Blake laughed, finally opening his eyes. He pushed himself up to look at Gabriel. His face was still soft from sleep, hair flat on one side. He smiled slowly when he saw Blake looking at him.
Gabriel’s eyes were gray this morning. Still half-lidded like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to go back to sleep or not.
“You’re not?” Blake teased.
“Nope,” Gabriel answered resolutely. “I could be persuaded to eat you out, though.”
Blake hummed. “Generous.”
“I’m just a good guy like that.”
He leaned down to kiss Gabriel, enjoying the flush of skin against skin. Gabriel always seemed to run warm. His stubble tickled Blake’s cheeks, and he couldn’t help but remember how it felt on the sensitive skin of his inner thighs. Or buried in his neck when Gabriel was gasping for breath. Or on his?—
It would be easy to allow those memories to overtake him. To fall back into the bliss he’d found in the old Victorian. But they weren’t there, surrounded by the dust and the quiet calmof a hundred book spines watching over them. They were in the Potomac View Motel with its dirty scratchy sheets and the white coat sitting in the corner. The heavy weight of expectation in the folds of its fabric.
And even though Gabriel was sprawled out under him, his stubble tickling him and his addicting lips littering kisses all over his face, he was having difficulty pushing down all the things that he’d ignored before. The things that politely waited on the big front porch of that abandoned Victorian. They’d pounced the moment he crossed the threshold, and they’d grown. With every step in this motel, the guilt had grown until sometimes he felt like he couldn’t breathe. His lungs didn’t have room to expand in the tangled knot of his stomach. And yesterday hadn’t helped.
Blake kissed Gabriel a final time before getting out of bed. The room was cold, but there was a marked difference from just a few months ago when they all had to pile in the lobby or the conference room. He wasn’t sure what summer would be like. It was kind of funny—Blake had never spent a single moment of his life without air conditioning. Every home he’d ever lived in had something. Even if it was just a small, overworked window unit
It was one of those sobering thoughts. The kind that was innocuous on the surface but hit like a train once you realized what it really meant. In the grand scheme of things, it shouldn’t matter. Plenty of people in the world survived without central heating and air. But it was justanotherreminder of what they’d lost.
The little things were like splinters just under the skin. Far from a life-threatening injury, but it grated. Stinging and taunting him. And no matter how much he picked or dug at it, it wouldn’t come free.
Blake inhaled a lungful of musty, cold air and pushed himself to his feet. He hissed at the cold carpet, reaching for the clothes he had worn yesterday.
“How were the refugees?” Gabriel asked from where he was still loafing in bed.
Blake yanked on his jeans. “Hungry, scared.”
It wasn’t unusual for a group of people to wander up to them. Sometimes they saw the guys out on missions, and other times they just wandered from town to town, trying to find someplace safe. Or someone to tell them what to do. Humanity could pretend they were the apex species all they wanted, but as it turned out, they were one alien invasion away from devolving into feral assholes crying for someone to take charge.
To see the people in the parking lot hadn’t been that out of the ordinary. But their story had been. Walking for weeks to find safety, only to find the refugee camp was worse than the aliens. He didn’t ask many questions, and Richard hadn’t been any more forthcoming. Blake was grateful.
He spent most of the time rambling, like finally being able to relax meant he could say all the things he’d been bottling up.
“I’m surprised they weren’t in worse shape,” Gabriel admitted as he finally started getting dressed. “That one woman had to be pushing eighty.”
Blake nodded. She still hadn’t said a word.
“The dad was an accountant,” Blake said. “Now he might lose two fingers.”
He said he’d given his gloves to his daughter and had wrapped a torn t-shirt around his hands. It hadn’t been enough.
Richard’s smile looked wrong on his gaunt face. It didn’t reach his distant eyes.
“Will they heal?” Gabriel asked, voice muffled as he pulled on a shirt.
“I’m not cutting off another fucking limb,” he snapped defensively.
Why couldn’t it have been a finger? Wouldn’t even need an axe.
Blake’s stomach turned, and he bit back the dry heave. He broke out in a cold sweat as he stared at the carpet and tried not to see the axe blade as it carved through the thick flesh of a leg, tried not to feel the heft of the handle as he swung it overhead, deliberately mutilating someone.
Strong arms wrapped around his chest and dragged him back. The phantom touch of the axe was replaced by goosefleshed skin, and warm kisses pressed against his bare shoulders.
“Hey, hey, baby, I’m here. No one is going to ask you to do that again, all right? I promise. I won’t let them.” Gabriel rubbed his arms, kneading his muscles.
“Breathe with me, Blake. That’s all I need. You can do that. Just follow my breathing.” Gabriel exaggerated his breathing, chest pressed up against Blake’s back. Blake tried to follow, but he couldn’t expand his lungs. They’d shriveled up, again. Little husks hanging behind his ribs like the final dead leaves on a tree, refusing to give up on summer.
