by Lissa Kasey
Instead I followed and hoped that time would ease what he refused to share.
When we arrived at his place, I was surprised at how quickly we got from the hotel to Micah’s, and realized how close Lukas’s place really was to everything. I must have gone in circles earlier in the day because it was less than a ten-minute walk. Micah let me in and we both greeted Jet who rubbed his cheek on my leg. I knelt down to give him the scratches that he seemed to crave. He purred happily.
Micah vanished into the mystery closet rather than taking his crafts upstairs like I thought he would. I got up and followed, wondering how big a closet it was. Over all, he had a minimalist style to his apartment. Everything was clean lines, necessary, and put away. With the exception of the mermaid cat sheets which were still on the futon, though the bed had been pushed back into a couch position.
I knew the upstairs was a craft space because I’d seen it, so I wasn’t expecting the explosion of crafts central in his closet when I followed him in. Like I imagined entering the wardrobe and stepping into Narnia might have been, it felt a bit like a different world. A treasure trove of well-crafted goodies, like a dragon’s hoard of miscellaneous shiny things, clothing, and texture.
The room was easily twice the size of the bathroom, with built-in rods for hangers and drawers. There was a section of shoes, everything from a spread of bright sneakers to sparkling stiletto boots. The back wall appeared to be a mess of compartments filled with fabric, organized by color and perhaps type as several rows of rainbows arched through the shelves. The entire right wall a canvas of costumes and completed crafts. Including a section of quilts hanging from clips, purses and bags of all types both sewn and crocheted, and costumes that ranged from cute Japanese school girl to a section of full-length coats that made me think of all those old video games I’d played as a kid. The ones in which the badass MC had a stack of guns in his coat, and the coat would billow out around him as he fired, ringing him in badass glory. That sort of thing never happened in real life, logistics and the science of gravity, but in the gaming cosplay world, anything was possible.
Micah pulled out a drawer and added the bag of his crochet project to it. A coat, which appeared to be made out of dragon scales, caught my eye. Gray in color, I thought at first, only as I got closer and pulled the hanger free from the rod, the coat had an iridescent shimmer, like metallic threads woven through the fibers, changing when the light hit it in different ways. It was surprisingly light for how big and detailed the design looked.
“This is amazing,” I slipped the coat off the hanger, expecting it to be Micah’s size, only it was far too big for Micah’s petite and lean frame. I pulled it on and was surprised that it was only a tiny bit too large through the shoulders for me. When I buttoned the front, I felt like I should be headed off to battle some supernatural war, flaunting my badass-ery as I went.
“Okay, I feel amazing,” I confessed. “Like some game superhero. Do I look like I feel or like a nerd?” I struck a pose that I hoped would look superhero-ish.
Micah smiled, and his expression said nerd, though he responded with, “Superhero.”
“Liar,” I accused.
He held up his hands. “It fits you.”
“Almost. If I hadn’t lost weight it would fit perfectly. How come it’s not in your size?”
“Because dragon scales don’t really fit my personality,” Micah said. “I’m more lace and ruffles.”
“You can be whatever you want. Just because you are pretty, doesn’t mean you have to only wear pretty. Not that I’m opposed to either, or nothing at all.” I pawed through the cosplay side of his closet, finding easily a dozen jackets similar to this one. Some in faux leather, some in suede, and some in lace, all varied in color and size. I could have worn any of them and felt like a king.
“I like lace and ruffles. Dragon scales too, though on me it looks out of place. Maybe I haven’t found the right design yet.”
“How come these aren’t in your shop?” I asked.
“They’re new. And I’ve been playing with multiple patterns.”
“How new?” I looked around the room at the hordes of costumes, quilts, and bags, which were in the dozens of each. “How do you find time to make this stuff and still work the shop full-time, then give tours?”
“I craft when I’m stressed,” Micah reminded me.
“Which you’re saying is every second of your life?”
“Lately yes. And I don’t sleep much.”
