Walk a Lonesome Road

by Ann Somerville

  Dek doesn’t respond to that, but as he turns around and sets khevai and food down before Ren, he looks at him properly for the first time. Ren’s hair is now grown back so much he’s wearing it in a long, sleek tail. He’s put on weight, muscle, and he’s regained his girlish figure. “You look good,” Dek says finally as Ren patiently allows the survey. He looks incredibly handsome, in fact.

  “So do you.” Ren reaches up and holds Dek’s arm. “I really missed you. Every fucking day.”

  “Never thought about you at all,” Dek says gruffly.

  Ren laughs. “Nice try, but you can’t lie to an empath. Are you well, Dek?” he asks, searching his face for clues.

  “Same as ever. Let me...uh...khevai and stuff.”

  Ren lets go and Dek serves himself, then sits down. “So...why?” he says, sipping his drink and letting himself enjoy the miracle of Ren’s presence in his kitchen.

  “Because I’ve finished my training and I had to see you. They refused to let me come before I did that, but I told them I wasn’t going to cooperate any more unless they let me come up after I qualified. And since I’m the Dual Soul I kind of have more clout with them than most paranormals, so here I am. You want my news?”

  Dek gives him a look and Ren laughs. “Well, Misa’s fine and blooming. Her feet and hips were a little deformed because of the position she was in, but she got off lightly in that respect, and everything’s been repaired. Dek, the medical knowledge there is incredible,” he says with awe in his tone. “I thought I was well-trained, but now I realise Pindoni medicine is just so damn primitive. They couldn’t have done this,” he says, holding up his previously tattooed and now unblemished hand. “I probably would have died from Misa’s extraction if they weren’t so advanced. Damn near did,” he adds with a grimace and even though he’s clearly well and not in any danger, Dek can’t help feeling a knot of anxiety at how close it came. “I hadn’t planned to keep her, and when I found Jinase had been rescued too, I asked her if she would look after the child. Dek—they forced her to have three babies, can you believe that? Took every one of them away. I don’t know how she stayed sane.”

  “Good breeding,” Dek says. How could they use humans that way? The he realises how what he said might sound. “Uh...I meant good genes.”

  “I know,” Ren says with a smile. “Jinase said to wait until after the baby was born, and when I came around properly—I was so sick for a long while—and there she was, so beautiful, so innocent, I knew...this was my chance to make something good come of it. She can’t replace Meram, but no one could. She’s nothing like him, but she’s still precious to me.”

  And Dek can see that, how this unwanted thing has become a source of joy for his friend. “You hear anything about your boy?”

  Ren’s smile becomes a grimace. “Geya’s parents are raising him, which isn’t a bad thing because they’re good people. She’s involved in some secret research and gave up custody. My parents are raising Jinase’s two kids. Her husband died in prison. Really died, so far as anyone knows. Jinase’s...uh...well, she’s got things to work through. So do I.” Dek nods. It’s amazing either of them are sane, really. “That’s what I’m going to specialise in, recovery from psychological trauma. Not as a psych, to provide practical support. I’ll work as a general doctor but on that too, when I can.”

  “For that group?”

  He’s surprised when Ren shakes his head. “Not full-time, no. Me, they’d be happy to have, but Jinase and Misa aren’t paranormal, and by their own rules, can’t be part of the Elected. They’re the people behind all this. I said I couldn’t leave them, so they’ve set me up to work outside their enclave, but for them as well. They’ve set the three of us with completely new identities—Misa’s a Weadenisi citizen with full protection—and paid for my training and household. In return I just have to report any new paranormals I find so they can try and conceal them from the government. I know you probably don’t approve....” He shrugs. “I don’t trust any government to protect my kind any more.”

  After all he’s learned, Dek’s not sure if he approves or not, but that’s not the important thing right now. “Why are you allowed to tell me this?” he asks, suddenly suspicious.

