Liesmith

by Alis Franklin

  Sigmund nodded, bit his lip. It wasn’t the same, because nothing ever was. But…it was something.

  “Feelings are hard,” he said when the silence began to itch.

  Lain laughed at that, a sharp little razor to excise the choking angst. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, they are.” Then he shifted, and his thigh was gone. Sigmund’s skin felt colder for its absence.

  The rest of the trip, they mostly discussed video games.

  —

  The Friday, Sigmund had to admit, was not terrible.

  As far as civilization went, the campground wasn’t that far from it: a wide flat space of grass nestled within the trees, buildings and barbecues ringed around the edge. There was a shower block, a squat and ugly relic from the ’70s, but walking into it didn’t make Sigmund fear for his health.

  “See,” said Lain, “this isn’t too bad. Look, there’s even electricity. You can charge your phone.”

  Sigmund thought he was going to have to fight off the rest of the IT department to do so. But it was still nice to have the option.

  The first thing involved gathering in the hall for the Welcome to the Annual LBIT Retreat induction speeches. Some way-too-fit and too-perky-looking course coordinators in bright blue hats smiled at them so much, Sigmund’s own teeth started aching. Then they threatened the group with fun and team building, and also workplace safety regulations, and Sigmund leaned over to ask Lain when the Kool-Aid was being distributed. That got him a grin and an elbow in the ribs, but also a choked laugh out of Dean from Storage.

  The first “team-building” activity, as it turned out, was to find a buddy or group of buddies with whom to share accommodations, which was easy. The second activity was to swap tents.

  “I assume you all know how to put up your own tents,” said Perky Hat Lady Lisa. “So what I want everyone to do, if you’ve got a tent, is to line up here. Two-person tents, three, four, six…anyone over six?”

  Everyone shuffled into position with the apathetic obedience of office workers. Sigmund ended up tent swapping with Loi from Networking.

  “Sorry, man,” he said. “I think Dad bought this surplus from World War II. I hope it doesn’t fall down on you.”

  Loi grinned, hefting the enormous canvas bag. “Well, I only bought mine the other day,” he said. “If it comes back with stains, I’m sending you the receipt.”

  Sigmund made it halfway back to Lain before it occurred to him that he’d maybe just been…insulted? Or something?

  He decided not to think about it, instead rescuing Lain from the attentions of three girls from Service Desk. They all sighed and looked at Sigmund wistfully when he approached, and he tried not to think too much about that, either.

  Then he and Lain found a likely patch of grass, and stared at each other.

  “So,” Sigmund said. “You know how to do this?”

  “Not a fucking clue,” Lain confessed. “Google?”

  “Google.”

  In the end, it wasn’t that difficult, thanks to the magic of instructional videos. The worst part was trying not to giggle every time someone said erect because, yes, apparently they both still had a level of emotional maturity below that of schoolchildren on YouTube. When everything was done, they crawled inside to make their beds.

  “Wow,” Sigmund’s mouth said, before his brain could stop it, “it’s kinda cozy, hey?” Two-person tents. Not exactly spacious, as it turned out.

  Lain shook out his sleeping bag, smoothing big hands across the fabric. “Well,” he said, “if it makes you feel better, I don’t sleep much. So mostly it’ll be all you in here.”

  It was supposed to be reassuring, but really it just made Sigmund feel like the world’s biggest jackass. Because it was a lie, and because what if everyone was right and Lain really was…a little bit Stephen Fry? And what if he now thought Sigmund was a homophobic jerk, as opposed to just a dorky loser? Sigmund should probably say something about that, right? Something cool and charming, like the sort of thing Lain would say if it were him, except of course it never would’ve been him because he was, well, cool and charming. Unlike Sigmund. Except by the time Sigmund looked up to open his big loser mouth, Lain was already shuffling backward out the tent door. Flap. Whatever.

  “Shit.”

  Sigmund hurried to follow, just in case Lain was, like, upset or something. By the time he’d wormed his own way out, Lain was standing, hands on hips, peering down. The sun caught in his hair and turned it into a crown of flame around his shadowed face.

  “I think,” he said, “that we need a rule.”

