by E M Lindsey
In that moment, Derek immediately walked himself through the steps his therapist taught him. Mostly because he was in a strange place with a strange man, and the last thing that guy needed was to watch Derek completely fall apart. He didn’t always get violent, but he couldn’t control what happened if he totally lost it, and he didn’t want to add assault charges to his already-shit day.
“Ten,” he murmured to himself, pressing both palms to the glass door. “Nine. Eight. Seven…” He swallowed thickly as his throat began to grow tight and his fingers began to shake. “Six. Please, god,” he whispered. He didn’t often invoke a deity he hadn’t believed in since he was a kid, but right now it felt like a ballast. “Five…”
His voice faded to silence when a hand touched his arm, and then a bright light was in his face. No, not a bright light, a phone screen. It was a notepad app and one short sentence was written there. You OK?
Derek shook his head. “No. Fuck, I’m sorry, I’m super not okay. I can’t…we’re stuck, and I feel like I’m about to lose my goddamn mind and I don’t…”
The stranger interrupted him with an impatient noise, pulled the phone away for a second, and he could hear the faint sound of the default iPhone keyboard clicking as the guy typed. After what felt like a short forever, the phone returned. Sorry, can’t understand. Deaf. I’m Basil. Please type. Help you, OK?
Derek stared at the words, trying to make them make sense in his scrambled-eggs processing, but he couldn’t seem to figure out what to do next. His hands stayed pressed against the window, and his breathing got tighter. Squeezing his eyes shut, he felt an all-too familiar wave of dizziness and the room felt tilted.
Then, just when he thought he would lose all sense of reason, a hand pressed itself to his sternum. He was gently turned from the window, and the man—Basil—took his right hand and laid it on his sternum. Derek couldn’t begin to understand, but after a beat, he felt the guy’s chest rising and falling with a slow, steady breath. Basil was counting off a rhythm with a tap on his forearm.
One. Two. Three.
One. Two. Three.
Derek let himself release the air in his lungs, drew in another when Basil’s chest expanded, then held it for one, two, three. He released it the same time as the stranger in front of him—the man he’d never met before, but who was somehow keeping him from falling apart.
One. Two. Three.
His head began to clear, bit by bit, and the room began to still. He was hit by a sudden wave of humiliation at the way he’d just fallen apart. He was still trapped, the electricity was still out, and the storm was still raging, but he was calming down and reality began to set in.
“Shit,” he said aloud, “I’m so sorry.” Then he stopped, remembering what the guy had typed on his phone. In the very faint glow of the phone, he could make out the guy’s frown of confusion.
There was another moment he could see Basil typing, then he handed the phone back to Derek and took a step back. Panic attack? I have before. Your name what?
Derek frowned at the wording and deeply wished he had bothered to learn more sign. He knew a handful of words, all of them baby related since Antonio and Katherine had been taking beginner’s classes once their daughter had been diagnosed with hearing loss. The entire crew knew enough to make Jasmine laugh and understand when she wanted her bottle or her parents, or a cookie. But that was about it. Tony and Kat had been on them about starting up in the beginner’s ASL, but all of them had been dragging ass, which was now coming back to bite him.
At a loss for any other way to respond, he tapped the return button a few times, then typed his response. My name’s Derek. I’m claustrophobic and being in a closed space unexpected gives me panic attacks. I’m really sorry if I freaked you out.
He handed the phone back, watching Basil’s expression soften a little as he read the message. When he looked up, he waved off Derek’s apology, then pointed to the ground near the door and made a sign Derek did recognize. ‘Sit.’ When Derek nodded and moved to sit, Basil looked surprised. In the light of the phone, he saw Basil make a series of signs, but only recognized two. ‘Sign, you?’
Derek made grabby hands for the phone. My boss’ baby girl has hearing loss and I know a few words, but not a lot. When he handed the phone back for Basil to read, he demonstrated. ‘Milk, cookie, mom, dad, sit, no.’
