Page 20 of The Homecoming: The Island

“Oh, baby, you came to know me so well,” Whitey whined, putting his head on Gavin’s shoulder. “And thank you for the compliment, I love you, too.”

“Shut up, weirdo,” Gavin mumbled unconvincingly, and blushed a bright shade of pink. “You are not unlovable, too. I don’t hate you.”

One by one, the rest of the boys and the adults expressed their preference for one or another of the two cooks’ dishes, but the final result of the contest was a tie between them. Both Lance and Vincent grumbled under their breath, calling some of the adultsungrateful traitors, much to the Crazy Bunch’s amusement.

Gradually, the boys migrated to the living room, where they engaged in the usual fun, lighthearted banter, with their boyfriends’ active participation. The adults, who stayed behind to clean the table and load the dishwasher, stopped from time to time to eavesdrop on the kids’ conversation, smiling radiantly when they heard the boys joking and laughing.

Taking advantage that no one in the living room was paying attention to him, Fabian discreetly sneaked in and put on a playlist of romantic songs. Ira was the first to react to the sweet tunes coming from the stereo system; he stopped in the middle of a sentence and cast a questioning look to Tarrin, who answered the unspoken invitation with a small nod, then lowered his eyes.

They left the couch and moved to the center of the room, which was cleared of furniture so the dancers could move freely. Ira tenderly wrapped an arm around Tarrin’s willowy waist and took hold of his other hand. Shyly at first, the two undulated their bodies to the rhythm of the music, then, after warming up a bit, they closed the space between them, becoming one.

Lorcan and Thorvald imitated the two dancers, followed by Lochlin and Lazarus. After eyeing Whitey for a few good minutes, Gavin moved closer to him and offered his hand, which, after a brief hesitation, was accepted. The boys who were single formed random pairs, and soon, everyone in the living room was dancing.

The adults, who finished their work, started to send silent invitations to their spouses and life partners. Soon, the first pairs formed, and they danced in the spacious dining room, where the only pieces of furniture were the table and the chairs. Daniel and Tarquin, Ardan and Alasdair, Martin-Cornelius and Christine, Dunstan and Ava—they all moved to the music of their souls.

Sitting on their favorite armchairs, next to each other, Fabian and Lance watched the young dancers unknowingly displaying the affection they had for each other. From time to time, the two husbands looked in the direction of the archway separating the living room from the dining room to the adults dancing there, and they smiled to each other.

Maybe some of them won’t get over what happen on that island so easily; maybe it would take a longer time for them to process what happened there; maybe nightmares would plague their sleep for days, weeks or even months.No one knows what the future has in store for them,Fabian thought, lacing fingers with Lance.

But tonight, they dance.

EPILOGUE

Drip, drip,fucking-drip...the piercing noise made by the droplets of water falling into the metal bowl drove Alexander insane, making him flinch and cower into the corner when he slept. Well, if the few minutes when he closed his eyes and tried to give his body a break could be called sleep.

A few days, a week, a month...Alexander had no idea how much time had passed since that little bitch threw him in that dank, dark hole in the ground. The little window was covered all the time, so he couldn't figure out if it was night or day. Pain was the only constant in his life since he left the island. And the rats. And the snakes, the fuckingsnakes.

That whore, Ardan, told him that there were two of them, a male and a female, but there seemed to be hundreds, crawling all over the place, freezing Alexander's blood every time he felt them on his body. The man tried to catch the bloody things and kill them, but they proved too fast for his reflexes, considerably slowed down by the injuries his former fuck toy’s brother inflicted on him.

Although he was reduced to almost nothing by Ardan’s twin, Alexander refused to admit he’d lost the game to his former sex slave.A lucky whore, that's all the other man was,he thought bitterly, directing all the hatred in his rotten soul to The Base's boss. Alexander wished he wouldn't have been so fascinated by the blond boy with strange, turquoise eyes twenty-three years earlier, he wished he would have fucked him to death instead, like he did with many others.

