Lights...Camera...Action. Part 2 - A Core-Four Fic (Patreon)

WARNING: THIS SCENE CONTAINS GRAPHIC AS FUCK DEPICTIONS OF SOUNDING. IF THIS ISN'T YOUR JAM, JUST SKIP IT. YOU'RE NOT MISSING OUT ON ANY CAN

WARNING: THIS SCENE CONTAINS GRAPHIC AS FUCK DEPICTIONS OF SOUNDING. IF THIS ISN'T YOUR JAM, JUST SKIP IT. YOU'RE NOT MISSING OUT ON ANY CANON EVENTS. PLEASE DON'T GET UPSET IN MY COMMENTS SECTION IF YOU CHOOSE TO IGNORE SAID WARNING.

Zane

“Are you sure you want to do this, baby?” Felix asked. 

It was an echo of the words Felix had uttered just before the live a few hours ago. But that was Felix, always checking in. Always making sure Zane was okay. That he was cared for. That he wanted it, whatever it might be. And when it came to living with these three men it really could be anything. 

Like tonight. 

He wanted to do it. He did. But there was this overwhelming sense of…something. He didn’t know how to explain it. He was trembling, slightly sweaty despite the chilly air circulating in the room. He could only liken it to a bomb ticking down in his stomach. Maybe that was too dramatic. There was this tension, this…steel cord winding tighter and tighter inside him, ready to snap. 

He was excited. Exhilarated. He was…fucking terrified. 

He gave a jerky nod, dry swallowing as he clutched at Felix’s hands. There was no way Felix couldn’t feel him shaking, but Zane still tried to reassure him, “Yeah, I’m sure. I just need you here with me.” 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Felix promised.

It was bright in the sex attic, a glaring change to the usual dungeon-like atmosphere they’d worked so hard to achieve over the years. Most of the time they played the lights were dimmed, rows of toys gleaming under an ominous red glow, like this was hell and Asa was the devil. His husband would prowl the room, moving from shadow to light, again and again, like an animal stalking its prey. All three of the men in his life liked to bat their food around before they ate it. And in this house, Zane was everyone’s favorite meal. 

But tonight, the lights were stark white, like a surgical suite, bright enough to make Zane squint. Little dots danced before his eyes when Asa adjusted the lamp to point directly over Zane’s pelvis. Another shiver of fear lanced through him. He’d laid on the leather table beneath him hundreds of times never realizing just how much it resembled an exam table until right then. His only comfort was his head sitting in the cradle of Felix’s open legs, long fingers combing through his hair. 

Between the lights, his spread legs shackled at the ankle, and the leather strap holding his hips, he felt a little like those depictions of alien abductions. The ones depicted in those shows, people held hostage on spaceships and experimented on against their will. 

He giggled at the thought, earning a concerned look from the other three. “Sorry, but is nobody else getting a Close Encounters vibe right now?” 

A slow grin split Avi’s face. “Does that make us aliens in this scenario?” 

“You are about to probe me, are you not?” Zane said, hating the way his voice shook. 

“Yeah, we are,” Avi said, anticipation dripping from his words. 

Avi glanced at the medical tray he held, then licked his lips. They had yet to let Zane see it. Did they think seeing the sounds would make him more nervous or less? Even he wasn’t sure. Beneath him, he could feel Felix’s leg bouncing, his nervous energy needing some kind of outlet as he monitored everything Asa did. His gaze following him around the room like he was ensuring Asa didn’t fuck anything up. 

Asa wouldn’t fuck up. He was in God mode, stripped of all pretense, easily dropping the mask he wore to appear more…human. His face was blank, expression unreadable as he went about making sure he followed every protocol needed to keep Zane safe. His heart skipped. He’d done so much research just to keep Zane safe. 

Avi was the only one who appeared to share in his anticipation. 

Hours had passed since the Q&A. Zane’s liquid courage had worn off, leaving behind nerves and this electric kind of excitement. Asa had insisted they all go into this one hundred percent sober. He called it another safety precaution, but Zane suspected that Asa wasn’t sure they’d ever play like this again and he wanted Zane to remember every moment. 

Zane bit down on his bottom lip, squirming at the thought, earning a sharp glance from his husband. “Wiggle all you want now, but once we start you need to be still. Understand?” 

It was on the tip of his tongue to remind Asa he was strapped to the table, but one dark look had him dropping his gaze. “Yes,” he managed quietly, nodding just in case Asa somehow hadn’t heard him. 

