Funtails

2012

Doug missed the boy terribly on these cold nights, the sound of the North Dakota winds somehow penetrating into the earth three stories below. Of course, he missed the boy no matter what the weather, but his need was greater whenever he shivered at the wailing of the wind in his mind. (Surely, it was all in his mind!)

At the moment, Zeke was off visiting his grandfather in Grand Forks for the weekend, and Doug could just picture the boy running around Liberty Mall, his sunny blond head bobbing about as the eleven-year-old led Professor Carlsbad in a race from video game store to video game store.

Fifty yards away, a cardboard box tumbled off a storage drum, the clatter echoing up the corridor. Doug could never remember what was in all the boxes lying around everywhere, most from before his time. He hoped this one wasn't delicate instruments.

A white mouse scooted out from behind the fallen box, spinning in slower and slower circles until it stopped. The mouse was not in itself odd. In the days when the site had been a functional missile silo command center, the crews had used the clockwork mice to keep each other entertained and now the furry little toys were everywhere, forgotten with the rest of the Cold War. But a mouse moving by itself? Doug was supposed to be alone down here. He picked up a pool cue for protection and walked down the corridor, looking out for anything else odd.

At the end of the corridor, near the door to Room 77, was a cluster of barrels. First, Doug saw the small red tennis shoes, the small zoo of toy mice between the slim, splayed legs and finally, the dejected blond head of Zeke.

"What the Hell? Zeke? You weren't supposed to be back 'til tomorrow."

The boy didn't respond. He just pushed a mouse around aimlessly with a finger before swatting it away with the back of his hand.

Doug squatted, folding his fingers into the boy's. Zeke seemed to notice him for the first time, his soft hazel eyes going wide.

"What's wrong, baby?" Doug held the boy's hand.

His expression seemed to say that Doug could not comprehend his troubles. Zeke said, "I'm fine. It's going to be okay."

"You don't look fine. Do your parents know you're here?"

No answer.

"I'm going to call the professor," said Doug. "He'll-"

"No! You can't."

"Zeke, I know we gave you a keycard and all, but your parents nee-"

"Just wait 'til tomorrow, okay? You're with me and you know I'm safe. Just let it be me and you tonight."

Doug said, "I can't let you sleep over without permission."

"Please. It's important. I can't deal with any questions right now. Everything in your world is fine, I promise."

"You're my world and if you're upset, then my world isn't fine."

Zeke smiled. "Then you should probably do as I say and keep me happy, huh?"

"Fine." Doug fell at the boy's side, their shoulders touching, their backs bracing the drum. "What you have in mind?" Doug slipped an arm around the boy's slim body and tweaked his far nipple. "Something naughty?"

"Not really," said the boy to Doug's surprise. Zeke leaned into Doug, resting his smooth face against his chest. "This right here is kind of nice," said Zeke. "Can we do this for a while?"

Doug took his nipple-molesting hand and stroked behind Zeke's ear, along the downy gold hairline to the back of his neck. "Anything you want, baby."

The boy stayed silent.

***

The next morning, Doug awoke to the sound of heavy running feet in the corridor. He was surprised that Zeke wasn't still in bed. The boy had seemed so needful of closeness last night, foregoing any sex to simply smother himself in Doug's side.

Zeke slammed through the door, and began shouting before he even spotted Doug. "What in the Hell is going on here? You're cheating on me?! You wait for me to leave for the weekend and have some slut come over and take my place?"

The boy had been outside. He was wearing a grey, wool hoodie and jeans. He angrily stamped snow off his boots.

"Are you okay?" asked Doug, still waking up.

"No, I am not okay! Explain why some boy is in the shower singing my song!"

There was indeed someone in the shower. There was only one bathroom in the old silo, down a side corridor, so the sound was faint. With a little effort, however, the voice of a boy could be heard beneath the falling of water. He was singing 'My dongle is a dingle', a nonsense song Doug and Zeke had created over the course of the summer.

"He can't even sing it right," said Zeke.

"What?" asked Doug as he pulled on his pants.

"The boy in there. He just sang, 'With a twenty-dollar jingle,' instead of 'With a merry merry jingle.' You didn't even teach him the words right."

"I didn't teach him anything!" Doug walked briskly towards the bathroom, Zeke behind. "The only boy here last night was you. Whoever this is must have broken in this morning before you woke up."

"I wasn't here last night."

Zeke's words registered just as they turned into the side corridor. Thirty feet [10 m] away the door opened and out walked a towel-wrapped boy who looked exactly like Zeke.

"Oh shit," said the boy, losing his grip on the towel in panic. It slid to the ground. Even his dick was identical to Zeke's it seemed. Naked, the blond imposter turned for the bathroom door. Identical bubble butt too.

"Stop him!" yelled Zeke. Doug was already moving, but the door shut right before he got there and the lock tumbled closed.

"Zeke, get out here," Doug called through the door.

"Don't call it 'Zeke'," the real Zeke whispered harshly next to him.

"What else am I going to call him?"

"How about 'Imposter'? Or 'Faker'? Or 'Liar'? I don't care."

Doug turned back to the door. "Look, kid, I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay to come out."

"Yeah, kid," said Zeke. "Doug's not going to hurt you."

"Zeke isn't going to hurt you either," Doug added quickly.

"I promise I won't hurt you. I'd never lie about something like that."

Doug turned and took a good look at Zeke.

"What?" asked Zeke.

"Well," said Doug, "I just realised that you might be the imposter, not him."

"Do I look like I'm lying?"

"Maybe you're programmed to think you're really Zeke."

"If he's the real me, then why did he run away?"

"Because he panicked from seeing me with a perfect clone of himself and thought I was coming to replace him with you?" said Doug. "I don't know."

"Well, I know," said Zeke. "It's because he knows he's a lying faker who got caught lying and faking."

"It doesn't prove anything and if you were programmed to think you were the real Zeke, this is exactly how you would behave."

From behind Doug, the second, naked, Zeke spoke, having opened the door without either of them realising it. "He's the real Zeke." The boy stepped meekly into the corridor. "I'm sorry about fooling you last night, Doug. I just needed-"

"What happened last night?" shouted Zeke. Doug held him back with an arm. "Did you have sex with Doug?"

"Nobody had sex," said Doug. He cringed at the thought that he would have had sex with the fake Zeke if the boy had tried for it.

"I didn't come here to cause trouble," said the second Zeke.

Doug put a hand on the boy's shoulder as much to prove he was real as to reassure him. "Who are you?"

"Well, strictly speaking, I'm Zeke."

"Not this shit again!" the real Zeke said.

The second Zeke seemed about to cry. "I'm just not your Zeke."

"So, like a time traveler from the future?" asked Zeke number one.

"Not th-"

"Or an alternate timeline version of me that drifted here through the some twilight zone?"

"Actually-"

"Oh wait, I know. You're a clone of me escaped from a secret lab and you need my help exposing the evil scientists who created you!"

"Don't be stupid," said the second Zeke, stiffening.

"Or maybe you're a Cylon duplicate," said original Zeke without pause. "That's it, isn't it?"

"Will you please stop with these outrageous suggestions?" said Doug.

"There's not a lot of options here, Douggie boy," said Zeke. "At least, scientifically speaking. And I know you don't believe in magic." Then he got an irritated expression. "Wait. Did he just call me stupid?"

The second Zeke spoke in one breath, "I'm a version of Zeke from an alternate universe and I'm stranded here until I can teach Doug how to make a machine that rides the fluctuations in the structure of spacetime through the links between universes."

Doug was speechless.

Zeke grinned. "I was right! I was right! I told you he was an alternate me."

"Stop," said Doug. He put a hand on Zeke to stop him bouncing and said, "This is going to take some sorting out. Go to the kitchen and make some coffee. And some scrambled eggs with extra basil. I'm gonna get your body-double dressed and decent and we'll join you."

"I can't leave you alone with him. He could be from an evil mirror universe."

"Just go, Zeke. Call the professor to come help if you want."

After Zeke left, Doug picked up the towel and handed it to the remaining boy. He said, "Zeke keeps some clothes in a closet here that you can use."

"I know. I did the same thing where I come from."

"Oh. So is everything over there in your world like here?" Doug asked.

"From what I've seen so far."

Nervously, Doug asked, "You and me 3; are-?"

"Yes," said the boy, a little embarrased and a little relieved.

"Do we-?"

"Yes."

"I guess it really is the same."

"Well, the version of me here seems kind of psycho to be honest."

"Yeah, you do seem much less excitable. I guess kids grow up quicker where you're from."

In the kitchen, Doug had to put the eggs into a plate for the new Zeke since the original Zeke refused to serve him.

"I made those eggs for you," complained the original Zeke. Doug ignored him and set about tossing two eggs in the pan for himself. He got bran muffins out of the bread bin for everyone. Visitor Zeke took one. Original Zeke just pouted. Doug shrugged and sat at the island counter with the visitor.

