by A. F. Henley
"Of here? Like now?" Blaze rubbed his forehead and stared at Arik as if the previous hours just might have stolen sanity. "Why?"
"There's a way out," Arik said, rephrasing in a desperate attempt for clarity. "There's a way out of the curse. There's a way to save you."
Blaze
The phone had started vibrating on the nightstand when Blaze and Arik had been on the bed, and the thing was still buzzing up a storm now that they were on the floor. The sound was getting on Blaze's nerves, though, thank the small gods, it seemed Arik had yet to hear it.
"Oooh, fuck ... Blaze ..." Arik buried his face in a discarded pillow, reaching back and slapping a hand on Blaze's sweaty thigh.
"Like that?" Blaze, behind Arik and inside him, grabbed Arik's hips and slammed home at tempo. Arik wailed into the pillow, stroking himself with a free hand, and the damned phone would not stop.
Growling and determined to keep Arik out of his mind and reality, Blaze kept the rhythm until Arik's body was curling in, tensing up, ready to explode. Blaze pulled out, knelt, and buried his tongue in Arik's hole.
"Ooohchristshitfuck!" Arik's hands splayed on the rug, and he shoved himself against Blaze. "Oh God, suck me ... Blaze ... please su—ooooh..."
Blaze licked a line up the underside of Arik's cock, bent, as it was, backward between Arik's legs and toward Blaze. He rubbed the pad of a slippery thumb just beneath the head and sank three fingers into Arik's rolling body. Arik covered his head with his hands, pulling at his hair while his breath ricocheted off the hotel room walls, and he grunt-groan-intoned with every exhale.
When Arik was whimpering and the phone was in danger of falling off the table, Blaze rolled Arik onto his back. With the kiss, they each tried to devour the other, and Blaze sank again into Arik's willing body. Arik's eyelashes fluttered, and he bit-kissed Blaze's shoulder, clinging to Blaze all the while.
"Iubire," Blaze whispered, and Arik's moan was full-throated.
"More," Arik gasped. "More ... oh ... God ..."
Blaze knew Arik didn't solely mean Blaze's steady drive into his body. "Te iubesc mai mult decât luna iubește stelele." Blaze meant to keep going, but Arik stole the words with a claiming kiss, and Blaze shifted weight so he could stroke Arik outside and within.
Arik's fingers carved canals into Blaze's arm and back, his eyes screwed shut, and his jaw tightened. "Fuck ... God ... oh God ..." A tremor shook him from head to toe.
"Yes ... Iubire ... love ..."
Arik keened a cry behind pressed lips, and his back arched. His hand covered Blaze's, sped up the pace Blaze had on Arik's cock, and Blaze used every ounce of concentration to maintain that beat inside of Arik. "C ... C ... Ohmyfucking ..."
"Yes," Blaze hissed. "Come on, baby. Come for me."
Arik's eyes flew wide open, and Blaze, at that precise instant, made sure their bare skin touched at every conceivable point. The spark pulsed, rose, and crackled across both their bodies, its energy screeching as Arik began to spill over Blaze's fist and across Arik's belly, and Blaze dove into the sensation like a diver into deep waters.
"Inside me," Arik whispered from somewhere, next to him, under him, around him, Arik was everywhere, and Blaze was part of Arik part of Blaze. "C'mon ... inside me ..."
The drunk-sleepy-soft insistence and willful clamp of Arik's body brought Blaze's orgasm to the fore, and he cried out against Arik's throat and then lips, as Arik turned to kiss Blaze through his climax. He spent himself into latex, not Arik, directly, but the spark that spun around the base of Blaze's cock was more than enough tingling to do Blaze. When he thought of fucking Arik bare, his spine shook in a serpentine shiver.
Arik sighed, contentedly, and he used Blaze's shoulder for leverage to sit up, grab the phone, and chuck it in the general direction of the living area.
"That's an expensive afterglow habit, you have there," Blaze murmured, holding Arik when Arik pressed close.
"I aimed for a rug." Arik raked fingers through Blaze's wet curls. "What did you say this time?"
"I love you more than a fat kid loves cake."
Arik punched Blaze's chest. "You did not!"
"Ow."
"Tell me you didn't."
"I'll tell you anything you like," Blaze said, laughing and wrestling Arik's arms to the floor. He was softening but still inside Arik, and he forced a gasp from Arik's lips when he lunged forward with his hips.
