Home - 7. Part 7

In the morning I was kissed awake by Troy again, which was really nice.

"Rise and shine," he said, grinning.

"Can't we stay in bed till the celebration starts?" I replied drowsily.

"Well, you can if you want, but I'm gonna get more wood."

"No, I'd much rather do something I don't like with you than something I do like without you."

"We could take breaks to make out every thirty minutes or so if that would help," he said and winked at me.

"No, let's save it for tonight, ok?"

"Sure, as you wish."

We got dressed and went downstairs. The boys had already fed Lucky and Barklay, so we all picked a can of fruit and then had breakfast together at the table.

"Hey, I've been thinking," Troy said to me. "How about we get our wedding rings tattooed? I mean, nothing says forever like a tattoo, right?"

"Maybe. We'll see," I answered, not that thrilled about the idea.

"I want one too. Something cool, on my arm," Michael said.

"No, Mikey, it hurts," Dylan replied.

"I can take it."

"But I can't."

"But you're not getting one, I am."

"Mm-hmm. Please don't, ok?"

"Fine, I won't."

"Are you mad?" Dylan asked wide-eyed

"No, just the opposite," Michael answered, grinning.

"Oh?" Dylan said and his brother gave him a kiss on the cheek, which made him smile.

"Hey, do you guys know when the celebration begins," I asked Michael.

"Officially at one, but they'll probably start setting everything up two or three hours earlier," he replied.

"We should bring over the wood sooner too then" Troy said. "Can you watch Lucky and Barklay for us?"

"Sure, but try to be back before noon. We need to take care of some stuff and then we'll meet you there, ok?" Michael answered.

"Alright, no problem."

After we had finished our meal we headed out. A few hours later the trailer was brimming with wood, so we drove to the beach where the celebration was supposed to take place. A couple of people were already busy setting up torches, tables and benches. Wyett was there too and seemed to be coordinating everything. When he saw us coming he waved us over to him, smiling.

"Hello," he said and we both greeted him. "That's way more wood than we would've needed, but I guess we could just make the fire bigger. Let me show you where to unload it."

"How about an explanation for what happened yesterday first?" Troy asked.

"Sure thing. You've probably noticed that most of the hosts' senses are heavily impaired or not working at all anymore, except for their hearing, which is extremely heightened. Our theory is that it sends out such a strong impulse that it overwhelms their weak brain and controls their actions, like a reflex. We never would've thought of using that to our advantage, but one of the survivors we rescued had accidentally discovered that the hosts react very sensitively to certain sound frequencies, so we started to experiment with some high-powered sound-emitters and quickly figured out how to attract and repel them at will."

"Sorry to interrupt, but how do you accidentally discover something like that?"

"No, that's a good question. He had a dog and while he was looking for supplies he was surprised by a bunch of hosts, so he used his dog whistle to call him for help. The second he did that the hosts just turned around and walked away. When he showed us we were really amazed and immediately tried to find sound-emitters. In the beginning we only installed a few of them around the camp, but after a while we managed to boost their range substantially and soon realized that we could use them to get rid of the hosts on a large scale, so we installed one emitter after another till he had created a grid that covered the whole state. Next we led all the hosts away from formerly populated areas and gathered them in secluded places where they wouldn't be a danger to any survivors. That was only part of the plan though, because we wanted a more permanent solution. Yesterday we were finally ready and could lead the hosts to a bunch of open areas that we had rigged with explosives. When they were in place we blew them up and killed most of them. The rest were at least incapacitated by the blasts, so they're no longer dangerous and the emitters at the state lines keep out new ones."

"Holy shit, how did you even manage to pull off such a huge operation?" Troy said, impressed.

"It took a whole lot of work, I can tell you that. Thankfully we have an engineer in our group, who could figure out the technical stuff, but gathering all the explosives we needed was pretty difficult. I mean, finding them was one thing, but getting to them, that was the real challenge."

"I bet. And you're planning to get rid of the freaks everywhere?"

"Yes, that's the plan."

"How long will that take?"

"I don't know. For the US alone, maybe a couple of years? We're just not that many people and we don't have unlimited resources, so we'll have to see."