His husband seemed satisfied with that, returning to his preparations, leaving Zane vibrating with the kind of anxious anticipation only Felix could soothe. 

Almost like he could read Zane’s mind, he began to card his fingers through Zane’s hair. “You’re so pretty like this,” he crooned. “So good for us.” 

Zane let his eyelids fall shut, taking a few deep, cleansing breaths before he opened them again. He dragged his gaze over his husband’s bare torso, watching the muscles ripple with every breath, every motion. He was so fucking hot, especially like this. Completely raw, more animal than human, fully prepared to clinically unravel Zane in every conceivable way. 

Asa and Avi had lost their shirts, moving around each other almost in a well-practiced dance they’d perfected over the years, making sure everything was just so. They had stripped Zane of his clothes the moment he’d entered the room, leaving him feeling totally bare. Felix had remained dressed at Zane’s request. Being the only one naked made this whole thing more taboo, more forbidden. Just another part of the fantasy. 

Zane’s breaths came faster as Asa slid on the black gloves, the sound of the nitrile snapping against his skin, reverberating through Zane’s soul. He’d almost asked for the mask, the one that made Asa look like some kind of criminal, but Zane’s heart was lodged in his throat as it was.

"Asa—" he started, voice cracking.

"No,” Asa said, cutting him off. That one syllable landed like a slap. Sharp. Direct. The sting of it lingering. “No talking. Tonight you’re our toy. And toys don’t talk. Unless I ask you a question, you lay there and take what I give you. If you’re not safewording, the only things leaving your mouth better be moans, whimpers, or screams. Understand?” 

Zane’s response was a high whine that sounded more like fear than desire. He jolted as a slap landed on his outer thigh, temporarily stealing his breath, jerking his gaze back to his husband. “Words, Lois.” 

“Yes,” Zane managed breathlessly. “I understand.” 

Avi stepped forward, a camera in one hand and a gleaming medical tray in another. Zane’s already bounding heart kicked into double time like when Asa chased him through the woods. It was the same feeling, something between abject terror and exhilaration. Was it possible to die from this feeling? If it were, Asa would have killed him long ago. 

Avi handed the metal tray to Asa who set it beside him, checking the straps at Zane’s hips and the metal cuffs around his ankles, ensuring they were tight enough to contain him, but not tight enough to constrict. 

They were really doing this. 

An involuntary keening sound escaped, but he couldn’t help it. He was scared. That was part of the allure. But it was like his body wasn’t getting the message that his brain had agreed to this. 

Felix stroked him, leaning down to whisper in his ear.  “You’re okay, baby. I’m here. We’ve got you.”

Zane shuddered. They had him. They always had him. Now that Asa had relieved Avi of the tray, he adjusted the camera in his hands, moving in close. “You look so fucking hot like this, Zaney. I can’t wait for you to see yourself the way we do.” 

They way they do. 

What would that look like? Slow pan. No filters. Just real-time submission. That’s what Avi had said when he’d begged to film this. When he stepped closer, like he was zooming in. That’s when Zane saw his eyes. He sucked in a breath. Avi’s pupils were blown wide, his chest heaving almost as much as Zane’s. 

Asa stood at Zane’s side, muscles gleaming in the light, jaw tense with restraint. Looking at the tray filled Zane with a sensation he couldn’t define. More than butterflies. Less than bees. The instruments on the tray were cold, gleaming, surgical. Eight–eight–sizes of stainless-steel Hager sounds were all lined up like a threat, shining in a shallow pool of sterile lube.

Asa’s fingers danced over each one like he was trying to decide which one to choose. Zane whimpered, his hands clawing blindly behind him until Felix caught them in his own and laced their fingers together. 

“Shh,” Felix soothed. “You’re okay. Color?” 

“Green,” Zane whispered, voice trembling. 

Asa licked his lips, finally meeting Zane’s gaze. Another ripple of unease shivered through him at the expression on Asa’s face. It made Zane’s stomach swoop like zero gravity, like he was in a jet shooting up into the sky.  

“Just remember, Lois, you asked for this," Asa murmured, dipping a sound into the lube like he was dipping a knife in poison. "Begged, even..." His tone was light, conversational, taunting even. Zane's cock, already hard from nothing but anticipation, twitched against his belly. "Last chance? Are you positive you want this?"

Zane nodded, head pressing back into Felix’s flat belly as his whole body flexed involuntarily. “Want it. Want everything. Whatever you’ll give me. Please.”

