by Darien Cox
“Definitely. My dick thinks so too by the way.”
“You’re joking.”
“I swear I’m not. I’ve discovered a whole other side of myself. Apparently seeing you standing over the animatronic body of a fresh kill turns me on.”
Tyler snorted. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“So where do you want me to take you now?”
“The pub.”
“You wanna go to the pub?”
“Yeah.”
Tim was hoping he’d say ‘take me to bed’ but no such luck. He wasn’t sure why Tyler wanted to go to the pub but decided not to question it. Tyler was acting calm and nonchalant, but all jokes aside, he had done something fucking scary tonight. He’d gone out into the dark forest and slain a dragon while Tim sat up in his tower like a princess. So while he’d rather have Tyler naked in bed right now, he was dead-set on giving Tyler whatever the fuck he wanted.
The box-truck ahead kept going down the mountain road, but Tim turned left and headed into the main village. He pulled in and parked in the lot at Warden’s Boathouse Pub, a large, weather-worn structure with multi-level decks facing the water. “I assume this is where you meant when you said the pub? JT’s place?”
“Yeah.” Tyler gazed up at the pub with a rather serious expression. “I want onion rings.”
Tim barked a laugh. “Onion rings. That’s very specific.”
“This pub has the best onion rings I’ve ever had. I used to think about them when I was back at headquarters. Missed those damn onion rings.”
“Is that all you missed from the village?”
Tyler shot him a smirk. “I missed Brett I guess.”
“Cold,” Tim said. “So cold.”
Letting out one of his rare belly-laughs, Tyler said, “Okay, okay. Only things from the village I couldn’t stop thinking about were the onion rings at Warden’s Pub. And you.”
Tim beamed. “I was just teasing. I doubt you thought about me.”
“No, I mean it.” His expression turned serious in a flash. “I’m glad you’re doing okay, Tim.”
“Why are you looking at me like I have a terminal disease?”
Tyler shrugged. “When I was at headquarters I...wasn’t sure you were all right.”
“Is that why you thought of me? Because you were...worrying about me?” That old humiliation tried to kick in.
“I was afraid I’d taken advantage of you,” Tyler said. “That night. In your kitchen.”
“Taken advantage...no!” Tim shook his head. “You gave me exactly what I needed. I assumed you knew that. That the sex helped that night. I needed it, Tyler.”
“Yes. But that’s just it. You needed it. You needed comfort, not me. I felt guilty after because...because it was really good for me.”
A rush of pleasure and fresh arousal made Tim’s stomach flip. His voice was breathy when he responded, “It was really, really good for me too.”
“Honestly?”
“Yes. Honestly. Please don’t regret it.”
Tyler’s posture relaxed. “Okay.”
“You don’t have to keep worrying about me.”
“Who says I was?”
“Don’t get defensive, my robot.”
A smirk curved his lips. “I’m not defensive. And I’m not a robot. And I’m not worrying about you.”
“You’re not? Really?”
Shrugging, Tyler turned away. “I care. Caring’s not necessarily the same as worrying, is it?”
Moved as he was by the words, Tim had to bite back a laugh. Because Tyler seemed to be genuinely asking, like this whole caring business was new to him. “I suppose not.”
“I just wanted to come to the pub. For onion rings, but also to drag you away from the shit for a while. I know you haven’t been having an easy time with all this, and tonight was extra-weird.”
Tim grabbed Tyler’s hand and squeezed. “Thank you, but you know what? I’d like to focus on doing something that makes you happy tonight.”
“Why?”
“If anyone’s earned a breather from all the weird shit, it’s you, Tyler! So enough about me. I’m fine. What do you want? What would make you happy right now?”
“Onion rings.”
Chuckling, Tim nodded. “Then let’s go get some fucking onion rings.”
“Cool.”
They went into the pub and sat at the bar on the first floor. Tammy the bartender smiled when she spotted them and strolled over. Tammy was one of Tim’s closest friends. Tiny and sweet-looking with a crop of blood-red dreadlocks, she was a real ball-buster, and loved to torment Tim. He could already see in her eyes that she was disappointed she’d have to hold in some scalding barb or other. Perfectly polite to the customers while she was working, Tammy would likely shock them if they heard her filthy mouth when she was off-duty and with her closest friends. But Tim loved her raunchiness, she made him laugh. She was also a hell of a poker player and had cleaned Tim’s pockets out on multiple occasions.
And that’s when he remembered he’d not responded to a text from her. Or Darwyn. Shit. He’d not spoken to any of his friends since Tyler rolled into town. And now it felt a little weird thinking about his ‘real life’ friends, knowing he’d never be able to share certain things with them. He’d have to lie by omission to the people closest to him for the rest of his life. That was fucked up.
“Timothy!” Tammy leaned her elbows on the bar. “You never texted me back about poker night. You coming by tomorrow?”
