by Amy Lane
“Yes,” Tucker said. The truck swerved, and Angel risked his wrath and took over, jerking the wheel with stiff hands. “Sorry. Sorry. I’ll try not to kill us. Yes. Yes, he knew. I told him, and he was… he was kind, Angel. I know he looked horrible, as a ghost—”
They all do. It’s because their energies are here but not their souls. But still, Angel hated to think of that snarling face, that bitter, screaming anger, housed in the diaphanous form of what had once been a friend, a lover never touched.
“But he was such a kind boy,” Tucker sobbed, blood and spittle running from his lips down his chin. “He was so kind, and he didn’t want to hurt me. And then, one night, he called me up. He said he’d been dreaming about me. About us kissing. He said he wanted to kiss me. And I’d loved him for so long. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to follow the pull that night, Angel. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to. I was selfish. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Oh Damien, I’m sorry.”
Angel gave a mighty psychic scream inside his body and clenched all the muscles not used to steer the car. Oh yes! There! The layer of putrid guilt, it was diminishing, leaving healthy grief in its place. Not all of it. Some of it still lingered, but Tucker’s voice was broken, his lungs too damaged to talk anymore, and Angel needed to help him steer home.
Together they yanked into a skidding right-hand turn and then a quick left, the truck rambling to a stop almost past the rise. Angel/Tucker stomped on the brake, and Tucker moved his hand to kill the engine. Finally, both of them slumped, exhausted and frightened, in the front seat, while Tucker dragged in lungfuls of sweet, sweet air.
Hold on, Angel warned. I’m going to drive out more of the toxin now. It’s going to hurt.
“Bring it,” Tucker said, so obviously in pain that Angel couldn’t stand it anymore.
Augh! she screamed, long and loud, so long and loud that the truck’s front window cracked, the crack spreading with her squat-thrust-shove of poison out of Tucker’s body.
For a moment, nothing gave, and then she heard Tucker, in his head, thinking, Don’t hurt yourself, Angel. You’re trying so hard.
And that was it. That little bit of kindness and his aura firmed up just enough. Angel screamed again, and together they watched the yellow biliousness of spiritual poison evaporate into the air.
Tucker slumped sideways, his breathing much less tortured, and Angel sank a little deeper into his consciousness to take stock of his pain.
His lungs were no longer blistered, and neither was his skin. The parts of his chest that had been sweating, the skin broken and bleeding, were no longer stuck to his shirt, and his face showed a little bit of heat exposure, as if he’d fallen asleep in the sun with a T-shirt on his head.
But he was exhausted—too tired to move. Angel pulled out of him, hearing his sigh of relief as the uncomfortable fullness of two souls in one body diminished. Diaphanous again, she slid out of the cab of the truck and waited for Tucker’s friend to come help.
Let the Healing Begin
“NO,” TUCKER mumbled as Josh and his son, Andy, helped him out of the front of the truck.
“No, what?” Josh asked good-naturedly. “No, you can’t explain what happened, or no you’re not going to the hospital?”
“No hospitals,” Tucker said firmly. He’d always seen ghosts, but until today, he’d never been afraid of them. Seeing ghosts in a hospital was a terrifying thought. “Just take me inside. I need to rest. I’ll be fine.”
“Want to tell me what in the hell happened?
“I visited the graveyard,” Tucker muttered. “There was… waste. Someone had dumped antifreeze on the ground—I tripped and fell in it.”
“Then you’d be dead,” Josh said. “Here, Andy, link hands with me under his ass.”
“Sure, Dad.” Andover was a good-looking kid—a muscular chest like a barn, his mother’s plainly pretty looks with haphazard dirty blond hair and big brown eyes, and his father’s guileless smile and square jaw. He could probably hoist Tucker over his shoulder and keep walking, but that wouldn’t do much for Tucker’s self-esteem, would it?
“Okay, I’d be dead,” Tucker muttered, leaning on Josh more than he wanted to. “But I’m not. I just need to rest. To eat. To—”
“Stay away from ghost-infested graveyards,” Andy said baldly. “Jesus, what did you think? All that toxic yellow smoke was swamp gas?”
