Chapter 1: The Endurance Game Begins
The basement smelled like a frat house that had given up on ever smelling like anything else. Stale beer, cheap cologne, and something vaguely biological that nobody wanted to identify. Derek slammed a six-pack onto the coffee table hard enough that one of the bottles tipped over and rolled, foaming onto the carpet that had seen worse things than spilled beer.
"Gentlemen," Derek announced, spreading his arms like a game show host. "Tonight, we settle this."
Owen looked up from the sagging leather couch, where he'd been nursing the same lukewarm beer for twenty minutes. "Settle what?"
"Everything." Derek dropped onto the couch beside him, making the springs groan. His knee bounced with the kind of energy that made Owen tired just watching. "Every argument we've ever had about who's toughest. Who's got the most self-control. Who can take the most without tapping out."
Marcus leaned against the pool table, chalking a cue he wasn't actually going to use. "You've been thinking about this way too much, man."
"I've been thinking about this since sophomore year." Derek cracked open a beer and took a long pull. "The endurance game."
Owen's stomach did something unpleasant. "The what?"
"It's simple." Derek set the bottle down and rubbed his hands together. The fluorescent light above them flickered, casting his face in brief shadow. "We take turns. One guy gets worked over by another guy. Hand stuff. No homo, obviously. First one to finish loses."
Marcus snorted. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."
"Scared?"
"I'm not scared of anything except your mom's cooking."
"Then play."
Owen stared at the label on his beer bottle, peeling at the corner with his thumbnail. This was the kind of idea that only made sense in Derek's head—a competition where the prize was convincing yourself you didn't want something you clearly did. The kind of idea that started as a joke and somehow became real because Derek Callahan couldn't let anything go.
"Who goes first?" Marcus asked, and Owen felt the floor tilt slightly.
Derek's grin widened. "That's the beauty of it. We draw straws."
"You don't have straws."
"Then we draw... something." Derek looked around the basement, at the empty red cups and discarded ping pong balls and the broken lamp in the corner that nobody had bothered to fix. "Owen. You got a phone. Use that random number thing."
Owen pulled out his phone mostly because he didn't know how to say no. His fingers felt numb as he opened the app, set it to one through three. The boombox in the corner was playing something slow and distorted, like a cassette that had been left in a hot car for a decade.
"One is me," Derek said. "Two is Marcus. Three is Owen."
"Who decides who does the... the thing?" Marcus asked.
"Whoever's number comes up after." Derek shrugged like this was obvious, like they were picking teams for dodgeball. "Or before. Whatever. We figure it out."
Owen's thumb hovered over the button. He considered, briefly, walking out. Going up the stairs, out the back door, driving home to his apartment where his roommate would be watching Netflix and asking him questions he could answer with lies. But Derek was watching him with that look—the one that said I dare you—and Marcus was already laughing like this was the funniest thing that had happened all week.
He pressed the button.
"Three," he said, and his voice came out steady, which surprised him.
Derek's eyebrows shot up. "Lucky you. Or unlucky. Depends on your perspective." He took another drink of his beer. "Marcus, you're up. Your number's... let's see. Two. So you're the hands. Owen's the... whatever the opposite of hands is."
"The victim?" Owen offered, and Derek laughed.
"That's the spirit."
Marcus set down the pool cue and cracked his knuckles, which was so absurd that Owen almost laughed. "Alright, Owen. No hard feelings, yeah? Just a game."
"Yeah," Owen said. "Just a game."
The couch cushions sagged as Marcus settled beside him, close enough that their thighs touched. Owen's body went rigid. He could feel the warmth of Marcus's leg through his jeans, could smell the generic deodorant and cheap beer that clung to him.
"You gotta unbutton or something," Marcus said. "I'm not a magician."
Derek whooped. "The man makes a point. Pants down, Marsh."
Owen's hands moved without asking permission from his brain. He unbuttoned his jeans, pulled down the zipper, and tried very hard not to think about what he was doing. The basement air felt cold against his skin.
"Little more," Marcus said. "Or I'm gonna have to get creative."
Owen pushed his jeans down to mid-thigh, his boxers still in place. He kept his eyes on the water stain on the ceiling, the one shaped vaguely like Florida.
