Vision Quest

by A. F. Henley

  Arik tensed so tight that Blaze thought he'd break. "Maybe," he said, and then, with more confidence: "Yeah. Okay. Maybe." Arik shoved away from the wall, and shook off Blaze. "Going to shower."

  Arik walked into the bathroom and shut the door without a glance at Blaze. A moment later, the water came on, and Blaze stood there, feeling torn and numb and ridiculous for being so helpless. Should he follow? Should he let Arik lead? Blaze wasn't sure. He yelled at himself about getting so close and so affected and blinded, and then he shut those thoughts down. He couldn't do a damned thing about the way he felt, right now, and feeling so much and so strongly for this man seemed to be the only thing keeping them on track and keeping the bleeding at bay. Blaze absently swiped a finger under his nose, and it came away clean. Something in Arik's philosophy had to be correct. They needed to be this version of together, needed to be here, on this island, and needed to carry on to the next step, whatever that might be.

  Blaze stared at the bathroom door. For being so on track, he couldn't help but notice that there was still a wall between them.

  The water continued to run, and Blaze paced. He did a lap around the bedroom and the sitting room. He was thinking everything at once, all muddled and confused, like Arik was his first Quest. First time around the block. First... first man in a long time whom Blaze actually ... First man since ...

  "Did you love him?"

  Blaze paused to stand in a beam of sunlight. It was warm and pleasant against his skin. Clouds danced across the sun, hotel guests played in the gentle waves below, and distantly, Blaze heard laughter that sounded a lot like hope. Real, honest, tangible hope that was in reach for the first time in ... Well. The first time since ...

  Doru. Since Doru.

  Rubbing his chest, Blaze broke his pacing pattern and drifted into the bedroom. He had the bathroom door open in the next instant, and steam smacked him in the face. He shut the door behind him, stepping out of shoes and stripping out of clothing. Arik was huddled, crouched in the shower, arms around his knees, back against the clear glass door, and head hunched forward. He looked so small for a man so large in Blaze's mind. Something cracked inside Blaze's chest, and for a second, Blaze was worried he might be bleeding. He checked the mirror and found no blood, only fear and worry and ...

  "Did you love him?"

  Crossing to the shower, Blaze pulled the handle, and Arik startled, showing Blaze tears and the anger that came from being interrupted in private grief. Arik flew to his feet. "What are you—"

  Blaze put a hand over Arik's mouth. Arik's eyes strafed back and forth, searching Blaze's, and Blaze stroked the stubble along Arik's jawline. "It's just me," Blaze said, as the spark came to life, and Blaze would swear it was more potent now than it had ever been before. Arik made a quiet sound of shock, and Blaze's next exhale was sharper. "Just me ... Here ... With you ..." Blaze slid his hand from Arik's cheek to Arik's nape. The current sizzled and jumped between them, even before Blaze pressed them flush. Arik's eyelids fluttered, and Blaze kissed Arik's chin, tasting salt in the water. "Let me? Please ... Arik ... let me."

  Arik's arms encircled Blaze, slowly at first and then like Arik wouldn't be pried away from Blaze by anything known to mankind. They clung to one another. The spray struck Blaze's lower back and legs, scalding skin, but Blaze didn't dare move. And after long, silent moments, the perseverance paid off.

  "I fucking hate him," Arik said, the words spilling in that way they did for Arik when he finally started talking. "He ... I'm ... He made me hate ... Made me see, more than I wanted, and so fast ... Too fast. And then he ... he left me. And I hate him, and it, and being so damned ... and I really ... I really ..."

  "I know." Blaze rested his head on Arik's shoulder, urging Arik closer, still. He was so warm, so solid. So real.

  Arik hung his head. "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be."

  "Blaze ..."

  "Arik, please shut up," Blaze whispered, nosing Arik's throat and stroking Arik's hair. "And let me hold you."

  "You ... you ..." Arik's chest hitched, and Blaze held on until Arik stopped fighting the emotion and let it go. Blaze held on when they slid to the tile, held on while they rearranged, and kept holding on while Arik's storm raged and echoed in the small room.

  And as they sat there, wrapped around one another, two people trying to deal with the strangest things life could put in their paths, Blaze knew without a doubt that he would keep holding on to Arik long after he had to let go.