  Ren winces. “Ah...can we come back to that? I need to tell you some more first.” Dek nods, though he doesn’t like this new secret. “Now I’m fully qualified I’m setting up a practice in a rural community in northern Weadenal—it’s all farms and forest reserves, very lovely. Near the mountains. Jinase’s working with me there. There’s a base hospital that we’re going to work at, two days a week for each of us. It serves a big community—I can do good work there.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “It really is. Dek....” Here it comes, Dek thinks, bracing himself. “I came up here to see you because I missed you, but also because I wanted to ask you if you’d like to move south. With me. Me and the ladies of course,” he adds with a smile.

  “Can’t,” Dek says automatically. “Can’t live with people, you know that.”

  “But it’s not like living in a city. It’s more people than here, but you’d have space. Plenty of space. I...um, chose it because it was the closest to this place I could find. The house is part of a farm. The land is rented out at the moment, but if you were interested, you could work it. They run barchins, other animals too. It’s beautiful country.”

  Ren’s eyes are Dek’s weakness and the bastard knows it. “You could come up here?”

  Ren gets up and moves his chair around the table so he’s right next to Dek. “I could,” he says slowly. “And Marra knows I miss you enough to think about it, but there’s Misa.” He takes Dek’s hand and Dek aches for how much he misses Ren’s touch.

  “Bring her with you?” Dek asks, but Ren shakes his head.

  “I can’t,” he says, and Dek suddenly gets it.

  “She’s the lever? You stay here, they’ll keep her?”

  “Yes. I mean, it’s harsh, but I understand it. There’s a lot more than me at risk. I could stay, but they’d have to erase my memories of her and of you, and...I’m not brave enough to lose either,” he whispers, reaching over to touch Dek’s face. “I’ve lost so much, I can’t.”

  Dek catches his hand and squeeze the fingers in comfort. “And if I don’t go? That’s it, isn’t it? I won’t hear from you again.”

  “No. But they’ll...make you forget me. It won’t be like it’ll hurt.”

  But Dek shakes his head. “Lost too much too,” he says roughly, and then he turns his head and kisses the fingers he’s got trapped. “Can’t lose you again.”

  “Will you come then?” Ren says, hope rising in his expression. “I know it’s a lot to ask, and you love your home, and maybe it won’t work...but Dek...it could be good too.” He leans forward and brushes his lips against Dek’s. “I think you know how I feel.”

  “Ren...I....” He can’t say the words. “I....”

  Ren takes pity on his inability to articulate. “Yeah. Me too.” He touches Dek’s mouth, traces his finger carefully over Dek’s upper lip. “That day when I left, my heart broke, but when they sent me your message, and then I got your letters and those lovely toys, I thought...there’s a chance, maybe. I had to hang onto that. So...will you?”

  Dek stares at him. It’s a big step. A huge, almost unimaginable step. But waiting for him is Ren, and that means, in the end, the decision’s easy. “Yes.”

  Ren grins and throws his arms around him, and somewhere along the line, their lips meet again in a clumsy kiss. Dek’s out of practice, and Ren’s too eager to be careful, but it doesn’t matter because they’re together, touching, as it should be. As it needs to be. “You’re sleeping with me,” Dek says.

  Ren pouts playfully. “Oh, and I thought maybe Jesti would be missing me.”

  “Jesti passed away last month,” Dek murmurs.

  “Fuck...I’m sorry. She was a grand girl.”

  “She was, but it’s all right,” he says as Ren touch
es his face again in sympathy. “She was getting on for fifteen, old for an urtibes. It was her time, she didn’t suffer. Just died in her sleep.” Still, it had hurt to find her dead, and Dek kind of wishes she’d lived long enough to see Ren return. He can imagine going to the barn to talk to her about it. It’s still so strange not to be able to do that. “Maybe she knew I was leaving.”

  Ren cups his chin. “Not leaving. Coming home. Coming home with me.”

  “Sounds good,” Dek says, smiling, and then he kisses Ren because he’s never been good with words but he can make his hands do all kinds of clever things. He’s planning on showing Ren a few of them tonight, and maybe some more over the next few days...years...rest of his life? He doesn’t want to think that far. Today is enough. Tonight...will be a new beginning for him. “Now will you tell me if you really slept with my brother?”