At the last one, Basil laughed, a low sound, coming straight from his chest which Derek found fitting for some reason. He grinned back, hating that he couldn’t see the guy properly, but it was still comforting to have him close by. The fact that he was trapped in a closed space was awful, but not being alone was helping. The storm was still raging outside, with no signs of slowing, but they couldn’t be trapped forever.
At some point, tomorrow morning, the bank would open. Or security would come by and see them. Something. Hell, he could use Basil’s phone to call the cops if it got dire. For now, he was safe. He was drying, and the air was still warm, and nothing in there could kill him.
Derek’s thoughts were interrupted when Basil made an inquiring noise, then touched his arm, then handed the phone over. Tattoo? What meaning?
Derek glanced down at his left arm, curled over both crooked knees, which he’d drawn to his chest as a way of comforting himself. He was asked that question a lot, and the funny thing was, there wasn’t some deep meaning behind most of his ink. They were a flood of images he just liked, things he saw and wanted on his body in a permanent way. Some of them were cover-ups from younger days of bad line work and piss-poor shading and a few stick-and-pokes. Some of them were new and still bright, and some had faded into something soft and quiet.
Their real meaning was rebellion. Was taking charge of his own body after having spent years and years taking abuse from the people who were supposed to love him. And his twin brother, Sage, had grown up the sons of a military-rigid politician whose idea of spare the rod meant literally taking a rod to them any time they stepped out of line. He didn’t like closed spaces because he’d spent the majority of his formative years being locked in a tiny shed for hours upon hours until his father felt he had ‘learned his lesson’.
He and his brother dressed in collared shirts and pressed slacks and never had a hair out of place. For all appearances, he’d been a well-dressed, straight-laced boy with high aspirations of a lucrative career, end up as Dr. Osbourne in some field or another. His obedience and clothes hid all manner of his father’s sins, and he didn’t dare step out of line.
Except when he had. Except when he was fifteen and exhausted and ready to break. So, he’d stolen his father’s car and ended up pulled over and detained by the local sheriff who laughed it off as, ‘boys will be boys.’ The sheriff didn’t miss the terrified look on Derek’s face when his father laughed too, with a cruel sort of mirth. It wasn’t until he’d spent thirty-six hours in the shed, no water, no food, that a panicked Sage had disobeyed the rules and broken him out.
The two of them ran that night. They took Sage’s cash savings and they ran, and they didn’t look back. Derek knew his father had called the police, begging to have his boys brought home, but Derek was sure that police chief hadn’t looked for them very hard.
They landed in Oklahoma City and worked as day-laborers to get by. They squatted with a group of run-aways in a surprisingly nice warehouse, and Derek got his first stick-and-poke next to an old camping stove where a boy named Pepper had sanitized his needle over the open flame. It was the only tattoo Derek would never cover up. It was a shitty, off-center hand holding up a middle finger on his right hand’s middle knuckle.
Every bit of ink after that had been a fuck-you to his dad. The day he got the call that his dad was in the hospital—liver failure putting an expiration date on his life and in need of care—he’d gone to visit him in the hospital, then returned to the shop and lay on Antonio’s table and begged him to just make it hurt. He had a crow on the inside of his elbow, filled completely with black, only an eye shaded red staring
out with its stark splash of color.
His tattoos were proof he had survived it and moved on. That he’d gone from an abused kid to a tattoo artist and full-time student determined to get his work into galleries and studios and into the hands of people who really and truly understood him.
Derek realized he’d taken way too long to answer, and with shaking fingers he quickly typed up a response. I had a rough childhood and I got tattoos to remind myself that I survived. I work at a tattoo shop called Irons and Works. You know it?
Basil read over his shoulder, but instead of taking the phone back, he just smiled and shook his head.
