“Breathing is good.” His lover smiled a little crookedly. The bags under his eyes were darker, and his cheekbones seemed to be protruding, always a sure sign that Andi was lacking sleep and food. George pushed that thought aside, trying to empty his mind. It helped that he’d run a good ten miles in the morning. Most of his nervous energy was spent and would take time to build up again. They locked their gazes and started with a measured breathing rhythm, three in, four out, which always felt forced in the beginning until they started flowing together, and it became the link connecting them. When they first started, it had taken them ten to fifteen minutes to fall into each other. By now, it was a matter of seconds. The additional link through their hands, placed on the knees of the other, aided as well.
They kept this up for some time, concentrating wholly on each other and staying in tune. Everything besides their breathing, besides the warmth radiating from them, soaking into their skin, melding them, turned into white noise. Their surroundings were of no importance because they weren’t them.
George sank deeper and deeper, their combined breathing like an additional heartbeat, their connection a third presence, engulfing them both, the sum of their parts, so much more than they could be alone, glorious and frightening, like the endless possibilities of a new morning and the crushing finality of a blossoming night.
Slowly, almost shyly, other perceptions trickled in, floating on their connection like leaves on water, spinning and swirling, with no control of their own, forever dependent on the river they had fallen in.
The chirping of cicadas, the soft rustling of a hot late summer wind, the feel of the yoga mat through the soft material of his shorts, birds singing in the trees, the more aggressive cawing of crows, and then, slowly gaining strength, the buzzing of bees, overlaying their breathing, weaving into it. No longer a leaf traveling to places unknown but part of the water, tiny legs on his arms, a soft touch, miniscule torrents of air on the skin on his cheeks, cooling his lips, weaving and harmonizing with their breathing, Andi’s gaze still locked on his but distant, glazed over, already connected with the bees.
More and more landing on both of them, George could see it from the corner of his eyes, knew he couldn’t panic now, focused back on the steady flow, three in, four out, one adventurous bee crawling behind his ear, tickling him, the sensation of so many tiny legs on him both wondrous and directly activating his lizard brain, telling him danger, run, only there was no danger, as long as he kept still, as long as his connection to Andi was stable, because they knew Andi, they were here for him and George was a part of Andi, he could never forget that, it was what saved him now and what brought Andi back when he got sucked in too deep.
He wasn’t at the moment, their breathing still in sync, their connection solid, it was okay for Andi to explore, to experiment, because the geschenk wouldn’t go away or weaken, no such luck, they had to learn to manage it. The bees were tranquil, just sitting there, now and then moving a bit, George thought he could feel the soft hair on their legs, caressing him, tiny vibrations running over his skin like waves on a pond when their back segments dragged along, it was soothing, he just had to forget about the stingers, three in, four out, it was all good.
When the bees started leaving them in groups of two to ten, buzzing around their heads before returning to their hive, George felt a strange kind of sadness mixed with relief that he hadn’t been stung. Andi’s eyes cleared—he was back—the connection between them stronger than the pull from the arthropods. His features looked even hollower, reminding George that what had been a peaceful, relaxing experience for him had cost Andi more strength than he could spare. The goal of these meditating sessions was to help Andi build his walls, not erase them further by linking even more strongly with this other world George would never truly understand. Yet this was what had happened, what was happening more frequently, what they both had agreed had to happen—under as controlled circumstances as possible—in the hope of getting a better grip on the geschenk.
“That was—” Andi’s fingers dug into the muscles above George’s knees.
“Intense?”
“Yeah. But also controlled. Mostly.”
“Do you want to define that, or do you need to rest first?”
Andi’s fingers dug a little deeper into George’s knees. “I was—mapping you out. Not just with their senses, as I’d normally do, but also with their bodies. Like they were my fingers?”
A slew of different emotions washed over George. The touch of the bees had felt like a caress, and now he knew it hadn’t been his imagination playing tricks on him. It also begged another question, and he wasn’t sure what to address first. “Did you feel better touching me through them?”
