In Morpheus' Embrace

by Andy Finch

  Draven orders a beer, something light. He remembers Ian saying something about not drinking.

  “You’re gonna get really sick if you take even a sip.”

  Draven rolls his eyes at the recollection. Ian was a worrier. He said that to instill a fear that would keep him away from the bubbly spirits of the bars. He was afraid for Draven. Afraid someone better, someone stronger, would come and snatch him up and leave Ian as a forgotten memory. No amount of coaxing would make him feel any different. Draven had assured him many times that he was the last thing from promiscuous.

  “We should get tarots done,” Geneva breaks the curse of remembrance that flows around Draven, “For the new year.”

  “You’re stupid,” Draven takes a swill of the beer in his hand. The camera bag tether to his shoulder began to weigh down on him, but he doesn’t dare leave the equipment unattended. New Orleans was one of the most crime-heavy cities, after all, “I like it.”

  “Of course you do,” Geneva puts a shot glass to her mouth and downs her first peachy vodka sprits, “Ugh, fuck—a couple more of these and I’ll be ready to ride the Swamp Thang.”

  Like a fog creeping out of the bayou, the pills in his stomach begin to release the honey of morphine into his veins and organs. It comes with competition, though. The alcohol bubbling within stirs the morphine in the wrong direction. The uppers and the downers brewing within bring out only the worst of the two. His stomach churns, bile creeps into his throat.

  “You look a little green—”

  “I’m gonna get sick—”

  There’s a murmur about being a lightweight from somewhere in the bar. It might’ve been Geneva. It might’ve been their bartender. Draven purges the rotten boil from his insides, heaving into the nearest trash can. Nausea never subsides fully, and his head drowns in a chemical haze of everything bad. Time blurs together, he gives no conscience input to his actions. He runs on instinct.

  When he comes to, he’s sitting in his car, engine idling in the reserved parking space of his apartment. He checks the clock, four o’ seven. Where had the hours gone? He shakes his head, knowing Ian would be there, waiting on the couch with arms crossed, barking about something or another. Steeling his nerves—which have yet to taste the good side of morphine today—he goes and climbs the steel steps to the apartment.

  Maybe you should’ve picked up some donut holes.

  The front door opens with a not-so-satisfying thud. Sure enough, Ian sits right on the couch, arms crossed over his chest, and a scowl tied to his face. Ian says nothing, doesn’t even look over at Draven. He knew something, Draven tells himself, you’re royally fucked.

  “Hey,” Draven tests to see if he can side-step the awkwardness that surrounds his lover. He remembers then, why Ian didn’t want him to have any taste of alcohol. It wasn’t blathering about his pills (though it should have been). It was something old, ancient memories stirred up:

  Draven was an alcoholic once. Long before Ian and him had officially dated. It had run in the family. Alcoholics from each generation. It took years to stifle the itch. It was only Ian who made him see the bad, made him choose between the booze or the normality of his life. Draven chose Ian. It would always be Ian. No addiction could break what they had again.

  “Geneva told me.”

  Loose lips sink ships.

  “It was one beer.”

  “I know,” Ian huffs, a silent ray of disappointment shines on his skin, “I know you won’t fall back on old habits. Just… tell me next time, please?”

  Oh, I need some morphine.

  Ian stands up, almost defensively. Sleepiness holds in the clouds of his eyes. Their torsos interlock, Ian tastes the fermentation and bile on his lover’s lips. It made things so much worse.

  “Did you take a pill today?”

  “I had to.”

  “Goddammit, Dray.”

  And just like that, they were six feet apart again. Ian holds his head in his hands, the words he wants to say sit on the tip of his brain. He knew what had to be said, but the consequences that came after it—he could not handle those, so he swallows the words he wants to say and tells Draven what he needs to hear.

  “You’re sick, babe,” a sigh. Draven isn’t sure if it comes from him or Ian, “You’re really sick and you shouldn’t be drinking with this… this shit.”