I thought about that for a minute, analyzing what I had learned about him in the past twenty-four hours. He always seemed a bit on edge, though hid it well. “So when the thing outside makes noise and wakes you up, you get up and work on stuff?”
“Yes,” he confessed.
“When it woke us up last night did you get up and work on something while I slept?” That bothered me, as I had slept well for the first time in a while. Whether it had been from exhaustion or sleeping wrapped in the warmth of his Christmas scent that helped, I didn’t know yet.
“No. I went back to sleep when you did. I woke up early to text about the shop and then back to sleep. I don’t think I’ve slept that much in a long time.”
“Do you do that when Sky is here and you hear something? Get up and then go back to sleep?”
“I try to go back to sleep. Usually she falls back to sleep and I find a project to work on because I can’t sleep.”
I stared at the closet of stuff around us. “You said the feeling of doom started a little while ago. A couple weeks?”
He nodded, fiddling with organizing a shelf.
“All of this is from the past few weeks,” I deduced.
“Mostly. Some things are mine and I won’t sell them. Some are experiments that didn’t turn out right and I feel bad selling things that aren’t perfect. But yes, I’ve been working on a lot lately. Trying to find a distraction.”
A distraction from doom. Wow, did that sound creepy and difficult. Though I understood it. What if I felt the way I had that night in the desert for weeks at a time? I’d probably go mad.
He riffled through the hangers of costumes. “You can have the coat if you want. It was my first attempt at that pattern. Not sure I like it. I’d probably add more pockets, maybe use a mermaid print next time. I do like the cut of the shoulders and the length. A few of the other patterns have been a bit more complicated, but I’m not as fond of how they drape.” His tone sounded strained even while he rattled off sewing concepts I wasn’t sure I understood, but he wouldn’t look at me.
“Micah?”
He bowed his head, his shoulders slumping, and I heard the faintest sniffle. Was he crying?
“It’s my fault.”
“What is?” I asked, trying to follow his train of thought.
“Sarah missing, Mark dead.”
“No. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred tears. You had just met the girl for a few seconds in your shop. And that Mark guy was bugging you for ages.” Hadn’t I felt the same thing? Like it was all my doing? Maybe Lukas had been right about it being a meeting of two powerful forces. Or maybe two weirdos like us.
“A lot of people have suggested that I’m cursed now. People meet me and fall on hard times like some sort of chain reaction. Tim and Sky, even Lukas.”
I reached out and gripped his shoulder, turning him to face me. His eyes were watery with unshed tears and ringed with exhaustion. “This is probably going to be hard to hear because you’re a video star and all that… but you’re not the sole center of the universe. It doesn’t revolve around you, people aren’t cursed because they breathe the same air you do, life happens in misfortunes for most. Sometimes in clusters, sometimes it’s coincidence, but it’s not your fault. You are not the sun, moon, and stars, yeah?”
He gave me a strained smile. “Yeah? I’m a piece of shit, eh?”
“More like another grain of sand on a big rock like the rest of us.” I held my arms open, letting him make the decision to be touched
or not. Just because I wanted to hug and comfort him, didn’t mean he’d let me. “I mean, if you look at things that way, then it could be as much my fault as yours. Since I’m probably cursed and I spoke to Sarah and Jared for quite a while, and silently wished bad things on that jerk Mark. If anyone is to blame it should probably be me. Though my therapist tells me not to ‘should’ on myself. How about we both agree to that? No ‘shoulding’ on ourselves.” Which sounded a lot like no shitting on ourselves. Good thinking, even if it was hard sometimes in a world that trained us to always be striving for a ‘should.’ “You told me you’ve been doing tours for ages and nothing happens, then I show up. Maybe I’m the cursed one? You sure you want to hang around me?”
