by Quil Carter
Nero didn’t return my smile but I think he realized that was as far as the conversation with me would go. I didn’t expect him to understand, only someone who had been living with Silas as long as I had would. I knew I could do this, and now more than ever, I knew that I had to.
Both for my family’s safety and my own.
When Nero was in the elevator with Ceph and Kiki, I gave the two a hug and a kiss on the cheek and then turned to Nero.
“Every odd day at six,” I said to Nero, reiterating his instructions for when the remote phone was on. “I’ll call you when I come up with a solid plan to fix our king.”
Nero nodded and gave me a bone-crushing hug. “Thank you for everything,” he whispered as he embraced me. “You have me forever, every crazy, stupid idea. I’m yours forever for giving me Ceph back, and for keeping him sane for me all this time.”
We pulled away and I patted his cheek playfully. “How could I do anything less? This time with Silas may have been hard, but in the end it will wield us many benefits. I know Silas and I promise you, Nero, we will fix him. We will make Silas the king we all knew when I first arrived in Skyfall.”
“I… I trust you, baby,” Nero said, though his tone didn’t support the weight of his words. We were both holding our cards up to our faces and we were both bluffing our hands. “If he threatens you… if he hurts you or anything… call me, one ring and I’ll come running, okay?”
I nodded and pressed one of the elevator’s many buttons, this one for the roof. “One call.” I nodded towards Ceph and Kiki. “Take care, lovelies.”
“You too,” Kiki said quietly and he inclined his head.
Ceph though, embraced me a second time. “Thank you,” he said, his voice still weak and raspy. “I knew it was you stickin’ those needles in my foot and… and thank you, Sanguine. I promise… I promise I’ll be able to form better sentences when we see each other next.”
I laughed lightly and kissed his cheek. “No worries, amor. You take care of Nero, and do tell me about your first time after thirty years, hm? I wish I could be there.”
That quip got me a playful push out of the elevator, courtesy of Nero, and after several more goodbyes and I love yous… Nero, his husband, and his cicaro, were gone.
And when the elevator doors closed I breathed a shaky sigh of relief, but when I started heading back to the apartment I found my knees growing weak and my head filling with a hazy heat.
I managed to make it to the couch before the emotions overwhelmed me. I found myself burying my face into my hands and holding back shuddering breath after shuddering breath. I was surprised at my own visceral reaction, I hadn’t realized what I was keeping in until my mind had deemed it safe for me to show the emotions.
And what was I feeling?
I looked around the empty apartment, my chest rising and falling as the rapid puffs of air escaped from my chest. My gaze took me in all directions, but what my mind kept looking for, I didn’t know.
But when my breathing started to become all the more laboured and my lungs failed to fill me with adequate air, when my hands started to tremble and my mind started to swim in a pressurized haze of red… I realized that I wasn’t looking for anything.
I was plunging head first into the first anxiety attack I’d had in a decade.
Chapter 5
Killian
“That is way too much for you, mister,” Reaver chastised. “Just because you don’t have to worry about overdosing doesn’t mean you can use up all of our smack.”
I playfully stuck my tongue out at him and continued to push the needle in and out of my arm, searching for a vein. The needle had an inch of the brown, tarry liquid, and beside me on the coffee table, was our small brick with a plastic bag full of disposable needles. The brick was about a quarter of the size it had been when I’d discovered it and was now covered in little pinch marks from us grabbing small amounts to inject.
“We have tons and tons of it somewhere,” I said to him. I pulled on the plunger and saw a swirl of blood mix in with the heroin; I had found a vein. “We just have to know the right places to look. There must be a drug dealer’s house somewhere. Do you know any cities around here?”
My boyfriend shrugged and popped a handful of sour candies into his mouth. He was wearing a bandana on his head today, a red one, and a brown button-down with his black cargo pants. He looked handsome, but he always looked handsome. “Somewhere around here. Everything was melted until I found these houses and I just stayed here until you woke up. I didn’t want to take you too far, you were a real pain to haul around in the shopping cart.”
