Flickers

by Tia Fielding

  Their mutual attraction was obvious now. It was clear as day, and despite not having talked about it yet, Ben knew they were heading into a relationship.

  It hadn’t been easy, per se, but like he’d told Adrian, he’d seen a lot of things about himself in a new light. Like his aversion to flamboyant gay men. It wasn’t dislike, it was fear of being exposed.

  Ben’s dad had been old school, and while he hadn’t been a bad man, he had never understood gay people, and all the men he thought were acting feminine were somehow less than the manly men he’d liked to surround himself with.

  Having a gay son would’ve been hard on his dad, and Ben had loved his father. Somehow he’d repressed his gay side and hidden in a closet he’d built for himself.

  Now, he’d looked into things. Hell, he’d come out to his sister and her husband, his old roommate and friend Jocey, and even his own mother. His mother, who had told him that she loved and accepted him as long as he was happy in his “chosen lifestyle.”

  It hadn’t hurt. He’d understood how she’d been raised. Even when she’d told him his dad wouldn’t have understood and maybe it was better he wasn’t around anymore, Ben had felt at peace. A curious, almost hurty peace, but peace nonetheless.

  “What’s got you thinking so hard?” Adrian asked, handing him a beer.

  He hadn’t even noticed the fridge door opening, and shrugged sheepishly. “Gay stuff.” See, he could still joke about it.

  “Well how about we take the gay stuff to the couch and watch the Golden Girls while we’re at it?” Adrian nudged his arm and walked to the living room.

  “Really?” Ben knew he sounded incredulous, but didn’t care.

  Adrian laughed at him. “Hey, it’s a great show. Very progressive for its time.”

  “I know that, but it’s awfully….”

  “Gay?” Adrian raised a brow at him. “Well honey, so are you,” he said in a campy tone, and Ben laughed with him.

  “I guess so,” he had to admit.

  “Seriously though, we can watch whatever you want. It’s just one of my comfort shows.”

  “I’m fine with it. I used to watch it with my mom sometimes. Besides, Betty White is a badass.”

  They settled to half watch the show and occasionally talked about something in that sort of casual, friendly way people comfortable around each other do. The nervousness from before had vanished somewhere, even when their bottles were empty and they’d put them on the coffee table. Having your hands free meant cuddling, in Ben’s opinion, so he dared to lean against Adrian’s side and enjoyed a frisson of excitement when Adrian lifted his arm over Ben’s shoulders and pulled him closer.

  He might’ve been smaller, even if not by much, but it still felt weird to be the one being cuddled. Not bad weird, though. Just… foreign.

  “Relax, Ben. I can’t hear them over your thinking,” Adrian murmured and settled even deeper into the worn, comfy cushions.

  Ben must’ve nodded off, because he woke up when Adrian kissed his temple.

  “I need to go make sure Spike comes inside for the night, honey. This is your time to decide whether you want to sleep in my room or the guestroom.” Adrian’s smile was understanding, and that made it easier for Ben to make his way to Adrian’s bedroom while the man got Spike settled.

  He felt nervous again as he undressed, but when Adrian came back and went about his evening routine as if there was nothing strange about having Ben there, he settled again.

  “Relax, I’m not going to jump you until you ask me to,” Adrian said, obviously noticing that Ben tensed when it was time to climb into bed.

  “It’s not that—”

  “Well of course you don’t think I’d try to do anything against your will, Ben, I know that. But there’s a part of you that’s always thought itself straight. It’s bound to be weird and I get it.”

  “You came out at fifteen, though,” Ben muttered as he slid under the covers and made himself comfortable.

  “I did. It doesn’t mean I didn’t have my fears and doubts, though. They might’ve been different at the time, but they still existed, just like yours.”

  Adrian reached to turn off the lights and Ben closed his eyes to get his eyesight to adjust faster. He wanted to see Adrian in the dim moonlight, since they laid face-to-face.

  “I never thought my life would change this much at this age,” he admitted quietly.

  “Is it weird if I tell you I feel honored to be part of that change?” Adrian asked almost shyly.

