Andi suddenly went absolutely still, prompting George to instinctively grab his arm. Only to release him immediately when the first hornets came down, hovering in front of Andi like miniature helicopters, the buzzing loud and aggressive, making the hair on George’s nape stand on end. Since he’d met Andi, he learned that arthropods weren’t inherently bad or out to hurt humans—it was always the fault of the blobs when they got stung or bitten—though that didn’t change his initial reaction to seeing small yellow and black projectiles in the air. The fear of anything with warning colors was ingrained in his lizard brain, not something he had control over. The hornets came closer, more of them flying down from the nest, hovering in front of Andi, the first one landing on his shoulder, more following, until his partner had at least a hundred of them sitting on his body. It was a fearsome sight. George had to make a conscious effort not to panic. If that many hornets decided to attack, Andi’s life would be in danger.
But nothing happened.
The hornets sat on Andi.
Andi stood absolutely still.
His eyes were closed. George knew he didn’t need the input anyway. What he got from the arthropods surrounding them gave Andi a much more detailed and wider picture than human eyes could ever provide. It also forced Andi’s brain to work overtime to interpret and translate what was coming in, which was the root of all of Andi’s problems. The connection to the arthropods wouldn’t have been so bad—though not good—since nothing coming from outside that you couldn’t consciously stop was ever good if the human brain was not equipped to understand what it was receiving. Since that wasn’t the case, figuring out how to interpret vibes that came to you through the eight legs you didn’t have or through the antennae you never grew, Andi was always close to overdrive.
His rigid stance and the fact that he didn’t move a single muscle were alarming signs. His man was checking out right before George’s eyes. He had a flashback to that moment in the woods close to Charleston, where a madman had taken Tyler Norris to kill him. Andi had gone so very still then, calling the bees and all the other crawlers in the vicinity to save Tyler. George knew he had almost lost his partner then, even if Andi had tried to downplay the severity of the situation ever since. George never wanted to experience that kind of fear and helplessness again.
Wrestling down his survival instincts, which were screaming at him to get away from the hornets, to heed the warning of their coloring, he reached out and touched Andi’s forearm where only a few hornets were sitting, careful not to touch any of them. Neither Andi nor the insects stirred. Then one of them seemed to wake up, slowly coming closer to him. George felt cold sweat running down his back, pooling in the dip where his ass started, beads dripping down his temples. He felt tiny legs making contact with his thumb, first one, followed by the other five at a sedate pace. The hornet was huge and had a weight George thought seemed to be heavier because of his fear. Slowly, as if dreaming, the insect crawled up his thumb, stopped at the back of his hand, turned a little to the right, then settled in, not moving anymore.
George wrangled his fear down to a place deep inside where he could take it out later, or preferably never, and focused back on Andi.
“Andi, please, wake up. Come back to me.” Don’t leave me for them!
It was a fear George knew was all too real. One day, Andi might decide that it was all too much—that staying in the world of humans, of blobs, was just too much hassle. Then his partner, his lover, would lose himself in the depthless stream of images and sensory input he was swamped with all the time, not bothering to stay afloat, just letting himself go under. And the worst about this scenario? George knew it would be a conscious decision on Andi’s part. Nothing he could influence or stop. All he could do was watch. And George knew it would break him.
“Andi. Come back. Tell me what you see.” George gripped Andi’s arm harder, while at the same time syncing his breath with his lover, but it wasn’t easy. When Andi was this deep down, his breathing was flat, barely perceptible. Matching his own to it was hard because his lungs screamed for more air than he was giving them. The trick was to match Andi’s rhythm and then drag him up into something deeper, more sustaining. When his partner took the first visible breath, George felt relief flooding him. “That’s it. Now talk to me. Please.”
He kept his breathing even, deep, taking Andi with him. After another minute or so, Andi started talking.
“Evil, the men are evil, need to die, have no place in the world, where, where are they, danger to the nest, they stink of maliciousness, need to die, kill, kill, kill, splash, splash, sting them, protect the queen, don’t stop, they must be dead, take the throats, sting, again and again, intruders must die, splash, no mercy, they have no place, no place.”
Andi’s eyes opened abruptly, and at the same moment, the hornets took flight as if somebody had flipped a switch. They returned to the nest, not sparing the two blobs on the ground another glance. Andi swayed.
George grabbed his arm, holding him close until he felt Andi was stable again. “Let’s get you back to the hotel.”
“Yes, please. Do you have Tylenol?”