As if that wasn't enough, he made the same mistake with little, sweet Tarrin, who sported an uncanny resemblance with his goddamn father. Images of him taking the blond kid's innocence played in his head on repeat, but he couldn't get aroused by them anymore. In fact, he couldn't get aroused by anything, Ardan-fucking-MacNamara’s brother took that away from him, too.

He crushed his spine, reducing his cock to a pathetic piece of flesh, good only to let the piss out of him. Alexander Kane, once a handsome, charming, charismatic man, was now nothing more than a reptile, like the snakes he shared the cell with. Every time the tray of food pushed under the door, he crawled to it, desperately trying to get there before the rats.

The food and drinking water gave him hope that he could recover, and, against all odds, that he could get out of that place and bring hell upon Ardan and all those who helped the little bitch to bring him down and lock him up in that dirty hole. Anger gave Alexander strength, and he fed on it with the same despair with which he consumed the scarce food and gulped down the water.

Until one day—or night, as the man lost notion of time—when a new smell added to the already infested atmosphere, and he discovered with horror that one of the rat bites had become infected. The revelation shook Alexander to his very core, and he would have cursed the goddamn whore, had his jaw not been broken and swollen, which made speaking a torture in its own right.

And then, Ardan visited him, bringing the fucking metal bowl, the supreme instrument of torture that took away the little sleep he managed to have, the piercing noise the droplets of water made when falling in, shattering his already frayed nerves. The worst part was that Ardan continued to come to the cell regularly.

He stood in a corner, staring at Alexander, lips pressed into a thin line, his blank expression scaring the shit out of the cell's resident. He dreaded the silence, which became even heavier and more uncomfortable, and found himself wishing Ardan would attack and beat the living shit out of him, instead of staring at him like that.

Alexander wondered how his enemy could stand the pestilence in that goddamn hellhole. Even he, who got used to it, gagged from time to time, but that man didn't even bat an eyelash, which made the prisoner wonder what was he really made of. He came to think Ardan MacNamara wasn't human, but some sort of supernatural creature, which would have explained a lot of things.

No flesh and blood person could get through what his enemy endured and come out of it unscathed, like he did, Alexander thought. He stopped calling the other manlittle bitchandpathetic whorein his head; he was definitely none of these. Ardan MacNamara was a scary motherfucker with almost supernatural powers, a creature of hell, who came to earth to ensnare, torment, and finally kill Alexander.

More and more rat bites became infected, while others became purulent; the gangrene spread all over the man's body, and it was only a matter of time until it would affect his internal organs, rotting him alive. A bitter laugh left Alexander's throat when he realized the irony of the situation: he was going to perish from the same death Ardan meant for him seven years earlier, and which killed his doppelganger instead.

Alexander didn't regret his evil deeds, not even when he was so close to the end of his life. He deserved much better in life, and it was the others' fault he didn't get what he considered belonged to him as a birthright. His half-siblings, his father, and the man's wife, Ardan...they were all obstacles in his way to the Blooms' riches and influence.

Alexander cursed each and every one of them to have the same fate he had; his two sons would take care of it, they would make his enemy pay for everything. The man felt a wild joy at the thought, which almost compensated for the mind-shattering pain he endured. His enemies thought that Elias and Abernathy would forget their dad and would become like them, but the fuckers were bitterly wrong. Those two boys were his sons.

The rats became more and more daring and aggressive, attacking Alexander and biting him more often than before. They must be hungry, the man thought, only to realize he didn't get food for quite some time. He was the food, Alexander said to himself, the realization freezing his blood, as he frantically tried to keep the rodents away of his wounded, decomposing body.

But it was an unequal battle, that drained him of the little energy left in him. Exhausted, terrified, Alexander Kane, the once powerful, influential and feared leader of the crime world, watched as the hungry rodents advanced to his face, feasting on his cheeks, lips and nose.

What a pathetic way to die,he thought, as darkness descended over him, pulling him under, into the bottomless abyss.

---