Marcus's palm landed on his thigh first, casual and warm. "Relax, dude. You're tense as hell."
"I'm fine."
"You're not." Marcus's hand moved higher, fingers skimming the waistband of his boxers. "It's cool. I got you."
Owen bit down on the inside of his lip as Marcus's hand slid beneath the fabric. The first touch was dry, almost clinical, and Owen told himself this was nothing. Just friction. Just biology. Just a hand on his dick, and he'd had hands on his dick before, just not like this, not from another guy, not in a basement with Derek Callahan watching like this was a pay-per-view event.
"Damn," Derek said, leaning back. "You're already hard? It's been like ten seconds."
Owen's face burned. "It's just—physical. It doesn't mean anything."
"Sure it doesn't."
Marcus's grip adjusted, and Owen's hips jerked before he could stop them. A sound built in his throat—something low and wanting—and he swallowed it down by biting his lip hard enough to taste copper.
"Easy," Marcus murmured, but he didn't stop. His hand moved in a rhythm that was too slow, too deliberate, like he was figuring out what Owen liked. His thumb brushed over the head and Owen's back arched off the couch.
He clenched his jaw. His eyes squeezed shut. Behind his eyelids, fireworks were going off, red and gold and white. His body was a traitor, every nerve ending singing with something he refused to name. He kept his hands flat at his sides, gripping the couch cushions like they might save him from drowning.
"Look at him," Derek said, and his voice was closer now, like he'd leaned in. "He's not even making noise. That's impressive."
"He's trying not to," Marcus observed. "You okay, Owen?"
Owen nodded, because if he opened his mouth he was afraid of what would come out. A moan. A whimper. Something that would follow him for the rest of his life.
Marcus's hand twisted and Owen's hips bucked again. He couldn't help it. The heat was coiling in his stomach, tight and urgent, and he was mentally reciting the periodic table, the starting lineup for the 2018 World Cup, anything to distract himself from the fact that another guy was jerking him off and it was working.
"Getting close?" Derek asked. He sounded almost clinical about it.
"No," Owen lied, but his voice cracked on the word.
Marcus laughed, low and easy. "Dude, you're shaking. It's fine. Just let it happen."
That was the problem. Letting it happen meant admitting it could happen. Meant admitting that his body didn't care about the categories he'd built for himself. Meant admitting something he wasn't ready to admit, not here, not with Derek watching.
But Marcus's hand was relentless. A stroke and a twist and another stroke, and Owen's toes curled inside his sneakers. The pressure built and built, a wave he couldn't stop, and he was biting his lip so hard it bled, and then—
He came with a choked noise that was half groan, half gasp. His whole body shuddered, and for a moment he was nothing but sensation, pure and electric and wrong and right all at once.
Marcus pulled his hand back, sticky and satisfied. "There it is."
Owen opened his eyes. The ceiling was still the ceiling. The water stain was still shaped like Florida. Derek was grinning like a shark.
"Time," Derek said, checking his phone. "Three minutes, forty-two seconds. Not bad, Owen."
Owen sat up, reached for a napkin on the coffee table, and cleaned himself off with hands that wouldn't stop shaking. He didn't look at either of them.
"Guess that means I lose," he said, and his voice was flat, like he didn't care.
"Lose? Nah." Derek clapped him on the shoulder. "Losing's when you tap out. You just... finished early. Different thing."
Owen pulled up his boxers, his jeans, zipped and buttoned. The whole time, he could feel Marcus watching him, still grinning, still oblivious.
"Alright," Derek said, cracking another beer. "Who's next?"
Owen stood up. "I need some air."
He walked toward the stairs, and neither of them tried to stop him. The basement door was heavy but he pushed through it, up into the hallway where the air was cleaner but his chest still felt tight. He could hear Derek's laughter behind him, Marcus saying something about technique.
He stepped out the back door and into the night, where the sky was dark and wide and empty, and he pressed his back against the brick wall and closed his eyes and tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. A text from Derek: "Game resumes in ten. You're on deck for round two."
Owen stared at the screen for a long moment. Then he typed back: "I didn't say I was playing."
The reply came almost instantly: "You didn't say you weren't."
Owen put the phone back in his pocket. The night air was cool and smelled like rain. Somewhere down the street, a dog was barking. He could still feel Marcus's hand on him, ghostly and warm, and he hated how much he didn't hate it.
