“Do you not think,” asked Thomas, “I have some right to know what might drive you to such an act of wanton cruelty?”
“Oh you have rights now, do you? To judge my actions. To know whatever it is you want to know about me.” Micha’s voice climbed to something that was too ragged to be a shout. “You think because I let you have my body that you can take whatever else of me you want? How does that make you better than your brother?”
Thomas rose painfully to his feet. “My words were ill-chosen. And I apologise. But I thought ... I don’t know ... a little bit of truth sometimes might be something lovers shared. Something you wished to give.”
“Well, it isn’t.”
There was a deep and endless silence, like tumbling into a dark chasm. “Do you have no faith in me?”
“I have faith in nothing.”
“You can’t live that way.”
“You know nothing of me, or how I live.”
Thomas put a hand to his brow and squeezed the bridge of his nose, as if that could lessen the pounding in his head. “I have heard that a lot, lately.” He took a breath that hardly seemed to fill his lungs. “Micha, this is no use.”
“Of course not,” said Micha, viciously. “I haven’t pleased you, so you’re done with me.”
“For God’s sake—”
“And leave Him out of it.”
“For fuck’s sake, I love you. How can you say this to me?” Thomas closed the distance between them and put his hand over Micha’s thundering heart. “‘Whither thou goest, I will go and where thou lodgest I will lodge: Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God.’ I love you but you would have me love nothing but shadows.”
Micha’s hand came up and closed over Thomas’s, his fingers curling into frantic claws. “Shadows is all I am.”
“No. I know who you are; you show me sometimes. I love that man and this man, and every shade and shard of you. But I cannot fight against you for you.”
“Can we not ...” Micha’s voice trailed away a moment. “Simply go on? As we are?”
“Which is what? You said yourself that I’m not your friend or your lover.” Thomas leaned a little closer, letting the now-familiar warmth of Micha’s body brush softly against him like the memory of a touch. “What would you have me be?”
Micha twisted away but only slightly. “I spoke in anger,” he muttered.
It was, as ever, not quite an apology or an explanation, and, for once, Thomas did not let it be enough. “Then tell me, Micha,” he pressed, “what am I to you? A friend in whom you do not confide? A lover you do not love?”
“Please don’t make me do this.” Micha’s voice softened unexpectedly, though his eyes were bleak. “You’ve given me something close to peace, something close to happiness.”
“I would give you everything,” said Thomas simply.
Micha’s lip curled into its familiar sneer. “And your price?”
“It’s not a transaction.”
“It’s always a transaction.”
Desolation swept through Thomas like winter. It was hopeless. Micha was as unreachable as George. As Edward. “Let me love you,” he pleaded. “Let me be your friend. Sometimes you make me think you must feel something for me too.”
There was a brief silence. “You are the best man I’ve ever known,” said Micha, as though the words were wrenched from him. “And I have done nothing to deserve you. But I can’t.” His voice was steady and without inflection. “I can’t.” And, all the while, something frantic flickered in the darkness of his eyes, like an unheard scream. The hand that still rested atop Thomas’s hand was icy. And then he was pushing Thomas away, silence and emptiness filling the new-made space between them. Micha’s chin came up. The coldness settled over his face. “So what now?” he asked. “You will want me gone.”
“No but—”
“Surely you cannot want me to stay?”
It was all so swift and so sudden. Bewilderment flared into anger. “What I want,” snapped Thomas, “is for you to think about this. Must you simply react, like a beast with its leg in a trap? Take a day, take a week, but, at least, think about it. If you care for me at all.”
“Yes,” returned Micha dully. “I care.”
