To Be Free
Page 16
“Thank you for saving his life,” I add, hand reaching for Melissa's shoulder and giving it a friendly squeeze. My heart beats roughly in my chest, and I swallow before I continue. “You saved his life, and for that I'll never be able to repay you. I don't know what I would've done...”
Janice laughs lightly, getting into the car and starting the engine. In the meantime, Melissa offers me a warm smile.
“As long as you cherish him and continue loving the man, that's more than enough for us,” she informs me, and I nod. She then looks around me to Nine, and I follow her gaze. “Hey, don't give this one up easily, alright Sebastian? This man really loves you, and to be honest in all my years doing this I've never seen anyone be willing to go to such lengths for another being.”
I splutter, words failing me, and she laughs as she removes my hand from her shoulder. I refuse to meet anyone's gaze, rubbing the back of my neck, and I only look back up to wave at them as they pull out and drive away, leaving me completely alone with the man who's walked down the steps and hovers a few feet behind me. His curiosity can be sensed.
“She asked me about those two days, the ones we spent being chased,” I offer lamely, and I chance a glance up to see the temporarily redheaded man tilt his head slightly to the side, green eyes watching me curiously.
I miss those uncanny blues.
“Are you still blaming yourself for that?” he questions, reaching for me with a hand that I avoid. I take the steps into the house, letting my silence answer his question as I bite back the self-hatred trying to spill out.
She wasn't kidding when she said we have a lot to talk about.
I'm sitting in the library that evening, a book in my lap and the fire crackling in front of me, when Seb walks in and sits down beside me on the couch with a heavy sigh. He pulls his socked feet up to the cushions, hugging his knees to his chest and resting his chin on them. For a moment he says nothing, and all that fills the silence is the popping of the flames, the crickets singing outside and the occasional turning of a page.
“We need to talk, Quinn,” he starts quietly, my eyes pausing halfway down the page. I've managed to get through the first four books of the Iliad since I've sat down here, and my eyes stop on the passage and sealed Hades' wound–he was not born to die once he's spoken. I sigh in a much less grandiose manner than he, frowning.
“There's nothing to say, Seb,” I reply just as softly, continuing my trek through the world of Homer's epic. He hugs his legs to his chest a little more tightly, and drops it for the moment, eyes watching the flames – he's taken off the contacts for now, since we've drawn the curtains to hide the world away. I've done the same, but seeing him with red hair is still a sight to behold.
I get to the latter half of the fifth book when he speaks again.
“I don't hate you for it,” he tells me, the words already known to me. I frown, realizing that he won't exactly drop the subject until we talk it out at least a little, and I note the page number before I close it and place it in my lap, looking to the flames. “It was necessary.”
“It almost killed you,” I counter, closing my eyes and leaning my head back against the headrest. The image of his tired face, the way his steps would falter and he swayed, constantly attacked by the sights of the past – it greets my eyes, and I subconsciously tighten my hands into fists. “There were other options, so many more things we could've done instead of me relying on your abilities that much. I can't forgive myself for that... for almost being the death of you.”
I hear him shift, but I don't look at him as I swallow thickly, my throat suddenly tight and dry.
“You mean more to me than life itself, love,” I continue, hating the way my voice tightens and falters, breaking. Running an angry hand through my fringe, I look to the ceiling so high up, the lights illuminating the room gently, softly. “I'll always hate myself for making you use your powers to the point where you couldn't even stand.”
“You can't control yours just yet, Quinn,” he counters gently, and I feel him press his fingers to my forearm lightly, trailing them up and down along my skin. I nod, closing my eyes again and biting back my anger.
It wouldn't be fair of me to get angry at him when it's not him I'm angry at.
“We got lucky in Yreka when you managed to control your gift long enough to help me fight them,” he continues quietly, and I look to his fingers trailing over the healing wounds on my arms, the once-black skin now a bruised yellow. It still hurts like hell, and it's been half a week. “The result caused you endless pain – you couldn't sleep well for at least two days because of this, and you weren't in your right mind to begin with. I was more than happy to offer my help when you asked me to, if it meant that you could rest a bit longer and recover from the wounds.
“I'd do it again in a heartbeat.”
Finally I meet his blue-eyed gaze, the sight of those familiar blue orbs much more welcome than the green they've been all day thus far. He smiles warmly, holding my gaze as his hand finds mine and laces our fingers together. I return the pressure he presses lightly, and my self-hatred has abated somewhat.
I know it'll never truly fade, though. It can't.
“You're beautiful,” I blurt, and he tilts his head slightly, probably not having expected that outburst at all. It's true, though; the firelight simply accents the features I've memorized with my eyes, from the prominent cheekbones with skin stretching over his structure just a little too tightly, hinting at the past he's lived through, to his lips he's bitten constantly with his worry.
Then he smiles, closing his eyes and leaning against me, his legs half-lying on the couch. I settle myself more against the armrest, sort of between that and the back of the couch, so his head can rest against my collarbones instead of my shoulder and settle against me, my legs propped up on either side of him. I pick up the Iliad again, turning back to my page, and he huddles closer to me, one hand keeping mine trapped and the other holding my nightshirt a little.