  Ren grins in his own uniquely insubordinate way. “Hmmm—I think you’ll have to work that out by trial and error. Lots and lots of trial.” He leans in and licks Dek’s ear. “But don’t worry about falling short of expectations. You’re already more than I ever thought I’d have.”

  “You really do talk too much.”

  “Better get used to that, because I’m never going to change.”

  And strangely enough, that’s actually fine by Dek. Very fine indeed.

  Second Thoughts

  Dek comes awake in the pitch darkness, his heartbeat rising, his fingers curling into instinctive fists, unable to place where he is and who he’s with. It panics him, for just a second, then it comes back to him, and he puts his hand on the angular, masculine hip rising beside him. Ren.

  He buries his nose into Ren’s nape, kisses the fine skin under the hairline and inhales the warmth rising from it, like he can somehow inhale the essence of Ren himself. Twenty-four hours ago, he’d not even hoped for this, and now....

  He should be happy, and he is. Something eased in him tonight that he didn’t even have a name for, but which had been an ache all the same, making him unsettled, even discontented, from time to time. That’s all gone as if it had never been.

  But now something else has come to trouble him, something that’s making his mind race and sleep elude him, and in the end, it’s too much for him to deal with on his back and in his bed. Years of training in stealth haven’t deserted him, bum leg or no bum leg, and he rises silently, glad he tidied up Ren’s hastily, eagerly shed clothes before they’d finally turned out the light, or he’d be tripping in the dark. He finds his trousers by feel, and pads quietly into the bathroom to pull them on, the wood floor warm and welcoming under his feet. He turns on the light over the mirror and drinks some water from the tap, before standing up, water drops still sparkling in his dark beard. His reflection under the white bulb is cold and unflattering, showing starkly that he’s too old and battered for the magnificent man lying in his bed. Ren’s scarred too, and his eyes show all the pain that was so much more exposed in his expression five years ago, but at forty, with his weight back and no longer being drained by a foetus and mistreatment, he looks ten years younger. All the promise of handsomeness that Dek suspected would come with better health, has been realised, while Dek’s only got more grey and lined and wiry. He’s still pretty damn fit, but he could pass for Ren’s Da. He scrubs his fingers through his winter beard, and resists a silly urge to shave, though it’s something he should do soon. Ren will have a hell of a whisker burn in the morning.

  He shakes his head in disgust at his self-indulgent maundering and snaps off the light, using the small safety lamp in the living room to guide his steps out to the armchair by the heater. The heater’s only on trickle, but the room would be warm enough if he was properly clothed—he keeps it cool while he sleeps because he believes it’s healthier, but he’s not a masochist about it. He wishes the real fire was lit but of course it won’t be, not in the middle of the night, unexpected visitors regardless. He feels the need for...comfort...which is stupid because all he has to do for that is stay in bed with Ren, give him a nudge and then he’d have more arms and body warmth than he can handle, most likely. Ren loves to cuddle. Even on the trail, when they were almost enemies at times, he couldn’t help himself. It did Dek good then, and he’s hungry for it now, starving for it, almost. What he doesn’t know is whether that generous comfort and the contact will be enough, if he gives up everything else for Ren.

  He pulls the knitted blanket off the back of the chair and wraps it around his bare shoulders, clutching it tight in his fist. It’s finest undyed lemel wool, cream and whisper soft, so warm they use it in hospitals for hypothermia victims. Lomare’s mother made it and gave it to her daughter on her seventeenth birthday. Before they were married, when they were still sharing her single bed and her parents pretended not to know what was going on in their house, Dek and Lomare made love under it more times than Dek can remember, Lomare muffling her squeaks and giggles and stuffing her hand into Dek’s mouth as he came. After they were officially betrothed and they got their own grown-up double bed, her mother made her another, larger blanket as a wedding gift, with the instruction that when it was worn out, she’d make another for them. They never did wear it out, with one thing and another. It’s still on Dek’s bed, as soft and clean and warm as it was the day Lomare’s mother had handed it to her blushing daughter—Ren’s asleep under it right now.