Asa huffed out a laugh, a near feral grin sliding across his handsome face, ratcheting Zane’s anxiety a few notches higher. Where did the fear scale end? How high could he go before his body gave out? 

“Good boy,” Asa said, tongue curling around the words in a way that made Zane’s cock throb. 

It wasn’t so much praise as it was a warning. 

Asa turned to him then. Another whimper escaped before Zane could snap his jaw shut, something akin to the sound a cornered animal might make when approached. 

“Shh,” Felix crooned. “Relax your jaw. Open up.” 

When Zane complied Felix slipped three fingers between his chapped lips, rubbing the pads across his tongue. At first, he thought Felix was trying to silence him, but then he realized he was giving him something else to focus on. 

“Suck, baby,” Felix murmured. “Pretend it’s my dick.” 

Zane moaned, sucking greedily, tongue probing between his fingers, the sounds obscene in the silence. Fuck, that was hot. Would the video show how obedient he was? How desperate he looked? How scared? 

“Fuck, good boy,” Felix gasped, shifting beneath him. “Breathe for me. In…and out. In…and out.” 

Zane watched as Felix exchanged glances with Asa, the two communicating without words. Then the first sound touched the head of Zane’s cock, just resting there. The temperature difference made him flinch, breath hitching around Felix’s fingers. 

Asa leaned over him, voice like a scalpel. “Tell me your color.”

“Green.” It came out thin, but certain.

Felix kissed his forehead.

Asa pressed. Gently. The metal rod met natural resistance at the slit, then dipped inward with the smallest inhale from Zane. He whimpered, more shocked than pained. 

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. He was doing it. They were doing it. Oh, fuck.  

“That’s it, baby.” Asa’s hand didn’t tremble, steady as a fucking surgeon. “Keep still.”

Was he moving? He hadn’t thought so. But why else would Asa say that? Maybe he had moved. It felt like his body wasn’t his anymore. 

Felix threaded his hand into Zane’s hair and held it gently but firmly. “Focus on my voice. Just let it happen. Fuck, its so hot.”

Zane gasped as the sound slid deeper, cock jerking against the invasion, half from horror, half from bliss. His belly rose and fell rapidly, the internal stretch, the pressure, the…wrongness of it making his head spin. It was like being split open from the inside, but slowly, like the first time Asa had fucked him without prep. There was just something about being violated against his will that made Zane’s whole body throb with pleasure.

Avi stepped closer with the camera. Zane finally dared to look down, eyes going wide as he took in the sound penetrating him in the most intimate way imaginable. Avi zoomed in on the bead of precome gleaming around the metal rod like a halo. It was so weird. Like his brain and his body had been cleaved in two, Zane taking in the scene with a weird level of dissociation. 

He’d thought it was buried inside him, had imagined he’d only see the ring at the top. But more than half the rod was still visible. It burned. Itched. The only thing Zane could liken it to was when he’d gotten his nipples pierced and his body had tried to reject them. The sharpness, the shock of pain anytime someone had even breathed on them. This was like that on steroids. 

Noah had called it the most perfect invasion. That’s…exactly what it felt like. Flames seared him from the inside, but in a way that tickled the pleasure centers of his brain, like poking at a sore tooth with your tongue or pressing deep into a bruise. He was letting Asa violate him in the most intimate way he could imagine. 

The rod slipped a tiny bit deeper, stealing his breath, his gaze snapping to Asa as pain zipped through him. He could feel his heart beating in his dick. 

“Fuck,” Zane gasped. “Fuck fuck fuck…”

Asa paused, blinking at him with a near reptilian coldness. “Color.”

“Green,” Zane said, head swimming deliciously. “Bright fucking green.”

Felix continued to soothe him. “You look so pretty like this. All full and trembling. I love how messy you get when you feel good. You’re already leaking all over the place.” 

Zane whimpered, pressing into Felix’s touch. If Asa or Avi had said it, it would sound like a taunt, but Felix said it with a reverence that made Zane desperate to do well, to obey, to earn their praise. 

His mouth fell open, shoulders coming off the table as Asa rotated the sound slightly, just enough to stimulate the urethral walls. The moan that escaped came from deep within, dragged from him with the barest touch. Asa tilted his head, the sadist in him unable to resist doing it again. 

Zane’s hips tried to buck upwards but the leather strap held him in place. Felix pressed his palms to Zane’s chest, gliding wetly across his skin, thumbs brushing his piercings. He was sweating so much. Felix’s clothes must be drenched. He could feel the perspiration running from his temples onto the leather table below. 