"We need to fix this name situation," said Doug as he ate. "You can't both be Zeke."

"Well, I ain't changing my fucking name," said the original Zeke, arms folded, sitting with fake nonchalance on the couch.

Doug started to give the boy a reminder about not cursing at inappopriate times and realised there had probably never been a more appropriate time in all of history. A duplicate human from another dimension was having breakfast with him! Doug looked at the new Zeke. There was really nothing different about him. Every mannerism, every motion as he chewed, his long golden eyelashes even, were identical. The same lion-cub eyes flashed at him when the boy looked his way.

"How about if we call you 'Deke' for now?" Doug asked him.

"Deke?" asked the visitor.

"Short for 'Dimensional-traveler Zeke'. That way we're not really changing your name. You're still going to be you."

"Sounds fair," said this world's Zeke, still lounging warily.

Doug smiled at him. "And we can call you Zed."

"Why do I have to change my name? This is my universe."

"Because he might still answer when I say 'Zeke'. We'll avoid confusion this way. Besides, you always wanted a cool nickname. Zed is like one of those agents in that movie you like so much with the aliens- 'Aliens in Black'."

"It's not 'Aliens in Black'," said Deke and Zed together, exasperated. "It's 'Men-"

"What kind of madness is going on here?" said the professor in his baritone voice, marching through the passageway. "Zeke said you're being invaded from another-"

The professor saw the two Zekes. He remained cool, just an eyebrow popping up in surprise, followed by a smile. "What a fascinating development."

Professor Rufus Carlsbad was a tall, grey-haired man with a robust bearing who had married Zeke's grandmother and adopted her two children after her first husband died in Vietnam.

Rufus had grown up tough, a black boy in a white, working-class town full of casual racism. But the perks had mitigated the indignities. From the time he was twelve until he left for university, Rufus had been the stud for the neighborhood boys, who were fascinated by his exotic appeal. Once, he had snuck into the bedroom of a blond beauty named Stewie Petersen and fucked the eager boy while, on the other side of the locked door, Mr. Petersen lectured his poker buddies about why the union needed to 'stop niggers taking jobs from decent folks'.

"Well, young Douglas," said the professor, nodding at the two boys, "I think you've pulled off quite a neat trick here."

Being called 'Young Douglas' made Doug feel all of ten years old again and he was momentarily lost in a memory of himself on his stomach, his little ass high in the air as the professor pounded him, the Satuday morning sunlight making everything shimmer as the breeze from the open windows blew the sheer white blinds about.

Zed gave Doug a knowing look. Doug blushed. He had never gotten over the professor, despite growing up and becoming a boylover himself.

Deke seemed frozen while the professor looked him over.

The professor said, "I assume you are our invader, since the other Zeke is still wearing the garments of the boy I delivered here earlier."

"They- um- They're calling me Deke now."

"Welcome to our Earth, Deke."

"Thanks."

"Now, take a few minutes and finish your breakfast and we'll discuss how you came to be here." Then he turned to Doug. "Tea ready?"

"Just about."

Doug filled in the professor on what he knew of Deke. Breakfast did not seem to calm Deke down at all.

When the tea and food were gone, he began his story. "There were problems with the world I came from. Things were getting bad-" Deke choked on his words and looked at the professor. The big man patted his elbow and Deke continued, "The work you're doing here in the lab, Probabilistic Physics and Information Transfer Dynamics, it's what made everything go haywire back home. It started with the Masahashi Sequence experiment. You guys just used a small amount of energy to prove the bridgeflow was possible, but the information transfer triggered more tachyon action than you could have anticipated. The professor called it a butterfly effect."

The two men looked at each other in alarm. "It's too late," Doug told the professor. "We ran the sequence last week. I was waiting for the collated numbers from China and Australia before I sent you a report."

"Damn," said Zed. "So, this butterfly effect is gonna mess up our world too now that we've done the same experiment? This is like that scene where the computer guy discovers he was responsible for Judgment Day and Arnold taking over the world. Sucks to be you, Doug."

"No," said Deke. "It's not like that. We had lots of problems, sure, but the professor and Doug and the other scientists were close to a solution. They had a device under construction to reverse the effects and bottle it up. The spacetime cracking all around was getting bad though, so Doug sent me here. The plan is that you babysit me until it's safe to go back."

"So you're like the last baby rocketed off a dying planet," declared Zed. "Maybe you'll get super-"

"It's not dying!" said Deke. "It's in an accelerated state of entropic spatial decay, that's all."

"You know," said Doug, "It's remarkable for me to listen to you, Deke, because you seem to totally understand the science. Zed loves science fiction, but he's been hopeless at actual science."

"Actual science is boring," said Zed.

"Yeah, I was just like that before the Fracturing," said Deke. "But afterwards, it was hard not to pay attention. Things got real interesting. People were disappearing into nothing, cars and buildings and mountains were popping up at random.And the weather just became a nightmare. All kinds of temperature fluctuations and storms, every day. Airplanes couldn't fly. Satellites wouldn't work. A giant wave wiped out Seattle."

That silenced everyone for a while.

"We have to tell somebody," Zed eventually said. "We can't fix this ourselves."

"No!" said the professor. "This kind of thing, they'll call in Unit 13. I've had dealings with their commander, guy they call Big Mick. They'll take both of you kids into quarantine and we won't see you again even if they solve this whole situation." The professor looked seriously at Doug. "We'll send Deke back before we tell anyone about him traveling here. In the meantime, we'll collate our test results and send them to Abekono in London and Suresha in Delhi. Maybe Chin in Boston, too. They don't need to know about Deke to start figuring out this butterfly effect."

"Deke," said Doug, "what makes you so sure we can send you back? And how would we even know how to?"

"You- I mean, the other Doug sent this with me." The boy removed a folded sheet of paper from his jeans and handed it over very formally. "You're supposed to be able to figure it out, according to my Doug."

The paper held a spreadsheet of printed numbers and and hand-drawn tables. Written across the top in Doug's own neat script was, "Take care of him for me. He is all that matters."

"These look like sensor numbers from different sites-"

"And these must be chronological reference points," said the professor.

"And this should allow us to project a graph of spacial coherence. I'm not sure if the magnitudes would make sense, but it should be enough to give us a idea of how things will move."

Doug brought his tablet computer from his office and the two men started entering data. Occasionally, one would speak, a small expression of wonder or shock. At one point they both said, 'Wow' together.

"What's that for?" asked the boys simultaneously.

"Our worlds were born at the same time, but apparently time flows faster on your side than ours. So your date is actually about a month ahead of ours."

"Oh," said Deke, looking at the professor nervously, "that explains a lot."

"Like what?" asked Doug.

Zed said, "Like how he had all that time to learn science after your crazy experiment kicked the world in the nuts."

The men returned to their work. In that way that scientific people close out the world, even those they love most, they lost track of the boys.

Until the shouting started. Doug looked up to see Deke against the corner of the kitchen, his head pulled back in fear. Zed was hovering over him, slowly pushing an extended finger at Deke's face.

"I'm just being scientific," Zed was saying. "Now hold still or I might poke you in the eye or something."

"Leave me alone."

"Leave him alone, Zeke!" Doug shouted.

Both boys looked at him. "I meant Zed," Doug said. "Zed, get away from him."

"I just need to touch him," Zed said.

"What?"

"Well, in that time cop movie the same person from two different times couldn't inhabit the same space or they'd destroy each other. I wanted to see what would happen if I touched him a little."

"But if you're right, then you'd destr-" Doug stopped himself short before he encouraged more wild ideas. "Nothing would happen." He said to Deke, "Why don't you just let him touch you on the arm and he'll stop acting weird, okay?"

"No," said Deke. "What if he's right?"

"He's not right," said the professor in his calm, but forceful, voice. "You are from different universes. Different timelines. Your molecules are not the same. They carry information. By necessity your molecules will have an internal way of identifying the universe they come from and thus they will not find themselves in some fundamental existential conflict."

"Huh?" said both boys together.

"You won't destroy each other by touching."

Zed said, "Oh, well why didn't y-"

Deke reached out and twisted Zed's nose. Zed yelled, in anger more than pain.

"There," said Deke. "We've settled it."

"You fucking piece of-"

Deke ran. Zed followed. Deke leaped over the old pool table and Zed followed. Deke's dodging finally failed at the couch and Zed tackled him onto it. Doug was right behind them and pulled them apart, the two boys throwing angry fists at the air between them.

"Oh shit," the professor said softly, but still urgently enough to get their attention. "Doug look at this graph."

Doug felt his face drain of blood as he studied the line and the figures. He could not help a furtive, pitying look at Deke.

"What is it?" the boy asked.

"Deke, when the me from your universe sent you here, he sent that note as a message to me, to explain what was going on over there, because of what he was asking me to do."