  Arik

  Arik had considered reaching out sexually. Tasting. Stroking. Fucking. That was how moments like these were supposed to play out. At least, that's what his head told him. The rest of him, including his cock, told Arik that no greater intimacy was possible than what the two of them were sharing through simple touch. It felt right. It felt good. Perfect, in fact. And when the anger burned itself out, when the moisture leaking out of his eyes dried up, Arik felt more sated, more exhausted, than he would have if they'd spent the last six hours banging like rabbits. He gorged on that feeling—defying the water to cool, and clinging to Blaze without care or concern over wasting water or time or to cramping limbs. He sat under the shower, and he thought of a pretty boy with a bright future and a brilliant smile. He considered a life so hard to live that a self-inflicted death was the only possible peace. He thought of the man he held against him, of a belief so strong that it caused blood cells to rupture. Then he mused destiny. Fate. Decisions and consequences.

  There was a joke his father used to tell, a proverb, so to speak, of a man whose boat had sunk in the middle of the ocean. As the man clung to a buoy, fighting waves, and watching the fins of sea life appear above the surface of the water, the man prayed for his god to rescue him. A fishing boat appeared, offered the man assistance, and the man waved them away. "God will save me."

  The night got darker, the water got colder. Another boat appeared, and the man turned them away, telling the people onboard that his god would save him.

  A storm rolled in. His fingers got too tired to hold, but his tongue never gave up his prayers. And when a cruise ship came by, tossing out a lifesaver, and begging the man to grab it, once again they were turned away. "God will save me. I believe."

  When, finally, the fragility of the human body was proved, and the man sunk beneath the waves, the man was angry. He stood in front of his god and demanded to know why he hadn't been saved. All those years, all that faith—how could he have been so carelessly disregarded?

  And God had looked down upon him, lifted an empiric eyebrow up his forehead, and said ..."I sent you three fucking boats!"

  Arik remembered his father speaking the words, recalled the round of laughter that had always followed it. Why that story stuck with him, Arik couldn't really say. It might have only been the ludicrous paradox of his father speaking words of turning away assistance that was being begged for. This wasn't about his father, though; Arik had to understand that. Blaze was right. Arik wasn't his father. He wasn't going to be the man bobbing on the ocean and turning a blind eye to the assistance being offered by divine intervention. At the same time, though, he damn well wasn't going to be one of the ships that sailed away.

  If this worked, if they worked, something beautiful could happen. At the same time, if Blaze believed there was an ulterior motive as to why they were there, then there was a good chance Blaze was going to turn into a spewing fountain of the most macabre kind.

  I will not be my father, Arik repeated in his head. I will not succumb to madness, because I do not believe that the 'gifts' I have, if in fact that is what they are, are gifts that I continually have to earn. I did not ask for this right. I do not want it. However, if some otherworldly something has deemed it fit to grant it to me, then it is mine to use.

  He caught the imagined tendril of insanity, and he envisioned himself fisting it. He snagged the rein of woe-is-me relationships and added it to his palm. If he stood around and let the stallions stampede, as stallions were wont to do, then t
hat's when the hooves would get him. It was time to force his control over the beasts that hoped to crush him.

  Arik pushed away the mental image of a goat—a much smaller, comedic-yet-ornery counter-cousin image to his stallions—and he added that tendril of a concept to his fist along with the rest of them. It was time to face this horseshit. Yes, it was galloping way past his comfort zone. And sure, he'd probably needed to get the fear out of his system. But if he sat around wallowing, that's what was going to drive him crazy. If he did nothing but cower and whine, those were the leads that would end up dragging him over a cliff.

  The sigh that echoed from behind Arik's closed lips had Blaze lifting his head and smiling somewhat confusedly. "Mood swing?"

  Life path reorientation, Arik's mind offered up. His tongue, however, replied with, "We're about to use every drop of the hotel's hot water supply. I can only imagine what they'll want to charge us for that."

  He reached for the toggle that would redirect the water, but was stopped by Blaze's hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay, Arik? I mean—" Blaze stopped himself, caught his lip and frowned, and for another rare moment Arik thought how nice it was to see the man behind the mask. To see something other than piety. Disturbed was almost more of a windfall than lust. Because it was real. Something lit in the back of Arik's head.

