A/N: As many of you have probably noticed, I'm upping the rating of the story. From this point on, everything will T-rated until I say otherwise. This chapter gets an M-rating for sexual content, so be prepared! I promised you chaos and orgies, so bring on the fun! If you are uncomfortable with reading sexual content, please drop to the second part of chapter at the break line where things are explained but not shown. Thanks for being patient with me and still reading after all this time!

Quarantine: Day Four Part Two

"JR!" Avery beamed, so happy to see that he had not been lucid dreaming and that JR really did tell him he would come for dinner. "So glad you made it!"

"Did I have a choice?"

Avery laughed. So funny, his JR. And so terribly good looking in that suit of his, so black and simple yet so well cut. It was a shame a face and body like that was wasted playing an instrument instead of plastered on underwear ads or runways. People told Avery that about himself, actually. It was something they had in common: the unbearable weight of being handsome and knowing nothing good could come of it.

"I hope you like chicken. To eat, that is. Terrible if you like chickens as pets. I begged my mom for one when I was younger (last year, but what age if not a number?), had a name picked out and everything. Rocko, I wanted to call him. He would be speckled with the blackest wing feathers and - "

"Chicken is fine."

It was rude to cut off someone mid-story. But Avery was in a forgiving mood, riding the high of having JR in the flesh across the table.

Avery had gone all out for this - or as all out as Seth would let him on such short notice. Had this been normal non-pandemic times, Avery would have sprung for fresh flowers and some live music to play the Beethoven JR loved so much. He had to make do with the regular candlesticks and a boombox in the corner playing the mixtape he pressed fresh for JR. Maybe JR would notice the mix was made just for him, or maybe Avery could tell him later once he won the musical debate once and for all.

JR proved himself to be a true gentleman, however, pulling out his chair and sitting with his back ramrod straight. He snapped the cloth napkin across his lap and didn't even let his elbows brush the top of his table. Seth would be head over heels for this guy's table manners. Every time Avery let out a burp mid-dinner, he swore it took a year off of Seth's life.

Silence prevailed as butlers filled their glasses with water and wine. Avery didn't plan on drinking any wine, but he had heard it was the European equivalent to water. The Italians loved it when they visited, at least, and Niko loved the stuff. JR had to fall in the same boat.

Or maybe he didn't? The musician grabbed the glass of water and took a big swallow, ignoring the wine altogether. Shame, because Seth had assured Avery that was a good vintage...whatever that meant. Had Avery made some kind of mistake? Were people really different from their stereotypes?

Chicken and greens were laid out on silver trays, steaming and flagrant. Avery's mouth watered, but he waited for JR to take the first bite. Habit, really. The paranoia of being poisoned by one's own sister really never left. Not since that one time when they were ten.

"I hope you're not disappointed with the lack of courses. The kitchen staff told me that it would be a waste of food, due to the lockdown," Avery said with a sigh. He hated to look cheap, especially in front of a guest. "Besides, they wanted to save some for the wake..."

The thought of Victor made Avery sad, but in a way that someone mourned their pet ferret after they forgot to feed it for a week while they were on vacation in the Maldives. The sadness was surface. He and Victor were never close, friends who ran in the same social circles but never orbited the same planets. Avery was a prince, a planet, while Victor was a Duke, a moon meant to follow. Still, the loss of a moon was a hard one, and Avery didn't like to dwell on how much that loss would be felt. Later.

Victor would want Avery to be happy. To be here, in the moment, with JR. Victor would understand, was probably up there behind the pearly gates cheering Avery on. Avery wouldn't let Victor down.

"It's fine," JR said, taking another bite and swallowing it down with more water.

Avery would have to talk to the kitchens about not cooking the chicken bone dry. No amount of sauce could bring juice back to this bird. Everything was going so wrong, and it had only been ten minutes! Avery felt his cheeks burn, desperate to salvage things.

"So, I have a few talking points I'd like to go over, first of which involves the artist Carly Rae Jepsen and - "

"Do we skip to the part where you tell me why I'm really here?"

"Why you're really...here...?" Avery was confused.

JR pushed his plate away. He leaned against his chair, arms crossed. The exact opposite of the gentleman who arrived moments earlier.

"Do you think I am stupid? You invite me back to your room, alone, in the middle of a pandemic, for dinner?" JR asked skeptically, voice rising at each point as if he were trying to spell something out in a language Avery did not speak. "My English may not be perfect, but I am aware of the phrase 'Netflix and chill.'"

"What is Netflix?"

"You really want to play it that way?"