If you ever want work done, come see me. I’m also an artist though. Is it okay if I show you my gallery? At Basil’s confirming nod, Derek typed in his site address and pulled up his online gallery. He was mostly into nature work—he loved realism, but he wanted to draw and paint things that held life. Even though most of his animal work was in oils, his favorite was of an octopus curled around a rock surrounded by a bed of coral done in charcoal. There was no color, but for whatever reason, the drawing always looked the most alive to him. He had it hanging in his station, but more than anything, he wanted someone to appreciate it.
Maybe it shouldn’t have shocked him when Basil’s long finger tapped the screen, bringing the octopus to full image, but Derek still felt his heart stutter in his chest. With Basil leaning this close, Derek got a whiff of something heady and overwhelming, like the first wave of scent when you walk into a florist’s fridge to see the cold bouquets.
He dared a glance over, and he felt his heart beat even harder at the look on Basil’s face. His eyes were wide, lips slightly parted, a curl of black hair falling over his forehead as his eyes took in the image. When he pulled back, Derek switched back to the notepad. That one’s my favorite, but it’s never sold.
You want selling this, Basil typed back.
Derek shrugged. I want someone to love and appreciate my work. I’ll miss it when it goes, but I can wait. The right person will come along.
Basil smiled at him, leaning into his shoulder gently as he reached for the phone. Beautiful. I make flower bouquet, sell in shop with sister. Older. Bossy.
Derek chuckled and shook his head in sympathy. I have a twin brother, five minutes older, just as bossy.
Look like you, Basil asked.
Derek wished he had his phone with him, because yes, Sage was the mirror of him. Apart from a few tattoos and Sage’s shorter undercut, they could fool almost anyone. In fact, the third time Derek’s hook-up accidentally kissed his brother, Derek insisted Sage get something visible to declare who was whom. Sage settled on a shark riding up his neck toward his left ear, letting Derek do the ink, and if he was a little bit heavy-handed, well, Sage didn’t complain about it.
We’re identical, Derek typed out. Before he could write anything else, there was another flash of lightning, and thunder so close and so loud, it made his ears start ringing. When Basil jumped along with him, Derek turned to look at the guy. Are you able to hear that?
Basil shook his head, then pressed his palm to the floor before typing, Feel it. Noise make vibrate.
Another crack of thunder and that time, he noticed the rumble beneath him. It was enough to keep him distracted so he didn’t start to panic again, though there was the pressing threat of it at the base of his spine he didn’t entirely want to acknowledge. The truth was, having Basil pressed up against him in that empty bank was enough to keep him grounded, and it wasn’t something he would have ever expected. With the panic at bay, he started to feel the fatigue of the day creeping up on him, his limbs heavy, eyes stinging. He wanted some hot food and his comfy bed, and he wanted to forget about this day completely.
Or well, most if it. Because this part was maybe one of the best things that had happened to him in a while and that was a little horrifying to think about.
Before he could reach for the phone again, the overhead lights started to flicker. They went on, off, then on again with a steady hum which sent both men jumping to their feet. They faced each other, and it was strange to be looking at Basil full in the face, in the dim light of the faded halogen bulb above them.
He was startlingly good looking, his wet hair in ringlet curls which had ceased dripping at some point during their conversation. He was thin under his thick coat, his skinny jeans hugging his legs, his converse making his feet look long and narrow. Derek stood at least four inches taller than him, but for whatever reason, he didn’t feel monstrously huge the way he normally did. Derek had the inexplicable urge to put his arms around Basil, kneel low, and bury his face in the guy’s neck, and he had to force himself to take a step back to keep from doing it.
Basil’s eyes flickered to the ATM which had rebooted, then to Derek before lifting his hands and signing, ‘You OK?’
It took Derek a minute for his brain to register the sign alphabet which he was just starting to memorize, but when it did, he offered a little smile. ‘OK,’ he repeated. ‘Thank you,’ he went on, then stopped because he wasn’t sure how to say what he wanted to next. ‘FOR HELP,’ he spelled.