  Let's see what boat we're waiting for, shall we?

  "I mean, I know you're not okay," Blaze said. "I know you're dealing with a lot of things you don't get, or know how to manage—"

  "I'm okay," Arik cut him off with slow words and an even slower smile. "My life isn't going to be resolved in an afternoon, any more than yours will. You're not here to help me get over my daddy issues." He paused, waited for Blaze's frown to deepen. And he pushed again. "I don't want you to help me get over my hate for my father. Every once in a while, he gets in my head. He whispers stupid shit in my ear from whichever beast's shoulder he's now perched on. He probably always will."

  Arik banged the toggle and the cooling water dropped from above to below, the sound intensifying from gentle rain to rushing river.

  "Okay, but ..." Blaze's words trailed.

  "Nope," Arik said firmly. "No more daddy talk. No more trying to dig into my childhood, and I, in turn," he lifted his eyes and caught Blaze's gaze, "will not bring it up either."

  He leaned over the taps, turned the knobs to shut off the flow, keeping Blaze's face in his peripheral. One reaction, that's all he would need.

  Show me your disease, so I can find a cure.

  That's all it had taken, if Blaze's word could be trusted. One shift, one step off the path and towards a different direction. "He took my hand," Blaze had said, "and he smiled at me, and ..." Then the blood had come. Then the quest had taken over. Or the bits of Blaze's mind that told him he needed to see reaction in order to force himself back into the moment had, anyway.

  Nothing colored Blaze's face. Not a single drip of anything but clear, fresh water over glowing skin. Blaze didn't believe, in that hidden part of him that convinced body to revolt, that he was there to help Arik get over his father.

  "I want to go out," Arik said, nodding. "You need a jacket and a tie."

  I'm going to buy you things, Arik thought, watching Blaze's face as if it held the secrets of the universe, and Arik merely had to figure out how to read it. I'm going to make you feel important.

  There was no reaction.

  "Something nice, so you fit in," Arik continued. "There's a dress code in both dining facilities. Apparently these people play hardball with their expectations." He loosened his expression into a smirk. "So, Vivianne, let's skip the scene where everyone makes fun of you, and get right to the one where I get to watch you prance for me in some cool fashion."

  Arik snagged a towel off the rack, went to hand it to Blaze, then reconsidered and draped it over Blaze himself. Through terrycloth, Arik worked his fingers over Blaze's wet hair. For a long minute he lost reality in the way Blaze's eyelids fell to half-mast, and the feel of Blaze's fingers when Blaze reached up and gripped Arik's forearms, as if for support. But the towel stayed white. Blaze's face didn't spout with unexpected hemorrhage.

  He's not going to beat himself up over me showing him attention. Leaving the hotel and perusing the town isn't going to wound him.

  "And then," Arik slipped the towel off Blaze's head, and curls sprung wildly, free of both product and brush. Years slipped off Blaze's face; he could have been a teenager standing there, soaked and innocent, and something in Arik's chest constricted so tightly that Arik wasn't sure it was ever going to release again. He rested the towel over Blaze's shoulders, and used it as a harness to draw Blaze closer. "I'm going to wine you, and dine you, like the prince you are, Blaze. I'm going to get you tipsy, and I'm going to make you laugh, and we're going to have an awesome time."

  He caught Blaze's hand so that Blaze could do the same. He grinned at the darkening concern falling over Blaze's face. "And when we're done, I'm going to bring you back up to the room ..." He ran his fingers over Blaze's chest, barely-there touches that inspired goose flesh and hardened Blaze's nipple. "... and I'm going to light up sparks all over you skin. I'm going to lay you down on Egyptian cotton, and spread you open in every way, and with every appendage on my body that I can think of."

  Blaze huffed a sound, although which emotion it was that backed it, Arik couldn't identify. Arik pressed a kiss to Blaze's forehead, thrilling at the feel of Blaze leaning into the gesture.

  "Then maybe?" Arik followed words with kisses: eyebrow, cheekbone, and jaw. "I might even ..." He parted his lips and inhaled the scent of clean, clear, shower-fresh skin. "Tell you ..."

  Warm breath. White skin. Freckles. "How much ..."

  The thud of Blaze's heart from inside Blaze's chest. The way Blaze's grip dug into Arik's muscles. The slow rise of both of their bodies. "I think I'm ..."

