Their Dark Reflections

by Amanda Meuwissen

  They left then, leaving nothing between Sam and Ed but space.

  Sam wished he wasn’t so tired. He could probably sleep for a week, but there were more important things to worry about, even if he had nearly found his way to the river Styx.

  “I thought you were going to….” Sam couldn’t finish the thought. He’d truly believed he’d wake up like Ed, that circumstance had made his argument for him, and Ed had been left with no choice.

  “I know,” Ed said quietly, not approaching, even with the others gone, “but I couldn’t. After all this, I… I need to move on, Sam, find another city.”

  “What?” Sam’s gut clenched from more than any bullet wound. “But we won. Everything’s okay now.”

  “Too much attention has been brought on me—”

  “We have a cop on our side. Daniel loves you. You heard him. We’re heroes!”

  “Your friends were the heroes. You’re a hero. And you were nearly a martyr.”

  “I love you,” Sam said stubbornly, feeling as foolish as it had sounded when Gerry said it to Lara, but that didn’t change how he felt.

  Ed looked away from him.

  “If you need a new city, what about with me and my friends?”

  “Sam—”

  “Please.” Sam could feel tears rising with the flood of bile in his throat. “You can’t leave. We never even had our date.”

  That dropped Ed’s guard enough for a smile to crack his face.

  “I can give you a preview,” Sam said, trying not to sound too desperate. “It wasn’t going to be just some rehash of the date that never happened. Let me tell you about it.”

  Ed hesitated, but with slow steps, he finally moved toward the bed.

  “I was going to take you to some of my favorite spots in the city and appeal to your inner geek.”

  Ed’s smile cracked wider.

  “There’s this great comic shop downtown. I’d let you have one—but only one. I’m still responsible for your finances.”

  A chuckle escaped Ed. He sat too near the end of the bed, but at least he sat.

  “There’s a club nearby with great views of the city. They have nothing but cover bands playing ’70s rock, like the best playlist on your tricked-out radio. You could bring your camera and take photos, even some of me. Especially of me.

  “We’d go back to the house after, and you could take more photos, any way you want me, as naughty as you would never be able to ask for without stuttering.”

  Ed blushed but chuckled again, and when Sam held out his hand, Ed timidly took it.

  “Then we’d go to the roof, where I’d already have the telescope set up, and this time, I’d point out constellations to you, and when I failed miserably, you’d laugh and tell me how wrong I was.”

  Ed’s smile was so beautiful, but sad, like his mind wasn’t being changed, and he’d get up any minute and vanish, as soon as Sam stopped talking.

  So he didn’t stop.

  “We’d fool around and make love, and you wouldn’t hurt me.”

  “Sam—”

  “I promise—”

  “That sounds lovely. Truly, it does. I wish we could have done all that.”

  “We will,” Sam insisted. “The story doesn’t end here.”

  Looking at Sam sorrowfully, Ed pulled his hand away.

  “It’s written in the stars,” Sam rushed on, grasping for anything to keep him. “It was written in the Heavens, the other gods would say, whenever mortals asked about Hades and Persephone and all the ages they’d spent together.”

  Ed looked back at him with a start.

  “‘How do they make it work?’ the mortals would press. And some gods would answer, ‘Because they’re both death.’ ‘Because they’re forces of nature.’ A few still thought one had tricked the other and that they had nothing in common but lies.

  “But the real answers could only come from Hades and Persephone themselves. Hades worried sometimes that the whispers were right, that they were too dissimilar, and that Persephone only stayed out of obligation. So, one day he asked if she’d ever regretted her decision to become his queen.

  “And she said, ‘No. Not a single moment, even those spent in darkness, because they were with you.’”

  Ed’s eyes had grown damp, and he heaved a heavy sigh. “I still think you’re Hades.”

  Sam laughed. “Me too. But the metaphor worked better the other way.”

  There was Ed’s smile again, almost bright enough to overcome its sorrows, but not quite. “We can’t do this forever, Sam.”

  “We could, though. Forever.”