  “I’m not sick anymore, Ian.”

  Ian smiles sadly, finally allowing Draven the comfort of his eyes. There it was again. The gaze of emptiness that tells Draven that there is more to be said. Ian wore it a lot nowadays, ever since he got back from the hospital. A thick calloused hand from working with tools rubs down Ian’s cheek, dropping to his side in sweet defeat.

  “You’re right.” Ian simpers.

  And then there was nothing more to be said.

  5

  137, the bathroom scale beneath Draven’s feet says. He’s lost almost fifteen pounds now. He steps off the cheap plastic and turns to the mirror. His skin was almost the color of ash now. Being without the sun had done more damage than he thought. It was time to change that, he decides. Today, he would drink the golden honey if the weather had allowed it. Before he can turn away from the mirror, though, the sickly translucent orange of his morphine bottle pleads for a moment of his time. The faux-marble bathroom counter had become their home since Ian decided it would be best to keep them out of Draven’s line of sight. It wasn’t enough to shut them up.

  “Just one,” the pills simper as Draven twists the cap, “It’s all you need to get through the day.”

  Come to think of it, his head did throb. Like his brain was beating against his skull with a hammer. It blocked out the subtle ache still existing in his shoulder. He digs a pill out of the plastic prison. It wasn’t enough. He grabs another, then another. He takes his free hand and wipes the snot dripping from his nose. You’ve got the flu, he uses as an excuse, you need this. The engraved M on the capsules taunts him. He drowns their prying eyes by swallowing them with a splash of lukewarm tap water, collected straight from the sink at his fingertips.

  “Dray?” Ian’s voice vibrates through the too-thin wooden door imprisoning him in this bathroom, “Do you need help changing your bandage?”

  Draven sits in silence for a hint of a second. He reaches and opens the door, meeting Ian’s worried gaze. Ian doesn’t wait to be invited in. He goes and begins his search for gauze and medical tape. Draven busies himself with taking off the week-old bandage encrusted with blood and pus. Maybe it did hurt more than he realized. His headache was just blocking it out. He likes that conclusion.

  “Have you been taking your antibiotics?” Ian’s voice towers over Draven, even if he was a good six inches shorter than him, “Don’t lie to me.”

  A gumbo of greens, reds, and whites boil in the circular wound on Draven’s shoulder. It had been a month, now, since leaving the hospital, but the lack of affection he’s given the wound had prolonged its existence. Infection never felt so good, he thinks. The suffering reminds him that he was alive. Reminds him that he could’ve left the scene in a body bag. Reminds him of all that could have been. He loves pain. The ecstasy it brings as the opiate receptors pump feel-good-chemicals to ease the pain. It was the same as morphine, just lower dosages. Which reminds him how much he’s needing one right about now.

  “I…” Draven says, “I haven’t.”

  “Why not?” Ian ignores the doctor’s advice. A dab of hydrogen peroxide splash in the wound, bubbling up. Sizzling away the infection. Draven wishes he had Neosporin instead, “I don’t want you to go back to the hospital. This is… This is serious, Draven.”

  Serious? He scoffs in his head; you had said the same about the playoffs with the Pelicans and the hot dog eating contest at the crawfish festival last year. Draven enjoyed arguing with a mock image of Ian in his head. Ian was an emotional nut. His views of the extremity were so far off the actuality of the situation.

  “I know.” His voice is quiet with guilt. Like a child admitting
to his lie. Now was not the time to argue. Now was the time to wallow in his self-deprecation brought on by his cavalier attitude. Draven could count the number of times he has said “If I die, then I die,” to Ian in the worst situations. Maybe that was what brewed this outburst of emotions.

  “Obviously fucking not if you don’t care—”

  “I do care.” Draven cuts him off, reveling in his new-found honor. It was fake. All of it. Draven did not care, no matter how much he wanted to. It was hard to care when the morphine brewing inside relaxed every damn stressor hiding in his brain. Someone could point a gun to his head and Draven wouldn’t care.