"You didn't," Arik whispered. "I heard 'moon.'"
"You're getting good."
"In just a week. Imagine what I'll be like in a year."
Blaze hummed and hugged his lover. "I'll never have a secret again. Intolerable." The landline in the room began to trill. "And speaking of," Blaze grumbled, rolling when Arik shoved Blaze off him.
"Hello?" Arik answered, his gaze following Blaze as Blaze stood and headed for the bathroom. Blaze disposed of the condom—an amazing invention, latex—and turned on the sink. Blaze splashed his face, wiped it with a towel, and stared at his reflection. Forever young. Unchanging.
"There's a way to save you."
They didn't talk about it, much, after the finger-whiskey-love-discovery fest. If Blaze brought it up, in the middle of the night when he knew Arik was only dozing and he, himself, was far from sleep, then Arik would only say they'd figure it out. They'd solve this riddle, this eternal age difference, and it would be all right. Arik's insistence that they'd be fine so long as they had one another had become Blaze's reality. If it was good enough for Arik to trust, then it was more than enough for Blaze.
But still ... Blaze scratched at his stubble. He pulled down an eyelid. He bit his lip. How could he be so real and yet so counter to nature? And how in the hell was he ever going to be the right man for—
Arik materialized behind Blaze and wrapped Blaze in his arms. "That was Maria."
"Who?"
"My assistant."
"Ah. Explains the persistence."
"She can be royally annoying when she wants." Arik sighed and nosed Blaze's hair. "The meeting, the one I was originally here for? It's been moved up."
"Oh." It suddenly seemed that Blaze was underwater. "When is it?"
"This afternoon. Two o'clock."
"What time is it, now?"
"Ten." Arik chuckled. "We start early."
"Or finish late, depending on perspective." Blaze turned, and he'd taken a breath to ask Arik about a shower, about food, about one last visit to the beach, but Arik put a hand over Blaze's mouth.
"I'll do the meeting. We'll finish out these last few days, and we," Arik's eyebrows went up for emphasis, "will both go home."
Blaze smelled campfire and cedars and cooking meat. The bone clasp his grandmamere used in the twist of her long, silver hair had been shaped like a fish. He clasped Arik's wrist and kissed the inside of it, over the pulse. "I've not had a home in a long time."
"I know." Arik hesitated. "Did you ever get to stay with one of your ...?"
"A few times. No longer than a year, at most." And Blaze didn't tell Arik that one of those times had been spent in a twisted man's cellar in a cage. Another had been as a butler for a household with children, all of whom were now dead. And another had seen him a pet boy, of sorts, for a woman who was possibly even more lost and lonely than Blaze, and her son, destined for a life of great wealth, was determined for the family to sail on the maiden voyage of a ship called the Titanic.
It was very cold at the bottom of the ocean.
"Blaze?"
"Hm?"
"You're shivering."
"I am?" Blaze glanced down at himself, but Arik cupped the back of his head. Blaze's instinct was to tense and resist, but he fought it. He let Arik hold him, cradle him to a warm, breathing, intensely alive chest. Blaze drank Arik's scent, ran his hands over Arik's back and ass, and kissed Arik's throat. The pulse there was ticking with more force. "I'll thaw out in the shower. Get it started?"
"Sure." And Arik didn't ask if Blaze was okay, because he just didn't do that. Arik l
et Blaze brood and mull, and Blaze let Arik have entire conversations alone inside Arik's head. At least until the chats seemed about to tear Arik asunder, in which case, Blaze intervened.
And, Blaze supposed as he walked out of the bathroom to fetch the glass of water on the nightstand, Arik would interrupt Blaze when Arik thought Blaze had been wandering the highways of his past for too long. They would go swimming, again. They'd watch another movie. They'd go for another round of shopping, suit buying, decadent spending. Go out drinking and to dinner and maybe dancing. Blaze loved to dance. He loved to move. And Arik, as it turned out, did too. One night they'd found a music channel on the TV in their room, and they'd acted like fools, spinning and waltzing and grinding. They'd climbed over chairs and sofas. They'd fussed over who got to lead, and they'd tumbled into a heap, sipping on rum and eating cheese off a silver tray.