“What toxic yellow smoke?” Josh asked suspiciously.
“I saw actual individual spirits,” Tucker said with dignity. “How is it you saw yellow smoke and your father only saw a small broken graveyard?”
“Mom’s got witchy blood,” Andy said. “And if this is a witchy thing, you’re going to need your own house, even if it’s haunted as fuck.”
“Andy!” Josh complained. “Language?”
“Dad, even you can see it’s creepy. Tucker here should have stayed away unless he had a medium. Or some help.”
Together the two men walked up the long driveway and the porch steps, taking Tucker through the grand ruin of the front entrance. “There’s a small bedroom past the kitchen to the left,” Tucker said. “It’s got a bathroom and a bed and my computer, but not much else. Sorry, guys. No butler serving cookies.”
But Andy was as smart as his father and as intuitive as his mother. “Did you have help, Mr. Henderson?”
Tucker grunted, everything in his body aching, including his heart and head. “Kid, I am the help.”
Andy and his father deposited Tucker gently on the bed, and Tucker leaned over, fully clothed, and put his head on the pillow. Every wrinkle of his clothing chafed, but he was not yet so depraved that he’d undress totally in front of this pinup model of a kid.
Andy crossed his arms. “Huh. Are you really?”
“What are you talking about?” Josh said, sounding confused.
“Dad, didn’t you ever wonder why Ruth stayed here alone, all these years? I delivered her groceries from the time I was twelve until I got out of high school. She talked to me sometimes.”
“Maybe tell me about that later,” Josh muttered, obviously not comfortable. “First, Tucker, is there anything you need?”
“Advil and a swimming pool full of water,” Tucker muttered. And a shower—but again, not in front of Andy and his father. “Ice water. I’m parched.” The burns had faded, but the aftereffects of having healed from something that had sapped him of all moisture remained.
“Dad’ll get it,” Andy said promptly. “I’ll go get a chair—”
“From the kitchen,” Tucker said weakly. “Don’t bring anything in from the house.”
“’Kay,” Josh said. “Andy, keep an eye on him, okay?”
“What does he expect you to do?” Angel asked acerbically. “Jump up and dance?”
Tucker smiled tiredly. “Don’t worry, Angel. I’ll be fine.”
“That was very, very dangerous, Tucker.”
“Aw—she’s worried about me,” Tucker replied. “Did you hear that, Andy? She’s worried about me.”
“Tucker!” Angel gasped.
It took him a couple of breaths to figure out why.
He opened his eyes and looked to see Andy squatting next to the bed and looking around.
“I know he’s here,” Andy said, his voice deep. Oh, he really was adorable. Nice chiseled chin and eyes of this amazing deep brown.
How long had it been since Tucker had taken a lover he’d wanted?
Unfortunately, it couldn’t be this kid.
“He is awfully cozy for someone who didn’t just save your life,” Angel sniffed.
Tucker laughed and turned his head toward the wall. “Andy, what good will it do if you know? I appreciate your help,” he said, suddenly sore and exhausted in ways he didn’t know he could be. “But your dad doesn’t need to know what’s going on here. He doesn’t need to know there are ghosts, or that Ruth spent her life helping them out of Daisy Place and on to wherever. And you don’t need to be involved in it either.” Tucker’s voice broke a little. H
e thought of the amount of work he had to do, of being trapped in this house for his entire life. Of being caught under a hard and never-ending rain of spirits that would one day drown him.
Angel was suddenly there, between Tucker and the wall, facing him with grave eyes.
“You’re not alone,” she said, pulling her hair behind her, where it would fall in a gentle golden puddle, Tucker was sure.
Tucker reached over to stroke her cheek, wondering if it would be soft, and his heart broke a little when his fingertips passed through her skin. There was a sudden meowing and a scrabble up the side of the bed, and Squishbeans curled up to make a nest in Tucker’s hair, kneading with comforting claws and purring.
“Thanks, Angel,” he murmured, and then he fell asleep.
Josh woke him up with water, and then Andy was there with juice, both of them careful not to dislodge Squishbeans, who had taken up residence on his chest. Angel was conspicuously absent when they were there—he wondered if it was so they wouldn’t talk to each other and freak Andy or his father out, but that was all he could wonder about before he fell asleep again.