"Well, you can count us in. Right Cody?"

"Yeah, definitely," I said.

"Thanks, I appreciate that," Wyett replied.

"By the way, why didn't you tell us about all this before?" Troy asked.

"We couldn't risk it. You could've tried to stop us or even to kill us."

"Why would we do that?"

"We have a guy in our group who's deeply religious and he believes every life is sacred and needs to be protected. We had long discussions with him about it, but he still feels like killing the hosts is wrong. He didn't try to stop us, because he was afraid to get banished, but he really wanted to. Now, you two seem like very nice people, but I can't look inside your heads. You could've been even more fanatic than him and convinced that it's your duty as a Christian to save the hosts by any means necessary. Or maybe having to survive in this harsh world for almost a year has messed up your morals and you think turning the emitters against our group so you can get a hold of our supplies would be a necessary evil or just the prudent thing to do, because you need to make sure the boys are provided for, no matter the cost. I know it was kind of paranoid of us, but we just didn't wanna take any chances."

"No, I get it, I probably wouldn't have told us either."

"I'm glad you understand. Any more questions?"

"No, not for now anyway, thanks."

"Great, then follow me."

Wyett showed us where to stack the wood and then a couple of guys helped us unload it. Back at home the boys had already prepared a soup for lunch, so we all sat down at the table and ate. Afterwards the two of them left and Troy and I washed the dishes together.

"When should we go to the celebration? At one or later?" I asked.

"No, around two at the earliest, so we're fashionably late," Troy answered.

"I guess, but what are we going to do till then?"

"How about we set up your weather station?"

"Oh no, I totally forgot about that."

"Yeah, me too."

"Let's do it."

We unpacked the weather station and studied the manual and then I helped Troy to mount it on the roof.

"This thing is amazing," I said excitedly when we were done. "It even saves all the data for up to ten years."

"Can you already make a prediction?" Troy asked.

"Well, not really, but I'm pretty sure that as long as we're together the sun will always shine brightly for us."

"Aww, that's very… cheesy. But true."

We smiled at each other and exchanged loving kisses.

"We should start getting ready soon," Troy said. "How about we take a shower together? We can use the one upstairs now, so there should be more than enough room for the both of us."

"But I thought we wanted to wait till tonight before we do anything."

"I'm sure we can control ourselves. But we could agree on a punishment for physical contact of any kind, just to be on the safe side. For example, if one of us touches the other while we're in the shower we can't have sex or make out for a month. That should keep us in check, don't you think?"

"Ok, fine."

We quickly brought all of our stuff over from the RV and then hurried to the bathroom, took our clothes off in record time, entered the shower and turned on the water. For the next ten minutes or so we just stared at each other's naked wet bodies without saying a word.

"This was such a fucking mistake," Troy finally said very seriously and I had to giggle.

"Yeah, tell me about it. What are we going to do?" I replied.

"Well, I have to touch you soon or I will die."

We both laughed.

"You know, technically the punishment only applies if we touch each other in the shower, so we should just get out and then we can do whatever we want," I said.

"You're one sexy genius. Let's go."

The second we stepped out of the shower Troy hugged me from behind and his hands were all over my chest, stomach and private parts.

"Jesus that feels awesome," he gasped and I giggled.

"Troy, control yourself."

"I'm trying, but it's not working."

"Well, I can't resist you for much longer either."

"I'm sure our wedding night will be special no matter what, so why are we doing this to ourselves?"

"I probably could think of a lot of reasons, but I'm too horny to concentrate right now."

We both laughed again.

"Does that mean you want to?" Troy asked.

"No, but if we'd do something unromantic and without any kissing then technically it wouldn't really count, would it?"

"That's right."

"I have an idea," I said, walked up to a wall, braced myself on it with both arms and closed my legs. "Now get behind me, lubricate your penis with some spit and then slide it in and out between my legs, preferably directly under my butt. And if you want you could also masturbate my penis at the same time."

"My brain just exploded," he said and I giggled.