JR stood and threw his napkin in his empty chair, managing to make that look both elegant and sexy. Though not as elegant and sexy as his walk over to Avery's chair. There was such a fire in his piercing blue eyes, such a defiant sort of intensity that Avery thought, perhaps, JR might strike him. Instead, JR sunk to his knees. Which was weird and confusing and Avery was about to ask him what he was doing until JR reached for his belt.

Then, everything became crystal clear.

"I-I'm not - I'm not gay," Avery stuttered, clutching onto the tablecloth for dear life.

"Neither am I."

Clearly neither of their bodies got the memo. The heat in JR's eyes would have burned Avery's sensitive skin; he was grateful his foundation has SPF.

JR reached out, palm finding purchase on the crotch of Avery's pants, slowly rubbing the area where his erection was rapidly growing. Avery's hips jerked up immediately at the touch, seeking more friction, while he whined through his teeth. It felt so good, and he knew JR's mouth would feel even better, but this was also too much, too fast.

"Shouldn't we...finish dinner?" Avery said aloud, his face flushing even darker red.

JR laughed and moved his hand to unbutton Avery's pants, pull down the fly, push past the elastic band of his underwear. As soon as Avery felt those long musician's fingers wrap around his cock, he lost all rational thought.

The lyrics from a Billie Eilish song played on repeat: bruises on both my knees for you, don't say thank you or please, I do what I want when I'm wanting to, my soul so cynical.

Fingers left, and just as Avery was about to complain they were replaced by the wet, rough surface of a tongue. Avery sucked in a breath as that tongue licked him up and down, laving at the head. He was already having trouble breathing, his chest heaving as JR teased him.

"Oh fuck."

JR ran his tongue up and down the shaft a few more times, teasing and lapping at Avery's sensitive skin until his cock stood rigid against his belly. Only then did JR place his lips against the swollen head and suck gently on it.

Avery bucked up out of the chair, and JR gagged, taking the head completely inside his mouth and swirling his tongue around the head. He had to pin Avery by the hips, fingers digging into the bone to hold him still as he thrashed. Avery's own hands went to JR's hair, threading his fingers into the unruly locks and holding on for dear life.

It was strangely sexy, Avery thought as he glanced down, to watch the spit dribble out of JR's mouth and onto his cock only for it to disappear against behind swollen lips. But JR was a sight to behold, clearly enjoying taking JR down against and again, his own hand down his pants, jerking himself off. Avery could come at the sight alone.

"Mmmm, JR!" he moaned, not caring who cared at this point. He would've screamed his admiration of this man's blowjob prowess from the rooftops of the palace had he been allowed outside.

Avery felt the familiar tingle at the base of his spine - familiar from many nights alone with his left hand - grow much more intense. He knew what that meant, but he didn't know if he had the ability to alert JR, not with his eyes rolling back into his head as the man flicked his tongue right over the head like that and oh fucking hell -

"Wait - !"

Avery meant to warn JR. Really, he did. It was just...everything happened so fast: the rash of heat through his body, the the bolt of lightning down his spine that made his toes curl and his whole body pull tight like JR's bowstrings.

JR gagged and pulled off, coughing and spitting onto the ground. His spit was remarkably less sexy than before, eyes red and watering.

"You..." Avery gasped, looking into JR's eyes, stunned. "You're not gonna seduce my dad, are you?"

It's what Billie would do. All he knew about romance was from her.

Apparently, the idea disgusted JR.

He got up and brushed off his pants, not even a speck of dust on his knees. No one would know what happened. Not unless they looked at his hair, or the wet spot on his pants between his legs, or his bright red lips. Completely discrete.

He didn't even say goodbye as he turned around and stormed out the dining room. Avery felt stung. Was that the European way as well? To disappear after a blowjob, no hugs or kisses or anything? The old movies Avery watched on his sister's laptop showed that he was owed some cuddling. Or at least someone to help him clean the mess.

Who knew sex was so messy?

Oh, wasn't that novel - he had sex! Avery was no longer a virgin! At least Addy wouldn't be able to hold that over his head anymore.

A blonde maid came into the room a few minutes later. It spoke volumes on her professionalism that she did not mention Avery's ruined appearance or his lack of dinner guest, though the blush on her face let Avery know she probably heard a thing or two. She kept her eyes cast down as she dipped into a curtsy.

"Is there anything I can get you, Your Highness?" she asked the ground.

"No..." Avery stuttered, his breathing still not quite right. It felt like he had run a marathon. Not that he'd ever run one of those before. It was just the most apt comparison, memories of hosting the Olympics in Angeles a few years ago and watching the sweat run down the sprinter's backs as their muscles corded with tension running through his mind and - good God, was he hard again?

Maybe he really was gay.

"Clean this up," Avery instructed, getting up from the table and walking out of the dining room in a daze. He was dimly aware that he had barely gotten to eat, a perfectly dry confit cooling on its platter, but his stomach would have to wait. It could rumble in protest all he liked.

