by Willa Okati
“I…” Shawn’s voice died away in his throat. He licked his lips, for all the good it did. “Don’t. Please don’t.”
The old man—a stranger to him, and of all the certainties to have at that moment—rolled his eyes to the heavens. “All right, suit yourself. God be with you, kid. You look like you need it.”
Didn’t he just. Shawn pressed a hand to his face, and—
* * * *
And then, after another long, slow space of nothing but fog in his head, Shawn found that his car had come to a stop beneath a weeping willow tree. The weeping willow, with the caretaker’s cottage before him. How long he’d been there, he didn’t know. He could see one of Gabrielle’s bags sitting forgotten on the kitchen steps, a forlorn twice-folded heap of yellow canvas. She’d need that. She’d miss it when she realized it was gone.
Shawn’s eyes were sore, stinging. He tasted salt on his lips. His throat was raw. Water, he thought. He needed water.
Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink.
All the pain he’d put himself—and Raleigh, and Gabrielle—through, and for what?
You stupid, stubborn fool. You’ve lost it all.
And if there was any way of taking it back, Shawn couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
His throat was so dry—
It won’t be long now, Stefan told himself. He closed his eyes, and lay back in the water, letting the wavelets lap gently at his ankles. The water was warm as a lover’s caress. If God was good and fate was kind, his Raleigh would know that sort of touch again.
Even if it wasn’t Stefan’s.
I love you so. And yet…
And it couldn’t be his. Not ever again. The choice would come to him, as it always did, when he took his final breath. A choice that kept them rolling forward. Life after life. Death after death. It was hell to lose the man he loved even once. To condemn them both to do it over and over again, loss after loss without ceasing?
No. No more. It had to come to an end. All things did.
Stefan loved his—no, no more coyness; he loved Raleigh—enough to let him go. He could only hope that freedom was sufficient to replace him in Raleigh’s heart. Let his own heart break. He didn’t care. Only that Raleigh no longer had to suffer for Stefan’s own foolishness.
He hoped…
The tide came in fast, at this particular hidden bit of shore, and Stefan was no longer a young man. He couldn’t have moved out of the way if he’d wanted to, and he told himself that he didn’t.
“I will not see you again. I will not seek you again,” he said, water tickling his cheeks now, making his hair float like seaweed caught on the current. “This is the choice I make. Forgive me, Raleigh. I do this for you. It’s the only way…”
* * * *
Shawn opened his eyes to find that he stood on the far end of the jetty, rocks slick and sharp-edged beneath him. Both feet in the water. Bare. Where he’d lost his shoes, he couldn’t have said, but the soles of his feet stung fiercely from what he guessed would be half a dozen cuts from climbing on the dangerous stones. He drew in a startled breath and held his arms out at his sides, only just keeping his balance. Barely so.
And that was fitting, he supposed.
He couldn’t remember anything about getting out there no matter how the cold wind shocked him. Everything between the gas station and there was blank, just blank. The rocks were as slippery as promised, and the undertow he had been warned about tugged angrily at his ankles, foam from the waves seeming to hiss as it plunged into the cracks and crevices of the jetty. He had to dig his fingers into those cracks to keep from slipping off when the water jerked at his feet. It’d be deep there. Twelve feet to the sandy bottom at the end of the jetty, or more so if the twists of the whirlpools had dug themselves down.
Gabrielle would be all right. She could heal now. She would miss him, but the rehab center would do better by her than Shawn ever could. She’d get better. Get well. Wouldn’t need him anymore. She would be strong enough to start over on her own.
Raleigh, he thought. Raleigh, I’m so sorry. Maybe you can start fresh now too.
Shawn let go of the rocks.
Ever hungry, the riptide caught hold of his hips, an ungentle lover demanding he pay the forfeit.
Water, salty sharp and so, so cold, closed over his head.
And then—
And then, there was light.
Chapter Eleven
The surface of the water closed over Shawn’s head. Deeper than he’d thought, or the undertow had pulled him sideways. When he kicked his feet, he encountered nothing more solid than waves that seemed to tear at him as with hungry teeth.
Shawn opened his eyes. Pale light, the last of the day, refracted through the raucous water above. He’d held his breath when he went under.