  “Then fucking show it.” A sadness hides in the anger of his breathy voice. Draven would, if not doped up, worry about Ian growing teeth and biting the hand that feeds.

  Ian binds the bandage a pinch too tight. The skin surrounding Draven’s shoulder pulls taut. Every other day started this way. Draven would forget something, refuse something, and Ian would explode. Some days Draven would explode back.

  “I love you,” Draven says before Ian can leave the bathroom.

  Ian stops in his tracks, his back still turned to face Draven. All his sunkisses and moles twinkle in a jaundiced way in the yellow lighting of the bathroom. Draven would, normally, touch his fingers to the biggest spot and connect the dots. He hasn’t touched Ian’s bare skin in days now. The touch starvation would hurt him, normally. Make his beg to be skin to skin with Ian again. But if the morphine stays in his system, he will not care. Not about Ian, not about anything.

  “I love you more,” Ian finally says, he turns and faces Draven again. His eyes were red like the fever running along Draven’s wound. A stream poisons his cheeks, burning them red-hot. A pucker of his lips comes, presses on to Draven’s lips, “I hurt when you hurt,” comes quietly, spoken into the feverish parts of skin still smelting on Draven.

  Their fingers intertwine. Ian stands on his tippy toes to leave another kiss, fat with wasted tears, on Draven’s paling lips. For a second, Draven forgets the twist in his muscles or the hammering in his head. Morphine be damned. He had the will, he had the strength, to regain the mental function to care. He only knows Ian and the love he radiates.

  ✽✽✽

  130, the scale reads this morning. His stomach is full of Ian’s scrambled eggs and bacon, his lungs inflated to add as much as he could to the scale. Still, he continues to lose weight. He hasn’t told Ian of the weight loss, but he can tell that Ian knows. It was the subtle hints of adding extra food to his plate or asking if he was hungry every other hour. He knew, but he chose not to believe it. Ian didn’t want to see Draven’s cheekbones sticking out of his skin, or the barest outline of his ribs. He wanted his plump Draven back.

  It hurt to eat now. At first, he’d write it off as the antibiotics. Those never settled well with him. This was different though. Food brought pain. His stomach would twitch and ache in both the absence of food and the abundance of it. It the wee hours of the morning, no matter how little or how much he ate, Draven would, against his will, purge the contents of his stomach. Ian hadn’t been able to pick up on this, thankfully. But the acidity in his kisses began to add to the puzzle of weight loss.

  “Let me see your bandage,” Ian says, touching the maroon-soaked cotton, “Doctor’s orders,” he teases, but the joke misses Draven.

  “It hurts,” Draven detests. His open palm finds a place on the back of Ian’s hand, “I think it’s gotten worse.”

  The bandage peels off, revealing more greens and browns than crusted blood. Ian gags, but he does not show it. Instead, he pours a dollop of hydrogen peroxide—which was against doctor’s orders again—onto the wound. It bubbles and fizzes before settling down. Draven makes a note to take another extra morphine tonight. This would hurt like hell.

  It always gets worse before it gets better, after all.

  “Maybe you should go back to the hospital.” Ian watches as the peroxide continues to fizz. The hollowness in his words causes Draven to flinch, “If it gets worse, we’re gonna have to.”

  “It’ll get better.” Draven traces his opposite finger on the skin where the fever ends, and the chills of sickness begin. He wanted to believe it. Ian would not buy it, “You know,” there was no morphine in his system yet. He was given free rein to care, to love, to feel human, “I heard through the grapevine that sex heals—”

  “Absolutely not,” Ian stifles a laugh that threatens to come up. There was temptation hiding in his eyes, something only Draven could see, “That sounds like a terrible idea. You’ll be all sweaty, and then your bandage will peel and… and…” He mimics a gag for added effect. Draven would scowl and glower, but they needed this comic relief, “Think of the sheets, Draven. They’ve seen enough nastiness from us.”

