Rage With Benefits

The Question: All Is Calm... For the Most Part

Winter 2029, Norris's Residence, Christmas

"You're thirty-year-old men with stable jobs, why can't you just get your own apartments?" Ian gabbled as he chewed into another unsupervised carrot despite his mother's incessant reminder not to.

"Hey!" Blake yelled, offended at such accusations. "I'm twenty-seven."

Asher had his eyes narrowed at the man. "No, you're not."

"I so am."

"You're twenty-eight."

Blake scoffed. "You're twenty-eight."

Standing in the middle of Olivia's supposedly busy kitchen were Blake and Asher, surrounded by Cameron, Emery, Bryce, and of course, Ian, who were all least to say amused at hearing the two bicker again after a year of them not seeing each other in flesh.

"I am twenty-eight," Asher deadpanned, stretching his hands. "We're all twenty-eight."

They'd been talking about Blake and Asher's refusal to move out of their shared apartment in Oregon after Asher started complaining about Blake's annoying habit of leaving his shoes out "like a twelve-year-old", which went along with their previous topic regarding everyone's living situation now that the former elite group of swimmers are literally miles away from each other. Ian and Bryce had recently just moved into a bigger apartment in LA a month ago following the latter's big promotion at his firm. Cameron and Emery took the chance to fly home this year as they are both currently working overseas. They are under separate companies, still and all, the two happened to be both based in Australia, which is convenient considering—

"I'm twenty-nine," Cameron blurted as he finished chopping the last set of tomatoes. Blake snorted, pointing at the blond.

"Haha, grandpa."

Cameron rolled his eyes before deciding to ignore the sole child in the house besides Evie as he brought his bowl of tomatoes to bring Olivia outside, leaving Blake and Asher alone with Ian, who was still waiting for an answer to his question-more-like-suggestion.

"Well, I'm outta here," Blake whistled as he walked out after Cameron, while Asher followed behind him.

"See?" Ian huffed, cocking his head to the side as he looked at Bryce and Emery, the latter barely laughing at his reaction. "Whenever I bring the topic up they either change it or walk away."

"Have you seen their apartment though? I wouldn't wanna move too if I lived in that place," the redhead pointed out. "I'd marry one of them for that view."

Ian hummed, remembering the last time they'd been at Blake and Asher's apartment which was Thanksgiving three years ago. Luxury pool, quiet neighborhood, big gym, big community space for dogs; yeah that place wasn't so bad. "Touché, but..."

His eyes darted beside him before he could continue as he caught sight of his boyfriend nervously chewing on his bottom lip. Now that he thought about it, Bryce has been weirdly quiet since they got here. Ian didn't pay much attention to it then, thinking he was probably just exhausted from their flight. But it has been two days since then, and this couldn't be an incident, there must be something wrong.

"Hey, are you okay?" the brunet murmured, nudging Bryce gently. Bryce didn't seem to notice or feel anything as he went on. "You look like me when we rode that Splash thingy at Disneyland."

Feeling his boyfriend's eyes on him, the blond startled, "Huh?"

"You've been weirdly quiet all night, babe," Ian told him, worried. "What's wrong?"

"Pfft. What do you mean? I'm fine," Bryce gurgled with a little too much nonchalance, laughing as he continued working on a bunch of onions Olivia gave him to dice (or at least try to) a few minutes ago. "It's the onions, they make me sick."