"Right, get me back home when it's safe."

"Well, when he sent you here he gave you an explanation because there were things he wanted you to do. But the explanation wasn't honest."

"What do you mean?"

Doug dropped the tablet computer on the table and walked over to Deke. Zed shrank back. "Deke, according to those numbers on the paper, your world was too badly damaged to fix."

"No, Doug and the professor had figured it out. They just had to complete-"

In a sad, flat voice, the professor said, "My dear boy, your world would have ended about two hours after you left. I'm sorry."

"No! He told me I was going back! He promised." Doug hugged the boy as Deke started crying. "He said Mom and Dad were going to come over soon."

Doug told him, "He had to say that, Zeke. You wouldn't have agreed to come over otherwise."

"You can't be dead," said Deke. "You're right here, you can't be dead!"

Doug just stroked the boy's back, unable to offer more.

On the fridge was a magnetic calendar. Doug's brain automatically did the math: It was Monday, the 19th of November. The world had about a month before it ended, on the same date that Deke's world had shredded itself: December 21st, 2012.

***

By afternoon, things had calmed down in the silo command center. The professor and Doug had alerted colleagues around the world of their 'suspicions' about the recent test of their probablility/information device and had spent most of the day coordinating the response and gathering data. They were in the lab for all that and Doug kept thinking of Deke. The boy had ended up on the couch, staring at the floor, and the phone calls had kept Doug from attending to him. Zed had left for a walk after struggling to get half a cup of soup into his 'twin' at lunch time.

Now, at three in the afternoon, the sense of impending doom had acquired so much consensus with everyone Doug spoke to worldwide as to be almost routine. The image of Deke and the look of shock on his face when he had realised that his Doug was dead kept intruding on Doug's afternoon apocalypse, however. Doug tried to imagine losing everyone in his whole world all at once.

"Professor," Doug said, leaning away from his e-mail, "I think Deke might need some seeing to about now."

"Yes. I agree, Douglas. The forum's almost set up online now anyway. I can finish here on my own."

Deke was laid out on the pool table, gripping a ball in each hand and tapping both steadily against the surface.

"Oh, hey," said Doug. "Feeling better?"

"No."

"Feeling more functional at least?"

"A bit. Played a few games of pool with the other Zeke. He got mad cuz I kept winning and he left."

"Sounds like him," said Doug.

"Yeah, sounds like me."

"You hungry or anything?"

Deke just kept staring at the ceiling, knocking the balls on the table.

Doug said, "I'll be in my room for a bit if you want me."

Zed was in Doug's bed when he got there. There were other rooms in the silo complex, but since they always slept together, Doug's room was Zed's room too whenever he came over.

The shirtless boy looked vulnerable lying there asleep, his thin, bare shoulders and smooth, slim back hunched in defense against unknown threats. God, he looked so sexy in nothing but blue jeans. Doug sat on the bed and stroked Zed's golden hair out of his face. The boy was adorable, with soft, pink lips and an elegant jawline. Doug leaned down and kissed his slim nose.

Zed stirred. Doug stroked his back.

"You here to fuck me?" the instantly playful boy asked as his hazel eyes flicked open.

"Um, no, I was just checking up on you. There's still a lot of-"

"Pleeeeaaaase!" said the boy brushing his cheek against Doug's thigh.

The man shivered at the sight and feel of his boy. 'His' boy. It still amazed Doug that Zed was 'his' boy. He pulled the boy up and kissed his tender lips, pressing lightly at first, but soon losing control and attacking them. The feel of the slender boy in his arms, the smooth skin under his fingers, drove him wild.

The kiss grew more intense as Zed returned his passion, hanging off his neck and flickering his tongue into Doug. Soon, the boy was biting at Doug's lips in lust while he squirmed against his torso. Doug slid his hands down the boy's back to the firm rise of his ass, sliding his fingers beneath the waistband of the boy's jeans and briefs in one go, his hands getting trapped there as the grabbed the tight flesh of his butt cheeks.

His arms tied up, Doug lost his balance as Zed lunged at him again and the two fell back onto the bed, Zed on top like the alpha cub he was, still attacking his man's lips, and grabbing his shoulders, arms and neck.

"Do me," said Zed between kisses.

"Unnngggh," was all Doug could reply, his cock straining against his trousers. He fought and pulled his hands free, twisting his body to put his little lion on his back. He kissed down the boy's slim, smooth neck, licking the little hollow at the collar bone until the boy giggled, as he always did. Then it was time for the nipples, perky little brown nubs that tasted like boy candy.

Doug unbuttoned the top of the jeans and licked his way down to Zed's navel, circling the hole before grabbing the jeans zipper in his teeth and pulling it down like the well-rehearsed expert he was. He kissed the boy's cock through the grinning face of a cartoon Ben Tennyson on the front of his briefs. In another practiced move, Doug pulled the jeans all the way off, and then the briefs. He licked at the little pillar of proud boy dick in front of him.

"Ohhhh yehyeeaarrhheaah," moaned Zed, squirming.

Like always, the boy was tender and smooth and pliant when Doug took him into his mouth and started sucking.

"Oaaoorrhhaagh."

It was always a thrill for Doug to create those little growls of pleasure in his boy. He pressed his tongue harder against the underside of Zed's dick as he slid against it repeatedly.

"Aaurgghrgg."

Doug lifted Zed's leg up, getting his shoulder under it and twisting the boy's butt sideways. He slobbered over his pinky finger and then stroked the Zed's anus with it.

"Mmmmrrghhhffg."

As he circled the boy's ring with his fingertip, Doug kept up his sucking. The boy's hands were firmly in his hair now, holding the man's face to his crotch. As the little boy-hole relaxed, Doug attacked the center more and more, soon slipping the tip of the finger in and twisting it about while the boy growled and moaned louder.

The boy began stiffening and Doug realized he was getting there. Doug increased the spiraling of his little finger, soon replacing it with the index finger and then the middle finger.

Zed growled and shook and grabbed Doug's head painfully as he thrust at the man's mouth. The boy's little dick jerked about in his mouth, straining through a dry, but intense, orgasm.

"Ohoohhrraarrgghh. Aaorrggh. Aooorrgghhaarrrrghh!""

Doug took the opportunity to slide two fingers into the boy, boosting the sensations for the boy and producing one giant shiver before the end. As the little tremors eased, the boy sank back in the bed, changing his death grip on the man's hair to loving strokes with his fingers.

Doug kept the fingers in the boy's butt active, gently twisting them about. He climbed back up the boy's body as he continued to loosen his ass muscles. The boy was still breathing hard and that made kissing him more enjoyable as he seemed to suck Doug's breath from him as they locked lips. They kept up the breathy kissing for a few minutes as the boy's body relaxed.

"I'm ready," the boy eventually said.

Doug pulled out the fingers, and pressed both of the boy's knees back to his ears. He pressed his chest against the boy's slim, smooth legs and lined up his hard cock with the boy's crack. He nestled it in the valley between the firm, round cheeks first, sliding it about, rubbing it's length over the boy's open love hole. Doug snagged the tip in the opening, then leaned forward and kissed Zed deeply, their tongues playing against each other.

With a firm, but gentle, motion Doug moved into the warmth of Zed. They both groaned. The pressure against his shaft was incredible, but the inside surface was smooth and tender. Doug hugged the boy's shoulders. He straighten his back as he pressed inward, forced to break the kiss. Under him, the boy's mouth was open, his eyes glassy with pleasure.

"Oh, yes. Oh yes," the boy chanted. "Fuck me, Doug. Fuck me."

Smiling at the power he seemed to have over Zed, Doug settled his stiff cock as far as it could go in the boy. The sensations and the boy's blatant lust had stiffened him to the limit.

"Fuck me. Fuck me, Doug."

"Sure thing, sweetie," said Doug. But he kept his cock in place. He leaned down and kissed Zed. The boy kissed back, holding his head. With a gentle pumping, Doug began poking at Zed, building up the motion, faster and faster. Soon it was too rough and erratic to keep kissing and Doug and Zed simply nuzzled each others' necks as the man drove his cock into the boy's receptive chute again and again.

They were silent except for the purring moans of Zed and Doug's controlled breathing. The bedsheets were getting tumbled around them, but that was of no concern. Nor was the 'tap-tap-tap' of the bedhead against the wall.

Then the thrill in Doug's cock hit a new high. It was almost time to cum, but first they needed a readjustment. He slowed his screwing, kissing the boy's face and ears and lips, and then pulled out. Zed did not need to be told: The boy flipped onto his stomach and Doug's pulled him up to his knees. With hardly a break in rhythm, Doug was back into Zed's juicy, warm boy butt and the man and boy set off in pursuit of the 'Secret.'