I smirked at the thought of him pulling me around in an old shopping cart and motioned for him to take the needle. He liked injecting me; he had always gotten a small thrill out of it.
My eyes closed as Reaver slowly pushed the toxic brown into my veins. I gave a low moan and leaned into him, and he shifted himself onto the couch. I laid my head on his chest, and as the cold, icy drugs froze my veins, he started playing with my hair. Reaver had shot up only minutes before me and now was our time to relax with each other and enjoy the tunnel of comfortable, painless heroin that was like angels draping feathery blankets over us.
I groaned and took in a deep breath, ripples of comfort travelling up and down my body. I stayed in this cocoon of contentment and enjoyed the feeling of my boyfriend playing with my hair.
“I love you,” I said after several minutes of silence.
“I love you more,” Reaver said back. His hand travelled down to my chin where he softly petted it. I was shaved now but there was still a thin layer of stubble and several nicks where Reaver’s hand had slipped while shaving.
It had been three days since I had woken up and the past three days had consisted of me and Reaver doing nothing but eating junk food, doing drugs, and snuggling. There had been no talking about what had happened while we were separated. No talk of Perish, or Elish and Jade; whenever I had touched on one of them, or had brought something up, Reaver would either put drugs under my nose or a needle in my arm.
Admittedly, it had taken a day and a half of him doing this before I actually clued in that he was deliberately distracting me, but after thinking about it I decided to roll with it and let him continue. We had been apart for months, and this time was a time for us to connect and just be happy together.
I still had questions. Oh did I ever have questions. I wanted to know what happened after Reaver had been taken in Mariano, and I wanted to know just how he and Silas had both found me at the same time – it was like they had been travelling together but they would never do that.
But on the other hand, I knew that if I asked Reaver anything, he would be asking me things in return – and I don’t think I was ready for that.
At the mere mention of it, my heart gave a shudder and that shudder turned into a painful sting.
Perish…
“Are you okay, hunny bee?” Reaver asked kindly. He scratched my head and tenderly caressed it.
He must’ve heard my heartbeat quicken. “I’m fine,” I said to him. I rested my hand on his and pulled it to my mouth to kiss it. “You know how heroin is… makes your heartbeat go nuts for a bit.”
“Hmm…” Reaver said, sounding unconvinced. “Alright… want to do a few lines to help your high?”
He knew better; he knew where my mind was. I shook my head and rubbed my prickly cheek against his hand. “Nah, I’m getting pretty high. I’m okay.” Though as I said this my eyes looked to the hallway, covered in a stained and matted carpet, and with corners full of powdered gyprock and plaguelands ash.
At the end of that hallway was a simple brown door with a golden door knob.
It looked unassuming and normal, like any other door, but inside held all of Perish’s things. I knew this because yesterday I was checking out our house, and I had opened that door… I’d immediately closed it when I’d recognized the bags that were piled in a corner. Reaver, who had been outside cooking u
s fried corned beef and rice, had known what I’d done the moment he’d come inside. That earned me an extra hit of heroin and some china white to top it off.
“Okay,” Reaver said back, and we fell silent as we enjoyed our individual highs.
But eventually I heard Reaver take in a big sigh, before he started drumming his fingers on my scalp. “So I was thinking…”
My heart jumped and at this, Reaver chuckled. “Ahh, he’s thinking! Shit’s about to go down,” he mocked. I grunted and pretended to bite his hand.
“Nothing bad…” Reaver said. He let his voice trail before taking in another breath. “I think I want to find a town to buy a few things at.”
I raised my head and stared at him in horror. “Go back to the greywastes?”
Reaver nodded and tried to encourage me to lay my head back down but I didn’t want to. The thought of going back to the greywastes was terrifying. “What if someone sees us? What if Nero finds us again? We don’t know how he found us in the first place.”