  “What if you don’t really want that?”

  “Don’t I get to decide what I want?”

  “Not right now.” Ed sighed again and slid from the bed. “You need rest. But I won’t leave town yet. I promise.”

  Yet—the best and worst word at once.

  Sam was terrified when Ed excused himself from the room that, despite his promise, he’d never return, but he did. He was there almost every day that Sam was in the hospital, only absent when he traveled across the country to see his sire’s lawyer, and even then, he returned in record time.

  He’d arrive as soon as he could when visiting hours began and stay until they reminded him that it was time to leave. He returned sometimes at night too, sneaking inside, staying in the shadows when the nurses checked on Sam, but he never stayed too late, since he’d say again that Sam needed rest.

  Sam did. He’d survived major blood loss, followed by more major blood loss and a gut wound.

  The others were there nearly as often—Mim, Gerry, the Neu-Ryans, with and without the twins. Sam appreciated all of them, but it was Ed’s presence that relaxed him and kept him calm.

  Ed would bring Sam books and comics, read to him from them, read from the newspaper, particularly their horoscopes each day or anything pertaining to the Blacks—the serial killers of Riverside. Ed didn’t need to eat or rest, so he never needed to step away, and even though sometimes Sam would drift off while Ed was with him, he was always there when Sam woke up.

  Sam spent three weeks, almost a month recovering from surgery. He was lucky to not have any lasting damage to vital organs, but he’d still have to use a cane for a while and would need to take things very slowly.

  The day of his release, he told his friends that he just wanted Ed there to bring him home. Home, which he didn’t need to explain, because they all knew what he meant.

  It was daylight when he started to check out, but still, he expected Ed to be there.

  When Ed didn’t show, he started to panic.

  He called him, but there was no answer. He waited half an hour past the time he’d said he was being released, but still, Ed didn’t come. Sam almost called the others to check on him, but that felt too much like defeat, made it all feel too real that Ed might have….

  Sam couldn’t face the thought, so he called a Lyft and had it bring him to Ed’s house.

  He didn’t bother knocking on the paneling of the wrought-iron doors or trying to peer in through the glass. It was always dark inside and impossible to see anyway, so he pushed through the door, knowing it wouldn’t be locked, and the stillness of the entryway struck him like a blow.

  It was empty.

  “No….” Sam dropped his cane as he shuffled inside and whirled around.

  There were no tables or radios in the foyer, nothing but the square-shaped sections on the floor where there was no dust because something had been there once, but it was gone now.

  Gone.

  “No!” Sam let his voice ricochet up to the ceiling. “Eddie! Eddie!”

  “Why are you yelling?”

  Sam spun to face the stairs—where Ed was descending from the second floor.

  “Did I lose track of the time? Oh goodness, what did I do with my phone? Am I late?”

  “You… you son of a bitch….” Sam’s breath hitched, and he threw himself forward the second Ed reached the foyer. “I thought you left.�
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  “Why on earth would you think that?” Ed held him tightly.

  “Everything’s gone!”

  “No, it isn’t. I was cleaning. See?” Ed kept one arm around Sam as he led him to the living room, proving that the missing tables and radios were right there past the archway. “I was just looking for the mop.”

  “The mop’s in the kitchen,” Sam deadpanned.

  “Is it?”

  “You were… cleaning?”

  “Well,” Ed said with a sunny, unfair smile, “I haven’t had you here to help me.”

  “I HAVEN’T had you here to help me,” Ed said, pulling Sam back toward him, but before he could gather him in his arms again, Sam pushed him away and smacked him in the chest.

  “I thought you were gone!” he bellowed, striking him again and again. “I thought you were gone….” And then he buried his face against Ed’s chest like before.

  This was entirely Ed’s fault for neglecting the time. He’d just wanted the house to be nice for Sam, and the foyer had been last on his list.

  “Not without you,” he said, petting Sam’s head and squeezing him close. “I’m so sorry. I guess I’m still hopeless without you around to take care of me and keep track of my schedule.”