A few hours later, Rae Greenaway was there with soup, and Tucker tried to stay awake long enough to thank her and to tell the family they didn’t need to worry about their crazy neighbor with his freaky, nonspecific, exhausting ailments.
But he managed to drink a little bit of cooling soup, mumble something about how his shoes were still on, and then fall asleep once more.
He woke up in the morning wearing nothing but his boxers, with a little tray of juice and water by the bed. Angel was sitting on the chair that the Greenaway family had been using, peering at him worriedly through anxious green eyes.
“What’s up, Angel?” he slurred. Then he squinted. “And hello, leather daddy of my dreams.”
“Goddammit,” Angel muttered, and then the big, bald, burly motorcycle guy in leathers disappeared, leaving the male Angel with the reddish hair and freckles in his place. “How are you feeling?”
“Horny,” Tucker muttered, just to mess with her—him. “What was with the getup?”
Angel grunted, the sound particularly suited to this version of him. “I wanted someone you would find less vulnerable. I wasn’t sure you trusted me as a woman.”
“I trusted you to save my life,” Tucker said honestly. “I trusted you to watch over me. Why would you think I didn’t trust you?”
Angel shook his head and looked abashed. “You seemed to need the Greenaway family an awful lot.”
Oh. Tucker tried to struggle to a sitting position, but he realized that whatever had been left over from the hideous, excruciating dermal burns had pretty much knocked him on his ass.
Well, there was no reason to let Angel see that.
“I didn’t mean to need them this much,” he said, feeling foolish. “You told me to call them, remember?”
Angel narrowed his eyes, and Tucker had to admit he looked scarier when he did that in this form than he had as a buxom blond. But that didn’t mean he’d taken this version of Angel more or less seriously than the other version.
“Don’t look at me that way,” Tucker responded obstinately. “You know it’s true.”
“I didn’t mean you should make eyes at Andover and try to wiggle into their family like a tick!” Angel argued.
“Well, that was unexpected for me too.” Tucker tried not to pout, because it had been wonderful as well. “Please, I promise I won’t tell them the family secrets, but….” He thought of all those college friends who had wandered away. All of the dates he’d broken because he was going to sleep somewhere else that night, all of the people who had gotten married and moved on, moved out of downtown, gotten too busy to write.
Who kept tabs on a grown man who couldn’t seem to keep his fly zipped even if it meant letting down his friends?
“But what?” Angel prompted.
He felt so weak. “Don’t make me give them back.” God, he missed family. He missed talking to his mom as she made cookies, and awkward games of catch with his dad. They’d been older, but they’d been kind, and they’d been there for Tucker his entire childhood. He guessed he was spoiled that way, but he was so grateful for that part of his life.
And he yearned to have just a little bit of it back.
“I won’t,” Angel said. And then, on a deep exhalation of ghost breath that actually fanned Tucker’s face, he confessed, “It’s my fault too.” Tucker might have used this as fodder for the argument if he hadn’t felt so out of it. “I was… used to being Ruth’s only real contact,” Angel continued, shamefaced. “I thought that it would be you and me. I didn’t realize that I wasn’t enough for a young, vital person—”
“It’s not that you’re not enough,” Tucker groaned. “And stop trying to fade away in embarrassment—it’s creepy. It’s just, you know, family.” Was this what relationship arguments sounded like? It seemed like a relationship discussion, but Tucker’s last relationship discussion had been with Damien, and he couldn’t seem to remember past the moment when…. Never mind.
Angel grimaced. “I must tell you, Tucker, I haven’t seen the best of family in the stories here.”
“Well, yeah. No wonder you’re skewed.” Tucker yawned. He hadn’t even gotten his orange juice or water, and he was going under again. “Just be nice to these people. Try not to make me any weirder in front of them than I already am.”
“You’re not weird,” Andy said, venturing into the room. Tucker startled, but Andy kept on talking. “You’re just haunted. Apparently by the same guy who used to bother Ruth. You know, Mom knows a medium. Are you sure you don’t want a cleansing?”
