by Jude Sierra
Erik was different. Erik wasn’t a choice, because a week without him had flayed River like nothing he’d experienced before. The aftermath of that week, even coalescing into one night, was more than River ever had from a lover. He’d felt sexy and been fucked; he’d never been ashamed, and while hookups and first times were always somewhat awkward, he didn’t have an ounce of shyness in bed.
But he’d never, ever been so seen. They’d touched every inch of each other. Erik’s taste still lingered. His scent, too, and the haunting ache he pulled from River’s bones, through his skin.
River wasn’t art, but what they did together could have been.
And now, face down in Cheyenne’s chair, the steady thrum of Erik’s touch in his muscles and the aching bruise healing in his chest were held close and tight.
“You sure you don’t want to see this part?” Cheyenne peeled back the transfer paper.
“No.” River turned and rested his cheek on the padded vinyl.
Wolfbite013: Des will cut me loose early if I want
Watermarked: We’re doing the last part of my back piece. Will take a while.
Wolfbite013: K. I’ll stay on till close
Watermarked: Still wanna see you
Wolfbite013: always wanna see you
Wolfbite013: fuck, forget I said that. Too much?
River smiled, read the words over and over
Watermarked: no. My usual line for you is please don’t stop
Wolfbite013: ::crying laugh emoji::
Wolfbite013: ask Sally to let you in if you’re done before me. Stay. Bring a toothbrush. Stuff. I’ll make room.
River took a breath.
“You ready?” Cheyenne had one hand flat on the small of his back.
“Yeah, I think I am.”
Watermarked: You sure?
Wolfbite013: Please don’t stop
River closed his eyes at the familiar bite of the needle, sighed into the burning vibrations. This was pain he could handle. Necessary pain. River might not have been art, but he needed it. Not just as creation, but embodiment.He wasn’t delicate or museum-bound—he’d resist being archived to the last breath. By the same token, though, River wasn’t ephemeral moments and quicksilver change, either, and he didn’t intend to be those for Erik anymore. Maybe what River needed to become was living art, and not just for Erik, but for himself, too.
“You’ve been quiet,” Cheyenne said. She was working over his right shoulder blade. “Need a break?”
“No, not yet.”
“What about your man? Do you need a break there?”
River grunted as she passed over thinly protected bone. “You gonna give me therapy or art?”
“How about a two for one?”
“I don’t need therapy.” River bit his lip when she chuckled.
“Tell me about him, then. A moody River is substantially less fun than other versions. What’s with his tattoos?”
River thought his way around the truth, to a simpler explanation. “He’s a fighter. He gets them if he wins.”
They poison everything they touch.
The Svara haunted River on nights when his bed was empty and he couldn’t sleep. He thought he’d understood its edges when he’d told Erik he hadn’t been poisoned. But Erik’s voice breaking around Shakespeare under the press of River’s fingers on a deep bruise had given him more to think about.
Maybe now River would understand. Maybe Erik would, too, about their willingness to hurt and the limits to how they were willing to hurt each other. The worst of it all was that River had put the Svara on Erik’s skin. River had helped him tell a poisonous story he refused to believe.
What might Erik ask for next? What story was he telling with his body?
“What’s it like?” River asked. “To make something for someone that they know nothing about? To do this blind?”
“It’s…” Cheyenne paused. He wanted to ask her to keep going, to keep him under that wash of nagging pain, where everything became slow and viscous. “It’s powerful and frightening.”
“Have you done it before?”
“A few times,” Cheyenne said. She’d turned the music off when they’d closed for the night, and when she rolled away to get more ink, the squeaking wheel on her chair amplified the emptiness of the room.
“Hey,” River said. “Would you mind putting the music back on?”
“Of course.” Cheyenne stripped off her gloves. She moved quietly now, having slipped out of her shoes. They lay half under her workstation, cherry-red patent peep-toe heels with bows shaped like skulls on the back. He wanted to paint them. Maybe hazy, or like brittle, beautiful spun glass.
