*****

"What's the point of sneaking in if you blow a wad on overpriced movie popcorn?" Pike asked in a whisper.

"Sometimes I just get an urge for 'heart attack in a bucket.' You sure you don't want some?" Benny whispered back.

"After you've talked it up so well? No way. It's disgusting."

"More for me then. And you're watching people dying fast and messy, but my popcorn is bothering you?" Benny licked salted butter from his fingers.

"I just never quite believed that was really butter," Pike whispered, and Benny stopped sucking to give him a dirty look. He grinned, knowing full well the blue light from the screen let Benny see it. "I have standards."

"Oh yeah. Your choice of theater just proves it."

Pike sounded a little hurt. "You said you liked it."

"It's unique."

Benny's first stunned reaction to the theater's interior had been, "What the fuck...." The lobby glowed darkly in deep red velvet and rose-beige marble. Large chandeliers hung from the ceiling. To get to their movie they had to walk through what looked like a space tunnel, with blue lights pulsing rhythmically in racing lines down the tube. Then they had to open a heavy "gold" door ornately decorated with Aztec-style heads and sun symbols to get to the area that was showing the movie they wanted... in a shabby room that looked like it could belong to almost any other strip mall theater. It bent the mind.

Pike had said Benny had to try the space tunnel while high some time. Surrounded by pulsing azure blue above and on the sides of him, immersed in the low hum of the lights, Benny had responded that it made him wonder if he were already high.

The place was over the top demented. "It's actually perfect," Benny said.

Pike smiled, then yawned. "Shit."

"What?"

"I wanted to see the movie. I can't fall asleep."

"You really think there's a chance in hell Schwartzenegger isn't going to beat everybody?"

"It's the journey, not the destination."

"I'm sure that's a really deep... pile of shit."

"You have no appreciation for the finer things." Pike yawned again. "Besides, my neck gets stiff when I sleep in these chairs."

"You could lean on me. I'll cushion you."

"Really?"

//He's going to go for it? After only two weeks....// Benny could feel his mouth start to water. "Yeah. Get over here."

"Put the popcorn tub down first."

"Done."

Pike leaned over and rested his head against Benny's side. He closed his eyes and started to relax. Greatly daring, Benny did the time-honored "yawn and stretch" maneuver to get an arm around Pike. He responded by moving closer and... *snuggling*, wiggling into the hand that caressed his hair and back before settling into sleep.

//So much for watching the movie.//

******************************************************

Pike woke when the lights came back on. He felt oddly safe. A gentle hand at the base of his skull stabilized his head. The coat against his face smelled of movie popcorn, pot smoke, a little sweat, and Benny. And of his own spit. "Shit, man. I'm sorry I drooled on you."

"That's okay, Pike." Benny sounded a bit choked.

Pike pulled away and stretched. "Thanks for holding my head. My neck doesn't hurt at all."

"Sure thing." Benny scrunched down further.

"What did I miss?"

"What?"

"The movie."

"Oh. Right. Well, lots of people died. Schwartzenegger survived things that would have killed a real human being. He made a quip as he killed the bad guy. Justice was served. Movie over."

Pike felt his eyebrows raising of their own accord. "You must really suck at writing book reports."

"Not my fault that his movies are all the same formula." Benny fidgeted. "I have to take a piss before we go."

"No problem."

Benny got up in a hurry and dashed for the door. Pike felt that he should have left speed lines behind him. //That was really weird. Is he feeling okay?//

******************************************************

Benny hit the stall at a run, locked the door, and unzipped. His cock leapt out, hard and aching as it had been for the last thirty minutes. Only sheer terror had kept him from coming in his pants. It took only a few strokes to bring him over, and he bit down on his hand to muffle the moans. That hand still smelled of Pike's hair, like pot smoke and some citrusy shampoo, with a faint undertone of motor oil. He wanted to bury himself in Pike, in his hair, in his mouth, in.... Release hit so hard that he was amazed his spine hadn't come flying out his cock.

Benny leaned his face against cool marble and tried not to think, but he knew that the warm, solid feel of Pike moving under his arm and hand, against his chest, would dominate his fantasies for a while to come. *Snuggling*, for God's sake. But it was worse than that. Benny wanted to sleep with Pike, not just sleep with him. Wanted to hold him close and feel him breathe again, wanted to listen to him mumble dream secrets in that low voice made even lower by slumber.

And Pike had no idea. He could be oddly virginal at times.

//Was he? Really?//

What if Pike found the idea of sex with another guy, his best friend, revolting?

Benny just wanted *him* and prayed that sex wouldn't tear them apart, wouldn't destroy their slowly growing bond. He'd have Pike any way he could, even if it meant jerking off in the bathroom after seeing him.

Combat boots clicked on the tile floor before coming to a halt at one of the urinals. "You okay, Ben?" Pike asked.

"Fine." But his cock twitched at the sound of Pike's zipper coming down, at the thought of his friend taking hold.... //Behave!//

"Thanks for letting me sleep on you."

That only brought up a new swarm of images. "Don't mention it." //Please don't mention it.//

***THE END***