“Can you read it to me?” he requests, closing his eyes, and I look down at him as best as I can from my angle.
“From the beginning?”
“If you want,” he nods, and I free my left hand to snake it around his waist instead, holding him there, and I turn back to the start. Clearing my throat, I begin.
“Rage–Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls...”
He's snoring lightly by the time I get to the second book, after having read to him about seven hundred and thirty five lines – which is what the first book consists of, really – and I set it down on the ground by the couch, shifting so that I can stand and pick him up in my arms. For a moment I stagger, getting used to his weight, before I carry him out of the library and up the staircase to the second floor. There, I bring him to the room with the most windows, which is where Melissa stowed his clothes away, and tuck him into the bed. The entire time, he offers not a single complaint.
Instead, once he's lying within the comfort of the sheets he turns onto his side and sighs in his sleep, and I kiss his hair before I leave him in that room, crossing the hall into the other bedroom where my own clothes lie.
That night is also the night I realize that I've gotten so used to having him beside me as I fall asleep that falling asleep without him there is nearly impossible, and I pass out from exhaustion instead of gradually succumbing to sleep.
The first week is like that. We share the cooking and cleaning jobs, but other than that some days you'll find us in the parlour, playing a game or watching TV; sometimes I'll be in the library reading some more – having moved on from the Iliad to The Epic of Gilgamesh, two books I honestly believe you should read before you're thirty – and sometimes, during the late evenings, we'll be outside either sparring playfully or rest by the shore of the Sound, occasionally swimming out into it even though it's getting colder and the
water's like ice on some nights. The end of August comes and goes during that time, and gradually Seb continues learning to control his ability, although there are some nights I can hear him tossing and turning in his sleep from across the hall, nightmares his guest.
Some nights, I know, he doesn't sleep at all.
I've also started trying to understand my ability better, to varying degrees of success. It seems I'm limited to the elements that create and are part of a storm – those being water, fire, wind and lightning. I practice by playing with the fire we burn in the fireplace in the evenings, lighting it up myself, and I learn very quickly that if lightning and fire touches my hands, they do the same as last time, to varying degrees of pain. Sometimes there's hardly any pain in the charred burns, sometimes it's a crippling agony that has my friend holding me against him, singing to me softly and trying to calm me down as I kneel on the ground, unable to breathe through the pain.
A week and a half after we've come, after playing one of our childish games of twenty-one questions and talking about our childhood, our likes and dislikes, and who we are as people, I sit on the sill of one of the bay windows in Seb's room, watching the storm rage outside. The wind is howling against the house, and the lights flicker every few minutes, threatening to give out completely. Lightning lights up the night, the thunder so loud it makes the house shake, and the rain is so fast it turns everything into a wall of darkness, to the point where I can't see the ground or the trees I know are nearby. Seb's making use of the shower after I'd vacated the bathroom, my hair still dripping slightly and making a cold drop slide down my spine every once in a while.
I look into the room, to the slightly messy sheets he hasn't really fixed yet on the bed pushed against the wall. There are piles of clothes strewn about, some clean and some not, and three books from the library sit on the dresser – Works and Days, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and the Theogony.
I smile to myself. I read the first two to him a few days ago, and have since moved on to the Theogony. I wonder why he has it with him here.
My question is answered when he walks in, hair dripping wet as he towels it off, clad only in a pair of sweats. He notices me sitting there on the sill, and his lips turn into a smile, a bright one I've seen only a handful of times.
“Somehow I figured you'd be sitting somewhere by a window, looking at the storm,” Seb muses lightly, leaving the towel draped over his bony shoulders as he walks over to the pile of books, picking up clothes as he goes and setting them on the dresser. Looking at me over his shoulder, he gestures with his head to the closet. “The power might go out, and I noticed that there are a couple of candles in the closet. Could you get them?”
I do so with a nod, slipping away from the window to peer into the confines. Looking past the clothes hanging from the pole I crouch on my toes, pawing through a few boxes that were obviously here before we came around, and pull out an old shoebox marked CANDLES in black Sharpie. Sitting on the floor I open the lid, and I'm greeted first by an old yet impressive-looking candle holder, made of stone from the looks of it and a charcoal grey. It's got two dragons circling a pillar where the candle is supposed to sit, in the fashion of the Caduceus.
I take out a long white candle sitting in the box beneath the holder, closing it afterwards and leaving it on his dresser. After setting it up on his nightstand I light it, and in the meantime he pulls the curtains shut, making a face at the world outside when thunder groans loudly in protest.
Again, for a moment I pause as my eyes find him in the warmly-lit room, noticing how his every vertebra is defined on his back and that his ribs stick through his skin. His bones are prominent, his collarbones sticking out, and the pelvic bones that disappear beneath the hem of his sweats also act similarly. He's thin, almost sickly thin, and I turn away when I see that.