  “Then you’re staying?” Sam sniffled.

  “I’ve had weeks to think about this, about us, and I finally decided.” Ed nudged Sam to pull away from him so they could look each other in the eyes. “I’m staying. But I won’t turn you. Not right away. I still think you deserve more time as a human to be sure I’m what you want. Then, when enough time has passed, if your mind hasn’t changed, we’ll see.”

  “I am never going to change my mind.” Sam wrapped his arms around Ed possessively.

  “I hope not.” Ed brushed his knuckles down Sam’s cheek. “But I want you to be sure. I’ve been alive a long time, and while I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, it’s unfair to let you make such a big decision when you’ve barely lived. When the time is right, if you still want me forever, then that’s what I’ll give you.”

  As Ed started to lean in, Sam surged forward first to meet him, ravenously igniting their first kiss since Sam had been admitted to the hospital. They’d stolen a few small, chaste kisses in greeting and goodbye, but that could never compare to this.

  To Sam’s lips and tongue and hands clinging.

  Ed wrapped him up in his arms tighter and kissed him that much deeper, their bodies molding together flush. Eventually, when they paused for Sam to catch his breath, at last Ed could see that the panic and threat of tears in Sam’s eyes had been banished.

  “No matter what happens next or where we go, I will always need to feed,” he reminded him.

  “I know. The Cramers weren’t the only scum in this city. A little vigilante justice could be fun.”

  “I still want us to be careful.” And Ed didn’t only mean with hunting habits.

  “Very careful.” Sam paused but only loosened his hold on Ed slightly. “Who did you feed from while I was in the hospital?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “We’re partners now. We’re in this together. I need to know.”

  Ed carefully extracted himself from Sam’s fervent clinging so he could retrieve the cane from where it had fallen by the door. He led Sam to the sofa in the living room and sat with him, leaning the cane against the coffee table.

  “You remember I was gone a few days to see that lawyer about my sire’s estate?”

  “You killed the lawyer?”

  “No.” Ed wrinkled his nose at the idea. “Lawyer or no, he seemed like a nice enough man. But there were a few unsavory characters sniffing around what remained of my sire’s belongings. He had some enemies of his own, it seems. Nothing like Black. I just… helped clean things up.”

  “Did he leave you anything interesting?”

  “A few nostalgic odds and ends. Actually, there’s something I’d like you to have,” Ed said, rising to retrieve it from the nearby chest with his favorite comic books.

  This was something different, though. He’d only tucked it into the chest so he could present it as a gift without Sam finding it first.

  “Do you know much Norse mythology?” He handed Sam the tome, quite ancient and beautifully illustrated.

  For a moment Sam simply stared at it, and then carefully opened it to page through a few stories. It wasn’t in English, but he didn’t seem to mind. He ran a hand over a few of the drawings, eventually closing the book and setting it on the coffee table.

  “I can read it to you,” Ed said, afraid Sam didn’t like it after all. “I know the language and—”

  Sam flew forward to tackle Ed against the cushions, knocking him back and nearly climbing on top of him. He hissed, since he was in no shape to be so reckless, but simply continued kissing Ed and better situated himself to get his hands on him.

  “D-does that mean you like it?” Ed sputtered a laugh amid the assault.

  “I love it,” Sam said. “I love you. I was so terrified you’d run away and left me without saying goodbye.”

  “I am so sorry for that. I promise I’ll never be late for something so important again.”

  “You better not be,” Sam chided, but he was smiling, and he kissed Ed lightly on the lips, hand tugging at Ed’s tucked-in shirt to pull it free. “But right now… you’re going to make love to me. It’s been agony missing you all these weeks.”

  “M-missing me?” Ed trembled at the implications—and Sam’s hand sliding up his stomach. “I saw you every day!”

  “Seeing and experiencing are not the same thing.”

  “Sam, you know how I feel about—”

  “We’ll be careful. I had another thought about that, actually.”

  Ed sighed in frustration. He appreciated Sam’s active libido—his had certainly never diminished over the centuries, even if he didn’t always get an outlet—but the last time they were intimate….