  Blaze caught a breath. Arik's eyelids fell, and he kept away Blaze's impending speech with a light kiss. He pulled back, only enough to let his words tickle Blaze's lips, "... falling in love with you."

  "Arik. No."

  A flash of brilliance slashed across the inside of Arik's eyelids. Blaze choked. The spark of sensation between their touches snapped into a sizzle that stung skin; an elastic band sharpness that was so intense it hurt. Arik opened his eyes with a start. Blaze pulled back and away. They stared at each other in stunned silence.

  A single drop of onyx liquid slipped from Blaze's left nostril.

  The sound Arik made surprised him—like the mewl of a child getting candy yanked away. With a slow hand Blaze reached up, dragged his fingertips along his upper lip, and drew them back again to stare at the smear that stained them. Blaze lifted his gaze, caught Arik's eyes with his own, and there was more pain than could possibly be associated with physical agony in Blaze's expression.

  "Aw, Arik." Blaze's voice was so tired. So defeated. "God damn it."

  Blaze

  Blaze rushed for the sink, praying in a silent chant of, No, no no, that the drops wouldn't become a deluge.

  "Holy shit," Arik panted behind him in the tone of the thoroughly stunned stupid. "You're bleeding."

  "What did you think would happen, exactly?" Blaze muttered, more to himself than Arik.

  "But it's ... black?"

  Because it's old. "So I've noticed."

  "Holy shit," Arik repeated, in awed horror.

  Turning on the tap and shutting his eyes, Blaze splashed water on his face. He wanted to be angry at Arik for that little psychology Quest experiment, but he was too tired. And even this bit of theatre was old news; a bad magic trick. It wasn't the first time someone pushed the boundaries just to see what would happen or if Blaze was lying. One of the many reasons Blaze kept information to himself was the damnable temptation some men had that involved testing the edges of razors to see if they would still slice.

  "Are you ... is it stopping?" Arik asked, hovering, now, and flapping his wings. Blaze snatched a wad of toilet paper
off the roll and shoved it up to and into his nose. It came out mostly clean, if damp, and Blaze and Arik breathed a sigh of simultaneous relief.

  "Well," Arik said, after a moment of silence punctuated by dripping sink water. "I guess there are worse ways."

  Blaze reminded himself that he had sworn long ago only to use his powers for good or for what the Universe required, but his look still made Arik flinch. "Worse ways, what?"

  "To find out that one's boyfriend loves ... one?"

  "Boyfriend," Blaze said dully.

  "You have a better word for it?"

  Inmate. Stalker. Bitch. Punchline in the Universe's Eternal Bad Joke. "Maybe." Blaze's head ached, and there was simply too much shit to comprehend. He thought about renouncing his Visions and the Quests right then and there, just to die and get it over with, already. "What the fuck, Arik?"

  "Hear me out," Arik said, quickly.

  "Do I have any choice?"

  "Not really?"

  Blaze rolled his eyes, snatched up a towel off the floor, and brusquely dried off while gathering up his clothes. Arik followed him out of the bathroom. "Everything was fine until you said, 'No.'"

  "It usually is," Blaze retorted, tossing aside the towel and starting to get dressed.

  "No, listen, please, I think we can ..." Arik paused. "You going somewhere?"

  Blaze realized he'd been reaching for his shoes. He realized he'd been about to run out the door and not stop running until he was a pile of shining, stinking, stale goo to be scraped off a sidewalk by some poor fool with a shovel and a gas mask. And he realized that there was exactly no point. Where the hell would he go? How far did he think he could get before he dissolved? One pace? Ten? And what about Arik? What about holding him in the shower and being the one whom Arik trusted? Talked to? Cared for? What about feeling the strength in his arms, the heat of his skin? What about the fire poker of desire that had speared Blaze when Arik had promised dinner, dancing, and then to make a blissful ruin of Blaze's body? The Vision came back—of Blaze with his arms held and their joined cries to heaven. That one, and a dozen more that may be Visions or might be simple daydreams, of bedrooms and the interior of cars and shaving together and holding hands and seeing where Arik lived and worked and what color he'd painted his home's walls and where he stored the pans in his kitchen, if he had pans in his kitchen, and ...