His eyelashes brushed against his cheeks when he blinked.
Raleigh put his big, warm arms around Shawn and held him tight, one hand at his back and one buried in his hair. Taking without asking, giving what Shawn needed, and it made him want, even more, to believe.
“It’s strange,” he said. “Every time a life ended, when I closed my eyes, I remember how I’d think of you. How glad I’d be to see you again soon, young and healthy. It didn’t seem so hard to say good-bye when it was just a pause before the first hello.”
Shawn’s chest burned. He blinked again as water rushed past his cheeks, frothy, effervescent.
“Where are you now?” he asked the memory of his lover. “Are you already born, or are you waiting for me?”
Oh, Shawn thought. Oh. Now he understood. Waiting for him. Raleigh would always wait for him. The truth had been right in front of him the whole time, in almost every waking dream, but he hadn’t seen it. He might have thought he could let go—that it was his choice—
But it wasn’t just his.
Even if he’d given up, Raleigh never would. And he hadn’t.
“I’m almost done. Go on ahead. I’ll come to you soon.”
He heard the sound of bare feet walking lightly over the hewn floor, sanded as smooth as satin, so smooth there was never any fear of a splinter. The man with him smelled of soap, fresh-cut grass, and a hint of salt, especially at the bend of his neck below the short hairs just growing long enough to curl. Warm hands that’d worn themselves as rough with the work as the wood he’d hewed was silky smooth, no splinters, lit on Shawn’s shoulders. His thumbs brushed Shawn’s nape as the man lowered himself to a crouch and then to a kneel behind Shawn. Warm lips, soft and firm and full, nestled a kiss behind Shawn’s ear.
“I could do that,” his lover said. “Or I could stay and help.”
Always so worried about what might be wrong that you forget to keep one eye on the things that are right.
Shawn’s feet touched down on the sandy seabed. The surface of the water seemed as pale as the moon and nearly as far away. Just beyond him, the rip current swirled fiercely past, but it’d spit him out. He had solid ground beneath him.
He was Shawn, and he was Stefan and Stephan. He was Sean, and Sionn, and Stiofain, and Sidney, and Céin. All those lives, gliding behind his eyes. All those love affairs. Kisses in glens and making love by starlight, waltzes and hunts and running wild through Scottish moors. New worlds and old ones, there and back again by air, by sea, and over the land.
I remember.
Because of Raleigh. He might have been wrong, but he was only half of this. Raleigh would always wait for him and find him and bring him home. Even when Shawn had forgotten everything about them. Especially then.
It didn’t have to be the end. It could be a new beginning. The first part of hello.
Raleigh, Shawn thought, I love you. Don’t give up. I’m coming back. Wait for me.
He pushed down with his feet for all he was worth, raised both arms above his head, kicked up, and he—
He—
Broke the surface, his fists closing on cool, sweet air.
* * * *
The
seawater-soaked wind that whipped across the waves cut savagely beneath Shawn’s skin, chilling him to the bone. He coughed, bringing up a mouthful of brine, and spit it out. His hair clung to his face in sodden tendrils and stung his eyes when he scraped it away from them with hands so chilled he could barely make them move.
And he savored it. Bared his teeth at the cold that plucked at him with witchy fingers, because it couldn’t win. It hadn’t.
He saw, on the shore—not yet at the jetty—a man half dressed in a sheepskin coat over his bare chest and jeans with the belt left open, undone. The man hadn’t seen Shawn yet. Too much of the daylight had slipped away, and the choppiness of the water made reflections impossible.
“Shawn!” Raleigh shouted, loud enough to hear over the waves crashing into shore. He cast about, turning fully from the left to the right and then forward, searching with a panic that Shawn could almost taste in his own mouth, sharp and hot. “Shawn!”
Shawn raised one arm, but he didn’t think Raleigh could see him. He crossed his fingers for luck then and lifted his voice instead. “Raleigh! Here!”
He saw it when Raleigh spotted him. Saw Raleigh walking through water now hip-deep, now knee-deep, making for the shore. There wouldn’t be any hiding why he’d been out there and what he’d meant to do, and Shawn wasn’t surprised when the color drained from Raleigh to leave him ghost white. Nor when he dropped to his knees in the wet sand.
