-6-
“Spook?”
Xane entered the gents’ loos, half expecting to find him slumped in one of the stalls talking to God on the great white telephone, but miraculously he was upright by the sinks.The tap before him was running, turning the glass cuts on his fingers into a sprinkler system of ruddy-coloured droplets.He made no response to the calling of his name, and none to Xane’s approach.Instead, Spook’s gaze remained unsteadily focussed on his reflection in the mirror.
What are you seeing, my friend?
Xane could hazard a guess at the answer, which was not the gash on his temple or the bruise around it, nor the similarly dark contusions around his eye socket, or his scabbed over but still fat and misshapen upper lip.The ghosts of Spook’s past were alive in his hollow stare.Xane had seen that swallowing void and the monsters that resided in it before.He knew their names.A decade ago he’d been reeled in by a hopeless sense of intrigue about the shadows in Spook Mortensen’s eyes.A lifetime later, he better understood the chains of pain, rage, fear, and guilt that entwined Spook’s heart and stopped him from being free.Normally, those ghosts were locked up tight, but tonight had sheared off at least a couple of layers of freshly grown skin.
“I’m well aware I look like shit.It’d be cool if you didn’t insist on making me feel it, too.”
Xane moved closer, so that his reflection appeared in the mirror beside Spook’s.“How’s your hand?”
Spook shrugged.He didn’t bother to look down.The water flowing down the plughole remained pink.Xane shut off the flow, curled his fingers around his friend’s lower arm, and gently lifted his hand up to assess the damage.There were a couple of obvious shards of glass, thankfully none of them overly large, that he carefully extracted.Done, he brushed his lips against the centre of Spook’s palm, before pressing a wad of paper towels into his hand for him to clench.
“Guess she hit a nerve.”
“Has she pissed off yet?”
“I didn’t stick around to find out.You know she’s not going to forgive you for that.”
Real fear drizzled through Spook’s frozen expression.His eyebrows twitched, and two neat furrows appeared between them.The trembling that had barely been under control since the arena zipped up a level too.Xane held back from wrapping himself around Spook’s body and holding him tight.His boy was still clad in spikes.
“I don’t want her fucking digging.Like things aren’t difficult enough with one person on my back, insisting on getting more than I want to give.They’re not entitled.Nobody’s fucking entitled to know anything, or get anything.”
“Spook,” Xane determinedly kept his voice soft.He turned his friend, and held him by the shoulders.“I know.Your past, your desires, what happened tonight, they’re none of anyone’s goddamned business.You don’t owe anyone anything.And you only have to give what you’re comfortable with.”
“Right.”Spook’s tongue swept over his lower lip.
“Right,” Xane echoed.He ought never to have let Spook come to this place.He should have split with him, got him away from everything.
He watched him agitatedly shift, Spook’s balance buggered enough by the God knows how many shots to make full-on pacing an impossibility.
“I want them all to piss off.Judgemental fucking arseholes.Why’s it so difficult to grasp that I don’t want to screw anyone or anything?”His arms waved in over-exaggerated emphasis.“Celibacy is a choice, Xane.It’s a choice.My choice.It’s not a fucking placeholder for some alternative sexuality.”
They could argue that some other time, because in a sense it very much was, but the point Spook was making was spot on.He wasn’t off limits to the girlies because he was hiding the fact he was actually into guys.Nor was he ace.Only, screwed the fuck up, and drunk on top of it.
“Ava, that fucking twat from the arena.Allegra.Especially bloody Allegra.You’d think after nine fucking months I’d have got through.”
Xane pulled him to a standstill, then closer again, so that their foreheads rested together.“I think the fact you’re still having that conversation after nine months might be the reason you haven’t got through.You’re pulling her closer with one hand and pushing her away with the other.If you wanted nothing to do with her you wouldn’t talk to her every night.”
“It’s not—”
“Every night?Sure it is.Don’t bullshit yourself.I know she screws with your head, but that’s because you let her, and that’s because you want her.If you didn’t you’d have forgotten she existed by now.Know what else I know?”
Spook tilted his head very slowly to one side.Their brows still pressed together.His blue eyes were scarily focussed.
“You get a kick out of watching her dangle at arm’s length, which is cruel, but I get it.It turns you on.”
“Fuck off.”He pushed Xane, but there was little power behind the shove, and Xane stood his ground.They stood at an impasse a moment, until Spook closed his eyes, blocking out the sheen reflected in their surface.“It’s not deliberate.”
“Course not.”
“Fine, only a little.”
“It’s all right.It’s allowed.”
Spook scratched uneasily at the back of his scalp.After a moment, he stilled and began sucking on his upper lip.