  “Oh?” said Sigmund’s traitorous mouth and, Jesus, Lain was kinda tall. He didn’t seem like the type—some people didn’t, something about personality or posture, maybe—but Sigmund thought the guy had to be over six feet at least.

  And Lain said: “No shoes in the tent.”

  “No…shoes?”

  “Right. If you’re going in the tent, shoes come off. Otherwise we’re gonna be sleeping in mud within an hour.”

  “Oh,” said Sigmund. “Okay.” That sounded reasonable. Except his own shoes were totally still hanging over the threshold. So he dragged them out quickly, and stood up.

  Lain grinned, punching Sigmund gently in the arm. “Cool,” he said, and it was.

  —

  The afternoon was tents, then icebreakers. Between Sigmund’s built-in lie detector and Lain’s…Lainness, they both dominated the latter, earning themselves handfuls of candies. Mostly Fantales, after Lain went around the room doing swaps with all and sundry after Sigmund professed a liking for the chocolate-coated toffees.

  After that came dinner. Then sitting around the campfire, nursing a beer, watching Lain tell more outrageous stories to their coworkers.

  Maybe it was the day talking—Sigmund was tired from activities and muzzy from the beer—but there was something about Lain in the firelight. Something about the way his hair caught the glow that made it seem to burn all on its own, loose curls dancing around cheekbones that were very high and very, very sharp. Lain’s skin was clear and smooth and freckled, and, just for a moment, Sigmund found himself wondering what it would feel like to touch. Warm, probably. And soft.

  Lain really was terribly handsome.

  Sigmund was staring; he knew he was. Eyes glassy while his mind danced like the flames, a strange and flickering heat, fueled by Lain’s easy grins and Katia’s office gossip and the width of a too-small tent.

  Sigmund had seen Brokeback Mountain. He knew how these things went.

  Except they didn’t.

  The campfire burnt down and the crowds began to vanish. Sigmund followed—not the first to go, easily not the last—then spent a good twenty minutes fighting tinea in the shower block.

  When he got back to the tent, it looked smaller than he remembered, cut in harsh chiaroscuro from the flashlight on Sigmund’s phone. He crawled inside, kicking his shoes off as he went, settling onto his bedroll and inside his sleeping bag.

  Lain was still outside, entertaining. Sigmund could hear him, bright voice a muffled crackle, surrounded by the laughter of his audience.

  Charming and handsome and popular. Katia had to be wrong. Otherwise Lain would be here, surely? Tucked in beside Sigmund, close enough for his heat to radiate through nylon and through down, eyes bright disks of green within the darkness.

  It was easy to tell secrets, in the dark. Sigmund knew that from experience, from a hundred sleepovers with Em as kids, whispering things they’d never daresay under the sun.

  He’d ask Lain the Question, voice barely a breath. Do you, y’know. Like like me?

  In response, Lain would just grin his sharp white grin, shifting a little closer as he’d say, Why? Do you, y’know. Like like me?

  He wouldn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he’d lean closer, until his warmth ghosted across Sigmund’s lips, parted but not touching, waiting for Sigmund to close the distance and—

  “Fuck!”

  Sigmund’s eyes shot open
, fantasies blown apart as the tent shook around him.

  “Lain?” he called.

  “Yeah,” came the voice. Outside, silhouetted against blue ripstop, Sigmund could make out Lain’s shadow, stumbling across the grass.

  “You okay?”

  A second later, Lain’s head appeared inside the tent, grimacing. “Yeah. Yeah, I just tripped over the ropes. Sorry. Did I wake you?”

  Sigmund relaxed, propped up on his elbows. “Nah,” he said, since, I was just fantasizing about kissing you, was probably the wrong response. “Didn’t kick the tent down, that’s good.”

  “Hah, yeah. It’s dark out there.” Lain crawled inside, just enough to rummage through his pack. “I’m gonna have a shower. I’ll try not to wake you up again.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Sigmund, settling back down.

  Lain’s light disappeared, taking Lain with it. “Night, man,” he said as he went.

  “Night,” said Sigmund, and tried to banish all thoughts of grins and kisses.

  —

  “Dude. Are you sure it’s this way? I think we’ve been here before.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Jesus.”