Hunched over Zed, Doug was able to get right into the boy, rhythmically sliding all the way in, his pubes and thighs rubbing against the boy at the end of each scintillating drive into the nuclear warmth of his butt. Doug struggled to keep his pace even. One did not find the Secret at full speed. There was techinque and skill to it: a jockey-like motion that made the underside of his cock caress the Zed's boy-prostate at maximum duration, punctuated by a shimmy just after each withdrawal that made the young muscles of the boy's rectum react with a grasping spasm.

"It's coming," said the boy. "Coming."

Now it was time for acceleration. Doug kept his rocking action as well as he could, but started to slam more erratically into Zed as he sped up the thrusting of his large man cock into the boy's stretched and squeezing hole.

"Sweetie 3; Sweetie, I'm coming. I'm coming, Sweetie! Are you ready?"

"Yes, Doug," gasped Zed. "Do it. Come in me. Come in my ass, Doug."

"Gonna breed you, baby boy. Gonna breed you good."

All control was gone by this time. Doug was slamming straight in and out of Zed's boy-hole, each stroke a tingling, irrevocable step closer to release. The boy was over the edge too, panting and twitching, struggling to push back as his body slackened and tightened in waves.

Doug burst into the boy with a wild moan. Zed squeaked repeatedly as the twitching of his body seemed to focus down to just the walls of his love hole, squeezing and inflaming Doug's cock as it continued to spit cum, thrust after thrust, into the boy's deepest place.

They rode the high together, continuing on automatic as they floated above consciousness in the fuzzy aftermath of the now-revealed Secret. Their bodies slid and flowed against each other as the last physical sensations sparked along the length of Doug's softened cock.

Zed fell forward onto the bed bringing Doug down with him, the man's cock still lodged in the boy as he strained for every last bit of contact. Instantly, Doug wrapped his arms around the boy's slim chest, holding his smooth back as close to Doug's chest as he could. The man let his nose trace the top of the boy's head, savoring the smooth blond hair that seemed to smell like the essence of youth.

Now came the best part of sex: Those few minutes where Doug could embrace Zeke free of any emotion except love and tenderness, not feeling any urge except to be one with his boy.

"I love you, Zeke."

Zeke mumbled back.

Doug smiled at the boy's exhaustion. "Had a good one, eh? Just call me the master of-"

A bump at the door behind him startled Doug. He turned to see Deke's guilty face for a brief moment before the boy scrambled off. Doug was on his feet immediately, slipping free of Zed.

"Wha-"

"Sorry, that was Zeke- I mean, the other you. Deke. He saw us just now."

"So?"

"So-" But Doug could not explain it logically. He only knew that Deke was going to have issues with this. How could he not? "Look, I just need to check on him."

As Doug left, he heard Zed grumbling, "Goddamned stupid idiot from the wrong dimension."

Doug found Deke in the kitchen.

"Hi," said Doug, sitting across from Deke, who had poured a glass of water already.

"Hi."

"About just now, I think maybe- Actually, could I have some water? I'm kind of thirsty."

"I'm not surprised," said the boy, sliding over his glass. "You were giving it to the other me pretty good there."

Doug blushed. But then wondered why he should. This boy had participated in the same act numerous times with Doug. Another Doug, in another time and place, but there was nothing to be embarrassed about.

Deke blushed too and said, "Actually I'm sorry about watching you. I didn't mean to. I just heard the knocking and went to check it out and then I saw you guys and I just froze, you know. It was like watching myself from outside my body."

"Was it unpleasant?" asked Doug.

"No, just weird because- Well, yes, it was unpleasant. It was like I had died over in my world and I was just a ghost now in this world."

"Sounds creepy," said Doug, putting the water back.

"Keep the water," said Deke. "I think this is the kind of situation my mom talks about when she says she needs a stiff drink. You got any whisky?"

"You drink whisky?"

"No. But I figure I might as well try it if the world is ending. It's not like I can wait 'til I turn twenty-one."

Zed went home. Deke stayed at the silo with Doug and the professor, sleeping in one of the old bunk beds in an emptied store room. He spent most of his time listening to music on his MP3 player.

Doug and the professor worked hard. The two men scanned the incoming data from scientists around the world, creating and testing models on the computer to explain how the universe's fracturing was happening. Eventually those models should suggest a solution, but that would be later.

Neither man mentioned a long term solution for Deke. Where would he live? How would they keep him secret? What about school?

Those things could wait until after the end of the world.

Two days after Deke's arrival, the professor stood behind Doug at the monitor while Doug talked about Planck's Constant and how it fit in their model. The older man rested a firm hand on Doug's shoulder. "Douglas, we need to be doing more about the boy," the professor said.

The touch of the man who had brought him into the world of boylove still thrilled Doug. Rufus Carlsbad radiated a quiet intense sexuality. It was no wonder he was a champion worldwide at capturing boys' hearts and minds - and virginities.

"Sure, professor, what do you think we should do?"

"I thought that you might do more actually."

"Me? You're his grandfather. It seems like we both might-"

"Haven't you noticed?" asked Professor Carlsbad. "He doesn't talk to me."

"Really?"

"Just the bare minimum to get by, but no conversations." The older man shook his head. "I don't understand it."

That night at dinner, Doug said to Deke, "You know, if you're getting bored up here, you can help us in the lab. There's transcription and answering phones and photocopying and all kinds of things."

"No thanks," said Deke with a nervous glance at the professor. "I don't think I'd be comfortable down there."

The next day, Deke missed lunch. He was not in the silo. Doug found him above, sitting on a rock pile, at the edge of the cow pasture near Highway 2.

"Deke, you can't be out here. Someone might see you."

"So? They'll think I'm the other Zeke."

"What if someone mentions it to your mother? She'll know something's up because-"

"She's not my mother," Deke said quietly.

After a moment to think about a good response and failing, Doug said, "You want to talk about it?"

"No."

"You've got to talk to someone."

"There's no one. The other me is immature and scatterbrained; the professor- I can't talk to him; and you lied to me!"

"I did not!"

"Not you. The other Doug." Deke scowled. "But you would have done the same thing."

"He had a good reason. He was saving you-"

"And what if you decide there's another good reason to lie to me? Huh?"

Doug said nothing.

"See? I can't trust you."

"You should trust your other self at least. He's not the idiot you take him for. You used to be him after all."

"Used to."

"Well what you are now couldn't come out of nothing. The material for it is in Zed somewhere. He's loyal. He's tenacious. He's smart."

***

"He's weird, he's goofy and he's creepy," said Zed as he and Doug walked towards the supermarket through the parking lot. "I'm not talking to him, Doug."

"Why are you acting this way? I know you're better than this. When that kid from Nepal was having trouble fitting in, you're the one that got everyone to be friends with him."

"That's different. Plus that guy was cute."

"Yeah, I see your point," said Doug, "Deke is just butt ugly."

"Hey!"

"That's my point, Zed," said Doug. "This kid is you-"

"There's already one of me," said Zed. "You coming over for Thanksgiving?"

"I don't know. The professor's trying to figure out something so we don't have to leave your double at the silo for the day."

"See, that guy is nothing but-"

"Zed, I need to ask you something."

"What?"

"You and the professor, you're okay with each other right? You're not afraid of him or you don't have some secret problem with him do you?"

"What are you talking about?" asked Zed as if Doug were an idiot. "He's my grandpa. He's cool. Everything's okay."

"Okay."

At the supermarket, Zed took a cart of his own and said, "Meet you at Billy's counter after I get the oranges."

Billy had been the deli clerk since Zed was five years old. He had moved away a year earlier, but Zed and Doug had continued to refer to the deli as 'Billy's counter'. And Zeke always bought a bag of oranges for Doug because he knew Doug ate them like candy.

***

Thanksgiving dinner was held in the silo command center, the professor pleading the urgency of his work as an excuse to make everyone shift their plans. It was actually roomier than Doug expected, once the pool table was shoved in the corner. The guests were the professor's wife, Zed with his mother and father, and his Uncle Bill.

Deke hid out in his room, the door bolted.

Just before the turkey was ready, while everyone was watching the football game, Zed came nervously into the room, walked over to his grandmother with a tin of paint and said, "Grandma, I've got the paint you wanted."

"What's that, darling?"

"The paint. Zed said- You said you wanted paint."

"What kind of stupid joke is this, Zeke?," his father asked. "Stop trying to spoil Thanksgiving with your twisted pranks!"

"Sorry, Pop." Head down, the boy took a seat on the couch, dropping the paint can between his feet.

His grandmother took his hand and said, "It's okay darling. I know you didn't mean anything bad." The boy leaned into his grandmother and hugged her.

A minute later, Doug unlocked the bedroom where the real Zed was hiding. The boy was playing a hand-held video game - in his underwear, having given his clothes to Deke when they traded places. Doug said loudly, "Stop with the practical jokes, Zed. You made that poor kid look like a total fool with-"

Zed looked up from his video game and shouted back, "Oh, please! The world is coming to an end and you want to get on my case about a harmless joke?"