Basil’s grin was wide and gorgeous, making Derek’s stomach flip. ‘Help,’ he said, mouthing the word as he showed him the sign, and when Derek copied it properly, he offered him a thumb’s up.
“I should let you uh…” He gestured to the ATM machine, unsure if Basil could read his lips, but when the other man nodded, he figured he’d gotten the gist of it. ‘Thank you,’ he signed again.
It was painfully awkward and unsure, but eventually Derek turned on his heel and marched out of the building. Where the rain had been annoying and unwanted, now it was a sweet relief, proof of freedom, that he hadn’t been trapped against his will. He glanced through the window again, to see Basil at the ATM punching in his code, and he forced himself to finish walking to the car.
It started right away, and the blast of hot air told him he’d only been trapped for a handful of minutes—nothing like the eternal hours it had felt like in the moment. He hesitated one more time before putting the car in reverse, letting himself wonder if he’d ever see the guy again. But it was too late to do anything about it now. Turning onto the street, he decided he’d just let fate have at it. If it was meant to be, then it would be.
Basil got back to the condo, shaking the water off his coat and swiping his feet on the mat a few times before heading into the foyer. He could smell something cooking, which made his stomach growl, and he pressed his hand to it as he made his way down the short hallway and into the kitchen.
Amaranth was already at the stove, her back to him as she stirred something in a huge pot. He could feel vibrations through the soles of his shoes which meant she had her music on loud, and he reached for the light switch, giving it a flicker to let her know he’d finally made it back.
She turned, smiling at him as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and dropped the spoon against the counter. ‘You’re late. Did you get a huge rush after I left?’
Basil rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he walked to the fridge to get himself a beer. He cracked the top and took in a few long drinks before he could bring himself to answer. Mostly because he didn’t know what he was going to say.
It was simple enough. He got a last-minute order for a wedding which had taken a hundred years since the woman—the mother of the bride—hadn’t wanted to communicate through his notepad and pencil. She spent twenty minutes insisting he try and read her lips, no matter how many times he jotted down that he was very bad at it, and after a long day it was almost impossible.
He had been seconds away from throwing her out and having her patronize some other business when she finally relented, and they got the preliminary order, date, and arrangements settled. He took her deposit and was damn glad to see the back of her. The drive had gotten complicated when the rain started coming down in a massive downpour. Being that he relied entirely on his vision to navigate the streets safely, having that compromised throu
gh every window but the front had been only slightly terrifying.
His plan had been to hunker down a little inside the ATM vestibule until it let up a bit, but he hadn’t anticipated what had come right after slipping inside. Not just the absurdly attractive man and his intense panic attack, but the feelings it had invoked in Basil who had long-since stopped having immediate feels for random hearies he met in public. No matter how huge and attractive they were.
And the guy was both of those things. He hovered nearly half a foot above Basil, his arms covered in ink so intense he could make them out in the near pitch black when the power went out. He was also sweet, and he could sign a little for his friend’s deaf daughter which stirred something in him he didn’t want to feel. At all.
Then the guy—Derek—had gone and shown him his art page. A page Basil had not-so-subtly saved on his browser, and he knew then he was in trouble.
The worst part about it was that if he told Amaranth about it all, she’d be fine with it, she’d encourage it, even. Because in spite of knowing what Basil had gone through with Chad, in spite of having gone through her own bullshit with men who could hear, she always looked for the best in people. She didn’t necessarily want Basil to end up with a hearing guy, but she didn’t want him to give up in the idea of finding love wherever it might find him.
She was an absurd romantic and always had been. He wanted to hate it, but it was one of the things he loved most about her.
‘You look like you’re trying to solve some complex equation,’ she said after waving her hand to get his attention. ‘What happened?’
He gave her the bare bones version, but when her eyes lit up like a menorah, he knew he was screwed. She latched on to his vague description of Derek and demanded more detail. ‘He was fine. Freaked out,’ Basil told her. ‘He was okay by the end.’