He stood there for a minute, two, three. Then he walked back inside.
The basement door felt heavier the second time. Owen pushed through it and the music hit him first—same half-dead boombox, same warped cassette, some song about heartbreak that felt like a joke now. Derek and Marcus were exactly where he'd left them, except Derek had finished his beer and Marcus had moved to the couch. The spot where Owen had been sitting.
They both looked up when he walked in.
"Thought you bailed," Derek said.
"I didn't."
"No shit." Marcus grinned, patting the cushion beside him. "Come sit. You're missing the pre-game."
Owen sat. The leather was still warm from his body, or maybe that was Marcus. He couldn't tell anymore. His hands felt foreign, like they belonged to someone else, someone who hadn't just come apart on this couch twenty minutes ago.
"So here's how round two works," Derek said, cracking his knuckles. He was standing now, pacing, that restless energy radiating off him like heat. "Marcus's number was two, right? So that means the next number after him is three. That's Owen. Owen's the hands this time. Marcus is the—"
"Victim," Marcus said, still grinning. "I know the rules."
"Do you?" Owen asked, and his voice came out harder than he meant it.
Marcus's grin flickered, just for a second. "What, you think I can't take it?"
"I think you talk a lot."
"Fuck you, Marsh."
"Get on the couch."
Derek laughed, loud and sharp. "Oh, this is gonna be good. Owen's got a competitive streak after all."
Owen didn't feel competitive. He felt like he'd been set on fire and was waiting to see how much of him would burn. His hands were steady, though. That surprised him. He watched Marcus stretch out on the couch, watched him undo his jeans with the same casual confidence he'd had when he was the one doing the touching.
"Rules are rules," Marcus said. "No hard feelings, right?"
"None," Owen said.
He knelt beside the couch. The carpet was sticky under his knees. Marcus's boxers were plain black, no brand, and Owen hooked his fingers under the waistband and pulled them down just enough. Marcus was already half-hard. Owen noticed that. Noted it, filed it away, didn't say anything.
His hand closed around Marcus, and Marcus sucked in a breath through his teeth.
"Cold hands," Marcus said.
"Sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Just—" His voice hitched as Owen tightened his grip. "Okay. Yeah. That's good."
Owen moved slow. Deliberate. He wanted to watch, wanted to see the exact moment Marcus's casual grin started to slip. It happened faster than he expected. Three strokes in and Marcus's hips were already shifting, his jaw going tight, his breath coming through his nose in short, sharp bursts.
"You okay?" Owen asked, and he didn't bother hiding the edge in his voice.
"Fine," Marcus said. "Totally fine. Just... keep going."
Owen kept going.
He varied the pace—faster, slower, a twist at the top that made Marcus's whole body jerk like he'd been shocked. Marcus bit down on his lip, hard, and Owen saw the white imprint of his teeth when he let go. A sound escaped—low, involuntary, somewhere between a groan and a curse. Marcus tried to cover it with a laugh, but the laugh cracked in the middle and turned into something else.
"Shit," Marcus whispered.
Derek had stopped pacing. He was standing at the end of the couch, arms crossed, watching with an expression Owen couldn't read. "You're sweating, Marcus."
"It's hot in here."
"It's a basement. It's like sixty degrees."
"Shut up, Derek."
Owen's thumb swept over the head and Marcus's back bowed off the couch. A moan tore out of him—real, unguarded, the kind of sound that couldn't be laughed off or covered up. His hand flew to his mouth but it was too late. Owen had heard it. Derek had heard it. The basement had heard it.
"Damn," Derek said softly. "That didn't take long."
"Fuck you," Marcus gasped, but his voice was wrecked, all the casual confidence stripped away. "Fuck—Owen, I'm—"
He came before he could finish the sentence. His whole body locked up, hips stuttering, a string of curses falling from his lips that dissolved into something that wasn't words at all. Owen watched it happen. Every second. He didn't look away.
Marcus slumped back against the cushions, chest heaving, eyes closed. His hand was slick and so was the couch. He didn't move.
"Time?" Derek asked, but he didn't check his phone. He was just staring at Marcus, at the flush spreading up his neck, at the way his chest was still rising and falling too fast.