He got behind me and a couple of seconds later he carefully entered the area under my butt with his really hard erection. It felt so exciting that my own erection started to twitch, but then Troy reached around me and took a hold of it. I thought I would climax right away, because not only was he touching me very tenderly and was stroking me in the same slow rhythm he slid in and out between my thighs, he also used his other hand to caress the rest of my body. It went on like that for at least ten minutes and I loved every blissful moment of it. Suddenly Troy started to masturbate my penis faster and soon I could feel his warm sperm squirting out of him. The sensation was incredibly arousing and I immediately climaxed too. The overwhelmingly intense orgasm literally made me weak in the knees, but thankfully Troy steadied me. When I had recovered I turned around and hugged him.

"How was that for you?" I asked.

"I don't know. You didn't feel used or anything, did you?"

"Not to be gross, but do you see my sperm running down the wall right there?"

"Yes?"

"Enough said."

We both laughed.

"You're so fucking awesome it's crazy."

"Thanks, but now let's get ready. Separately. I go first and you can shave in the meantime, ok?"

"Alright."

We parted, exchanged kisses and then I showered. Forty-five minutes or so later we were both as good as new, took Lucky and Barklay and drove to the celebration.

Around twenty people were already at the beach and when they saw us coming they all waved at us, smiling. There was a huge fire, tables with colorful lanterns on them, torches everywhere and a big buffet next to what looked like a bar. There was also music coming from somewhere and a few people were dancing to it. Lucky and Barklay immediately headed to the water together and since we felt a little out of place we decided to watch them play, but then I suddenly heard Ashley's voice.

"CODY!" she squealed and ran right into my arms.

"Hi. Nice to see you too," I replied, grinning.

"Hi Ashley," Troy said and she let go.

"Hi Troy, my dad's already waiting for you at the bar," Ashley answered and Troy looked at me.

"Go ahead, I'll catch up with you in a minute," I said. He just nodded and went over to Wyett.

"Have you eaten anything yet?" Ashley asked.

"No, not since breakfast."

"Good, because we have eight different salads, all kinds of other appetizers, later we'll roast a whole pig and afterwards there will be desserts to die for, trust me."

"Oh no, Dylan will be so upset about the pig. He really loves animals, you know?"

"Don't worry, we told him that it died of natural causes and that pigs actually like to be eaten by humans, because otherwise their delicious meat would just go to waste."

"And he bought that?"

"He sure did."

"I bet Michael wasn't thrilled about lying to his brother though."

"No, but it was the lesser of two evils, because if we hadn't lied to him the pig would've completely ruined the celebration for him."

"I guess that's true."

"Come on, let's have some salad," Ashley said. She took my hand and dragged me over to the buffet. I looked around and suddenly I saw something that made my eyes widen.

"Oh my God, you have fruit salad!" I said, amazed.

"You can thank the boys for that," Ashley replied.

"Where are they by the way?"

"Helping with the desserts, I think. Did they tell you about the wild goat they've tamed?"

"Yeah, how crazy is that?"

"Pretty crazy. Now dig in."

I quickly shoveled some fruit salad into a bowl and as soon as I had the first bite in my mouth I was in heaven. After Ashley had helped herself to a couple of appetizers we picked up Troy and Wyett at the bar and then we all sat down at a table.

"Guess what, we'll have try-outs for our baseball teams tomorrow. Isn't that awesome?" Troy said excitedly.

"I'm really happy for you," I replied, smiling.

"Wait, does that mean not everyone will be allowed to play?" Ashley said.

"No, we just wanna see who the most skilled players are, so we can form two strong teams that can challenge each other, but of course everyone will get a chance to play," Troy answered.

"Oh, I see."

"I bet you're amazing," I said. "I'll watch every game and cheer for you till my throat is sore."

"I'll try my best to make you proud," Troy replied, grinning.

"You don't have to, I'm already as proud of you as I can possibly be, so you could accidentally knock yourself out with the baseball bat and you'd still be my champion, you always will be."

"Jesus… I love you so fucking much."

"I love you too," I said and we exchanged soft kisses.