  Ben held out a hand and Adrian took it. It felt sweet, holding hands. It hadn’t been like that for Ben in years. Then again most of his relationships with women hadn’t worked. He just hadn’t been that into them and hadn’t known what the fuss was about.

  Speaking of which, “So… do you like…?”

  “Top or bottom?” Adrian asked, grinning as if he’d known Ben was going to ask it.

  “Don’t laugh at me, it’s a valid question!” Ben huffed in mock outrage, but he could see the humor in the situation, too.

  “It is. It’s just cute when you ask it,” Adrian said and leaned closer to peck Ben’s lips. “And to answer that, I don’t really have a preference. It’s okay if you’ll end up having one. Sex is great anyway.”

  “When I did my online research—stop laughing at me!” Ben poked Adrian’s chest with his free hand and pouted a little.

  Trying to suppress a smile, Adrian snorted. “Sorry, sorry… what did you online research discover?”

  “Someone said that they liked it both ways and that for them it was about mood. Then someone else said they didn’t like penetrative sex at all.”

  “And you’re wondering if that’s possible because men like sticking their dicks into holes?” he made an educated guess. “I know men who don’t like it. Either it’s painful for them or they’re squeamish, I know someone who couldn’t because he’d been abused. But then I also know people who have been abused and have fulfilling penetrative sex, too. I think of it as to each their own.”

  Ben mulled over what Adrian had said, and eventually nodded. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “You just let me know when you’re ready to do something, and we’ll try things out, okay?” Adrian leaned closer again, this time giving him a deeper kiss.

  They made out like teenagers, and Ben had to admit he’d never gotten as hard so fast as he did right then. But it wasn’t time yet, he still had things to wrap his mind around first.

  The lamp on the bedside table went on.

  “What now?” Adrian asked the ceiling, sighing.

  “Yeah, stalkery much, Gavin?” Ben added.

  “I think he just wants to watch and be acknowledged.” Adrian chuckled.

  “Well when we start having actual sex, I’ll fucking burn sage or something beforehand to keep him out. It’s one thing to stare at my ass and to watch us have sex.”

  Adrian blushed suddenly and avoided Ben’s gaze. “Uh….”

  “What?” Ben looked at him, confused.

  “He might’ve watched me masturbate a few times.”

  Ben just stared. Then the hilarity of the situation hit him full force, and he snorted. It escalated into a chuckle, then a belly laugh, and after a moment they were both hiccupping with giggles, wiping tears from their eyes.

  The light turning off by itself made them laugh more. Eventually, they calmed down, cuddled closer to each other, and kissed goodnight.

  ***

  Ben was at work, finishing up raking the multi-colored autumn leaves from the yard of an old lady, when his cell rang with Adrian’s designated ringtone. He took off his gloves and reached for his phone, knowing something had to be wrong.

  “Babe?” he asked, the word slipping out for the maybe the second time, ever.

  “I… Gavin’s ashes. I just got them.” The tone of Adrian’s voice was off. Upset. More than Ben had anticipated, but he knew grief worked in unpredictable ways.

  “Oh, do you want m
e to come over? I’m off work in an hour and a half,” Ben said, already calculating when he’d have to start the drive back the next morning to get into work in time.

  “You don’t have to,” Adrian said, but his voice betrayed him.

  Ben knew Adrian didn’t have many people in his life, and certainly nobody who knew the situation as well as he did.

  “No, I’ll ask Ross if I can be late in the morning and I’ll head over as soon as I can. I’ll bring food, okay?” He couldn’t lie and say it would be all fine, because it might not be, not in a long time.

  “Y-yeah, okay. Thank you.”

  “Adrian, I… I’ll be there soon. Just hold on.”

  “Okay. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Ben put the phone away and sighed.

  “What’s wrong?” Ross walked up to him, looking worried.

  “Adrian got the ashes.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. I’ll head out there when we’re done here. Can I be an hour or so late in the morning?” he asked, peering at Ross.

  “Ben, you can leave right now and take tomorrow off. It’s a family emergency, right?” His brother-in-law asked, eyebrows scrunching into his “serious” expression. “So you get time off. Go on. I’ll finish up here. See you on Monday.”