  “I think it’s just a matter of switching things up,” Sam said.

  “Switching?”

  SWITCHING AFFORDED Sam a lovely view, because Ed had a marvelous backside, and right now it was presented before him as a gorgeous curve, while Ed had his face pressed to the mattress, hips lifted and legs spread for Sam’s enjoyment.

  Sam took his time running his hands over Ed’s ass before he reached for the lube.

  “I-I would have been okay if… if this was what you preferred from the beginning,” Ed said with a raggedness to his voice, though Sam had barely touched him yet.

  “Not preferred. I like both positions. Do you?” Sam asked, rubbing his first wet digit down between Ed’s cheeks.

  “Yes.” Ed shuddered. “It had just been so long for me, I… I-I didn’t know if you’d… w-want….” He moaned when Sam breached him finally with a slow push inside.

  “What I want is you, Eddie. There are no more enemies. We have all the time in the world to explore new ideas and… positions.”

  “Y-you’re sure it’s… not too much strain for you?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  Sam had wanted to stand with Ed poised on the end of the bed, but he wasn’t sure he could hold that position, up on his feet for so long. It was hard enough being slow and careful when he used so many stomach muscles for this, but he’d promised he’d let Ed know if he needed a break.

  It just meant he’d have to be extra slow once they got going, and he took his time now. In. Out. In a little deeper. Out.

  “Y-you really think this will work?” Ed squirmed at another slow curl inside him.

  “It’s harder for you to bite me in this position.”

  “B-but if I somehow still hurt you again….”

  “You won’t.” Sam added the tip of a second finger, not surprised that Ed opened easily, ever resilient. His cool skin was marvelous to touch, inside and out.

  “You always say that—”

  “You won’t. Believe it, Eddie. Believe in your control. I do.”
Sam leaned forward to slide his free hand up Ed’s back and around to his mouth, seeking his lips to have him suck on his fingers, even though he could already feel fangs.

  Ed was careful with the twirl of his tongue and light scrape of teeth. “I won’t hurt you,” he said, ending with a kiss to Sam’s palm.

  Sam reclaimed his hand to press it to Ed’s lower back, bracing himself as he thrust his fingers deeper and faster inside him.

  “S-Sam….” Ed moaned again with a broken cry.

  Almost three now; Sam was certain Ed could take it, but he still went slowly, letting the third digit scissor in with the others at a gradual pace.

  “I-I’d… forgotten what this felt like.” Ed flailed back to grip the wrist of the hand Sam had working inside him. “Please, Sam. Fuck me now. I need to feel your length inside me.”

  Sam was blindsided every time Ed talked dirty. “As slow and sweet as you fucked me.”

  Though that had turned out pretty wild, and Sam wasn’t sure if he could manage that the other way around, but he’d try his best—without the violent ending.

  After coating himself with the lube, he pressed gently forward, just a light nudge to let Ed know he was there, before he began to push inside.

  A growl rumbled up from Ed, and his hands clawed the sheets. Sam marveled like so many times before that he could reduce this powerful being to whimpers and a loss of control so profound there was an honest risk to his life.

  But no, no, he didn’t believe for a second that Ed would ever go too far. Ed just needed to trust himself the way Sam trusted him.

  “You’re so good to me, Eddie. So good…. And I will always be good to you.”

  Sam sheathed himself to the hilt with a puff of contented breath, wrapping one arm around Ed’s waist while the other held his shoulder. Every tightening of his stomach muscles made his healing wound ache, but the pace he began was perfect, slow and sweet like he’d promised, until there was no pain at all.

  Ed’s whimpers rose louder than any growls, and he arched back to meet Sam’s thrusts without trying to go faster. Deeper, yes—so deep—but never once did he hurry their pace. He panted and tore at the sheets, and there were a few times when Sam wondered if he might roar and spin around after all, ending this like last time, but it never happened. Ed rocked back with hard slams and let his moans get buried in the bedding, but he always, always calmed when it seemed like he might lose himself.