George reached into the back pocket of his jeans without a word, pulling out one of the vials with Tylenol he always carried. Deftly, he unscrewed the lid and held it to Andi’s lips. His lover grabbed the vial awkwardly and downed the liquid medicine in one go.
They managed a few steps, then Andi started heaving. Knowing what was coming because he had seen it way too often. George held his partner as Andi doubled over and started retching. His body convulsed so violently that George almost lost his grip around Andi’s midsection. He made a conscious effort not to dwell on how thin Andi still was despite the sinewy muscles he could feel. No wonder, when he keeps losing his food like this, he thought bitterly.
It took a while for Andi’s stomach to calm down. Then George handed him another vial with Tylenol—he always carried at least four with him—and led him back to the car.
CHAPTER 8
TRAIPSING IN THE DARK
Back at the hotel, Andi let himself be guided under the shower by George after his man had taken off their clothing. The lukewarm water felt good on his heated skin, soothing the raging migraine that had started before the last hornet had left its place on his arm. The Tylenol was slowly doing its work, dulling the worst spikes of pain, reducing them to a level he had learned to manage. That he needed the painkillers at all was devastating because he had always tried to avoid them as much as possible. Ever since his geschenk started to intensify almost on a monthly basis, Tylenol and other agents had become more and more of a necessity. At least the lure of alcohol was off the table, thanks to George, who was so very good at distracting him with food and cuddles.
He threw up once more after the shower and then fell onto the bed, where George put a cold, wet washcloth over his eyes. Half dozing, Andi listened while his partner called around to find a restaurant where he could get either chicken or vegetable broth, the best food to get into Andi’s belly after an episode like the one with the hornets. Andi tried very hard not to think about how similar the feeling of the hornets and the black widow had been—off, not what he had been expecting, definitely in need of investigating, if only for his own peace of mind.
Worse even, under this layer of unfamiliarity had been something else, a connection that was growing in intensity ever since he had asked the bees to save Tyler Norris. Now he was not only trying to process and interpret what his tiny informants told him and trying to keep the line between them and him clear, but now he also had to be aware of the line between him and them.
Back at the lake, when he connected to the nest, it had been with the urge to get back to the hotel as fast as possible because he was getting tired and knew his barriers were weak. The hornets had caught up on this urge and responded accordingly, coming down to him, landing on him, merging with him not only in mind but also in body, attempting the impossible while he started to panic and did his best not to show it. If George hadn’t been there, hadn’t touched him despite the tiny weapons sitting all over him, Andi wasn’t sure if he could have kept it together or if he’d been able to come back.
The temptation was always there. It was so easy to get lost in them, in the safety their numbers offered, and in the all-encompassing awareness their senses provided. When he was wide open to the arthropods, the world appeared smaller and bigger at the same time. Smaller because he was aware of so much more than just the narrow space directly surrounding him that his human senses were aware of, and bigger because he knew there was so much more for him to see and find. Andi was also sure his former half-mile radius had expanded, another sign that the geschenk was growing in strength, probably getting out of control. He was loath to tell George about it, especially now, with his mother’s visit looming. Although George did his best to keep his worries to himself, Andi was now not only attuned to the arthropods, but he was also perfectly attuned to George. He knew that no matter how often he assured his man that he couldn’t care less what Miranda Donovan might think about him, or the rest of George’s family for that matter, George would never not worry. He thought the rejection would hurt Andi on some unconscious level. Andi wasn’t sure if he could completely rule out this possibility since he was neither a psychologist nor did he tend to introspect on his feelings. For that, he would have to separate everything that came from them from what was his, and that was like untangling the world’s biggest ball of yarn after a horde of cats had played with it in a barn chock-full of furniture. The Gordian Knot was a piece of cake in comparison. What he could say was that he really didn’t care what Miranda thought of him. As long as George wasn’t swayed by her opinion, Andi could happily ignore her.
The main problem, he thought, was probably that George would feel rejected by his own family, which would be infinitely worse because unlike for Andi, George’s family was a large part of his sense of self—his parents and brothers had formed him and kept forming him, consciously or unconsciously and his partner’s self-worth was directly linked to the people who had raised him.
So yes, maybe he was a little worried. Because if George ever left him, Andi knew he would be lost.
The mattress sank in, and George’s familiar weight settled next to him. A warm, soft hand started stroking his cheek. “I finally found a restaurant that does chicken broth. They said it will be here in about twenty minutes. Do you think you want to have something then or would you prefer to sleep first?”
“I haven’t fallen asleep yet, so I think I’ll try the broth.”
