“So am I being abducted?” Aaron asked, looking out at the North Side going past the car window.
“You bet.”
Aaron smiled. “Will I enjoy being captive?”
“I should hope so, but I’m not expecting anything beyond what you want to do.”
His smile failed. “You don’t have to pussyfoot around me, Rhys.”
“I know, but it would be insensitive to demand things you aren’t up to.”
“Okay, that’s fair.”
“I think you’ll like this. You’ve said you’d like to stay here but it didn’t make sense because you live in Pittsburgh.”
“Oh? Oh! The Priory? We’re going to the Priory Hotel?”
The excitement and bafflement warring in Aaron’s voice made Rhys smile. “We are. It might not make sense, but not much in this world does.”
“True. Thank you. This is a complete surprise. You’re right, I think. I’ll like being abducted.”
“I knew you would.” Rhys beamed.
Aaron’s excitement escalated once they were inside the former monastery, baggage in hand. The grand hall’s door was open, and Aaron peeked in on the vast room with its stained glass and the pipe organ dominating the far wall. Their suite was more monastic, for lack of a better term, white and plain with minimal art. The suite area had nice wing-backed chairs, but Aaron barely paid attention to them as he stared out the arched windows to the view of the city by night. Rhys set the messenger bag and the small suitcase near the dresser opposite the king bed.
“This is fantastic!” Aaron flopped on the big bed.
“It’s very posh. I hope you like my contribution to Corrine’s keep-Aaron-distracted campaign. It might not have death-defying roller coasters, but that doesn’t mean it won’t get your pulse racing.” Rhys struck a pose against the doorframe, and Aaron wagged his head.
“Silly man, I’m sure it can get my pulse racing!”
“But I meant what I said if you’re not up to it.” Rhys nudged the computer bag with a toe. “I brought along The Avengers so you can drool over Thor.”
“Loki.”
“Whoever. They’re all droolworthy.” Rhys shrugged. “And the original Star Wars trilogy is there too, but I wasn’t sure you were up to seeing Luke use his arm.”
Aaron glanced at his prosthetic hand, flexing its fingers. “Wish mine was as cool and normal-looking as Luke’s.”
Its polymers were definitely not lifelike, nor were its movements smooth, but Rhys still was stunned by it. “They’ll have that arm down pat soon enough. I don’t have to tell you that. You and Corrine, you’re going to school for this sort of stuff. I’m not sure you realize how amazing that is.”
Aaron shrugged. “I’m not that amazing.”
Rhys sat on the bed with him, cupping Aaron’s face. “You are beyond amazing. You are astounding. You served your country in exchange for them funding med school, and when it all went to shit, you didn’t just lie down and give up. Many would have.”
“Mom kept me going, and then Corrine and you. You’re the amazing ones,” Aaron whispered.
“Just because you have a good support system doesn’t mean you yourself aren’t amazing. No man is an island. We push you, but if you didn’t want to do it, you wouldn’t. You’re looking to help others. You do help at your wounded warrior meetings, so give yourself credit.”
Aaron smiled thinly. “Okay, I’m amazing.”
“Damn straight.” Rhys kissed him.
Aaron cupped the back of Rhys’s head, lingering over the kiss. Rhys tasted salt and realized Aaron had broken at last. He held Aaron, letting him cry himself out as Rhys whispered comforting nonsense he doubted Aaron was even consciously aware of. He wished he could pull the hurt straight out of Aaron, that his magic could heal the damage inside and out, but magic couldn’t fix everything. It might even diminish all Aaron had accomplished in his own right.
Rhys detached Aaron’s prosthetic arm and set it gently on the bed. Aaron always took it off when they went to bed. Rhys would let Aaron finish putting it safely away for the night, once Aaron was able to collect himself.
Rhys ran his fingers over the scarred, tapered end of the remains of Aaron’s arm. Aaron shuddered at the touch. Rhys kissed Aaron’s biceps, hearing him stifle a sob. Aaron gently pushed Rhys back, then wiped his face. Rhys rolled off the bed and fetched some tissues from the bathroom. He handed them to Aaron. To his surprise, Aaron thanked him instead of his usual apologies when he got overwhelmed like this. He dried his face, blew his nose, then got off the bed to toss the tissues. When he walked back to face Rhys, Rhys said, “Say it again.”