"Shut up," Marcus said again, weaker this time.
Owen stood up. His knees cracked. He wiped his hand on his jeans, which was disgusting, but he didn't care. He looked at Derek and something shifted in the room—something heavy, inevitable, like a door closing.
"Your turn," Owen said.
Derek's jaw worked. He looked at Marcus, still sprawled and sweaty on the couch. He looked at Owen, standing there with his hand still damp, his eyes flat and hard. He looked at the stairs, maybe thinking about leaving, maybe thinking about how this had started as his idea.
"I'm not the hands," Derek said.
"No," Owen agreed. "You're the last number."
"He hasn't drawn yet."
"He will." Owen walked toward him. Slow. Deliberate. The same pace he'd used on Marcus. "You started this. You don't get to sit it out."
Derek's laugh was sharp and empty. "I'm not scared."
"Nobody said you were."
Owen reached for him, and Derek didn't move. That was the thing. All his talk, all his pacing and swagger, and when Owen's hand landed on his belt, Derek just stood there. Letting it happen. His eyes were dark, pupils blown, and his pulse was visible in his throat, beating fast and hard.
"Sit down," Owen said.
Derek sat.
The couch was crowded now—Marcus on one end, still recovering, watching with a dazed expression, and Derek in the middle, his hands gripping his knees, his whole body rigid. Owen knelt in front of him. The carpet was still sticky, still gross, still irrelevant.
"I don't need you to go easy," Derek said, but his voice was thin, stretched like it was about to snap.
"I wasn't planning on it."
Owen freed him from his jeans, and Derek was already hard, already leaking, already a mess before Owen had even touched him. The second Owen's hand closed around him, Derek's head fell back, and a sound punched out of him—not a joke, not a cover, just raw and helpless and loud.
"Fuck," Derek breathed. "Fuck, that's—"
Owen didn't say anything. He just moved his hand. Slow at first. Then not slow.
Derek was biting his lip so hard it looked painful. His knuckles were white where he gripped the couch. He was trying—really trying—to hold it together, but his hips were already doing that thing, that involuntary bucking, like his body had decided to ignore his brain entirely. A moan slipped out. Then another. He slapped a hand over his mouth, and Owen knocked it away.
"No," Owen said. "You don't get to hide."
"I wasn't—"
"You were."
Derek's eyes flew open, and for a second he looked angry, like he might shove Owen off and storm upstairs. But then Owen's wrist twisted on the upstroke and Derek's anger just dissolved into something else. His mouth fell open. His whole body shuddered. And the sounds he made—low, broken, desperate—filled the basement like they'd been waiting there all along.
"Owen," he gasped. "Owen, I'm—"
"Already?" Owen asked, and his voice was so calm it was almost cruel.
Derek came with a shout, his body curling forward, his hands grabbing Owen's shoulders like he might fall off the earth if he didn't. Owen held steady. Watched. Felt the tremor run through Derek's whole frame, felt the way his breath stuttered and stopped and started again.
It was over in less than two minutes.
The boombox hit the end of the cassette and clicked off. Silence rushed in, thick and heavy. Marcus was staring at Derek. Derek was staring at the ceiling. Owen sat back on his heels, wiped his hand on his jeans again, and finally looked at them both.
"Huh," he said.
Neither of them spoke.
Owen stood up. His legs were cramped. His hand was sticky. His chest felt tight in a way that had nothing to do with what he'd just done and everything to do with the fact that he wasn't sorry.
"Same time next week?" he asked.
Derek let out a laugh. Short. Broken. Not really a laugh at all.
"Shut up, Owen," he said.
"We'll see."
Owen walked to the stairs. This time, nobody watched him go. This time, he didn't look back.
The door clicked shut behind him and the night air hit his face like a slap. Owen stood on the back porch for a second, breathing, letting his eyes adjust to the dark. The yard was just a strip of dead grass and a chain-link fence, and beyond that the alley where someone had dumped a mattress last spring and nobody had ever bothered to move it.
He pulled out his phone. 11:47. His roommate would still be up, probably halfway through a Netflix series he'd already complained about twice. Owen could go home. Could crawl into bed and pretend none of this had happened. Could wake up tomorrow and go to class and eat lunch in the dining hall and never think about the way Marcus's hand had felt or the sound Derek made when he came.