"Your world is ending." Doug pointed back down the hall. "His world already ended. That makes a hell of a difference you know."

"No, it doesn't. He's got the same amount of time left as me. We're the same."

"Jesus!" Doug locked the door. "I knew you were behind the curve on this whole empathy thing, but I figured at least with your own self you'd-" Doug sighed. "You hurt him, Zed."

A flicker of regret crossed Zed's face. Doug stared him down. "Fine," said Zed. "I was wrong. I'm sorry."

"Don't tell me sorry. You didn't hurt me."

"Didn't you tell me that anything that hurt me also hurt you?"

"He's not you."

"Isn't he?" asked Zed, smiling.

"God, this is an existential nightmare."

"I don't know what 'existential' is."

"I bet Deke knows," said Doug. "There's one difference between you right there."

"Do you think he's sexy?"

"No!"

"So I'm not sexy?"

"Well, yeah, he's sexy, but only because he's like you."

Zed tossed the video game aside and faced Doug. "But there's got to be something that-"

"Look, this is not a useful conversation," said Doug, "so I'm done with it."

"See, that's what I was saying. There's some things not worth worrying about. Doug, this is the last Thanksgiving in history."

"If it's so monumental, then why are you spending it playing video games?"

"What I really want is a blowjob," said Zed, picking up the video game again. "But that's not possible, so I'm making do."

Doug looked at his watch, then back at the half-naked boy. "It might be possible."

"Don't tease me."

But Doug was already on the bed with Zed, tugging the boy's briefs down. The boy's slim dick popped up, swaying. The video game fell to the floor. Doug slurped and stroked the thin dick, making Zed wriggle and giggle. The pleasure of giving head to his boy was pure and uncomplicated: The boy was purring with sensation and lust, and Doug felt a deep, erotic pride at giving him those feelings. The intimacy of the act - the trust and shared naughtiness and sense of belonging to each other - immense as it was, took second place for Doug to that simple fact that sucking Zed's dick made the boy happy.

Doug slid his hand under the boy's balls, reaching his fingers back to the wrinkly pucker between the smooth ass cheeks. As he kept up his sucking, Doug caressed the boy's hole. Zed's squirming doubled and he growled his appreciation.

The smoothness of the boy's stomach, thighs and balls invited Doug's touch and he used his free hand to stroke them, as much for the idea of exciting Zed further as for the soft, tactile thrill it brought his fingertips.

The hardness of the little boy dick in his mouth mirrored the hard dick in Doug's dress pants. Each second, the shaft seemed to strain more and more to be stiffer and more pulsating than before. Zed folded his fingers firmly into Doug's hair. It was time. Zed was ready to blow.

Three sharp knocks came from the door.

"Zed?" said Deke softly from outside.

"Fuck!" said Zed.

"Zed," called Deke, "it's been fifteen minutes. Time for us to switch back."

Doug groaned in frustration as he pulled off of Zed's hard, little dick.

"Wait, no!" said Zed. "I'm almost there. Finish me off."

"We can't leave him out there. It'll look weird and somebody'll notice."

"Let him in then. I don't care if he sees."

"I care."

"Why?"

"Pull up your underwear," said Doug and then he opened the door for Deke. When the second boy entered, Doug told him, "Okay, give him back his clothes." Then he said to Zed, "And no more tricks. Come straight back after fifteen minutes and keep the exchanges regular just like we planned. Maybe if you behave yourself, you can have a reward at the end of the night." Doug made a sucking motion behind Deke's back for Zed to see.

For the rest of the night, Doug could always tell which boy was inhabiting the room just from their demeanor. Deke, with an attentive sadness, listened to every scrap of conversation. Zed watched TV resentfully. At one point Doug quietly said to him, "I promise you, this isn't the last Thanksgiving."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because Deke got here early enough to warn us. We've got a head start."

"If we're depending on Weirdo to save is, it's hopeless," said Zed.

He never did get his reward at the end of the night.

***

"It's like a brick," said the professor to Deke as Doug watched.

"What?" Deke asked.

"Imagine a brick, like they build things with. Take a hammer, hit it hard enough and the brick cracks and breaks."

"Okay."

"Our experiment was like that hammer. The information transferred to the space-time structure set the universe cracking. The problem is that once a brick cracks, there's no way to undo it."

"So you can't fix the butterfly effect?"

Doug said, "According to you, they had found a way on your side. What we need is for you to remember every single scrap of information about what they did. We need to decide if they really had a machine they thought would work or 3;"

"Or if it was another lie you told me?"

"That was not me. I never lied to you."

"Did they actually build something?" the professor asked. "I find it hard to believe they'd fake going that far to convince you."

"Of course they built something!" said Deke. "How else do you think I got here?"

"The same machine sent you here?" asked the professor. "The same one they were going to use to cure the damage?"

"Yes. They built it right here in the silo. It didn't need a lot of power. Everything it did was suggestive. Signals into spacetime to trigger effects, like a catalyst in a reaction."

"Well if it was working why didn't they fix things?"

Doug interrupted, "They didn't know what signal to send. Or where to send it. And I doubt they could risk trial and error. After all, just testing the signal path created the whole mess to begin with."

Deke nodded.

"Well, they figured out how to send you here."

"Yeah," said Deke. "Our Doug found out how from another Doug."

"Wait, a third me!?" asked Doug.

"Yes. From another parallel universe."

"How many of me are there?"

"Infinite, the way I understand it."

"So this third me, how did 3;?"

"He used his machine to send over a DVD. It was all he could manage before his world got broken apart, but it showed how to make the machine, and the settings for inter-dimensional breaching. It gave us a head start so that we'd be able to do more with it. In the end, my Doug was able to send over something bigger – me."

"So why did you not come with a DVD?" asked the professor.

"Yeah," said Doug. "All your 'me' gave us was a sheet of paper."

"And a music player," Deke said despondently. Then light dawned in his eyes. "Oh my God, the music player. Doug borrowed it Saturday morning before he sent me over. He was telling me something about it before he put me in the machine, but then the power went out from a Fracture and everything was a mess and he was panicking and he never finished telling me."

"Plug that thing into my computer," said Doug. "Let's look at the hard drive."

***

They worked on the machine for three weeks, using the records in the music player. They uploaded the plans to the rest of the world too, telling them only that a Doug from a dying universe had sent it.

That first weekend, the professor had to leave for the university, to run tests on some specialized equipment there.

Zed visited, as usual. On Friday night, after some games of pool, and a pizza, Doug went to work in the lab instead of taking Zed to bed as he usually would. Not long after, Zed came to him there.

"What's wrong?" Doug asked.

"Nothing. I just wanted to watch you work."

"No, you didn't."

"I wanted that blowjob you owe me." Zed tickled Doug's shoulder with a finger.

"Deke is home," said Doug, turning back to his desk.

"So?"

"So, he might hear us. Or walk in on us."

"So, lock the door, genius."

"Look, Zed, ever since he found us at Thanksg-"

"Don't call me 'Zed'! My name is 'Zeke'. Okay? It's always been 'Zeke' and nothing's changing that, especially not some freak from another universe."

"Calm down," said Doug.

"Oh, fuck off." The boy slammed the door and left for the night.

***

That week, the Fractures started. In one incident, cars driving through a tunnel in Switzerland emerged through a rift in Japan, forty feet [12 m] above the ocean. Hundreds died. The end of the world was no longer a secret.

Suicides, riots and robberies spiked briefly, as the press conferences and news reports delivered the news of the Fracturing, but most people took it with calm. The same situation that had developed in Deke's world soon took hold. Restrictions on air travel, schools shutting down, less long distance communication.

The professor forced Doug to take Deke shopping.

"He's showing signs of depression," the professor had said. "I'm not surprised. He's been isolated. No contact with family, friends or even strangers. Just me and you. And the whole time he's been grieving for a whole planet."

At the supermarket, Deke took a cart of his own. He said, "Meet you at Billy's counter after I get the oranges," then he walked off.

The words struck Doug like a knife in the skull.

'Meet you at Billy's counter after I get the oranges.' The exact words Zed always said when they got to the supermarket.

This was not some boy who looked like Zeke. This was Zeke, body and soul. It made no sense for Doug to think in terms of 'his' Zeke and the 'other' Zeke.

They were both his.

Doug stood there for a long moment thinking. So long that Deke was soon back, drinking from a carton of apple soy drink, the way he always did after getting the oranges.

"You forget what you wanted?" Deke asked.

"No. Just realizing that maybe I want more than I first thought."

"Okay." Deke shrugged his slim shoulders in that 'whatever you say, old man' way that he had perfected over his years of dealing with Doug and wandered off to the cookie aisle.