  He doesn’t very often use this smaller one, though he nearly always strokes his hand along it as he passes through the living room, just because he loves the feel, and the memories. It’s something that should be shared, wrapped around two pairs of shoulders in front of a roaring fire. He rubs his bearded cheek against the wood-smoke-scented wool, and thinks of his love. His first love, but, much to his surprise, not his last one. Didn’t see that coming, did we, darling? Lomare would never begrudge him a second chance, and he has no thought that he’s betraying her or anything of that sort. He’d never made any stupid promises like some widowers he’s met. Never knelt on her grave and swore there would never be another to take her place. But he never thought there would be, all the same. Not living up here, all alone.

  But he won’t be up here or alone for much longer, and that’s what’s making it impossible to sleep. He doesn’t know how he can walk away from this house, this land, this astonishing, dangerous, beautiful place, that’s become a second spouse in a way. Become friend and comfort and occupation, a way of forcing him to look after himself, come to ease the emptiness in his heart that losing Lomare had created. But it was all illusion. When Ren came crashing into his life, Dek had been forced to realise the void had been there all along, still yawning and unbridgeable, and all he’d done was fill the emptiness with more of the same.

  The empty fire place and the need for distraction tempts him, and finally he gives in. The blanket still around him, he crouches down and begins the familiar ritual of laying it—the grass tinder, the smaller pieces of wood laid neatly in a circular pattern, a couple of small logs to be getting on with. He watches the tinder catch as he sets his match to it, the flames licking the pale wood chips, the white smoke and cosy scent rising, the crack of expanding sap sharp and gunshot loud in the darkness. He sits back in the armchair, letting the ever-changing, ever-repeating pattern of light and shadow, flame and coals, mesmerise him, hoping it’ll ease his anxiety enough for him to get back to sleep.

  A footfall on wooden flooring—quiet, unexpected—makes him snap upright, automatically reaching for a weapon that’s nowhere near him. “Easy—only me,” Ren whispers.

  Dek’s breathing still jerks fast and painfully, and he can do nothing about the beating of his heart, but he relaxes again, manages not to jump as two big hands settle on his shoulders, gently massaging through the wool. “Wake you up?”

  “Yes. You weren’t there. I got worried.” Ren bends and kisses the top of his head. “You all right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Liar.” His shoulders are released, and Ren moves in front of him, settling down betwee
n Dek’s legs, sitting on the gekel hide rug, facing the fire. Like Dek, he’s bare-chested, and without stopping to ask, Dek drags the blanket down so it’s around Ren’s shoulders too, like a little tent. Their own warm world, here in the middle of nowhere. Ren tugs it tighter around himself. “Mmmm, thank you. Nice blanket. Did you make it?”

  His voice ensnared in his throat, Dek shakes his head, forgetting Ren can’t see it, But Ren doesn’t need words with his talent. He twists and looks up, his eyes dark and wide in the firelight, then he kisses Dek’s hand, and leans back solidly against Dek’s leg in silent understanding. He probably thinks Lomare made the blanket. The difference isn’t important.

  They sit like that for a while, Dek’s arms resting lightly around Ren’s neck. It’s still astonishing, miraculous, to have him here to touch, to hold, feel the warmth of against Dek’s leg, his body, and yet, for five years before this night, Dek had never let himself want it at all. Bad enough to miss Lomare’s touches, without missing Ren’s too. Strange that he still misses Lomare’s hands, even in the miracle of having Ren’s upon him. And that’s part of what’s making him afraid, because if he can still miss her with Ren here and no hope of her ever coming back, how will he feel about losing his home when he’ll know he could come back if he wanted to?

  “Is it something I can help you with, or is it something you need to work out on your own? Because you don’t have to do it on your own. Not any more.” Ren’s voice is soft, respectful of the quiet and the darkness, and of his own gloomy thoughts.

  “I...don’t think I can go, Ren.”

  Ren nods, his hand resting carefully on Dek’s foot, squeezing it a little as if to confirm it’s not by accident his hand is there. Dek entangles his fingers in the long tail of hair hanging down Ren’s back. It’s fine and smooth, almost like a woman’s, but there’s so much of it. If Dek were to weave it, maybe he could make a blanket even softer than the one around them. “I knew it was a big thing to ask. To tell the truth, I was sure you’d say no.”