Micah hesitated for a minute before stepping into my embrace and laying his head on my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around him. Holding tight, rocking him lightly. He’d been through a lot, no one could be strong forever, and enough bad turns could make anyone think the universe was out to get them. I’d thought that a time or two myself, only to be reminded over and over again that, “I’m really not all that special. None of us are. We aren’t saving the planet or humanity, we aren’t changing the world, we are barely making it through each day. But you know what?” I asked him as I ran my fingers through his hair. “That’s okay. We are doing the best we can being us. Even if it’s seeing or hearing weird shit, that’s a quirk of being us.”
It made me think hard about what Lukas had said. I didn’t need to understand what I’d experienced to keep going. And maybe knowing the truth would make it harder to move forward. “I thought for a while that if I leaned too hard on Lukas he’d leave, you know?” I said.
Micah tensed against me. Recognition, I think, of what he felt every day.
“We fear being a burden to others and so we bury our emotions and fears until it breaks us. I’ve been working on that. Trying to let it out more. Was a big ninny earlier today because I’d been letting the stress eat at me. But I had a big baby cry with Lukas and then a nap, which made me feel better.”
“Big baby cry?” Micah asked.
“Crocodile tears and everything,” I assured him. “Just because I was a soldier doesn’t mean I don’t cry. Hell, I’ve cried a lot, even while serving. Sometimes covered in the ash of human life you’d have tears streaming down your face, gun in your grip, trying to find a way to the exit, hoping to survive and die all at once.” He looked up at me. I traced a thumb down his cheek, wiping away a shed tear. “You talked about thriving, right?”
He nodded.
“Let’s work on that. Both of us. Find a balance between this,” I indicated to the room that now felt more like a frenzy of trying to escape memories than a treasure trove, “to the beauty of this,” I indicated the jacket I wore.
“I don’t understand,” Micah said.
“One complete project equals something a million people could never dream of doing. Maybe spending every moment trying to perfect it doesn’t matter as much as the practice of making something and completing it if even one person enjoys it?” I looked around the space seeing a lot of incompletes. “How do you feel when you finish something?”
“Sad,” Micah said. “Often like a failure because it didn’t work out like I thought it would in my head.”
“Yet, here I stand in a masterpiece, which I would wear proudly every day for the rest of my life if I could.”
“You’d melt in this city.” He was trying to distract me from the topic.
“Was this a failure?”
“It wasn’t exactly how I pictured it.”
“Yet I love it. And it’s well worth melting in,” I said putting my hands on my hips in a superman pose. “To feel like a superhero.” I grinned at him. “What’s your favorite piece?”
His gaze went to the costume section. “A Lolita style Frozen dress that I did after the Sky thing. It’s in her size, but I’ve been too afraid to show it to her.”
I glanced at the shelf, having to think for a minute before the meaning of his words translated into something that made sense to me: Frozen, the kids movie; Lolita in cosplay fashion usually meant a dress with lots of layers of lace. There was a blue dress on the end that looked like it had tulle and stuff on it, sort of like ice. I reached for it and pulled it off the rod, holding it up on the hanger. Yeah, that had to be it. It was small enough to fit Sky’s tiny frame.
“Looks like it would be the perfect Ice Queen adaptation,” I told Micah. I turned the dress, marveling at the detail of layers of gem-like beads, lace, and a shawl that appeared crocheted from metallic thread. This dress had likely taken him weeks and here it sat gathering dust.
“Do you have one of those dress bags? We should wrap it up and bring it to Sky.”
Micah gaped at me. “But…”
“You made it for her, right? Was it for any special occasion? A birthday or anything? Or more an ‘I thought this would look cool on you’ sort of thing?”
He flushed. “The latter.”
“Okay. Do you normally give her stuff that you make?”
“She has a few shawls, purses, and a quilt.”
“But nothing this elaborate?”
He glanced away and shook his head.
“Then let’s bring it to her. I bet she is going to think this is the most amazing thing in the world.” I ran my hand over the rows of costumes. “These are all amazing. You are very talented.”