“No,” Tucker said shortly, heart still beating a little fast, “and if I did, I could probably do my own.” Crap. He had to remember to heed his own advice. He rolled over and sat up, careful of Squishbeans, who was tucked into the small of his back. “I like Angel,” he said, trying for a smile.
Andy rolled his eyes. Well, he was young.
“Yeah—you and Ruth both liked Angel. I think the guy’s whole job is to make people throw away their lives on this hunk of junk.” He had a smoothie in his hand, and he swung the chair around and sat before handing it to Tucker.
Tucker took it, shuddered with the cold, and pulled the blankets up around his bare chest. He was tempted to try the frightened-virgin act and ask who had undressed him but decided if it had been this superperceptive kid, that would fall under “I’d rather not know.”
“Angel could care less about the house,” Tucker said, sipping. Oh wow. He could taste the protein powder, but it was secondary to the fruit and the—was that Sprite? Oh baby, the non-health-food health-food smoothie. “This is magical. Did your mother make this?”
Andy grinned. “It’s my mother’s recipe, but she and Dad are, you know, working, taking care of the little kids. Grown-up stuff.” Andy whistled and looked around the house guilelessly. “Just two guys, alone in this mansion. Nothing to do….”
Tucker rolled his eyes. “We’re not hooking up,” he said dryly. “You’re cute, but young. And I’m….” He let out a breath and then slurped up some more magical smoothie. “Damaged, Andover. You know that, right?”
Andy’s grin faded. “What is your damage? I mean, I’ve got to be honest—when we heard Ruth’s nephew was inheriting the place, we sort of expected it to be contracted out and either razed to the ground or completely refurbished. And you haven’t really moved in, but Dad says you’re doing renovations?”
Oh Lord. “I should go get my shit,” Tucker muttered. “Now that I have a truck, I should go down and give up the lease on my apartment and come back.”
“No job?” Andy asked. “No people? You just… picked up and left?”
Oh Jesus. Well, Tucker wasn’t going to tell him shit that he hadn’t even told Angel. This whole “karma’s bitch” thing was so personal. It was one thing when your friends thought you were a slutty dick, but when it wasn’t even your choice? When you were a slave t
o the forces in the universe that wanted to use you for your magic wang?
“Did you ever watch Ghost Whisperer?” he asked.
“No, Tucker. Is it as good as Buffy?” Angel replied. He’d left the seat and was now sitting cross-legged at Tucker’s side, and Tucker smiled fondly at him.
“No—but it’s not bad watching, though. But remember?” he asked Andy. “She kept having to do stuff, even if it was dangerous? Because that’s just what you do?”
Andy thought about it. “That’s all those shows,” he said slowly. “You have a gift, and you can either use it to help the world or you’re a twatwaffle.”
“Exactly,” Tucker agreed. “Well, twice… twice I tried to back out of whatever my gift asked me to do.” He remembered his broken confession to Angel in the cab of the truck and wished he felt even near strong enough to go bolting out of the damned bed. “The results were way worse than being a twatwaffle,” he finished. “You learn. You learn to use your gift to help people. It’s the reason the gods gave you a gift, you know?”
Andy nodded sagely. “Is that what you were doing out in the graveyard?” he asked.
Tucker nodded. “Trying to figure out what my gift needs me to do,” he said. It was, for once, completely the truth.
“Well, finish up the smoothie. What your gift wants you to do right now is get some sleep. Then tomorrow me and Dad’ll help you move out of your apartment in Sac.”
“You don’t have to,” Tucker said helplessly. “Why would you even—”
“Because it sounds like the only way to get you out of here,” Andy said bleakly, “even for a day. And if you could see how pale you are, you’d know what I’m talking about. Now hurry up and drink so you can go to sleep.”
Tucker took a giant swallow and then tried one last bid for sanity. “Andy, don’t get attached to me—”
“I know, Tucker. You’re the kind of guy who goes wandering into graveyards when the ghosts really are out to get you, because you think it’s what your gift needs you to do. And whatever the reason you were all alone, you’re not now. My dad seems to love you. Margie says you and Angel are the sweetest boys, and she’s sure roommate is code.”