Reaver shook his head and reached over to grab a cigarette. “I know how he found us. I was an idiot and I took the tracker off of the phone by accident. I’m pretty confident that they think you’re dead and I’m burning. No one’s going to recognize us if we just duck into Melchai for a night. We need more fuel for the quad and I want to try and get a generator.”
I frowned at Reaver. “Melchai? That’s where Hopper and the other slavers were heading…”
“And they’re dead, right?” Reaver shrugged one shoulder. “The chances of us running into someone we know is zero and I’ll scout it out beforehand anyway. I really want to buy some shit and Perish left you a lot of money. Don’t you want a generator so we can watch television and have lights?”
“I just… want to be happy with the safety we have,” I said, my voice small. “We just got our freedom from everyone… why are we risking it?”
I looked around our living room as silence took over the conversation. I had cleaned it the best I could and had swept the dirty carpet in the living room. There was brown panelling, slightly warped, around us, a sheet-draped blue couch we were laying on, two chairs and a coffee table. The television, of course, didn’t work but I had dusted it off, and even put the VHS movies underneath the television stand and wiped off the VHS player and a Super Nintendo as well. We had a lot of electronics we could use and… I guess it would be nice to have lights. Reaver had theorized that maybe Perish could’ve given me chimera enhancements during my surgery but that hadn’t been the case. And though I knew he had put something else inside of my brain, too much else had been going on for me to think about what it was.
My cheeks puffed as I let out a pensive breath. I wouldn’t mind electricity but I felt like we were taking risks we didn’t need to take, and doing things that didn’t need to be done. Sure, no greywaster could survive in the plaguelands, but chimeras could, and those were the ones we had to watch out for.
We were fugitives, whether we wanted to admit it or not, and I wanted it to remain that way.
“I don’t want to risk it,” I said, my already small and submissive voice dragging lower. “Let’s just… be thankful for what we have.”
Reaver shifted himself up so he was sitting. I did as well and took a cigarette out of the pack he had on the coffee table. The house was always filled with the smell of stale tobacco from Reaver’s smoking. He had been smoking a lot, one cigarette after the other usually.
Then I frowned as something occurred to me.
“Are you… are you bored?” I asked. “Is that it? Are you bored of it just being me and you?”
“No, don’t be retarded,” Reaver said. He looked annoyed at even the suggestion. “We just had all that shit to entertain us in Aras and even in Elish’s base. I’m just used to it.” He shrugged and looked around our house. “You like your books and I’ve already read all my comics. And it’s such easy pickings here, I have already scavenged us enough food to last three months. I don’t even need to sentry since no one can survive here… it’d be nice to, I don’t know, at least have some TV and video games. We have so much money and didn’t the slavers say Melchai had good farming? That’s why they sacrificed the slaves? We could get fresh fruit and vegetables.”
My eyes lit up at the prospect.
“We could have real meals with vegetables and shit like that,” Reaver said. He had me and he knew it. I’d inadvertently bit the baited hook he’d dangled in front of me and now he was reeling me in. “Get some flour and you can make us bread and cake that doesn’t taste like motor oil.” I smirked at his comment, and at that, Reaver gathered me up into his arms and leaned his head against mine. “We could see if they have heroin too, but I know you’d be most happy buying a big bucket of strawberries or whatever the fuck they have. Right? We have like twenty thousand dollars; we could buy all their damn fruit and I don’t even think it’d go rotten for a while in the radiation.”
I grunted and pulled away from him. “Only if you promise to wear sunglasses and a hat… and you sneak around first and make sure there isn’t anyone we know. I told you about what Perish said about Mantis and the flare gun.” I remember Perish’s instructions, before he knew that Reaver was on his way to get me. There was a chimera somewhere in the plaguelands, but Reaver had reassured me we were miles and miles away from where the laboratory was.
Reaver nodded. “You know I wouldn’t put you at risk, immortal boy, not after we’ve been apart for so long. I’ll go in there and we’ll get supplies and leave, maybe come back in a few months when the fuel runs out or see if we can steal some solar panels or some shit.”