"Aww, how sweet," Ashley said. "Hey, before I forget, I have something for you." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pair of heart-shaped silver earrings with small blue diamonds in the middle and two beautifully braided, rainbow-colored bracelets. "These earrings belonged to my mother, so you better not lose them or my dad will shoot you dead. They'll be your something old, something borrowed and something blue. And I made these bracelets for you, they'll be your something new."

"Wow, thank you Ashley, that's very thoughtful of you. And don't worry, we're not going to lose them, I promise," I replied.

"Yeah, thanks Ashley," Troy added.

Both of us took one of the earrings and then we helped each other put the bracelets on.

That's when Michael and Dylan arrived with a group of people, so we waved them over to our table.

"Hi boys," I said and they greeted us. "Thank you for the fruit salad, I really appreciate it."

"We know," Michael replied, grinning.

"Who wants to play Frisbee with me and Mikey?" Dylan asked and we all raised our hands.

For the next hour the six of us played together and had a lot of fun. When the sun was about to set we were told by Ashley to get changed and not to come out before she would pick us up, so we went to the RV and after I had showed Troy how to tie a tie we put our suits on in separate rooms.

"Are you ready yet?" Troy asked from the back.

"Yeah, you can come out."

The door opened and when I saw him I was kind of awestruck.

"Wow, you look incredible, like a model or a movie star," I said, really amazed.

"You've never looked better yourself and that's saying something. I'll devour you later."

"Not if I devour you first," I replied and we both laughed, then he walked over to me and took me in his arms. "Troy, is that a cucumber in your pocket or do you have an erection?" I asked and we both laughed again.

"Feel free to check," he answered, so I opened his pants, pulled out his penis and gently started to stroke it.

"Definitely not a cucumber," I said, giggling. "You know, I bet we still have a couple of minutes before Ashley comes to get us."

"I really like where this is going."

"How about something unromantic, without any kissing?"

"Hell yes."

"Ok, let me make your penis nice and slippery for you," I said. I went down on one knee in front of him and slowly slid his erection into my mouth.

"Jesus," Troy gasped.

That's when Ashley banged on the door.

"We're ready you guys," she yelled from outside.

"Should we tell her that we'll need another ten minutes?" Troy asked, smirking.

"No, they're probably all waiting for us and we'll have plenty of time to have fun later," I replied and got up.

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

We were about to leave when we suddenly realized that our erections were clearly visible through the thin fabric of our pants.

"Oh no, what are we going to do?" I asked nervously.

"We need a distraction."

"I know."

"We could start a fire."

I giggled.

"No, we just have to think of something gross."

"Alright, how about the puss-hole of an old lady, who has her period?"

"Old ladies don't have periods."

"Then she has dementia instead."

I laughed.

"How is that gross?" I asked.

"Cause she wipes her ass the wrong way and when she has diarrhea she keeps wiping till her puss-hole is filled with shit. And then she forgets to put her panties back on, goes to the supermarket and while she's standing in line at the register she suddenly sneezes and all the shit falls right out of her. She looks down, thinks she's on the toilet and starts pissing…"

"No, stop," I said, laughing. "That's just disturbing."

"But guess what, it worked."

I checked and it was true.

"You're right. You are one disturbing genius."

We both laughed.

"You think Ashley can hear us?" Troy asked.

"Yes, she can," Ashley said from the other side of the door. "And now she'll have nightmares for a month."

"Sorry," Troy replied, laughing.

We went outside and followed Ashley back to the beach. My eyes widened when I saw what they had done. There was a small wooden arch that was covered with colorful flowers, Dylan was standing in the middle, Michael on his right, with Lucky and Barklay lying next to him, and on Dylan's left there was Wyett, who was joined by Ashley. In front of the arch there was an aisle with two rows of benches on both sides that were filled with smiling people. Suddenly the wedding march came on and they all rose from their seats. It gave me goose bumps, the best kind. I took Troy's hand and we walked up the aisle. When he had reached the arch everyone sat down and the music stopped.

"Hi," Dylan said, grinning. "I'm a priest and I will marry you now, 'k?" Troy and I both nodded, smiling from ear to ear. "Ok, let's start with your vows. Troy?"