A dream ... Arik was a sweet, waking dream, and Blaze was daring to think he might not have to wake. He paused on the far side of the trashed bed, and he could see Arik standing barefoot on the bathroom tile. Arik was facing away, had his arms crossed over his chest, and he was swaying just slightly while the water warmed and steam began to roll. Blaze made a fist, his palms itching for a pencil to sketch the sweeping line of Arik's torso, the muscular meat of Arik's ass, the swell of defined thighs, and the shape of Arik's knees. He'd not drawn in some years, not with any intent, but now he could. Now he had a subject. Now he might dare have funds by proxy to buy supplies, sit in sunlight, and sketch page upon page of Arik.
Blaze turned to the table, brushing aside empty wrappers and tissues, and he found a pad with the Fireward logo and a pen to match. The top sheet was full of Arik's careful handwriting; notes, no doubt from the phone call he'd taken about the meeting he'd have. Blaze could hardly take his eyes off Arik, who was leaning to test the water, but a single word among many slowed the ticking of the antique clock by the bedside. Cotton filled Blaze's ears and encased his tongue and throat. He burned hot and froze solid, and he dropped the pen.
Above the word were others ...
"Recovering from surgery. Liquidating assets. Antiques. Meet at two, private estate. Countryside. Off exit 243B—NEED ADDRESS."
And below the word were more ...
"Auction. Antiques. Mostly BOOKS? Largest priv. collection of East. Euro History in region. Inherited from sis. Memories. Doesn't want ... why not?"
Blaze's heart grew two sizes too big reading Arik's commentary, and, evermore miraculously, it continued to beat while Blaze slowly paced around the footboard, stepped across the bathroom threshold, and came to a standstill on the rug in front of the glass shower.
Arik turned, and his smile vanished. He threw open the glass shower door. "What's wrong?" he asked, dripping and shoving his hair out of his eyes.
Blaze turned the paper around and pointed in the middle of the page. "What is this?" he asked, and he even remembered to do it in English, though the accent rocked Arik's shoulders in a shiver. Or maybe something else chilled the man. Destiny. Fate.
The Vision Quest.
"That's the last name of the man I'm meeting today. I can never remember it, and I had it wrong first, see there? And then I asked Maria to spell it for me."
Blaze flipped the paper to see where Arik had written, S-A-P-U and had scribbled over it. "Say it for me?"
"I'm not sure I—"
"Arik."
"What?" Arik rubbed his arms over the fresh crop of goosebumps. "I can't pronounce it right! It's like Sa ... pew ... Sapull?"
"Ţapul."
"Yeah! That's ..." Arik swallowed. "Blaze?" he whispered. "What ... why do I feel ..." He put a hand to his head. "Dizzy. Fuck I'm dizzy."
"Me, too." Blaze fought a bout of nausea, and he sat down right where he was, ass meeting rug and legs folding.
"Blaze you are freaking me the hell—"
"Goat."
Rings of white appeared around the color of Arik's eyes. "What?"
"Ţapul ... Arik ... it means goat. In ..."
"Romanian." Arik sank down next to Blaze.
The water hissed, moments passed, and when Blaze shut his eyes, he saw the goat from the Mini Gold Insanity board, straw between its teeth, hat askew, and lips curling into a smirk. "Hey there, studs," it said. "You ain't never seen the last 'a me."
Suddenly Blaze began to laugh. It bubbled up and out of nowhere, and, after a moment, Arik joined in with tentative chuckles that turned into manic giggles.
"Oh ... Oh God ..." Blaze gasped. "And history?"
"I know! European fucking ... Oh my God." Arik wheezed, and Blaze put an arm around him. They caught hold of one another, hanging on for dear life.
"Well, good thing we bought you those suits, I guess." Arik wiped his eyes, and they were shining when he looked at Blaze.
"Yeah?" Blaze asked, already knowing what Arik would say but wanting him to say it anyway.
"Yeah. 'Cause if you think for a second that I'm going to meet Mr. Goat without a cursed Romanian witch in my pocket, you are out of your three-century-year-old mind."
"Three-and a half." For the life of him, Blaze could not wipe the stupid grin off his face. "You know, I know a guy who fits that description."
"Yeah? Is he hot?"
"Flaming."
"Is he available?"
"Only for a very private party."