“There are people a lot more talented than me.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “That’s the way of life. There will always be someone better than you at anything you do. But that’s okay. You learn something from each piece, right? Even if it’s about yourself? I should tell you about this Optimus Prime thing I created for a Comic Con when I was a teen. It was inspired, but really lacking in skill. Though I had a bazillion people ask for my picture. I felt amazing and like a fraud all at once.”
Micah studied me. “You really don’t think I’m nuts?”
“No more nuts than I am,” I said. “Take that for the good or bad it may be. However, I think you’re amazing, for your talent, your persistence, and your strength. Those are all good things, yeah?”
“I guess,” he agreed.
“Is your lack of confidence why you don’t do the cosplay pictures anymore?”
Micah shrugged, though I could tell from his posture that I’d hit the nail on the head.
“Lukas said you used to do sexy pictures before you started working with Tim.”
“Tim convinced me there was better money in porn,” Micah said.
“Was there?”
He seemed to think about it for a minute. “A little.”
“But you enjoyed the cosplay thing more?”
“I’ve always liked dressing up and pretending to be someone else for a few hours.” He pointed to me in the coat. “Feeling like a superhero, if you want to think of it that way.”
“So why stop? You have all these costumes. How many are in your size?”
“Not many anymore. A few maybe, but I had my final growth spurt a year or so ago, which means a lot of the stuff is too small.”
“But you obviously have the skill to make something that fits.” There was even one of those dress dummies shoved into the corner, which I thought would probably scare the bejesus out of me if I walked into the closet in the middle of the night.
“Sure.”
“You don’t make stuff for yourself anymore?”
“Not really.”
I realized that it was a lack of confidence. How a man as beautiful as Micah could lose that confidence baffled me. He’d been a porn star, loved for the body that so few men had, being delicate and feminine, while just masculine enough to turn on most gay men. Had the disappearance stripped that confidence away, or something else? Perhaps the loss of his relationship with Tim or the constant noises in the darkness? I wasn’t sure he had an answer.
“That’s something to focus on then. I’m certainly no model, but maybe we can make a cool du
o of something for some pictures. Is there an anime con soon? Even if it’s only for walking around and feeling like I’m a badass, I think it’s worth it.” I thought about it for a few minutes. “I’m a little out of touch with what’s popular, but I remember Devil May Cry, and I played Witcher for a while. I could totally do one of them. But I’ll even wear a dress if you want me to.”
“Okay,” Micah agreed, though I think he wasn’t really ready to talk about his designing yet. I wasn’t going to push. Not yet. “And I don’t know about any upcoming conventions. But I can make something.”
“And can we give this to Sky? I can’t wait to see that girl’s face. Every girl wants to be a princess, right? Hell, I’d love to be a princess and have some hot prince rescue me from all the world’s troubles.”
Micah stuttered out a rough laugh. “Okay. I can make you a princess dress. I think Sky would rather be a queen.”
“Honey, I’m already a queen, but I’d still be your princess,” I said pointing at him.
This time I got a real smile. “Guys usually expect me to be the damsel.”
I snorted. “Rescue me any time, babe. I’ve already done my service for the macho man brigade.” I did a little YMCA dance.
He laughed again. “Wow…”
“Nerdiness a turn off?” I asked him. “Come on, there’s a whole nerd-guy-glasses kink in romance novels. I could fit that. With some glasses and a better haircut. Ignore the exterior and focus on the dork underneath.”
“Nerdiness is okay.”
“Especially cosplay nerdiness,” I clarified because that had been Micah’s original passion and heck, I could be on board with that. His talent gave me all sorts of ideas.
“Yes,” he agreed.
I did another little jig, swinging my hips and bouncing into poses of all the video game characters I could ever remember. “We should probably go though…” It was getting late. “How time flies when you’re having fun, right?”
“It does,” Micah said. “I still have to walk the route first, it’s silly to go to the shop and then back out again into the heat.”