"He's drooling," Avi observed, voice a low rasp. He dabbed at the corner of Zane’s mouth with his thumb. "That means it's working, right?"

Asa smirked. “That means he’s ready for the next size.”

Zane’s head snapped back, eyes wild. “Yes…yes, please…oh, God.”

Zane flinched as Asa slipped the metal free, then yelped as someone’s palm cracked across his inner thigh. Zane jerked his head to Asa, eyes wide, a tiny whine escaping.  

“I said no talking, Lois. Don’t start misbehaving now.” 

Tears pooled in his eyes. “Sorry,” was all he could manage.

The second sound was thicker. Zane’s breaths escaped in rabid pants as Asa settled the next rod against his slit. His husband moved slow, steady, not cruel but…deliberate. He was always so controlled, every movement calculated, every eventuality accounted for. Zane whined, squirming as the new sound breached him. His thighs trembled, his toes curling as he fought the urge to buck up into the sensation. Felix kissed the tears leaking from the corner of his eyes. 

“Fuck, that’s so hot,” Avi whispered. “Does it feel good, Zaney?” 

“Don't get him in trouble,” Felix chastised. “We can debrief when we’re done.” He kissed Zane’s temple. “You’re doing so well. Our pretty little toy.”

Zane whimpered as the new sound slipped deeper. The pain wasn’t sharp, it was pressure, fullness, a raw heat that felt like a wire strung between his cock and his throat. He could feel every inch of it. Deep. Unforgiving. Rapturous. 

When Asa tapped the sound gently–just once–Zane moaned again, long and broken. His cock leaking copiously, dripping down Asa’s wrist, slicking the next sound.

“Need to come…fuck, please, I–” Zane’s voice didn’t even sound like his own. 

“You just keep misbehaving, Lois,” Asa chided. “Maybe Avi can provide a distraction so you can remember to keep your mouth shut.”

“I’d love to,” Avi said, his tone making Zane shiver. 

He twitched as Avi slipped a hand between his open legs, one fingertip stroking over his balls. Another hitched breath, another broken gasp. It felt…otherworldly. Just the barest stroke of Avi’s finger lit up Zane’s insides. He cried out loudly, not quite a scream, but close. Not from pain, but from…something else. This sharp pleasure he couldn’t name. His body wasn’t his anymore. He was heat, nerve endings, a conduit for control. Asa really was his God.

Avi’s hand traveled up his thigh. “Can I?” 

Zane didn’t answer. Avi wasn’t talking to him. He was talking to Asa. In this room, he belonged to his husband. He made the rules. He made the decisions. He did Zane’s thinking for him. Zane existed solely for his pleasure. His to use, his to fuck, his to give away to whoever he pleased. Luckily, that only consisted of the two other men in the room. 

“Be gentle,” his husband said, making Zane’s heart flutter behind his ribs. 

It was the only warning he got before a slick finger probed at his rim. A low sound he didn’t even recognize filled the room as Avi’s thick finger slipped inside him, slowly working in and out, almost like he was experimenting.

“Fuck, he’s even twitching on the inside,” Avi said, sounding awestruck. 

Zane felt like he was out of his body, like he was floating on the ceiling. Every nerve was being strung taut between two points, invaded and filled from opposite ends. No matter which way he moved, his body was in flames. It was like choosing between fire or lightning. 

“Jesus, look at him. It’s like he’s in a fucking trance,” he heard Avi say from somewhere far away. 

Zane barely noticed when Avi slipped free, but the sensation returned tenfold when he pressed back in with two fingers. Zane wanted to do something, say something. He could hear himself panting, could hear the pathetic sounds pouring from his lips every time Avi fucked into him, but no words would come. 

He didn’t have permission to speak anyway. 

“What happens when I do this?” Avi asked. 

Zane’s whole body jolted, a sharp scream leaving him as Avi’s fingers found his prostate, massaging it in agonizingly slow circles. With the sound seated inside and fingers pressing insistently against his prostate, he couldn’t tell if he was spiraling toward orgasm or implosion. Every thrust sent sparks racing up his spine, sharp, sweet…unrelenting.

Another low moan escaped when a hand closed around his oversensitive cock, jerking him at a glacial pace, fist not tight enough to give any friction at all. Still, each stroke had his eyes rolling back with pleasure, his body jerking like there were strings tied to his limbs; strings controlled by only the twins. 