  “Dude…”

  “Look, the map says…It says…Shit. There should be a trail just up here, and we might even be able to find it if the compass would just fucking work!” Sigmund shook the object in question. Ungently. The needle spinning and spinning and spinning and refusing to settle.

  (think it’s broken. how the fuck does a compass break, anyway?)

  Day two, Saturday. Sometime in the afternoon. Sigmund didn’t know when exactly because his fucking phone had run out of fucking batteries and all the other fuckers had been using the power outlets so Sigmund had decided to leave it back in the tent and then they’d gone on this fucking orienteering course and that had been hours ago except it felt like they’d been trekking around the fucking bush for fucking eons and Sigmund had the fucking map except he could’ve sworn it’d stopped looking like any of their fucking surroundings way back and Lain was right that rock was totally familiar and—

  “We’re fucking lost!”

  “Yeah, man. I’ve been trying to tell you for—”

  “Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!”

  “Dude. Calm down.”

  Sigmund spun, and suddenly he was there. Right up in Lain’s face. Or, well, underneath it. Because of course Lain was a fucking giant skinny motherfucker. “We’re lost. In the bush, Lain,” he said. “People die in the bush!” With the snakes and the spiders and the emus and the fact that it was one hundred fucking million degrees in the shade. People died! Stupid fucking overperky Hat People and their team-building orienteering death-march bullshit and, Christ. Sigmund had gotten them lost. Because he couldn’t read a fucking map. Parading around all proud with his dad’s broken fucking compass like a big fucking bush expert. Like they were in press-M-to-display-the-minimap territory instead of in the Really Fucking Real World where loser wannabe video game skills didn’t fucking apply.

  “Sig, we’re not gonna die. We can’t be that far from camp.”

  Except Lain didn’t believe that, and the lie taunted Sigmund’s already humiliated nerves. “We’ve been walking for hours. Who knows where we are!” Deeper and deeper into the fucking bush, like fucking idiots. Until the trees had closed in overhead and the ground looked like it hadn’t been walked on in a thousand years. “I don’t have my phone,” Sigmund added. “You don’t have your phone. We’re going to die.”

  “You know,” Lain said, all stupid little sharp-toothed smirk, “people have been around a lot longer than phones. I think we can probably make it back without.”

  Fucking smug-ass Lain I’m-So-Good-at-Fucking-Everything Laufeyjarson. “Fine,” snapped Sigmund, “you get us back, then.” And kinda…threw the map and compass Lain’s way.

  “Whoa. Sig. Sigmund! What’s gotten into you?”

  He was hot and tired and his feet ached and they would’ve been back by now if he wasn’t such a fucking failure at life, that’s what had gotten into him. Except he couldn’t exactly yell that at Lain in the middle of the bush. So Sigmund took the manly option, and stormed off instead. Because that was totally what they needed: Sigmund getting them even more lost because he was a stupid child who couldn’t read a fucking map and who’d been tromping them around in circles. Because he’d been too proud to admit to Lain it’d been a thing. Lain, who’d known it was happening, because of fucking course he had. Humoring Sigmund like a fucking—

  It was about then that the ground dropped away.

  “Sigmund!”

  One moment it was there, the next, Sigmund’s foot broke through leaves and roots and twigs and onto absolutely nothing underneath.

  “Fuuhhh—!”

  And then gravity. Em didn’t look up from where she was busy.

  (“no!”)

  And then—

  “Got you!”

  —agony, tearing down his arm, lancing through his shoulder, into his ribs.

  “Give me your other hand!”

  Sigmund blinked. Someone was yelling at him. Someone was yelling at him, his arm ached, and he was swinging. In midair. Nothing below his feet.

  He looked down. Then wished he hadn’t.

  “Sig? Your other hand, c’mon, man!”

  He looked up. And there was Lain. Half of Lain, his face and shoulders protruding through the leaves. One hand open and reaching forward, the other gripped tight around Sigmund’s wrist.

  Lain had caught him. Sigmund had fallen off a fucking cliff and Lain had caught him.

  “Yeah, I gotcha, man,” Lain said. “But I need another hand here, okay?”

  Moving felt…strange. Painful and thick. Slow. Like his limbs belonged to someone else.