I didn’t feel convinced and he sensed this.
“We just need some stuff to get ourselves established and then we won’t have to go back to the greywastes, ever.”
To my own surprise, this brought its own wave of sadness. We hadn’t mentioned him, or anyone else, besides in passing, but I felt compelled to tonight. Maybe it was the drugs or maybe the fact that we were going to return to the greywastes, but I had to say it.
“What about Reno?” I whispered.
Immediately Reaver tensed up beside me. I didn’t want to look at him though.
“He has Garrett now,” he replied quietly.
“But… he’s going to think I’m dead, and you gone,” I said and found my voice starting to wobble. “He’s going to be devastated. We’re all he has. We’re really never returning – ever?”
Reaver shifted around. I finally did look over at him and saw he looked troubled and uncomfortable.
“We’re not all he has anymore…” Reaver said, a hint of dejection in his words. “He has Garrett who loves him and they both have Chally to love maul. He’s better off with Garrett in Skyfall then he ever would be with us. Even if there was some way for him to come here, he’d be the third wheel and it always made him sad watching us be boyfriends when he was alone. Now he has Garrett and he’s like… living in royalty. I bet he doesn’t even care.”
This shocked me. “Doesn’t even care? He loves us… of course he cares. And what about Silas hurting him?”
“Silas was in the lab when it exploded. He could very well be burning with me, as far as they know.”
“I – I still…”
“No,” Reaver abruptly cut me off. He licked his lips which I knew was from stress and stood up. He ran a hand over his bandana-covered head. “Reno’s fine and he’s happy, alright? He has Garrett and he’s engaged. He’s fine and… and Elish will be fine too.”
“Elish?” I said slowly. “Since… when do you care about how Elish feels?”
Reaver walked over to his M16 and grabbed it, then put his jacket on. I watched helplessly as he got ready to go outside.
“I’m going for a walk… going to go see if there are any animals to kill. Get us… some meat,” Reaver mumbled. “I’ll be back.”
“Reaver…” I said with a whimper. “I didn’t mean to make you upset. I… just… Reno’s, Reno’s going to be
devastated.”
Reaver walked over to the front of the couch and I thought he was going to at least give me a kiss, but he just grabbed his pack of cigarettes.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Reaver said. He looked at me while he was walking away and stopped with a sigh. I sniffed when he doubled back and this time, he did kiss my cheek, then he walked off… and out the door.
My heart felt heavy for the rest of the evening, so I went to bed early after taking a few lines of china white. I fell asleep in our new bed, a big king size one, and woke up only momentarily when Reaver came home sometime in the middle of the night. I crawled into his arms and he held me close to him, and I fell asleep to his breathing.
The next morning I woke up to Reaver gently nudging me. I opened my eyes to his smirking face, his dark hair, now longer than it had ever been, falling over his black eyes.
“Come on, sleepy head. You’ve slept enough. Wake up,” he said as he poked me in the cheek.
I grunted and batted his hand away. “Your fault for finding us a mattress so comfy,” I mumbled with a big yawn. “Come back in an hour.”
“I have drugs prepared,” Reaver said in a singing voice.
Automatically I perked up. Reaver scoffed at this and left the room.
“You’re just as bad as I was when I was a teen,” he called as he walked down the hallway.
I sat up in bed and stretched, my joints snapping and cracking from sleeping for so long. I walked out in my boxer briefs and undershirt and saw he had several rows of white powder waiting for us.
“Well, unfortunately you’re stuck with me as a teenager forever,” I said to him, the springs on the couch squeaked as I sat down. I reached over and grabbed the cut up pink straw. “I hope you don’t mind an eighteen-year-old as a boyfriend for all eternity.”
“Nah, I’m not Elish, why would I care?” Reaver shrugged. I could see white powder under his nostrils, I guess he hadn’t wanted to wait for me.
It kind of made me feel better that he said that, a part of me was worried he’d be upset that I wouldn’t be a full adult. I myself didn’t know how to feel about it.