After gathering their supplies, Deke started his usual banter with Mrs. Cranton at the checkout. He teased her about her love life and she teased him back about all the girls who were lying in wait to ambush him through his teenage years and the terrible things they would do to his heart.

"You seem like you had fun," Doug said once they were in the car.

"Yeah. It doesn't feel real being out here and seeing all these places and things that I know are gone. Like I'm in a dream. But I know it's all real and 3; that makes me happy. That over here Mrs. Cranton and Billy and you are alive and okay." Deke reached over with a hand and stroked the top of Doug's thigh, smiling.

All Doug could think was how much he wanted to kiss Deke. The boy seemed to read this in his face and quickly backed away, slumping into his seat and staring at his knees, eyes wet with the tears he was holding back.

Back to being depressed, Doug thought to himself.

***

"I don't understand," said Zed. "Are you saying you want to be with him instead? With Deke?"

"No!" said Doug. "But I need to be honest with you. I have feelings for this boy because he's you and everything I like about you, everything I feel for you, it goes for him too."

It was the second weekend after Thanksgiving. Doug was eating oranges in the kitchen with Zed, who was working through a plate of Twinkies. The professor had asked Deke along to a parcel delivery warehouse, to pick up some pre-fabricated parts for the machine.

"So, what are you saying? What do you want?"

"I don't know what I want," said Doug. "That's the whole problem. I want to be with you. I want to keep you happy. But I want him to be happy too and I think he really misses being with me."

"But he is different from me," Zed said. "He knows more stuff and like, he's better at pool."

"He spent more time in the silo, with the pool table and the professor, so he changed a little, that's all. You're not the same person as you were last year. You've changed a whole lot too since we first 3; well, you know."

"So you want my permission to fuck him?"

"God, no." Doug took a breath. "Look, I haven't always told you the truth about what I felt and what I wanted and what I was worried about. I sometimes felt you couldn't handle it. But I'm starting to think that was wrong. Suppose you found out six months from now that I was having these feelings all along and never told you? You'd feel a lot worse then."

"There's not going to be 'a six months from now'," Zed said, walking away from his unfinished Twinkie.

***

"No! You can't go," screamed Deke.

"It's only a short trip," said the professor.

"It's not safe."

It was the third weekend after Thanksgiving. Doug, the professor and the two Zekes were in the lab for a lunch break when the professor had told them about a Washington conference with the president to create a plan for using the various machines nearing completion around the world.

"I don't see why you're so upset, Deke," the professor said. "I've gone to Washington dozens of times. And this is important. You know, the odds of getting into an accident-"

"Odds don't matter. Only reality matters."

Doug looked up from his tablet. "That doesn't even make logical sense."

"Shut up!" Deke left the lab.

"Zed," said the professor, "go see if you can calm him down."

"What? Why me? You guys made him mad."

Doug said, "The people who made him mad aren't going to have much luck calming him down, are they?"

About fifteen minutes later, Doug went looking for the boys. The kitchen was empty. Deke's room was empty. He found them in his own room. Zed was holding Deke to his chest. The lights were off and they were both crying quietly.

He sat on the other side of Deke and hugged both boys, grateful for the feel of their warm bodies. He desperately wanted to ask what was wrong, but sensed that not talking was the right move. He kissed Deke's hair softly. The blonde strands glowed in the faint light from the doorway.

After about five minutes, they heard the professor calling for them, but they held together in their embrace.

"What's all this about?" The professor asked quietly from the door.

"Grandpa," said Zed quietly. "Deke says that if you go to Washington, you'll die."

"He can't know th-"

"He says that over where he's from, that's what happened. There was a Fracture and you got caught in it and died."

"But, Deke, the Fractures aren't the same. We never got a wave in Seattle like you guys did. The worlds are breaking differently, the way two identical windows would break differently. It doesn't-"

"Grandpa?" said Zed softly. "Could you just not go to Washington?"

"Sure," said the professor, smiling. He sat next to Zed. "The president can go fuck himself."

***

"Grief is a funny thing," said the professor, pouring a shot of whiskey for himself. Doug had already downed two. The boys were asleep, sharing Deke's bed.

"What do you mean?" asked Doug, working on his third drink.

"I died a week before everyone else over there and because of that my loss struck Deke harder. He didn't avoid his parents at Thanksgiving the way he's been avoiding me because their deaths were more abstract.

"And look at Zed," the professor added. "When he thought I had died the same way as everyone else over there, he didn't get upset over me. He's known his parents died over there too, and he's still not upset about them. But me dying separately, in an accident, made him hurt so bad that for the first time he had something he could feel in common with his duplicate."

"He was very mature tonight," said Doug. "Zed, I mean. I was impressed. You suppose it's Deke's influence rubbing off?"

"Maybe. Or maybe it's just that we all grow up eventually. A fact that we who love boys are more painfully aware of than most."

Doug laughed. Then he looked at the professor for the first time in years without keeping his emotions from his face. "I think the boys feel that pain too."

"My poor Douglas," said the professor, pouring another drink. "You miss the sex?"

"And all the things that went with it," said Doug. "The closeness, the sense of belonging. I still remember the last time we were together. Just a blowjob. I think my butt was too hairy for you by then."

"Yes, but you still had purty lips."

They both laughed.

So," asked Doug, "you look at me now and what? Nothing?"

"I still see my boy. I still love you, Douglas. It hurts me too that we can't go back to what we were for each other. But it's not the same. That's just the way of the world for our kind."

"In my head, I know that, but 3; Zeke's my first boy. It's hard for me to think that all these intense feelings and compulsions I feel will just evaporate in a few years."

"Everything ends eventually," said the professor. "As we've learned these last few weeks. Maybe if we're lucky what we feel gets reborn in another time with another lover. And then it ends again and returns again, like 3;"

"Some kind of torture?"

The professor chuckled. "I was going to say 'cosmic pendulum', but I think you're closer to the truth."

The men clinked their glasses and drank again.

***

The top of Mount Everest disappeared at 9:32 a.m. local time on the twentieth of December. The scientific estimates world-wide gave noon of the twenty-first (North Dakota time) as the last moments of the universe.

The machine in the silo was ready to go at three that morning. It was an early breakfast for Deke, Zed, Doug and the professor and then they descended to the lab.

The machine was a six-meter [20 ft] sphere, with a glass top and bottom and curved steel pylons at the sides sides connected by more glass. Four small tanks of pressurized air were attached to the pylons at their thickest points.

"You're going to be the pilot, Deke," said the professor.

"Why me? I don't even know how it works."

"You don't need to know the technical aspects. You'll be like that chimpanzee in space. All you have to do is push the right buttons at the right time."

"Why don't you push the buttons?" said Deke mockingly. "You're probably as smart as a chimp."

"Because you, my dear grandson, are not of this world."

"What's that got to do with it?" asked Zed, coming up from behind to inspect the sphere. "I actually want to pilot the machine. Send me if Deke doesn't want to go."

The professor said, "Remember how I said the cracking of the universe was like breaking a brick?"

"Yeah," said Deke. "You can't put it back together again."

"Well, thats not strictly speaking true. You could crush the whole thing to pieces and make a whole new brick from the bits."

"But it won't be the same brick," said Zed. "Even if you make it look identical, inside it's not."

"If you had a way to guide each molecule, to guide each bond that is created, you could recreate an identical brick."

"You'd need a supercomputer more powerful than every single one on Earth put together," said Zed.

"Not if we don't have to do the calculations. Doug and I have found a way to make the underlying universal spacetime structure duplicate the condition it was in at a previous time, before the Fracturing started. The best part is that the data is sitting there in the history of the bits and pieces ready to be accessed, so we don't have to calculate anything."

"Like restoring your computer system from a backup you saved before it got messed up?"

Both men smiled. "Well said. Exactly right."

"But won't that affect our existence?" asked Deke.

"Not you. Only the things in this universe."

Zed exclaimed, "So I'm going to get wiped out?"

"No. You won't notice anything. If this works, only the underlying structure of spacetime gets reloaded, the information underneath it all that tells it what to do. Spacetime itself will stay as it is, in that moment."

"If it works," said Zed.

"The thing is," said Doug, stroking Deke's hair, "Every part of spacetime that is marked as part of our universe will go static. Something from outside needs to get it moving again."

"Me?" asked Deke.

"Remember how I said your body and Zed's would have some kind of marker to quantify which universe each of you was from?"

"Yeah."

"Well, your Doug found those markers. It was in his research. Think of them as frequencies for the different bits and pieces of reality. We found a way to manipulate the frequencies to make it seem like things are from different universes. As far as this sphere knows now, it's part of the universe you came from, Deke. When the rest of our universe goes static, this thing and the transmitter inside will keep going."

"So why me?" asked Deke.

"As a back up mostly. We don't know if the automated systems will work. We have no idea what order things will happen in for instance. You might find time seeming to run in reverse and all kinds of other exotic things might happen. There are so many unknown factors. In case the computers don't work, you need to send the start signal."