“Feel good, Zaney?” Avi’s voice was quiet, but there was a sharp edge to it that let Zane know that, just this once, his brother-in-law’s fascination with torture had overwhelmed his own masochistic tendencies. 

Zane wanted to answer, but he couldn’t. His words clotted in his throat until it felt like he might choke on them. Overwhelming pleasure and sharp pain had him floating a thousand miles above ground where the oxygen was thin, making his head spin. 

When the hand around his cock disappeared he sobbed, broken. 

“Shh, baby,” Felix crooned. “We’ve got you.” 

"I want to taste him like this," Avi said, breathless. “Can I?” 

“Not yet,” Asa replied. “I want him to work for it.” 

Zane broke then, unable to hold back  his sobs. How was everyone else so calm about this? How did Asa not see that Zane was floating away, completely untethered, heading into outer space? 

“Color?” Felix asked softly, pressing two fingers to Zane’s throat. “His heart rate is so high.” 

Zane found Felix’s face. He must look a mess, slack-jawed, pupils blown, eyes wild. It took him three attempts to speak. “Green,” he slurred. “I’m so green, I could die.”

Felix smiled at him, but it slipped away as he looked at Asa. “I don’t know if he can take much more.” 

“‘M fine,” he promised. 

“Last one,” Asa said. “And this time you get to finish. Okay, baby?” 

Another sob left him. It was all he had left. This time he didn’t even flinch when the sound slipped from him. The fourth was nearly twice the width of the first. Thicker. Heavier. Impossible not to feel. Asa held it up, letting the light glint off the metal. His voice stayed low, reverent. “Ready to have your mind blown, Lois?” 

Zane nodded so fast he made himself dizzy. “Yes, yes, please…”

Felix gently shifted beneath him. Zane looked down at himself. His cock stood rigid, angry-red and leaking like he’d already come, even though he definitely hadn’t.

Avi set the camera on the tripod, moving closer, crowding in as Asa rested the thicker sound at Zane’s tip. He laid there, trembling, muscles taut, waiting for the inevitable pressure.  

“This one’s gonna hurt, baby,” Asa said simply.

Zane was too far gone to process it, he could just moan, lost in the static of sensation and devotion and overstimulated euphoria. “Good,” he heard a voice say, followed by a near maniacal laugh. 

Was that his laugh? Oh, God. 

Asa slid the rod in slowly, watching intently as Zane’s body tried to buck away, even as he begged for more. “Oh, fuck. It feels…oh, my God…it feels so…don’t stop. Please, please, please.” 

Felix threaded his fingers through Zane’s sweaty hair and pulled, guiding his attention up. “Look at me,” he murmured. “Breathe with me, baby. Your whole body is pumping with adrenaline right now. You have to calm down just a bit.”

Zane’s hands clawed at Felix, finding his wrists and gripping them tight, blunt nails digging deep enough to make him hiss.

The sound sank deeper.

Zane screamed a second time. High. Helpless. Not even a word, just the sound of someone completely possessed by pain-pleasure. His cock jerked and pulsed, twitching against the metal. His whole body vibrated like a plucked bow string.

“Still green?” Asa asked, calm as ever.

Zane could barely nod, so Felix answered for him. “Do what you want to him, his brain has left the building.”

Zane’s blood ran cold as Asa said, “Oh, good. Now we can really play with him.”

Zane heard the buzz a moment before pleasure exploded behind his closed lids, another shrill shriek  cutting through the soundproof room. 

The second the vibrator met the sound, his cock jolted, a wild, involuntary twitch. The vibration turned the metal into a tuning fork, every pulse ricocheting off raw, exposed nerves inside him. He was shaking. Moaning. Eyes rolling back. It wasn’t touch anymore. It was a fucking exorcism. 

“Jesus, he looks possessed,” Avi said, voice filled with wonder. “His spine’s gonna snap.” 

He could feel drool pouring from the corners of his mouth, dripping down his cheeks and pooling with the tears leaking from his eyes. He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. It was like he’d ascended. The euphoria had him in a chokehold. 

The moment the toy disappeared, Zane’s whole body collapsed like someone had cut the strings on a marionette doll. That’s what he was…their doll. Their puppet. Their toy. Their plaything. 

Three fingers fucked inside him without warning, but his body was too strung out to react. 

Now he really was a puppet. His giggle sounded like a gurgle. 

“Fuck, feel how loose you are back here, Lois,” Asa taunted. “I bet I could fuck you with just about anything right now and you’d come so hard.” 