“You mean like a go-between?” Andi cocked his head. Apparently, he hadn’t thought of it like that. “I mean…it was different. When I touch you with my hands, I get mixed information. There’s what my own senses tell me as well as what I get from the arthropods around us. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s in some ways sharper and more detailed than what only one perspective would give me.”
“But?”
“But…” Andi leaned forward to let his head rest on George’s lap. His man was incredibly flexible. “But seeing you just through them while being connected through our breathing was—gorgeous. It felt like being part of the hive, cocooned in ourselves. Like we’re our own unit, you and me, your trust, the way the sonic of their back segments traveled across your skin, was caught by others, interpreted, woven into the picture.” Andi’s head came up again. “You know, physical contact is complicated for me. Even more so with you because I want it and can’t easily process it at the same time. That just now was—peace. It felt right. Like it should be. And I’m not sure what to make of that.”
“Are things between us developing too fast? We can always go slower.” It was a constant worry for George, inadvertently adding to Andi’s burden because he didn’t get all his clues or misinterpreted some of the signs.
“No. I would have said so.”
George believed him. Andi wasn’t prone to suffering in silence. At least not when he could do something about it. “Are you afraid?” Asking another man that kind of question would have never crossed George’s mind before he met Andi. By now, he had learned his partner would be angrier if he refrained from asking because he thought he had to spare his feelings. Humans could be complicated creatures.
“A bit? Perhaps? This is new, and I want it to be good, something positive. At the same time, I fear it could make everything worse, which I absolutely don’t want. I’ll have to think about it some more, let it rest for a while.”
“That’s fine. Let’s get inside and eat. I have the apple-carrot salad you like so much.” George stroked Andi’s cheek lovingly before he got up, mindful of not using his hands. He had just read an article about core strength and how to keep it up. Rising from the ground like this was more difficult than he was comfortable with, considering how much time he invested in his fitness. Perhaps he should start with either pilates or calisthenics. Both were good for developing core strength.
In the kitchen, he filled two bowls with the premade salad, and Andi fell on it like a starving wolf. It was a good thing he liked it so much because this dish was an easy way of providing him with a whole bunch of vitamins and nutrients all at once. It was also easy on the stomach. They were eating in companionable silence, and when they were done with the salad, George brought out the coconut-date energy balls he had recently found in a small deli close to the precinct. At the moment, the shop was doing brisk business with its strictly organic, self-made food and groceries, but George wasn’t sure about their long-term chances, which was why he’d started researching recipes for these energy balls that were vegan and came in a great variety. Andi loved them as well and happily snacked on them whenever George put them out. He was just refilling Andi’s glass with water when his partner’s phone rang.
Andi reached for it, lifted his brows and hit the green icon. “Hello, Tyler. How are you? George is here with me, and you’re on speaker. Is that okay, or do you want to talk privately?”
“Hi, Andi. Hi, George. It’s fine. I need your help, and George always has good advice.”
George could see Tyler’s too-serious face in his mind. The boy was Chief Norris’s son and, like Andi, only he saw and talked to ghosts.
“What’s the problem, bud?” Despite claiming he didn’t do well with children and did not like them very much, Andi was astoundingly good with Tyler, though he said it was a case of birds of a feather. George wasn’t so sure but refrained from discussing the matter further.
“I’ve been seeing these two ghosts, a man and a woman. They look funny, and they never try to talk to me. Just stare at me, and when I say something directly to them, they just vanish.”
George narrowed his eyes. Ghost problems were usually Andi’s field when Tyler called, so he wasn’t sure why the boy wanted him there as well. Andi didn’t seem to think it strange. He simply got with the program.
“Okay. Are you frightened of them?” Since Chief Norris had not only allowed but explicitly asked Andi to talk to Tyler, his partner had developed a catalogue of questions he went through when ghosts were involved. On the other hand, when Tyler called to rant about his mother, all Andi did was nod and make affirmative noises. It was usually George who gave him advice on how to handle his parents. For ghosts, Andi was the first responder, so to speak.