He had a sexuality to discover.

Johann Rainier Kappel had an image problem. As the most photogenic member of JACK (arguably - Karolina had opinions), the world-renowned string quartet, most people thought that Jack was his name. A good portion of interviews (and there weren't that many) referred to him as Jack until JR had to eventually correct them. Few people knew that JACK stood for something.

JACK was four uniquely talented musicians. JACK was Adriane's unrelenting energy and Cristian's guiding hand and Karolina's intense dedication to practice and discipline. JACK was JR's family. And while JR was upset that he was stuck in this nightmare palace, he was profoundly grateful that he was stuck in this nightmare palace with three people who would never judge him or turn their back on him no matter what.

"Bloody hell!" Karolina gasped upon seeing JR's rumpled state as he returned to the sitting room his friends had claimed for themselves. "You alright? You look like you got mauled by a lion"

Honestly, the comparison wasn't that far off. Avery had held him with an iron grip, fingers fisted painfully against the skin of his scalp and pulled his hair every which way. Took sex hair to a whole new level. JR had pulled on it nervously the entire walk back to his friends' room, telling himself he was trying to set it right but only managing to make it worse. Everyone who passed him stopped and stared, knowing exactly what had happened to make his hair stand up that wildly.

The only reason his friends didn't jump to the same conclusion was because they knew him. JR didn't do things like this. He was the kind of guy who wanted to curl up with a hot cup of tea, heavy blankets, and listen to music on opposite sides of a couch. He wasn't the kind of guy to proposition the Prince of Illéa. He wasn't the kind of guy to get on his knees for a total stranger.

Until now.

"I..."

Suddenly, there were hands on his face. Hands with familiar calluses. As JR's gaze forcibly turned up, he looked straight into the conventionally-handsome, square-jawed face of his dad-friend.

"Did you get into a fight?" Cristian continued, fretting over him like a mother hen, turning JR's head this way and that way as he assessed the 'damage'. "Did someone say something unkind? Because you know that I can take them - "

"No, I did not get into a fight," JR sighed, pushing Cristian off of him. He knew his friends meant well, but they could be smothering. "Nothing like that."

"Well then, we're all ears," Adriane said, setting her cello aside and giving him her full attention. She was still wearing her performance dress: a long-sleeved black slip that cut off at her ankles. She crossed said ankles with all the grace of a princess and fixed her dark gaze onto his startled baby blues.

There was never any hiding when Adriane broke out The Stare™.

"I may have...accidentally...given the Prince of Illéa a blowjob?"

Adriane's jaw hit the floor.

"WHAT?"

"OH MY GOD!"

It was hard to tell who was screaming what. JR held his arms out, trying to calm them down before they attracted attention from the guards.

"I know, I know, it's bad! I get it!"

Adriane slapped him across the arm with her bow. "This is not what I meant when I said you should be more adventurous!"

JR hissed as he rubbed his arm. For something as light as a bow, it packed quite a bit of force behind Adriane's skilled hands. She was always trying to get them out and about, always the one encouraging them to explore the cities they visited on tour or take 'quick' excursions that lasted whole days - or, memorably, an entire weekend without cell service in the Swiss Alps. She was the one who encouraged them to take this nightmare job. Under different circumstances, she would have had the time of her life.

A loud sigh escaped Karolina as she heaved herself up from her spot on the couch. A tray of tea sat mostly untouched on a table by the door. She poured two cups and handed one to JR, still steaming and with a lemon on the side. Just how he liked it.

"So...tell us," Karolina drawled, settling herself back into the cushions for the long haul. "What was it like?"

"Karolina!" Cristian hissed, partly mortified yet also fascinated. He took his role as the 'responsible one' very seriously...until he remembered that he was only thirty and liked his share of shenanigans from time to time. He placed a hand supportively on JR's shoulder and squeezed. "Only tell us if you want to JR, of course."

"Fuck that!" Karolina fired back, Polish accent coming out thick as she threw a spare pillow at Cristian. "Our sex-deprived best friend just got some, and with the fucking prince! I need every detail."

All eyes were on him once more. JR hated it.

"I'm telling you, there's nothing to tell. He invited me over for dinner. I thought that was an Illéan euphemism for sex - the whole 'Netflix and chill' thing, you know?" Adriane nodded in agreement, sympathetic. She had been known to take a tumble or two in a similar manner. "He was not so terrible. His company, that is. Not like he usually is. The idea didn't repulse me, so I just...wound up giving him a blowjob."

Karolina spit out her tea. Cristian's eyes grew wide as saucers.