It was all right, though. By then, Shawn was there. Not to catch him, but to go to his knees as well and to let Raleigh wrap him up completely in those warm, strong arms of his, and to hold him as if he’d never let go. “Don’t you ever do that again,” he growled in Shawn’s ear. “God, Shawn, don’t ever, don’t ever…”
“Shh, shh, shh,” Shawn said in Raleigh’s ear as Raleigh’s grip tightened. Any harder and he’d have trouble breathing, but Raleigh stopped just shy of the mark. Shawn had one hand on the back of Raleigh’s skull and one arm around him and held Raleigh just as close. “It’s all right now. I was wrong. I was so wrong. I thought I was saving us, but I—”
“I thought I’d lost you for good,” Raleigh said. He knotted his fists in the back of Shawn’s sodden shirt, lifting it away from his skin. He made an impatient noise and shrugged the sheepskin coat off his shoulders, whipping it around to settle like a blanket on Shawn’s back. “You’re freezing.”
And he was. Nearly too cold for his teeth to chatter, but he didn’t care. Raleigh’s body heat soaked into him. More so when he wound his arms around Shawn again and held so tight it seemed he’d never let go again—and Shawn thought he would be glad about that.
“How did you know?” Shawn asked. “Where to find me. How did you—”
Raleigh butted his forehead to Shawn’s shoulder. “I was going to bed, and I felt it. In my chest. How you couldn’t breathe. I remembered the jetty, and I thought…” He lifted his head and took Shawn with broad, shaking palms on either side of his face. “Remember me and who I am to you, or don’t. I don’t care anymore. Just don’t leave me again. Especially not like that. Promise me, Shawn. Please.”
Shawn covered Raleigh’s hands with his own. “But I do remember,” he said. “I saw your face. In my memories. I wanted to know, and I asked. When I was driving back. I know you, Raleigh, and if you still want me, then I promise you I’m not going anywhere.”
“You—what?” Raleigh thumped back on his heels, eyes wide and baffled. “But you…”
Shawn wasn’t going to let that separation stand. He followed, and then some. Pushed Raleigh onto his back and himself forward to cover the man with a blanket of his body. The sand would be cold on Raleigh’s naked skin, but Shawn could help keep him warm now.
Raleigh’s arms came up—instinct, Shawn thought, and liked it—to wind around him.
Bending his head, Shawn kissed the man lightly on lips gone pale rose from cold and shock. They were still soft, and his mouth tasted of bright wintergreen. He pressed Raleigh’s hand flat to the sand and slipped his fingers between Raleigh’s, lacing them both into the sand. “It’s you. You did it. It’s because you never gave up on me. That’s how.”
Raleigh shook his head slowly, staring up at Shawn as if he were an impossible—but wondrous—sort of thing.
For the first time in his life, this life, Shawn thought he might just be that.
“I made myself forget. Trying to spare us both, but it didn’t work because you didn’t give up. And then I made myself remember,” Shawn said. His mouth brushed Raleigh’s with each word that had gone unsaid for far too long. He pressed his mouth to Raleigh’s cheekbone, his jaw, the hollow of his throat, and the dent of his collarbone, kneading their joined hands together. “I remember, Raleigh. All of it. I believe you. I’m home.”
Raleigh’s throat worked as he swallowed. He raised his hand to touch the knuckles to Shawn’s cheek.
Slowly but surely his mouth began to move. His lips, to form a smile. Shawn felt his mouth do the same, shaping itself to what he felt inside, and stretching wide open when Raleigh touched the tip of his thumb to Shawn’s lip. “It took you long enough,” Raleigh said.
Shawn laughed.
Raleigh too. He took Shawn by the nape with his other hand and brought his knee up to form a crook for Shawn to lie in, safe and shielded. “God, I missed you, love. Welcome home.”
* * * *
His mother always had said that the book of Shawn’s life had started in the middle. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
Shawn leaned with both arms on the broad, sturdy windowsill, head hanging low in front, forehead against the old glass that was bubbled in the middle and thicker at the bottom from years of slow, slow gravitation. He wasn’t cold anymore. Couldn’t be, with Raleigh behind him.