He got in his car instead and sat there with the engine off, staring at the dashboard.
His phone buzzed. Marcus.
"Yo. You still out there?"
Owen didn't answer. He watched the message sit there, unread, and then another one came through.
"Derek says you're being weird. You're not being weird, right?"
He put the phone face-down on the passenger seat. The car smelled like old coffee and the pine tree air freshener his mom had given him for Christmas three years ago. He turned the key. The engine coughed once, twice, then caught.
The drive home was twelve minutes. He took the long way, past the 24-hour diner and the gas station where the same guy was always working the night shift, past the park where he'd broken his arm in seventh grade. The streets were empty. The traffic lights blinked yellow. Owen kept the radio off and let the silence fill the car until it felt like pressure against his eardrums.
His apartment was on the third floor of a building that had been "luxury" in the nineties and was now just "acceptable." The elevator was broken, because of course it was. He took the stairs two at a time, not because he was in a hurry but because he wanted his legs to hurt.
The door opened before he could get his key in the lock.
"There you are." Ben was standing there in sweatpants and a hoodie, holding a bowl of cereal. "I was about to send a search party."
"Sorry."
"You're never sorry." Ben stepped aside. "You want some? It's that cinnamon stuff you like."
"I'm good."
"You're never good either." Ben followed him into the kitchen. "What happened? You look like you saw a ghost."
Owen grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it with tap water. His hand was still shaking, just a little. He drank the whole thing without stopping.
"Nothing happened."
"Bullshit."
"It's nothing, Ben."
"Okay." Ben shrugged and sat down at the tiny kitchen table, the one they'd bought at a thrift store for fifteen dollars. "Keep your secrets. But you're gonna have to talk eventually. That's how it works."
Owen set the glass down. "I said I'm fine."
"And I said bullshit." Ben crunched his cereal. "But whatever. I'm here when you're ready."
Owen went to his room. Closed the door. Sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the wall for a while, at the poster from a concert he'd been to freshman year, at the stack of textbooks he hadn't opened in weeks. He felt hollowed out. Scraped clean. Like someone had reached inside him and pulled out something he didn't know was there.
He didn't sleep. Not really. He drifted in and out, and every time he closed his eyes he saw the basement, the flickering light, Marcus's face when he came, Derek's hands gripping his shoulders. He woke up at 6:14 with his heart pounding and his sheets twisted around his legs.
The group chat had three new messages.
Derek, 12:32 AM: "Game's rigged btw"
Marcus, 12:33 AM: "facts"
Derek, 12:34 AM: "Owen went first so he wasn't turned on yet. We had to sit there and watch which got us going. Not in a gay way obviously. Just biological."
Owen read it three times. Then a fourth. He could feel his jaw tightening, his teeth grinding together. He typed "that's not how it works" and deleted it. Typed "you're both full of shit" and deleted that too.
He put the phone down and made coffee instead.
By noon, Derek had sent eleven more messages. By two, Marcus had added a poll asking who was the "real winner" of the game. By four, Owen had turned his phone off and gone for a run, six miles, until his legs burned and his lungs ached and he couldn't think about anything except putting one foot in front of the other.
When he got back, he had three missed calls from Derek and a text from Marcus that just said "you okay man?"
He showered. Ate a sandwich. Watched two episodes of something he didn't care about. The sun went down and the sky turned the color of a bruise and Owen sat on the fire escape with a beer he didn't really want and thought about the basement again.
Not the game. Not the competition. Just the way Marcus's breath had hitched when Owen touched him. The way Derek had looked at him, really looked at him, in that second before he came. Like he was seeing Owen for the first time. Like he wasn't sure what he was seeing.
The phone buzzed. Derek.
"Yo. We need to talk."
Owen took a long drink of his beer. The city hummed below him, cars and sirens and someone's music bleeding through the walls. He thought about not answering. He thought about throwing the phone off the fire escape.
He typed back: "About what?"
"About the game. It wasn't fair. You know it wasn't."
"I don't know anything."
"Come over. We're at my place. Marcus is here. Let's figure this out."
Owen stared at the message. The beer was warm now, and flat. He poured the rest over the railing and watched it fall three stories to the alley below.