  “And I think it wouldn’t hurt to show them that again.”

  “Please, no,” a laugh, “We could… go get donut holes... Instead?” Ian cocks his brow.

  That would have been a good idea if there weren’t a stiffness begging in his boxer briefs, but Ian would let this teasing continue, if only for his pleasure. Draven allows his brow to knit together, trying to signal his disapproval. It only sparks Ian to shoot out more ideas, with a quip of a smirk nestled firmly on his peachy lips.

  “We could ride down to Café du Monde and get beignets—”

  “No.” A growl, almost. He flashes his teeth like a predator. Ian’s self-control would, under normal circumstances, crumble right then and there, but he was strong and resilient to the cajoling being given. The newfound sense of pride spurred from the hospital was still there, just forgotten, hidden. Draven likes his cuddly Ian, yes, but the animal he could become made his heart beat faster and faster.

  “We could get coffee?” Another shake of his head, “You’re not gonna give up ‘til I give you what you want huh?” Draven finally agrees, “I guess one little round of fun won’t hurt nobody,” a luster returns to his eyes, “But you’re cleaning the sheets afterward.”

  The bedroom rolls with the scent of sex and sweat. They hold each other, now, sweaty and lost for words. Ian’s fingers, hard and calloused from contracting, trace the indentions of ribs and hip bones on Draven’s naked figure. Gooseflesh infects Draven’s skin, trailing right behind Ian’s finger.

  “Stop doing that,” Draven whispers, but with added force as he punctuates. The gooseflesh made his skin prickle with an itch that would not be sated. Dirty fingernails claw into his skin, hoping to abate the irritation, “It feels weird.”

  “Sorry,” Ian says, retracting his hand, “It’s just weird how skinny you’ve got.”

  ✽✽✽

  129 now. It’s been a week since his weight was above 130 on an empty stomach. He looks at himself in the mirror. His bones stick out in all the wrong places. The wonky crook of his hip sticks from his dark skin, his ribs look as if they’d beckon to be free from this fleshy shell. He didn’t look sick when covered in loose clothing. His fingers were still plump, his cheeks still modestly full. It took a trained eye to tell. Geneva’s quick remarks on his exercise plan remind him that he should start binging on fatty foods. It did little difference, no matter how much he ate or how little. He continued to waste away.

  “I’ve got you a gift,” Ian’s voice comes from behind the pantry door. He had hidden the gift where he knew Draven would not look. The pantry began to gather dust, truthfully, “Close your eyes.”

  Draven does as commanded, thankful for the moment of rest he could get as Ian teases him with anticipation. Behind his eyelids, his eyes still roll with the vibe of cheesiness this situation gives off. He laughs, suddenly, remembering the last time Ian had commanded his eyes be shut. It ended with sweaty bodies and insatiable libidos. Ian hears the little laugh and steps on his toe, not wanting to ruin the mood with the memories of sex.

  “They’re closed,” Draven sings back, choking the sadness that coats his throat like bile. The new year was up ahead, and with it came their annual traditions of gift-giving
. Draven had already given his. It was a summer sausage tray. Something he got Ian every year. He wonders if Ian ever wanted anything else. If he does, he wouldn’t say it, “Come on!” He whines.

  A velvety box places in Draven’s open palms. His fingers gag at the texture, but he does not remark it. Ian’s fingertips ripple with the joy he emits. Ian wraps Draven’s fingers around the box before loudly exclaiming, “open it!”

  He obeys, opening a sliver of an eyelid so the light pours in. The box in his hands was a purple-indigo color. He opens it with a satisfying thud. It was a ring. A silver vine with their respective names engraved into the inside. Draven knows now that his summer sausage board would not compare to this. He holds it up into the light, cursive font reads “Draven Lamar Williams,” and the opposite side held “Ian Michael Ferrell,” a little swirl of a heart acts as a break between the two names.