"But, Grandpa, you could use your frequency change process on yourself and you can go along."

"The process involves some serious radiation that I would not survive."

"So I'm the only one that can do this?"

"Don't worry, Deke," said Doug. "You won't be alone. I'll be coming along. I'll show you everything and how it works. I'll probably be out of action with the rest of the universe when it blinks out of time, but by then you'll be all set."

"Can I come?" asked Zed.

"No. This isn't a field trip."

"You can stay here and help me run the monitoring sensors," said the professor. "When they come back we'll need to know for sure that what we did worked."

Doug took Zed into his arms. "Baby, I love you. Always." He kissed the boy like it was the last time he ever would, taking in each line and slippery surface of Zed's lips. Doug was aware of Deke watching them, but for the first time, he felt no guilt. There were no more secrets. The boys were not competitors. They were partners.

Once the good-byes were over, Deke and Doug walked into the sphere and closed the glass door.

"No seatbelts or anything?" asked Deke. They sat cross-legged on the floor, facing each other. A tablet computer lay between them, counting down in large glowing numbers. Outside, the professor waved and typed into his keyboard.

There was no whirring or buzzing to show that the power was on. No lights flickered. Things just started to fade. At first it was like the color was washed out of the world outside the sphere. Then after a minute, it was almost like a photograph being replaced by a blackboard sketch.

"Why's this happening?" asked Deke.

"I think it's just us being unmoored from reality."

"It's like a black hole in reverse then. Everything outside goes black because all that light can't reach us anymore."

"Yeah."

"But then how will our signals get back to the real world?"

"The sphere is designed to be visible across dimensions in every spectrum," said Doug. "That's the whole point of the transmitter."

The man and boy hugged each other, side by side, as the world outside the windows of their bubble dropped into nothing. They began to float upward.

"Doug!"

"Relax. We just got cut loose from gravity. Remember, nothing from out there will affect us here."

The timer on the tablet reached zero and Doug swam awkwardly over to the wall. He pressed his face to the glass, but could garner no sensation of depth or scale to the darkness outside. It was just nothingness.

"So what's next?" asked Deke, his brown eyes large and alert.

Doug pointed at the tablet. "This thing is controlling the system. It's already broadcasting."

"And how will we know if it works?"

"First, we'll know if it does anything at all because the effects will hit me too. If it works, as in healing the Fractures, we can't know until we get back."

And that's when their clothes faded out.

"What was that?" asked Deke, covering up his crotch with his hands.

"That was proof that the signal is making things happen. I take it you were wearing Zed's clothes?"

"Yeah."

"C'mon, we don't have long." Doug showed him a new program on the tablet. "If this computer stops working, you'll have to go to the hardwired control in each pylon and match them with the new frequency readings on the displays to trigger the signal that will get the universe moving again."

"Okay," said Deke. He reached up to a display screen, running his fingers over it. Doug let slip a naughty thought about how smoothly and delicately the boy's naked ass curved.

Deke asked, "Couldn't you just have hardwired the computer to the controls? Some USB cable and a splitter-"

"Long cables mean more potential for electrical disruption. The professor seems to think that you'll be less affected by everything."

"Man, why is this part so complicated?" Deke asked.

"Because my dimension isn't going to have the same frequency with the new 'software' we give it. We can't predict the new frequency, but once we analyze it, we know how to target our restart signal."

"So we're actualy creating a new universe?"

"Kind of. It's more like-"Doug felt a cramp in his stomach, like the onset of diarrhea. "Ughn."

"What is it?"

"I don't feel too good."

Deke reached over to steady Doug. The man roared in pain as Deke's fingers penetrated his flesh like it was play dough.

"Don't touch me! I'm falling out of synch with the bubble. Just do wh 3; "

The world disappeared into blackness for Doug: the glass, the tablet he had been holding and finally the terrified, screaming face of Deke, who was reaching for him and grasping nothing.

Floating in emptiness was terrifying and boring at the same time. Until Doug realized he was out of air and then it was just the most terrifying experience of his life.

He clamped his hands over his face to keep what little air he had in. His lungs burned and his throat hurt. His ears were ringing. Then buzzing. Then the noise sounded like faraway screaming.

Someone was calling his name. A thin, strained voice, like someone yelling from the other side of an ocean.

Zeke. Zeke was shouting his name.

"Zeke," he wheezed, letting out his remaining breath. He gasped and inhaled. Sweet, cool air hit his lungs. He continued breathing in huge pants.

A hand was on his shoulder.

"Doug?"

"Zeke?"

"Doug!"

There was a barely discernible shape before Doug in the darkness.

"Zeke, what happened?"

"You were gone. I was alone and 3; and I hit the controls like I was supposed to and then nothing happened and I've been here all alone and then-"

"How long was I gone?" asked Doug, realizing that the universal restart had taken place and he was now unfrozen.

"I don't know. Weeks."

"We only have ten hours of air. You probably just couldn't tell time with the sensory deprivation is all."

"The tablet disappeared after you," said Deke. "And the whole bubble started to fade out. I couldn't move. It was like my knees and elbows were exploding."

"The electricity in your body wasn't flowing properly," Doug told him, rubbing his back.

"My eyes were burning and my whole brain hurt just to think."

"And you still managed to send the signal before the bubble was all gone?"

"Yeah. And then I was just floating here not knowing where you were and what was going on and everything was dark."

"You were brave, Deke. Like a lion. I'm proud of you."

"It felt like I was alone forever," cried Deke, hugging Doug. Both of them were still nude. "Don't leave me again, Doug. Please!"

"I won't. It's over now."

"Then why is everything still dark?"

"Maybe there was a problem with the signal. Too much power or not enough or we sent it to the wrong universe. I don't know."

The boy pressed his face into Doug's chest, his blond hair glinting faintly.

"It's been getting brighter," said Doug, trying to offer some hope. "There's light somewhere. And we can breathe and talk, so there's air. I think the bubble's still around us. I've felt something squishy under my feet a couple of times, like it's fading back in."

"So everything's coming back?" asked Deke. "It worked?"

The boy was warm and smooth in Doug's arms. Doug held him closer as they drifted in the red-tinged dark. Doug kissed his hair. His nose. His lips.

Doug wanted to reassure him, but he had already lied once to this boy in another world and he could not betray his trust again. "It's a possibility that everything is healed somewhere and the bubble could just be off on its own, drifting or something. But, in all honesty, we should have been back by now if things worked the right way."

Their universe was gone. The only real thing they had was each other and the air they breathed. Doug laughed at the thought.

"What's so funny?" Deke asked.

"I was thinking of that old song: 'All I need is the air that I breathe and to love you' ."

"Why, what a sweet sentiment, Doug," said Deke with mock sincerity, "Thank you."

"It's the name of the song, you little prick."

They laughed, but after a short while they just floated in the dark, silent.

Doug considered their plight. It felt right to be with Deke in this final twilight. Like a chance to meet the death of the universe the right way. They were the last two people in the universe and Doug could think of no reason to hold back. This was the end of everything. He pulled Deke close and whispered in his ear, "I need to love you."

The boy nodded his head and kissed Doug.

Streaks of red and purple nebulae colored the dark space around them, seemingly light years away. In the glow, Doug admired the smooth curve of Deke's jaw and the soft gloss of his eyes.

They smiled the wry smiles of condemned men, and touched foreheads.

"I love you, Zeke."

"I love you."

They kissed, lips tender and giving, tongues twirling with deliberation. A year of sex had made an excellent lover out of the boy and he understood the give and take of lovemaking. He traded with Doug, taking the time to give pleasure and to recieve it and to enjoy each role.

While Deke hugged him about the neck, Doug slid his hands down the smooth flanks of the boy, his fingers teasing the sparse fine boy hairs that covered them, raising goose bumps.

The boy lifted his leg as Doug cupped his butt. Deke's slim thigh slid against Doug's hip and the man reach under to support and caress all at once.

There was still no gravity and the lovers slowly spun in the air. There were faint stars in the sky now and the constellations rotated about them as they drank each other in.

Doug licked down the boy's chest to his nipples and his navel and then his cute, hard, boy dick. The man slurped and flicked at it with his tongue. The boy swung himself about as they drifted and took Doug's stiff cock into his mouth. The action of Deke's tongue on his head made Doug smile and gasp all at once. He let the boy work on him, wetting him and causing him to leak fluid from the tip.

Doug returned to sucking Deke's smooth cocklet, taking occasional detours to slip his tongue up the boy's back passage. He got further with each session of butt licking, his spit and insistence opening up the way.

This was intimacy and trust. He thought back to when he became Zeke's godfather, never dreaming that their bond would go so far beyond the merely pastoral responsibilities of that job. He remembered that first night of love, the professor having set them up with verbal prods and the keys to a hotel room in Bermuda.