"Well then." Arik got up and dragged Blaze with him and into the shower after him. "You better properly introduce me. We've got a date with a book-loving goat man."
"Mm. Can do."
Blaze tossed the notepad onto the counter, slammed the shower door, and set about the business of reigniting intimate acquaintance.
Arik
It had only taken the concierge thirty minutes to arrange for the speedboat that they'd been promised would get Arik and Blaze back to the mainland in half the time as the ferry. They'd even been classy enough not to use the phrase "for the low-low price of."
The weather had taken a turn to the ugly. Not stormy—Arik offered up a silent thanks to whichever cranky little fucker ruled the sea and the sky—but dark. Like the sun had just given up and decided to call it a day.
The sea reflected the sky above: gloomy, dark, grumpy. They felt the waves more than they saw them, but they'd been warned of that in advance. One didn't take to crossing the water with a speedboat if one was looking for a comfortable ride. But if they were going to make the meeting at two ...
The boat lurched, spent what felt like way too long suspended in the air, then slammed back on to the surface of the water. Arik's stomach jolted in time to the movement.
He'd almost suggested that they cancel. When he'd seen the look flicker through Blaze's eyes—the one that suggested fear that Blaze wouldn't speak of, pain Blaze didn't want Arik to dwell on, and the weight of things too heavy being resettled on Blaze's shoulders—Arik had wanted to say forget it. But it had only taken that single thought for Arik to know it would be wrong.
One didn't need a flashing sign to understand that there was a direction to their story. Short of someone coming up to them on the streets and swinging a live goat directly at their heads, the Universe couldn't make it much more obvious. Today, anyway. Yesterday, Arik hadn't been able to make heads or tails over the liquefying farm animals in his visions. Funny, really, how it had taken so long. But there had been paths to follow and forks in the road to make decisions on, Arik guessed. Perhaps, he was just not a quick man.
Blaze lifted his gaze from where he'd been studying the waves, and caught Arik watching him. He smiled. And Arik's chest bloomed with emotion that was sweeter than candy, and warmer than summer sunlight. They'd made the right choices: no blood, no vomiting. Blaze was whole and perfect, and though Blaze's line of sight had found the dark water yet again, Blaze appeared to be more pensive than upset.
What do you see, Arik wanted to ask, when you study the depths of the water? What memories does the sea dredge up for you? He kept his tongue still, though. It wasn't the time to d
rag out those kinds of stories. One day when it was all over, he'd ask Blaze to tell him some of it. Not all of it. But some. Maybe.
Focus.
The command came on the breeze, a whisper for Arik's mind alone, but it didn't come with the shudder that came with the demand to watch. Fear was gone. Purpose was Arik's new master.
In all his life, Arik had done few things he could say he was proud of. He'd been pleased when he'd graduated. He'd been satisfied the day he'd signed the papers to disperse the mortgage on his property and claim it truly and completely as his own. Those kinds of emotions weren't pride, however. Saving Blaze, and Arik no longer had any doubts as to that being his goal, was going to be the most fulfilling moment of his life. And even if the payment for cleansing Blaze's soul was Arik's own short walk off a tall bridge, Arik was going to do it. Three and half centuries of pain were going to end, no matter what the cost.
He watched Blaze move, breathe, shiver against the cooler air ... as long as it didn't cost him Blaze. That was the only reparation Arik wasn't willing to offer.
He sent out a prayer—not up, that ridiculous insistence he'd been force-fed that something existed above them had been vanquished, and replaced with the knowledge of a very tangible, very real presence all around them—and he promised, and he swore, and he begged in silence. Because they did listen, those unnamable thems. Something, somewhere, had brought Arik and Blaze together, and somehow, someway, it had led them to this moment.
I was exhausted ... Arik closed his eyes and tilted his chin to the sky. Back in the city, that first time we met. The hotel room had been reserved for weeks. There was no reason for the hotel clerk not to find my name in the file. Time had moved so slowly, he'd been frustrated by the wait. Blaze had been standing at his own check-in point—gorgeous, confident, smiling. It had taken Arik a while to notice him.
Hence the delay ... Arik breathed deep: sea life, brine, fresh air. Her birth sign had been Aries, that annoying twit of a hotel clerk. The Ram. She'd worn a silver pendant around her neck and when she'd leaned forward to tap the keys, the ram had swung freely.