  Ben blinked a couple of times, then clapped Ross’s arm in passing, and walked to his truck before he started to cry.

  Damn it. Even Ross had been really good about Ben’s whole gay thing and Adrian. He didn’t know how they’d met, of course, but he was as supportive as Ben’s sister. This, however, seemed like a lot to Ben, but he wasn’t about to look the gift horse in the mouth, no sir.

  He drove home to pack a bag and called in an order to Adrian’s favorite taco place with a set time for pick up. Then he got into the truck and began the drive toward his heart.

  It didn’t surprise him anymore. They hadn’t used the words, and they hadn’t talked feelings, but it all went without saying. They’d spent more nights together, but with the way Ben’s work was at home and Adrian’s art taking his time quite sporadically, there hadn’t been many sleepovers.

  They’d exchanged hand jobs and Adrian had blown him once. He wanted to reciprocate but it hadn’t quite been the suitable moment. Anything more than that had to wait.

  He got to the farm around five-thirty with the food. Spike was nowhere to be seen, which worried Ben until he found the dog with Adrian and a box of ashes in the living room.

  Adrian hugged the dog to his chest and stared at the box on the coffee table.

  It felt weird to see a person diminished into a small cardboard box, but there it sat. Over the last few months, Ben had heard more stories about Gavin, and he liked the man based on those stories. Hell, even before he’d met Adrian, he’d sort of formed a connection with Gavin’s ghost.

  Ben took the food into the kitchen and put his bag in the bedroom, then walked to sit on Adrian’s other side. Spike didn’t care, it seemed, so Ben pulled them both as close to him as he could.

  They sat in silence for a long time. Adrian hiccupped a sob here and there, but mostly they just breathed together, soaking in the comfort of each other.

  Eventually, Spike moved off the couch and toddled to the door. He turned to look at them, and Ben went to let him out. Then he came back to the couch and held a hand to Adrian.

  “Come on, babe. We both need to eat. Gavin’s not going anywhere. Let’s sit in the kitchen.” Without the ashes next to their plates. Went without saying, that one.

  Adrian wobbled a little, almost like Spike would, when he got up, but followed Ben to the kitchen anyway. It seemed like Adrian didn’t want to let go of Ben’s hand, but had to when they filled their plates and then sat to have dinner.

  The mood was somber. Eventually, Adrian cleared his throat after taking a sip of the beer Ben had put next to his plate.

  “What do you think we should do with the ashes?”

  Ben swallowed hard, trying to figure out what the right answer was here.

  “You said he always felt most at home here, right? Is there a place on the property he liked the most?”

  Adrian hummed and continued eating, his expression thoughtful. After a few more bites, he brightened some.

  “There is one spot, yeah. There’s a tree he liked. It’s actually close to where I sketched the painting.”

  “So maybe we should spread his ashes there? It’s bound to be gorgeous there right now, with all the fall colors and such,” Ben mused.

  “Yeah, that’s actually a pretty good idea.” Adrian smiled at him. His expression was tinged with grief, as if the loss had just settled in with the proof of it so concrete and literally touchable now.

  ***

  They decided to leave Spike outside when he didn’t come in when called. The barn door was always left open for him, if the weather changed during the night and he wanted shelter. If he wanted to be inside, he’d come and howl at the door, obviously having lost most of his hearing. Adrian claimed it felt like living with a hard of hearing elderly human sometimes, with Spike’s vocalizations getting louder and louder the older he got.

  They skipped TV time in lieu of a long, hot shower together. There was nothing sexual about it, just the fact that they both needed the comfort of each other.

  Adrian clung to Ben a bit desperately for a while under the warm spray. It felt as if the grief washed over him every now and then, bringing another surge of emotions that wouldn’t slide off and away from him as easily as the water from the showerhead.

  They got into bed and Ben pulled Adrian close. Sometimes Adrian’s breath shuddered and Ben would feel it against his chest and side. It broke his heart a little, but he knew sometimes you just had to wait it all out.