Aaron smiled, watery but real. “I am amazing.”
“Always!” Rhys threw his arms around Aaron and pulled him close. He rested his head on Aaron’s shoulder as Aaron held him tight. “Always, my amazing, unconquerable man.”
Aaron’s embrace tightened, his lips brushing close to Rhys’s ear. “Can we just watch the movies now before I end up crying again?”
Rhys broke their embrace. “Absolutely. Jump into bed. I’ll queue up the movie, and tomorrow I’m spoiling you with room service.”
“You spoil me in every conceivable way, and I love you for it.”
Rhys smiled. “Love you back.”
Aaron put his arm securely away while Rhys dragged out the laptop. They climbed into bed together.
Rhys scowled, seeing the stupid Kennywood picture had replaced Roy Mustang as Aaron’s wallpaper. “Really?” he huffed.
“Hmmm, how did that happen?” Aaron smirked.
“Beset on all sides by brats.” Rhys nudged Aaron before turning on The Avengers. As the movie started, he brushed Aaron’s wavy dark hair back away from his cheeks. “Are you going to be all right now?”
“I’m good. With you here to lean on when I stumble, how could I be anything else?”
“That’s what I want to hear,” Rhys said.
Aaron held Rhys’s hand, giving it a squeeze. In that moment, Rhys knew the worst had passed. His bright boy was back, and that made the world right.
JANA DENARDO’s career choices and wanderlust take her all over the United States and beyond. Much of her travels make their way into her stories. Fantasy, science fiction, and mystery have been her favorite genres since she started reading, and they often flavor her works. In her secret identity, she works with the science of life and gives college students nightmares. When she’s not chained to her computer writing, she functions as stray cat magnet.
Jana is Queen of the Geeks (her students voted her in) and her home and office are shrines to any number of comic book and manga heroes along with SF shows and movies too numerous to count. It is no coincidence the love of all things geeky has made its way into many of her stories. To this day, she’s still disappointed she hasn’t found a wardrobe to another realm, a superhero to take her flying among the clouds, or a roguish starship captain to run off to the stars with her.
Contact Jana:
Blog: jana-denardo.livejournal.com
Twitter: @JanaDenardo
Facebook: www.facebook.com/jana.denardo
E-mail: [email protected]
Overcoming Fear
By Grace R. Duncan
In the year since a global pandemic ravaged their world, Duncan has done everything he can to ease Mark’s fears of losing him. When a minister and his wife seek out Mark for help, Duncan sees an opportunity to show Mark another level of commitment—if Mark will dare to take it.
WHEN HE heard the shout, the first thing Duncan did was reach for the Glock that was never far from him. He checked it to make sure it was loaded, then glanced at his partner, Mark, before crossing to the window.
“Hello, the house!” The man outside looked tall but lean—probably because of how hard nutritious food was to come by—and wore jeans and a simple green flannel button-down shirt. His dark hair likely hadn’t seen scissors since before the pandemic hit and was pulled back somehow, though Duncan couldn’t tel
l how. The man had his hands up in the universal pose to show he held no weapons.
Duncan frowned through the window. A woman stood next to the man, dressed similarly, except for sneakers instead of boots. Even from that distance, Duncan could tell something was wrong with her. With a deeper frown, he threw another glance at Mark, opened the door, and stepped out onto the porch.
“Oh thank God!” The man lowered his hands. “Is this where the nurse lives? My wife needs help.”
A creak sounded behind Duncan, and he turned as Mark stepped out onto the porch, though still mostly behind him. “I’m the nurse. What seems to be the problem?”