"Fine," he typed. "Give me twenty minutes."
He didn't change his clothes. Didn't brush his hair. Just grabbed his keys and his jacket and walked out the door, past Ben on the couch, past the broken elevator, down the stairs and into the night.
Derek's apartment was on the other side of campus, a shitty one-bedroom he'd had since sophomore year and never bothered to decorate. Owen knocked twice.
Marcus opened the door. He was wearing the same hoodie from last night, or maybe a different one that looked exactly the same. His grin was there, but it was smaller than usual, more cautious.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey."
Derek was on the couch, the good spot, the one with the view of the TV. He didn't get up when Owen walked in. Just watched him with those sharp eyes, the ones that made you feel like you were being measured.
"Beer?" Marcus asked.
"Sure."
The apartment smelled like pizza and old carpet. Owen took the beer and sat in the chair across from Derek, the one that didn't match anything else because Derek had found it on the curb and dragged it upstairs by himself. For a minute, nobody said anything. The TV was on, muted, some basketball game from earlier in the week.
"So," Derek said finally. "The game."
"What about it?"
"It wasn't fair."
Owen took a drink. "You said that already."
"I'm saying it again." Derek leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "You went first. You weren't turned on yet. Marcus and I had to sit there and watch, which got us going. Not in a gay way. Just—biologically. It's science."
"Science," Owen repeated.
"Facts," Marcus added from the kitchen. "Basic human physiology. Nothing weird about it."
Owen looked at him. Marcus was leaning against the counter, arms crossed, trying to look casual. His eyes kept flicking to Derek and then back to Owen, like he was waiting for someone to blink.
"So what you're saying," Owen said slowly, "is that you both lost because you had to watch first. And that made it harder for you. And easier for me."
"Exactly." Derek nodded. "You get it."
"I get that you're full of shit."
Marcus laughed, short and nervous. "Damn, Owen. Tell us how you really feel."
Owen set his beer down. "You're saying it's not fair because I went first. But I didn't ask to go first. You set up the game. You picked the order. You made the rules. And now you're mad because you think I had an advantage."
"We're not mad," Derek said.
"You sound mad."
"We're just saying—"
"I know what you're saying." Owen stood up. "You're saying it doesn't count. That I didn't really win. That it was just biology, not anything real. Because if it was real, that would mean something you don't want to think about."
The room went quiet. The TV flickered, some player missing a shot. Derek's jaw tightened. Marcus stopped leaning against the counter and stood up straight.
"That's not what I said," Derek said.
"It's what you meant."
They stared at each other. Owen could feel his heart beating in his throat, could feel the heat rising in his chest. He'd never been the one to push back. Never been the one to say the thing everyone else was avoiding. But something had shifted last night, something he couldn't name, and he wasn't going to let them pretend it didn't happen.
Marcus broke first. "Okay," he said. "Okay, fine. Maybe it is a little weird. Maybe I don't totally know what happened last night. But it doesn't have to mean anything, right? It was just a game. Just something we did. We can just—move on."
"Can we?" Owen asked.
"I don't know." Marcus looked at Derek. Derek looked at the floor. "Can we?"
Derek didn't answer. He just sat there, jaw working, like he was chewing on something he couldn't swallow.
Owen picked up his beer and finished it in one long pull. Then he set the empty bottle on the coffee table and walked to the door.
"Same time next week," he said.
Derek's head snapped up. "What?"
"You heard me." Owen opened the door. "If it wasn't fair, we'll do it again. Fix the rules. Make it even. And then we'll see who really wins."
He stepped into the hallway and pulled the door shut behind him. This time, he didn't wait for an answer. This time, he didn't look back.
But he heard them. Both of them. Arguing before he'd even made it to the stairs. Their voices muffled by the door but still audible—Derek's low and defensive, Marcus's high and scrambling. Owen smiled, just a little. Just enough.
He pulled out his phone and typed a message to the group chat.
"Next Friday. Same place. Bring your A-game."
The reply came fast. Not from Derek. From Marcus.
"You're on."
Owen walked home with his hands in his pockets. The night was cold and clear and the stars were out, actual stars, the kind you couldn't see from the basement. He didn't know what he was doing. Didn't know where this was going. But for the first time in a long time, he wasn't bored.
And that was something.