Raleigh bit gently at Shawn’s nape as he pressed his chest to Shawn’s back. He chafed one arm in quiet, steady swoops, keeping him grounded, and nudged his knees to prompt Shawn to spread them wider. Three fingers twisted inside him. They’d long since passed the point where he needed to be opened. Now it was all for pleasure.
Shawn arched his back and moaned when Raleigh went deep. A hundred times when they’d done just this flowed in a stream across his mind’s eye. “It’s a different body,” he said, trying to look back over his shoulder and only just managing it. His lips were curved in a loose smile, one that felt more natural every time he tried it, now that he remembered how. “But you know where to go. How do you do that?”
“Even if it’s a different body, it’s still you in there,” Raleigh murmured. He curled his fingers inside Shawn, stroking up, imitating what he could do with his cock. Shawn knew well enough from before, in the caretaker’s cottage, and yet it made his mind go sideways. Made him squeeze his own cock, hanging heavy between his legs, to stave off too much of feeling too good.
It almost didn’t help. Especially when Raleigh bit again, teeth nibbling over his pulse. Shawn laughed, breathless. He tried to nudge backward with his elbow, though not very hard. “Stop, or there won’t be any reason to keep going.”
“Uh-uh,” Raleigh said, mouth at his ear. “Always a reason.”
But he slid his fingers out, so slowly, and pressed the fullness of his cock to Shawn’s ass. Like in the kitchen, but so very unlike at the same time. Shawn shuddered out a breath and canted his hips to press back, demanding more, deeper, and now.
“It will, and it won’t be the same,” Raleigh said, not yet giving Shawn what he wanted. “Every life is a little different. Even when you remember, it could take time to learn each other in every way.”
“But that’s how it should be. That’s life.” Shawn could feel Raleigh’s erection sliding between his cheeks, and contracted his muscles to hold him tight. “Please,” he breathed. “Come on, Raleigh.”
Raleigh drew in a deep breath. His hands shook slightly at Shawn’s hips. “On the bed, then,” he said. “Fast. If that’s how you want me, because I’m all yours.”
Shawn liked the sound of that.
Because it was true.
And the bed wasn’t too far, for someone who’d come as great a distance as he and Raleigh had. Not the physical. Or—not only the physical. To reach the bed Shawn only had to turn to the side and pitch himself forward in the small room Raleigh had directed him to, once he’d gotten them inside and out of a shower so hot his skin was still pink from the water. An odd little cubbyhole of a room, even if it had a window, with its door recessed into the wall and its latch hidden in the woodwork.
Shawn didn’t have to ask who this room had belonged to when the house was built. He remembered. But he wanted to hear Raleigh say it, and so as he turned over to lie on his back, he spoke. “This was ours.”
“Yes,” Raleigh said. He’d leaned against the wall to watch Shawn arrange himself. With one hand loosely around his cock, he stroked, keeping the fires hot while he took in the show.
Shawn felt under the pillow, which crackled when he laid his head upon it, and found a foil square already tucked into the case. He fished it out and flicked it at Raleigh, laughing again—it felt so good—when Raleigh nearly fumbled the catch. As close as they were, he could stick out one leg and tickle Raleigh’s knee with his bare toes. “Your turn to catch up,” he said. “Is it the same bed?”
“You remember?”
“I do,” Shawn said, stretching his hands up to take hold of the niches in the headboard. His fingers found holds as easily as if he’d done it all his life. He knew them all, from the rough spot where he had to be careful not to catch a splinter, to the way the rope frame gave under his weight. The mattress was firm, not the goose feathers he recalled, but soft and yielding even as it bore him up. He let go with one hand to reach between his legs and stroke his cock, soft velvet stretched over a rock-solid core.
Watching him—struck still as a stone—Raleigh murmured something dark, deeply profane, and awed.
Shawn reached into his memories and liked what he discovered there. “You enjoy this,” he said. “Watching me.”
“God. Yes. Always have,” Raleigh confessed. He drew his tongue across the fullness of his plush lower lip. “You’re sure?”