Duncan didn’t like leaving Mark exposed. Just because he couldn’t see a gun didn’t mean the man didn’t have one somewhere, and Mark stayed unarmed as much as possible. As a healer, he hated the thought of using a weapon. So, despite Mark’s protests, Duncan took it on himself to be their defense most of the time. Because unlike Mark, most people—in fact, Duncan would gander to say pretty much everyone—had a weapon of some sort on them. Even nearly four years after the pandemic, there was still a lot of violence and people thinking they could do anything.
Unfortunately, most of them were right because law enforcement didn’t exist. Law didn’t exist anymore if you didn’t go into the cities, and the “law” in the cities was anything but.
However, Duncan wasn’t going to stop Mark from treating someone. He’d only started doing so again some nine months before, when they’d met in a pharmacy after Duncan had broken his ankle. Mark’s willingness to help others was still somewhat shaky, and Duncan didn’t want to do anything to set that back.
So he lowered his weapon and stepped to the side to let Mark move forward.
The couple came closer a few feet. “I can’t seem to hold anything down,” the woman said.
Duncan looked over at Mark in time to catch his gaze sharpening on the woman. Mark echoed Duncan’s worry with his next questions. “Any coughing? Breathing problems?”
She shook her head quickly, swaying a little, and her husband caught her, wrapping his arms around her. “Nothing like that. Not like the….” She swallowed hard. “Not like the virus. Just stomach problems.”
Mark nodded slowly, looking at Duncan with his eyebrows up. Duncan gave a minute nod to the silent question of whether to allow them in. Mark turned back to the couple. “Come in, then, and let me take a look and see what we can figure out.”
They all moved into the main room of the cabin Mark and Duncan had settled in some six months prior. It was still not set up quite like they wanted. Instead of an exam table of any sort, a twin bed in the small bedroom on one end of the first floor served that purpose. They had shelves that held Mark’s pathetic hodgepodge of medical supplies, but not much else.
After Mark and the woman went into the exam room, Duncan turned to the man and smiled. “I’m Duncan. That’s Mark.”
“Oh, Pastor Bryan Nez. Nice to meet you.” He held his hand out, and Duncan hid his surprise at both the profession and the offer of a handshake as he took Bryan’s hand.
“Preacher, huh? I don’t imagine there are too many religious folks left.”
“No, there aren’t.” Bryan shrugged. “It’s what I do, though. Not sure I know anything else.”
“I can understand that.” Duncan scratched the back of his head. “I have to admit, I’m one of those nonreligious people.” When Bryan waved that away, Duncan shook his head at himself. “Sorry. Have a seat.” He held a hand out at the round wooden table in the portion of the great room that acted as their dining area. The room itself stretched two stories, with a loft bedroom on one end, a study on the other, and a wide, open balcony connecting the two that ran along the back wall. A large stone fireplace sat cold on one end of the first floor, outside the master suite. On the other side, two doors opened off the main room: one for Mark’s exam room and one for another half bathroom. Stairs between the two led to the second floor. “We don’t have coffee or the like, but we’ve got some bottled water, if you want some.”
Bryan shook his head. “Thanks, but that’s all right.”
Duncan took a seat with him and nodded toward the exam room. “Was she your wife before…?”
“No. Laura and I met about two years ago on the outskirts of Memphis. We’d both ended up in the same Kroger, looking for anything left behind. For a long time, she had trouble believing I wouldn’t kill her or rape her.” He sighed. “I finally got her to believe me. It took a while, though.”
Duncan frowned. “Yeah, that’s unfortunately too common these days.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it. You’d think human life would be more precious now, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. And, well, I’ve seen some incredible things—people helping in ways I never expected. Yet at the same time, cruelty that—as much as I’ve seen—I’d never have believed people capable of.” He cleared his throat. “Uh, listen, I don’t, uh, have anything to offer in trade. I mean, we’ve got a little bit of food—”
Duncan held up a hand. “Don’t worry about that. Mark is happy to help.” He tilted his head at Bryan as an idea came to him. “Actually… uh… I wonder if you might be willing to do something for us.”
Bryan blinked. “What could I possibly do?”
“Well.” Duncan frowned, wishing he hadn’t brought it up. The man was a minister and thus not likely to be open to this. He took a breath. Too late to back out now. “Um… how do you feel about, uh, same-sex couples?”