Water fights and mud fights and sword fights and real fights. Dinners by candle light and dinners by pizza box. Tickles, backrubs, backslaps and wet willies. If this was indeed the end of history, for them and for the world, then they had at least made it a history of love and fulfillment.

The pleasure was peaking in Doug's cock head as Deke continued to slide his lips up and down on it. This was too soon. Doug pushed him off gently, levering the boy by the waist and shoulder and pulling his slim back into Doug's front for an embrace of kissing and light touches and murmured compliments.

Once his cock was no longer threatening premature climax, Doug became more ardent, playfully biting his lion cub's ear and being tickled and bitten back on the lips. There was no up and down, no 'on top of' and no underneath, no way for the cub to play at dominance like his brothers in the wild.

It was fitting. What did size or age matter when there was no world to judge them against? The man and the boy were equals now.

Deke was grinding his ass back against Doug's crotch as the man tweaked his nipples and ran his teeth along the young neck. Still no words. Just growls and breathing.

Doug turned the boy around, pulling the slender legs around his waist. His snorted breaths tumbled Deke's hair as the boy nibbled his neck. Doug's cock was at the cleavage of the firm boy butt, as stiff as a moon rocket. With no walls or floor, Doug used the boy's shoulders to pull himself forward (upward? downward?). The head of his cock slid through the valley of the boy's ass, the sensation of them parting along the skin sending a chill of anticipation all the way back to explode in Doug's brain. He pressed the head to the boy's pucker. Entry to the boy was straightforward after all the times he had breached that gap before, but the sensations were like coming home.

The stars in the distance were ablaze now, in every direction, and cool, white light bathed Doug and his boy lover.

Each thrust by Doug was practiced and efficient, fast enough to excite the nerves endings of both him and the boy without throwing them out of rhythm or upsetting their close touching. Hands continued sliding into secret sweet spots and stroking along bare skin. Lips and tongues tasted sweat and heat and spit.

The light was yellow now. The large arc of a sun was manifesting itself nearby like a returning ghost.

As the lovers floated in open space, they held each other ever closer, even as the man slid more and more energetically into Deke's passage. The feel of warm, slippery pressure there was bringing him to a boil. Doug's breathing faltered into a disorganized mess. He continued to fuck the boy. Deke continued to fuck back, head bent backward, his eyes glazed, his hair radiant in the wild sun light.

With growling lust, Deke stiffened under the sensations of climax. For the first time ever, the boy's cock spurted. The droplets scattered in the freefall of space, floating away in waves with each pump of Deke's adolescent cream. The sight propelled Doug's mind to escape velocity and the man groaned and shuddered as he hammered himself into the boy's wet, soft insides, letting loose with a rippling sensation of pleasure all up and down his shaft. Spurt after spurt he shot out into the boy's tight, warm ass.

In the distance the moon hung bright and full. Not just any moon. The moon. The one from Earth.

As the last spasms of orgasm shook through Doug, he felt more than ever like he was home, in his place of destiny.

The two lovers stayed locked together, admiring the moon, sun and stars as they circled around them. There was a long moment of contentment for Doug, holding his dear golden boy near, savoring the feel of him under his fingertips and the boys breathing against his neck.

If the world wanted to end now, that was fine by Doug.

Their clothes slowly materialized in the air beside them. The chalk-drawing outlines of the lab could be seen through the glass.

"Time to get decent," said Doug. "I think we made it back." He withdrew carefully, savoring the last rush of pleasure in his sensitive cock tip.

"Too bad," said Deke as they got dressed. "I kind of liked being lost in space with you."

"Me too, Deke. Me too. If it wasn't-"

"Arggh," said Deke.

"What is it?"

"This shirt stung me."

"Insect?" asked Doug.

"No, I think they aren't fully materialized yet, like when you were fading out and I touched you."

"No, that hurt because I was the one that was semi-real and- Oh my God! Deke, don't move."

The boy was turning into a phantom, the wall of the sphere visible through his translucent face. Doug reached for him.

"No! Don't," said Deke in a faraway voice. "You'll hurt me."

"Deke!"

"I'm sorry, Doug! I don't know why-."

"Deke! Fight it. Fight it!"

But the boy was gone, his clothes falling to the ground as gravity took hold.

***

Unit 13 was there the next day to pack everything away, a squad of tank-like men with intense eyes.

Doug and Zed tried to stay out of the way in Doug's room.

"Do you think he's okay?" asked Zed after what seemed like hours of silence.

"Deke? Yeah. The sphere went with him, so he's probably safe."

"But you don't know?"

Doug tried not to think about his few moments outside of reality – the gasping for air and the sheer isolation and darkness.

Doug spread his hands in surrender. "I can't lie to you, sweetie. I don't know anything for sure."

"You think it's possible we fixed his world too with what we did and he got pulled back there?"

"It's as possible as anything else."

"You're not doing a good job if giving me hope here," said Zed.

"You can take it. You're a big boy now. You can cum and everything."

"That wasn't me."

"Oh. Right."

More silence. Then Zed spoke. "I saw everything, you know."

"What do you mean?"

"When the world disappeared for you guys in the sphere, you were still transmitting. We could still see and hear everything. We could even see what you were seeing through the other side of the bubble, like when all the stars appeared. Sometimes I would go right up to the glass and watch you from three feet away."

"So you saw us when we 3; "

"Yeah," said Zed.

"And you're not mad?"

"No. I was right next to you. I could tell what you both were feeling. I could see that in your mind you weren't with another boy. You were with me."

"Yeah," said Doug, his voice sad.

"And it was beautiful."

Doug chuckled at that. Zed held him and did not let go until a soldier knocked at the door.

***

'Big' Mike O'Bannon, the head of Unit 13, was in Deke's room.

"So what's this?" he asked.

"Guest room."

"Doesn't look like you had many guests."

"Just the professor's grandson from time to time."

"Really? I was under the impression he slept with you."

Doug froze.

Big Mike said, "I suppose this is for keeping up appearances then, like when the boy's grandmother is over? So no one cottons to the fact that you're screwing his brains out?"

Doug was really terrified now.

"Relax," said Big Mike. "Your life isn't my business. I'm just ascertaining facts." Big Mike's eyes looked into Doug like radar. "Now, I'm taking into custody every one of these machines that got built. They're too dangerous to let you eggheads have, but I need to know what happened to the data you used to build it. You said a hard drive was sent over here from another version of you?"

"A music player, yes."

"Well?"

"It disappeared the same time as the sphere. Everything from that dimension is gone." That much was true. Doug didn't have to fear triggering Big Mike's lie-detector eyes.

"Good," said the soldier.

"We have copies, though."

"No, you don't. I just destroyed all your hard drives."

Just then, Zed walked in. Big Mike ruffled the boy's hair playfully and Doug could swear he saw an anaconda shift position in the crotch of the man's combat fatigues.

"You're a lucky man," said Big Mike, turning to walk away.

"So it's all over?" asked Doug. "The crisis?"

"Yes. No signs of Fractures anywhere, new or old. We never even bothered to turn on the other machines." Big Mike shook his head. "The world was never going to end, you know."

"No? You didn't think the Fractures were dangerous?"

"It's prophecy. Look, a lot of people were all up on that Mayan apocalypse bullshit, saying this was it. But anyone who's studied it for real knows that the Mayans were expecting a rebirth, not a death."

Doug smiled. "And now we've got a new universe with new structure and everything. Guess they were right."

Epilogue

In another universe, it is midnight at the beginning of the twenty-first day of December, 2012. A slim, naked boy walks down a corridor, then through a bedroom door. He is blond and clutches something in his hand.

The man at the desk inside is not that surprised to see him. Or surprised that he is naked.

"It's not a good time, Zeke. Today's the last-"

"Shut up and listen, okay?" says the boy. "I'm not the Zeke you know. I'm an inter-dimensional alternate version and I'm here to save your world from the Fracturing you created."

"Zeke, this is one of the worst practical jokes you've ever pulled. I know you're stressed, but-"

Shock spreads across the man's face as another Zeke walks through the door.

"Who the hell is this?" asks that universe's Zed.

"I'm an inter-dimensional alternate version of you and I'm here to save your world from the Fracturing that dumbass here created."

Zed doesn't seem surprised. He says, "So you're on a cosmic mission like the doctor on that old show, 'Quantum Leap'?"

Deke says, "That's actually a lot like what I've been doing the last few days, yes. I've saved five universes so far."

"And I suppose you got here in that big glass bubble I saw in the lab? The one covered from top to bottom in cum stains?"

Deke's heroic bravado all deflated. "Um, yes."

"Cool," says Zed. "I'm in. You seem like a fun guy."

Smiling, Deke holds out the music player in his hand to Doug #7 and says, "You need to see this."

The End