 Zane couldn’t answer. He choked on a desperate moan as a tongue dragged slowly up his shaft, teasing that notch just below the crown, before licking carefully around the base of the rod. Zane convulsed, eyes rolling back once more, another helpless sob catching in his throat. 

The sound kept him stretched wide open while Avi’s mouth teased the rest, hot, wet…merciless. It was like they worked in tandem. Asa’s fingers curling just right, punching the air from his lungs, while Avi’s tongue teased the rod in ways that sent tiny pulses of pleasure through him. If getting a blowjob was like sticking his tongue to a battery, this was like pressing his tongue to an electric fence. He wanted to scream, to beg, to come, but he was pinned in pleasure, body stolen and rewired. 

“He tastes so fucking good,” Avi whispered, lips brushing the tip. “He’s leaking so much. Look at it…look at him.”

Felix leaned over Zane, brushing his hair back with delicate fingers. “You wanna come now, baby?” 

“Please…” he said, like a prayer. 

The fingers working at his prostate deepened their internal massage, pressing in deliberate circles that had him choking on every breath, the fullness inside growing exponentially. Asa’s hand returned to his cock, jerking with intent this time. Zane’s whole body jolted hard, like he’d been cardioverted, his eyes rolling behind closed lids as this near euphoric feeling built within him. He’d never felt anything like it. 

“I’m…I’m…I can’t stop it,” he babbled. “I have to come. I have to. Please…” 

“Come for us, baby,” Asa coaxed. 

 Asa twisted the rod one final time, just a quarter turn, and Zane shattered. There was no other word for it. He fractured into a million pieces. 

The moment his orgasm hit, Asa pulled the sound out, slow, relentless, like pulling the pin on a grenade. His whole body convulsed, not from pleasure, not from pain, but some vicious combination of the two. His release ripped through him like shrapnel, pulled from him in jagged, breathless bursts.

He cried through it. Shaking, gasping, helpless under the very hands that had broken him in the first place. His orgasm felt like it lasted for hours, the aftershocks longer still.

Felix kissed his temple, his cheek, the bridge of his nose. “You’re okay. You’re safe. You were so good.”

Avi dragged his tongue through the mess on Zane’s stomach, then swallowed reverently. “That…was art.” 

Asa pressed a kiss to the base of Zane’s cock, still flushed and twitching. “You did so good, Lois. You were amazing.” 

Asa peeled his gloves off, tossed them into the tray, then released the straps and shackles holding Zane to the table. Strong arms slid beneath his shoulders and  knees, picking him up effortlessly before carrying him to the en suite bath. He skipped the tub, just sat down on the floor of the large shower, cradling Zane in his arms. 

His palm settled over Zane’s heart.“You did perfectly, baby. I’ve got you.”

Zane sobbed once, then exhaled. He wasn’t asleep, but also wasn’t awake. He couldn’t scrape his eyelids open. After a while, the tremor in his limbs eased. He shifted, pressing his face into Asa’s throat, mumbling, “I have a headache.” 

“I bet you do. I’ve never seen anyone come that hard in my life,” Asa said, his hand squeezing the nape of his neck. 

Zane moaned at the delicious pressure. “Will you give me a massage later?” he mumbled. 

“Baby, I’ll buy you a pony if it will make you feel better.” 

He heard Felix say, “Here.” 

There was a cracking sound and then someone was turning his head. Felix. He guided the bottle of water to his lips, helping him drink. Almost as much landed on his belly as it did in his mouth, but it felt good on his overheated skin so he didn’t complain. 

When the bottle was empty, someone wiped him down with a cloth. 

“You were amazing, baby,” Felix whispered, pressing his lips to Zane’s damp hair. “You made such a mess.”

“I’ll clean up the instruments,” Avi said from a distance, probably from the door frame. “Get them in the autoclave and put them away later.” 

Zane drifted somewhere between sleep and overwhelm, safe in Asa’s arms, body limp against him. 

“Was it everything you wanted, Lois?” Asa asked softly. 

Zane smiled, dazed, head swimming. “I’d do it again.”

Asa chuckled from the side. “We’ll see about that.”

Zane sighed, burrowing deeper into Asa’s hold. “You’re the boss,” he said around a yawn. “Can I sleep now?”

“Sleep, baby. I’ve got you,” Asa promised. 

“I know. Love you,” Zane mumbled. 

“I know,” Asa said back, amused. Zane pinched his side until he said, “I love you, too, Lois.” 

Zane huffed out a laugh. “I know.”