  It took Adrian a couple of hours to fall asleep, and only when he heard the telltale snore did Ben let sleep claim himself.

  ***

  In the morning, Ben woke first. He extracted himself from the sheet and the clingy sleeping man, and went to do his morning routines.

  In the kitchen, he put the coffee machine on and went to look for Spike, who was always fed in the breakfast time and then again in the late afternoon.

  He opened the door and peered into the morning. It was somewhere past nine, and sun was shining through the multi-colored leaves of the trees surrounding the yard.

  Spike wasn’t in his doggy bed on the porch, so Ben pulled on his sneakers and went to peek in the barn.

  It made no sense to call the dog, since he wouldn’t hear anyway. Ben had spent enough nights at the farm by now, that he knew the spots Spike might be. The barn was a bust, the dog bed there, by an old radiator, was empty.

  Still not that worried, Ben walked around the yard and peeked into all the places he’d seen Spike snoozing in. The dog was nowhere to be seen.

  He went back inside and found adorably sleepy Adrian pouring coffee in two mugs.

  “Morning, honey,” Adrian murmured and Ben went to give him a kiss.

  “Morning.” He waited until both of them had a few sips of coffee in, before breaking the news. “So, we might have a situation.”

  “Oh?” Adrian perked up, his reddish eyebrows drawing together.

  “Yeah. I can’t seem to find Spike anywhere.”

  Adrian frowned, thought for a while, and then sighed. “Let’s go look. There’s a four-wheeler in the back garage. We’ll take that. I think you can fit in the back. I’ll drive carefully.” Adrian tried to smile, but Ben knew he wasn’t feeling it.

  Something was wrong, most likely, and… yeah. He didn’t want to be negative, but by now he knew that Spike would’ve been in his usual spots if he was fine.

  They drove around slowly, calling out to the dog here and there, in places where Adrian thought he could be. After almost an hour, Adrian suddenly stopped the vehicle and turned his head to look at Ben who balanced on the back

  “I think I know where he’s gone. And I think we need to get Gavin and a shovel.” There wa
s new kind of grief in Adrian’s gaze, but it seemed almost calm and settled at the same time. Ben nodded, held on, and they got the box and the shovel, and headed off again.

  It felt weird to know where they were going as soon as he saw it. This was the fence, and there was the tree. All that was missing was the dragon in the sky.

  They entered through a gate and left it open, as there weren’t horses inside this time.

  They approached the tree at a steady pace, and Ben saw what they were looking for. The gray mound of curled-up dog by the tree didn’t move even when they got right next to it.

  Ben hopped off, clutching the box to his chest, and went to Spike.

  Adrian followed him in a more sedate pace, grabbing the shovel they’d tied to the rack.

  Ben knelt next to Spike and ruffled the fur on top of his head. The dog was dead, and appeared as if he had just gone to sleep and passed away.

  “This is the spot you were talking about, right?” he asked and glanced over his shoulder at Adrian who gave him a slightly wobbly smile.

  “Yeah. They used to come here to just chill out. Gavin would read and Spike would guard him. I’d sometimes come here to have lunch with them.”

  Ben got to his feet and held out the box for Adrian. “You take this, and let me know where to dig.”

  He dug a grave the size of an elderly dog. Something good had come out of his landscaping work; he could dig like nobody’s business.

  “You want them both in there?” he asked as he deemed the grave good enough.

  “Maybe half of the ashes around the tree, half in there with Spike?” Adrian pondered out loud, then nodded to himself. “Yeah, we’ll do that.”

  There wasn’t much wind, so after opening the little box, Adrian carefully scattered some of the ashes, while Ben lifted Spike and put him into the grave. He waited for Adrian to place the box next to the dog, then gave him a moment to say goodbye in private.

  Ben walked to the other side of the tree and looked around. The colors were stunning, Kentucky showing them all the wonders of fall at its brightest.

  He had no doubt that Gavin would love to be buried here with Spike. Ben might not have believed in things like heaven, but he sent a thought to Gavin and his furry friend, hoping they’d both finally rest in peace.