"JR! I didn't think you had it in you!" Adriane crowed, something like pride in her voice which utterly betrayed her earlier statement.

"How big was he?" Karolina asked as she dabbed up spilled tea with the sleeve of her dress, mischief alight in her eyes. "Like, was he a mouthful or was he so big you had to use your hand?"

"I don't remember using any hands."

Cristian whistled. JR's cheeks flushed at the thought.

"Okay, what happened next?" Adriane prodded, all grace and propriety forgotten as she leaned forward, absorbing every detail like a sponge.

"We finished dinner."

He didn't need to recall the mortifying ordeal of not knowing what to do when it was over. Of how he didn't say anything. Of how he just stood up on shaking legs and wiped the back of his mouth with his hand, trying hard not to spit. Of how he just sort of stood there and looked at Avery, glassy-eyed and stunned stupid, dick out and soft, and turned around and left.

"That's it? You got nothing in return?" Adriane sounded...disappointed. Like she expected more.

"I got dinner," JR said with a shrug.

"You got an erection," Karolina said snidely, lowering her gaze and wrinkling her nose. "Look, there it is, still waiting."

"Stop looking." JR felt his cheeks heat further as he scrambled to cover his lap with a nearby folio of sheet music.

"Stop parading it around."

"I was mortified, okay?" JR snapped, tired and confused and flustered. So much of this night was a blur he just didn't have answers for. "It was clear that dinner meant just dinner, not sex. I...misinterpreted the situation and made things awkward. So I left."

"Jesus Christ, JR," Cristian sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, no doubt drawing up exit strategies and defense statements for when they all got arrested for sexual misconduct against a royal. "First the world has gone mad, and now you."

Something kept replaying in JR's brain: Avery's stuttered protest, his half-hearted confession of, "I'm not gay."

"Neither am I," JR had replied. And it was the truth. The prince didn't need to know that JR was bisexual. It wasn't important. They would never find themselves in that situation again.

But it wasn't the words JR kept coming back to; it was the look on Avery's face. So open. So trusting. So scared.

"You know...the strangest thing is, I think that was his first."

"YOU TOOK THE PRINCE'S VIRGINITY, AND THEN YOU FUCKING LEFT HIM THERE?!" Karolina reached new decibels of whistle-tone that only dogs could hear.

"It's not like I know what I'm doing! I don't just run around blowing people!"

That was the problem. He'd never blown anyone before. Never. His friends fucking knew that. None of this was what JR would normally do. This was so far out of the realm of something he even thought he could do. And yet, there he was, in the aftermath of a walk of shame that he never anticipated having in the middle of what was the worst job JACK had ever taken.

JR hadn't known what had taken over him, just that it had and there was no going back.

"Virginity is a social construct that should not hold any value in today's day and age," Adriane said calmly, rationally. "The prince is a grown and consenting adult. If he had a problem with how things conspired, he could have used his words."

"Exactly. Thank you, Adriane."

"However, running away does make you a cock."

"Fuck you, Adriane." JR was trying and failing to keep his cool. The longer he thought about the situation - and the sheer amount of trouble the fallout could cost should the Prince of Illéa go running his mouth to his father - the harder it was to stay still. He threw himself onto the couch beside Karolina, grabbing a pillow to cover the problem in his pants. "What should I do? Go back to his room and demand favors in return?"

"No, that is entirely uncool. And desperate," Karolina scoffed as if JR were an idiot for suggesting something so crass.

"You've done enough damage, my friend," Cristian said with sympathy, reaching over to pat JR's nearest available body part which just happened to be his knee. The knee that was likely starting to bruise from time spent kneeling on the hard wooden floor. "Best to just let this one blow over."

"Haha! Blow!" Adriane crowed, a smug smile pulling at the corners of her lips.

"Yes, yes we get it," JR moaned miserably. Would this suffering ever end? "Please let me die now."

"We will do no such thing," Karolina said, very matter of fact. "You are going to finish your tea and sleep a full eight hours. When you wake up, you will find Prince Avery and talk this out like adults, yes?"

"Must I?"

"You must," Karolina replied, refilling his tea to the brim. "Life is a landscape of awkward encounters. You are simply the first in a new breed of his, and he in yours."

"Welcome to dating as an adult," Adriane said with a smile that was not at all reassuring.

"Well," Cristian sighed and stood, reaching for his own cup of tea. "This is shaping up to be quite the momentous occasion."

"It's really not - "

"To JR's first one night stand," Cristian said, his teacup raised in a toast. "We've all been there, but not quite as bad."

"Here here," Karolina said, raising her glass to meet Cristian's with a delicate clink.

Mortification rolled fresh through JR's bones. It was possible that, if they all survived this plague, he would end up killing his friends anyway.