Not because it repulses me, but because it's a testament of the pain he's gone through. If I could, I'd change the past so he wouldn't have to bear the reminder with him everywhere he goes.
“Hey, before you go, do you want to read some more?” he inquires, looking at me from where he stands by the curtains, still holding them in his grip. I nod, laughing lightly.
“I just read to you an hour ago,” I state, and he shrugs a bony shoulder, rolling his eyes as he walks over to the pile of books and retrieves the tome, looking at me with a smile.
“I like hearing you read to me,” he admits, eyes lowering to the ground by his feet. He's holding the book against his chest, and scratches his cheek idly as he bites his lower lip. A moment later, he looks up and smiles. “I like the sound of your voice. It relaxes me.”
Rolling my eyes but unable to hide my smile, I gesture for him to take a seat, taking one of my own accord and sliding up to the headboard of his bed to settle more comfortably. He joins me, practically grinning, and situates himself to my left so that I can wrap an arm around him and he can rest his head on my collarbone, waiting expectantly as I turn to where we left off.
Some afternoons neither of us wanted to do much, so we'd sit in the living room and he'd have me read to him – we've gone through the Iliad, Works and Days, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and we're going through the Theogony now. The fun thing about this version is that it's written in ancient Greek, Latin and English.
I've been reading the English translation – no way in hell am I going to try and pronounce that.
“I begin my song with the Helikonian Muses;
they have made Helikon, the great god-haunted mountain, their domain;
their soft feet move in the dance that ring
the violet-dark spring and the altar of mighty Zeus...”
The candle burns down gradually, and eventually the storm knocks out the power so that it's all that's keeping this room from falling into total darkness. I'm halfway through the part about Kronos before reading by candlelight begins hurting my eyes and I put it down to rub at them, making a face. Seb's still laying on his side, curled against mine, and his left hand started drawing random patterns over my shirt a while back.
“Too dark?” he questions, and I nod in affirmation. “Oh well. I'm okay with just lying here like this, too – you're not in any rush, are you?”
Laughing, I shake my head and kiss the top of his head. This makes him happy, and he tucks his head more against my neck and hums softly, a tuneless melody.
We're quiet for a while, listening to the rain and the thunder outside, and the candle burns down slowly as time passes, leaving us in our own little world. The chill of the evening makes him shiver slightly in my arms, and I slip out of the bed briefly, much to his confusion, just so I can pull the blankets back and slip underneath, pulling them over him as well. He returns to his initial position, kissing my jaw before tucking his head back in its previous position.
For an indeterminable amount of time we remain there, the candle burning down and the storm quieting a little outside. The power's still shot to hell, though, and in the comfort of the sheets it remains warm even through the chilly night. He starts humming a song I don't know, and when I ask him he simply sings the lyrics softly, curled against my side and looking as if he doesn't plan to move anytime soon. The candle's burning low by the time I glance at it, perhaps half an hour from melting entirely.
“What time do you think it is?” Seb asks quietly, and I look back at him to see his eyes trained on me, curious. Shrugging my right shoulder to avoid jostling his head, I let that be my answer; he looks down to his hand curled lightly in my shirt, biting his lip. “You're... you're about to go, aren't you?”
Nodding, I close my eyes and rest my head back against the pillow, and I almost miss the small sigh that escapes him. His fingers move idly along the fabric of my shirt, playing with the creases.
“What's on your mind, love?” I ask the night, and he curls a little more against me as if hoping we'll merge. In response, I hold him more tightly against my side, and he presses his forehead against the side of my neck.
Odd request. Nevertheless, I take a moment to think through all the songs I remember, both old and new, and decide on the one I'd enjoy singing to him the most. When I find it, I slip my eyes shut, clear my throat, and begin singing to him an old song, created near the beginning of the millennium. As I do so he picks up on the rhythm, humming it softly in time with my words, and when he does that I can't help but kiss the top of his head.
I finish the song, the candle burning on its last reserves, and I softly inform him that I'll place another candle for him before I go but he shakes his head, clutching my shirt between his fingers. My left hand continues trailing my nails lightly along his uncovered side, cocooned by the blanket.
“They're calling tomorrow,” he whispers, and I almost ask him how he knows that before I remember the conversation we had about two days ago.
I'm learning to be able to read the future accurately – that's my hidden ability, the potential of my temporal gift. Yours will be something else. Something... insane.
“This is the last night before it's do or die,” he continues softly. I close my eyes again, realizing why it is he wanted me to read to him some more, why he didn't offer a single complaint today in the slightest and was always somewhere nearby, oftentimes close enough to touch – and most times, we were touching slightly. Why he instigated that kiss in the library, and why he fooled around so much as we prepared our meals today. He was almost uncharacteristically playful. “I can't tell yet if we'll die or not, or what's going to happen tomorrow – and, to be frank, I don't want to know beforehand. So, for tonight, can we just... pretend that the life we've been living for the last week is the one we've lived for years? That this is something we'll be able to live again tomorrow night?”
I nod into the night, the candle spluttering in warning as it burns down. There's probably only about twenty minutes or so left before it burns out.