Bryan gave a crooked smile. “Even before the pandemic, I thought it shouldn’t be an issue. I can’t believe how people can get all up in arms over two people in love. Doesn’t matter what their gender is.”
Duncan let out a breath of relief. “So, uh, would you maybe be willing to officiate a wedding?”
“A wedding?” Bryan’s eyebrows went up. “You mean you and the nurse?”
“Mark, yeah.” Duncan nodded. “He… before we met, he’d lost a lot of people, even before the world went to hell. Sorry, uh, heck,” he corrected himself, blushing.
Bryan laughed and waved a hand. “Don’t worry about language on my account. There are bigger fish to fry. I thought you weren’t religious, though. Is Mark?”
“No. And we could do it without a preacher. It just seems more… official, I think.”
“Have you asked him yet?”
“No.” Duncan frowned. “Um… like I said, Mark lost a lot of people even before the pandemic. His family was estranged; his wife was a real piece of work.” Duncan shook his head. “So, when the pandemic hit and all his friends and coworkers started going too… it was too much. Took a lot for me to convince him to stay with me. To let me love him.” He swallowed as the fears he’d been fighting for almost a year nearly stole his breath again. “Anyway, I do what I can to prove I’m not going anywhere—not by choice, anyway. But it’s not always enough. So, I was thinking, if we got married, it’d show him again how much I want to stick around.”
Bryan nodded slowly. “I can see that. I’m sorry for what he’s been through. It’s good he’s found you, though.”
Duncan smiled. “Thanks. Do you think you might be willing to?”
Bryan’s smile spread wide. “I’d be honored.”
MARK AND Laura emerged from the exam room a short while later. Laura looked sheepish, and Duncan raised his eyebrows at Mark. Mark winked and crossed the room to stand next to him. Duncan reached up and took Mark’s hand as Laura sat next to Bryan.
“So, uh, there might be a simple explanation for my stomach problems.”
Bryan glanced at Mark, then turned back to Laura. “Might?”
She nodded. “Yeah, uh, well, we don’t know yet because Mark doesn’t have a test to be sure.”
Bryan frowned. “What test?”
Laura licked her lips. “A pregnancy test.”
Bryan’s mouth fell open and his eyes widened almost comically. “Preg—Laura, are you pregnant?”
She looked terrified as sh
e shrugged. “I, uh, don’t know, but Mark, um, helped me realize I haven’t, err, bled in almost two months.”
Bryan blinked then and a huge smile crossed his face. “A baby! Oh, Laura!” He pulled her close, then lifted her into his lap and wrapped his arms around her.
“Bryan….” She chuckled and let him hug her for a moment, then pushed at one arm. “Bryan… how do we raise and take care of a baby in this world?”
Mark spoke up. “Well, first, by staying close to me.”
Duncan grinned up at him, thrilled at the suggestion—thrilled by what it showed in Mark.
“Close to you?” Laura asked.
Mark nodded. “I wouldn’t feel even remotely right about letting you go anywhere. You’re young enough that there shouldn’t be complications, but we have no idea what the virus—if it’s still around—much less the inoculation would do to you or the pregnancy or subsequent baby. Any effects from the inoculation should be long gone from your system, but….” He shrugged. “There’s too much we don’t know about the virus and what was done to counter it.”
Laura nodded. “That much is true.” She turned to Bryan. “Um… how do you feel about that?”
“If he hadn’t suggested it, I would have asked. I don’t like the idea of you being any farther away from a medical professional than necessary.” He turned to Mark. “How sure are you?”
Mark shook his head. “I’m not entirely. Without a test….” He frowned. “But the symptoms point to it and, frankly, there aren’t a lot of other possibilities that aren’t scary as hell. We should go find a test if we can and go from there.”
“I’ll go—” Bryan started, but Duncan cut him off.
“Not so fast,” he said. “Are you armed?”
Bryan frowned. “No. I mean, I can fight with my fists if I have to, but—”
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