeks were flushed.
He held eye contact as he slid the hand at their waist inward to span over their flat stomach.
Under the fabric of their clothes, he felt the ridges of scales, then he found their belly button and the piercing there.
The Sypent captured their bottom lip between their teeth, the hint of their descending fangs dimpling their skin. But they didn’t stop his exploration, and they didn’t look away.