  He raised his hand. Lain grabbed it, then he pulled.

  Later, it would occur to Sigmund to wonder how, exactly, Lain managed it. Sigmund wasn’t light. Lain wasn’t holding on to anything. He should’ve been dragged off the edge too, surely? But he wasn’t. He hauled Sigmund up instead.

  Later, Sigmund would wonder. Not yet.

  —

  Not quite later enough yet, he was sitting on the ground, back against some huge wall of weathered rock.

  “Jesus. Jesus fuck. Jesus. Fuck. Jesus…”

  Someone had been saying that for a while. Using Sigmund’s voice.

  “Fuck. We gotta—we gotta get back, man. The compass. Gotta get Dad’s compass. Get—get back to the camp. It’ll be dark, man. Gotta get…”

  He’d stopped trying to stand. Every time he did, huge hands pushed him back down against the rock.

  They were very, very strong, those hands. Very strong, and very big, and very gentle. Where they touched him, Sigmund felt hot enough to burn.

  Lain’s hands, their owner sitting on his haunches nearby, like some skinny hipster bird. Watching Sigmund with eyes as green and endless as the forest.

  A part of Sigmund knew what this was. He’d nearly died. This was shock. He’d felt it once before, when he was younger and had fallen off the monkey bars and snapped his arm. Just shock. It’d pass. Lain was here. Lain was A Good Guy. He’d saved Sigmund’s life. He’d make sure Sigmund didn’t do anything else mortally stupid.

  “J-Jesus. I nearly d-died.” Lain was getting kinda blurry. Almost like Sigmund was looking at him from underwater.

  “Yeah,” said Lain. “Nearly. But I got you.”

  “My arm h-hurts.”

  “I bet it does.”

  “I th-think it’s dis-dislocated.” He was having trouble moving his shoulder. When he touched the skin, it felt stiff and hot. And not Lain-hot. Lain-hot was nice. This was…not that.

  “It’s not dislocated,” Lain said. “I should ice it, but…” His expression was strange, hands drumming against each other as if turning some difficult thing over in his mind.

  “ ’S okay,” Sigmund said. “You d-don’t have a-any ice.” He couldn’t seem to make his voice stop shaking. Or his bod
y.

  Lain nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. I don’t have any ice.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly. But it did sound like maybe he was trying to convince himself.

  “I’m p-pretty sure it’s disloc-dislocated, though.”

  That got him the thin edge of a grin, then a sigh. Then Lain, turning around to sit beside Sigmund on the ground, back against the rock.

  “I’m an id-idiot,” Sigmund said.

  “Yeah. You are.” Sigmund could feel Lain’s warmth through his shirt. Even in the middle of summer, sitting next to Lain felt like sitting next to a bonfire.

  “I got…got us lo-lost. ’C-cause I was too pr-roud to…to admit…” Except his voice hitched, and the end of the sentence wouldn’t come.

  Lain heard it anyway. “Yeah,” he said. “You did. And obviously you’re the first person ever in history to do something like that and should therefore feel hideously ashamed forever until the end of time.” Except he was grinning, and elbowed Sigmund gently in the ribs.

  When Sigmund laughed, it was a wet and broken sound. “Oh, god. I’m su-such a di-dick. We’re g-gonna die out h-here. You shou-should’ve let me fa-fall.”

  Lain snorted. “If we’re gonna die,” he said, “we’ll do it sticking together. That way, I can eat you when we run out of Fantales. But I don’t think it’ll come to that. The Hat People will be searching for us. LB will sue the shit outta them if they lose its staff.”

  “We’ll ru-run outta w-water. And dehydrate. Or get…get p-pecked to death by e-emus.”

  “Mate, emus won’t come near me. I’m a redhead. They’re superstitious about that sort of thing. And there’s a stream not far back. I’ll go get us water when you’re done with your freak-out.”

  Sigmund laughed again. A gross explosion of snot and tears. “Je-Jesus. Y-you have a smug-ass answer to ev-everything.”

  “True,” said Lain, all sharp and bright and wild. “It’s kinda my thing.”

  Sigmund bit his lip, then looked down. “And you know how to g-get us ba-back, too? D-don’t you?”