The low throb of their usual music flipped on. River knew she wasn’t deterred from her questions. He just couldn’t answer while that exposed, stripped half-naked in a brightly lit cave, with the most no-nonsense woman he knew at his back.
“You haven’t distracted me enough,” Cheyenne said, straddling the chair. Black gloves went on like butter—every move was efficient. River strove for that, for economy of movement, for alignment in environment. With Cheyenne, it was effortless. River thought of Erik, of his hand under his thigh in the tub. Of how his voice broke around River’s name when he almost slipped into the water, then broke again on a gasping laugh. River wondered about Erik and thought, Maybe effort isn’t so bad.
“Well, it’s been over a month and he’s still here,” River said.
“Yes. Plans for Valentine’s?”
“Oh, fuck.” River closed his eyes. Cheyenne’s laugh, the wicked, small thing it was, didn’t sting as much as it could’ve. “Do you think he expects something?”
“I don’t know him.”
River bit his lip. “Well, he’s not romantic, exactly, but…not because he’s really not.”
“Damn, is it riddle hour? I thought we were coming up on eleven. I’d already planned my midnight snack.”
“Shut up,” River said. She was on his spine now, and it was all he could do not to laugh. She pulled back so he could.
“Here’s the deal: he wants to be something he isn’t, I think. But not in a good way. It’s like he’s trying to fulfill this idea of who he is—”
“A self-fulfilling prophecy?”
Maybe. A punishing one.
“He thinks I’m the sweet one. I think he’s worried about breaking me.”
“He won’t break you, I know that. And maybe you’re not as sweet as he thinks. You’ve got sharp little teeth, even if you don’t use them enough.”
“What’s that mean?” River asked. Cheyenne knew, though. Everyone at Styx did. His mother loved to visit and dote on him, sure. But Megan also liked to hurt him when she wasn’t sober, and she wasn’t selective about witnesses.
“You worry too much about damaging others and not enough about how they scar you.” She wiped his back and rolled away. “Need a break now?”
He hummed. He could use the bathroom. She shook her hand out; her hair was coming loose. River wanted to tuck it behind her ear, like he might with Val, but it wasn’t like that and never had been with Cheyenne. Perhaps it was the well-meaning but off-the-mark advice. Maybe it was the assumption that River passively allowed people to hurt him.
Sharp little teeth. River shook his head and walked away.
…
Steve: Where you been?
River: Right now trying to sleep. It’s 3 am asshole.
Steve: Knew I’d catch you.
River paused. Held his breath. When had he last hung out with Steve?
River: shit I did it again didn’t I?
Steve: Yes and it’s not cute.
Erik rolled over. One arm snaked over River’s waist and hauled him closer. His hair was soft against River’s lips. Only the dark kept the sweet kiss he gave him secret.
River: I’ll call tomorrow. Promise.
Steve: I’m off tomorrow. You don’t call I’m coming for you.
River: Lunch at Tat’s.
Steve
: C ya then asshole.
It punched a smile out of him. An epithet and affection at once meant he hadn’t screwed up too bad.
…
“So, let me get this straight. In the time since we last spoke—weeks ago—you acquired an actual boyfriend, broke up with him, took him back, and now he’s cleared a drawer for you?”
“Well”—River filled his mouth and mumbled through his food—“more like told me I could use one and stick my stuff in with his.”
“Don’t get technical on me, and don’t think I don’t understand you when you talk with your mouth full.” Steve pointed a french fry at him. Its authority was severely undermined when it broke in half.
“At least it fell in the ketchup?” River said to Steve’s sigh.
“River.” Steve pushed his plate to the side and folded his hands, elbows on the table. “Are you sure this guy is good for you? Even with Brigid, when things were total shit, you didn’t ignore me.”
“I’m not ignoring you.” Guilt and acid worked in tandem on his heavy lunch. “And why do you and Val always bring her up? Is there a reason no one will ever let me live down one bad relationship?” River laid his hands flat on the table. He hated that they loved him like this, like a collection of mistakes, like he wasn’t capable or trustworthy with his own heart.