"Alright, here we go," Troy said and inhaled deeply. "Before I met you I didn't even know what love is…" His voice broke and he quickly covered his face. I immediately got tears in my eyes too. "Shit. I'm sorry." He cleared his throat. "You're my angel…" His face contorted and he tried to cover it up again, so I took him in my arms and gently stroked his back. "I can't get through it, I'm sorry," he said emotionally.

"No," I replied. "This just told me more about how you feel than any number of words ever could, ok?"

"I love you so fucking much Cody and there is nothing I wouldn't do for you, I swear."

"I know, I love you too, more than anything."

For the next couple of minutes we just stayed in each other's arms and cried happy tears. But then I suddenly realized that about thirty people were watching us, so I let go of him.

"Sorry you guys," I said sheepishly.

"It's ok. Do you wanna say your vows now Cody?" Dylan replied.

"Oh. I can try," I answered. "Troy, not even three weeks ago I didn't like you and I was kind of scared of you. But now, the only thing I'm scared of is not spending every second of every day for the rest of my life with you…" was all I managed to say before I started to sob and Troy took me in his arms again. "I swear on everything, there will never be anything more important to me than you Troy," I said and looked into his eyes.

"Jesus I love you," he replied and he kissed passionately.

"Hey, not so fast," Dylan said and we reluctantly parted.

"Sorry," Troy and I said at the same time.

"It's ok. Now Troy, do you wanna be Cody's husband, no matter what?" Dylan said.

"God yes!" Troy replied forcefully and we both smiled.

"And Cody, do you wanna be Troy's husband, no matter what?"

"I do, with all my heart," I answered.

"You're already wearing your rings, so you are now husband and husband," Dylan said. "You can kiss if you want… But not too long or it's gross."

We laughed and then kissed each other tenderly. When we parted everyone got up and started to clap and cheer.

"Smile please," Zarah said with a Polaroid camera in her hand, so we smiled and she took a photo of us. We hugged Wyet, Ashley and the boys and by the time everyone else had personally congratulated us it was already starting to get dark, so we all helped rearranging everything back the way it was and lit the torches and the colorful lanterns on the tables. When we were done "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" by Elton John came on.

"Wanna dance?" Troy asked softly and offered me his hand.

"But I don't know how," I replied.

"Me neither, but we could just hold each other and sway to the music a little."

"Ok, sure."

Troy took me in his arms and we slowly rocked back and forth. It was really hard not to cry, I was so happy.

"Can you believe all we have now?" I asked.

"No, I'm pretty sure I've died and now I'm in heaven, dreaming this."

I giggled.

"Yeah, that sounds about right," I said and we both laughed.

For the next couple of minutes we just enjoyed being close to each other and I was completely lost in the moment when suddenly a flash went off next to us. It was Zarah, who had taken another photo.

"Sorry… Carry on," she said and walked away. A second later Ashley appeared with two glasses and handed them to us.

"It's champagne. Now come on, let's sit down," she said.

"We're right behind you," I answered, looked at Troy and held up my champagne. "To all we have now," I said.

"To all we have now," he repeated. We clinked glasses and then both took a sip. It tasted amazing.

"Let's go," I said.

Troy nodded and we went over to our table where Ashley and Wyett were waiting for us.

"The boys have arranged a little surprise for you," Ashley said.

"Really? What?" I replied.

"You'll see… WE'RE READY!" she yelled.

Someone turned off the music and it got quiet. Suddenly something shot into the air by the water and then exploded in a beautiful green pattern. The next two explosions followed right away and the sky lit up again. It was spectacular.

Everyone was distracted, so I decided to look around. They boys were sitting close to the fireworks and Dylan was hugging his brother, who lovingly gave him a kiss on the head. To our right there was Ashley and Wyett, who had his arm on his daughter's shoulders. And to our left there were Lucky and Barklay on a blanket. The dog was sitting and observantly watching what was going on while the kitten was rubbing himself against his side.

And then there was Troy. My Troy.

I took his hand and he looked at me, full of love and endless devotion. I had never been happier than in that moment. I closed my eyes and we kissed.