The absolute worst was the idea that he might be proving them right. Erik in his bed last night. Erik sighing deep into River’s skin as he shed something heavy, the weight of a persona he walked in every day. The Erik River knew in those moments was proof of something better than they’d had.
River couldn’t let himself think of the other parts. Erik, vicious in fight. Erik, still high in his bathroom, bleeding into his sink.
“Look, Steve. I’m sorry. I really am. You know I never want to be that friend. But I also hate that you guys measure me against every shitty thing people have done to me, or that I’ve ‘let them do.’”
“Riv, it’s not like that. That’s not what I’m doing. I’m allowed to be worried about you, especially when you start dating someone I know nothing about and then start avoiding me,” Steve said.
River kicked him lightly under the table. “I’m not purposely avoiding you. What I am doing, though”—River leaned forward—“is saying you and Val need to chill out and let me be a grown-up. Even if I wanted to come to you, I wouldn’t right now.”
River stood, his scrunched napkin unfurling on the plate where he’d tossed it.
“That’s not fair, man, don’t lump me in with Val. Come on, River, don’t leave.” Steve reached for his arm. If Steve got a hold of him, he’d feel it, the tremor, the worry of being seen and being wrong and being pulled under their well-meaning bullshit. River tucked his hand tight into his pocket.
“I’m sorry. I’ll call you. We’ll set something up. I know Erik would love to meet you.” Two truths and a lie were better than none, right?
River walked out, heedless of the ring of the bell above the door, of the rain that had rolled in on bruised clouds, of the worried lines folding into Steve’s frown.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Night crept into Erik’s apartment, a gust of air that whipped through the open window. It tickled the back of his neck, sending him under the covers and closer to River’s bare skin. Darkness suspended the inches between them, a sliver of space carved out where their noses didn’t quite touch. River bridged the insignificant distance and kissed him.
“I almost lit candles,” Erik joked. “Wore a suit, covered the apartment in rose petals, got you a heart-shaped box of chocolates.”
River laughed against Erik’s smile. “You’re hilarious.”
“Oh, come on.”
“I would’ve appreciated the candles, but that’s it. Dinner was fine.”
“Fine,” Erik repeated, brows raised. “Just fine, huh?”
“We got pizza,” River said matter-of-factly, a laugh clinging to the tail end of pizza.
“We sat down and ate pizza at a restaurant. And we got dessert. Totally different.” Erik dragged his fingertips along River’s arm. “Why only the candles? Not a fan of cheesy Valentine’s Day traditions?”
“No, not a fan,” River mumbled. His smile hadn’t waned, but it quieted. He stroked Erik’s side and shoulder, traced the line of his cheekbone with his thumb. “You’d look good in candlelight.” He touched the bridge of Erik’s nose, the Cupid’s bow of his lips. “That’s why I’d like them.”
Erik thought of River bathed in candlelight. How flames would deepen the shadows on him and turn his bronze skin gold. He imagined River on his stomach, hot wax dripping down his spine. Yeah, he should’ve lit some candles.
“Maybe the suit, too,” River whispered.
“Yeah?” Erik bumped his nose against River’s cheek. “Want me to put one on?”
“You own a suit?”
Erik barked a laugh. “Of-fucking-course I don’t, c’mon.”
Laughter sprung from River—messy, warm, affectionate laughter. It was in the crinkle of his nose and full cheeks, in his heaving chest and bright grin. He wrapped his arm around Erik’s middle and pulled until the space between them disappeared. Erik kissed the smile from River’s lips and inhaled the lingering chuckles that bubbled in his mouth.
“It’s been a while since I’ve done this,” River said. He traced the Svara’s tail on Erik’s rib cage. “Been with someone on Valentine’s Day.”
It’s been a while since I’ve done this, Erik thought. Collided with someone so effortlessly, so quickly. “I’m demiromantic,” he blurted. It came out rough, and he closed his eyes as soon as he said it.
“And I’m bisexual…?” River quirked a brow. “Why are we—”
“That was weird, sorry. I mean—I just… It usually takes me a long time to get there.”
“Get there?”
“Here,” Erik corrected.
River’s brown eyes picked Erik apart, darting from his mouth to his brows and back again. His smile came easy, but it was questioning.
Erik wished he could rewind the conversation. He pushed River onto his back instead, and crawled over him. “I didn’t actually think it would happen. Me. You. Us.”
River tilted his head. “Is there an us?”
“Yeah.” Erik leaned back. River chased him, craning up until their lips brushed. “There’s an us.”
“What did you think would happen?” River’s hands were never still. They ran along Erik’s shoulders, his nape, into his hair and over his cheeks.
“I thought I might get lucky and you’d kiss me back,” Erik whispered. Honesty was a strange, heavy thing.
“I did.”
“You did.” Erik laced their fingers, pressing River’s hand into the bed above his head. He pried at River’s lips with his own, a long, deep kiss that went on and on. “And now it’s Valentine’s Day, and you’re in my bed, and…”
The darkness thickened. Cold dripped into the room, but Erik could barely feel it. Nothing moved. Silence held its breath, and Erik wondered if this was what it was like—the part people wrote poetry about. He wondered if nights like these made fools out of men like him, nights when love showed its teeth, and men like him got bitten.
River flipped them over and sat comfortably in Erik’s lap. “Of course I’m here. Best fuck of your life and all.”
“River,” Erik sighed. He rolled his eyes and snorted. River, poised and smug, wore a thin smile. “You’re never gonna let that go, are you? It wasn’t a lie, but it’s not…”
“I don’t need your sentiment.” River rubbed his thumb over Erik’s mouth. “I’m just giving you shit.”
“And if I told you I cared about you? If I wanted to give you sentiment?” Erik sat upright. He curled his arms around River and held him there, but it didn’t last. River wrestled him back down, pinned Erik’s hands to the bed, knees bracketing Erik’s hips. Erik searched River’s face and asked, “If I told you this meant something to me?”
River swallowed. He r
ested his forehead against Erik’s. “I’d believe you.”
“Good.” Erik pulled one hand loose, cupped the back of River’s head and drew him into another kiss.
I’d believe you. Erik fit those words into the private part of his heart that he pretended didn’t exist. The part where Lee and Beverly and River’s laughter were tucked away. He sighed, pressing into River’s body above him. Lips feathered over Erik’s nose. River paused to kiss the healing bruise below his left eye.
“You fighting this week?” River almost masked his uncertainty, but not quite.
“Yeah, at Gem. Shouldn’t be too bad this time.” He followed River’s movements, adjusting to fit against River comfortably.
River’s chin settled on Erik’s shoulder. “At least let yourself heal, asshole.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“What’s with the different venues? And the…” River chose his next words carefully. “I knew you didn’t wear gloves…” He paused to take Erik’s scarred hand and bring it to his mouth, lips warm on each letter of W O L F. “But there aren’t any mats?”
“It’s not about the sport,” Erik said. He dragged his knuckles over River’s cheek. “It’s about the blood. The ruthlessness. Gem and Virgo aren’t as bad as the Warehouse.”
“I didn’t even know Gem had a cage.”
“There’s a back room with a ring, not a cage. Pete switches the location every other week to kill any leads.” Erik shrugged. “Cops wouldn’t be too worried about the fights, but they’d bust him for gambling and money laundering. The liquor at the Warehouse, too. Gem is the cleanest venue, Virgo is flashy and dramatic. He keeps security tight at the Warehouse because that’s where shit gets broken.”
“Yeah, I saw,” River growled. “Shit like your ribs.”
“Just bruised,” he said softly, “not broken.”
The yet hung heavy in the air. It was inevitable, and Erik knew that. One day he’d fight, and he’d lose, and he’d come out of it broken. But that day hadn’t arrived.
Erik hummed, body stirring pleasantly into the tickle of River’s index finger, tracing line after line on the praying hands that stained Erik’s hip. “If I win this fight, I’ll get another dragon.”