“I think I’m gonna have to skip it this week, Tam. Got a lot of shit going on.”
“Boo! Okay, fine.” She glanced at Tyler. “Hey, I know you, don’t I?”
“I think we’ve met. I’m Tyler.”
“Okay, I remember now. I’m Tammy. Haven’t seen you around in a while.”
“Haven’t been around,” Tyler said. “Nice to see you. Can we get some onion rings and a couple beers?”
“Of course you can.” She grinned at Tim and pointed to Tyler. “Fucking cute as fuck.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Tim said.
Tammy laughed hard. As she walked away she called back, “That’s like saying you don’t notice the sun, Tim!”
“Sun’s overrated,” Tim said. He glanced at Tyler. “Okay, I guess you are pretty damn scorching.”
Tyler rolled his eyes. “I’ve figured out that flirting is normal for you, so I guess at least it means you really are feeling all right tonight.”
“Oh babe, that’s not flirting, that’s a fact. I have not yet begun to flirt. I’ve been holding back.”
“Oh yeah? Why?”
“Just trying to be careful not to cross your boundaries. Not sure exactly how far I’m allowed to go. And when you’d rather I back off.”
He’d intended the statement as an opening for perhaps a more serious conversation, but Tyler went very quiet after that.
“Your O-rings will be up soon,” Tammy said as she set two beers down. “Anything else?”
Tyler remained mute, so Tim smiled at Tammy. “We’re good.”
“Okie dokie.”
Once she’d moved away, Tim shifted on his stool to face Tyler. “You all right?”
He nodded but kept his eyes down.
“Tyler, I know you said quiet is your default but you’ve been more talkative with me lately. So maybe I’m getting overconfident, but I’m pretty sure I can tell now when something’s on your mind.”
Tyler clasped his hands, staring down at them.
“Tyler?”
“Yeah, okay. There is something.”
“Will you tell me what it is?” Tim asked. “Please?”
“I’m sorry I wouldn’t go with you. When you asked me to stay overnight at your house.”
“Oh. Tyler, don’t worry about that. It’s all right.”
“It’s not all right.” Tyler shifted to face him. “It’s the opposite of all right. It’s fucking weird. Don’t think I don’t realize how weird it is. I’m very much aware.�
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Tim knew he was on shaky ground right now. Tyler was cracking the door open to something deeply personal. Tread lightly. “Okay,” Tim said. “Maybe it’s a little strange. But that’s better than it being about you just not wanting to sleep with me.” He chuckled. “It’s not about me, right?”
Tyler’s sullen expression finally cracked, and he smiled. “It’s not about you at all. I did want to sleep with you. I do want to. Look, I know I’m not exactly...normal. But I’m working on it. I mean...I recently decided I’m going to work on it.”
“Work on...what exactly?”
“I mean sleeping someplace not underground behind a locked door. You told me you guys discussed it so don’t pretend you don’t know anything.”
He rubbed Tyler’s knee. “I just don’t want to say the wrong thing. I’m trying to understand.”
“I’ll make it clearer then.” Tyler paused a moment, taking a deep breath like he was bracing himself for something. “You realize your nondisclosure covers anything you hear or observe, right?”
“Yes. Of course.”
Tyler hesitated a moment, chewing his lip, then he nodded. “Okay. Gonna make it clearer. For you.” He grabbed a pen off the bar. On a cocktail napkin, he drew something, lips pursed, brow lowered in concentration. After a minute, he slid the napkin toward Tim, but didn’t let go. “You know what that is?”
Tim went still as he looked at the drawing. Frail neck and arms. Big rounded head. Slit for a mouth. Giant black bug-eyes. “Yeah. I know what it is.”
“You sure?”
Meeting Tyler’s eyes, Tim nodded. Softly, he said, “It’s a Grey.”
Tyler took the drawing back and scribbled over the image until the pen tore up the napkin. Then he crumbled it into a ball, spit on it, and tossed it into a trash barrel behind the bar. He stared into his beer as he said, “They used to take me.”
Tim had a split-second to plan an appropriate reaction, ultimately settling on, “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” Tyler said. “A lot of bad things happened, but I’m not getting into all that gory shit, don’t worry. Just wanted you to understand better.”
“Thank you. I want to understand, Tyler. Are you okay now? I mean...what I mean is I hope you’re okay. I really do.”
“They don’t take me anymore. And like Brett pointed out to me this morning over breakfast, Singing Bear Village is about the safest place on the planet because of the...” He lowered his voice. “Because of Whites wiping out that fleet of theirs last year, and all their new orbital defenses. Greys tried to steal the Whites’ babies and got their asses handed to them. Unlikely they’ll be coming around here ever again.”
“Oh, yeah,” Tim said. “Right. That makes sense.”
“So as far as those bug-eyed bastards go, village has got a whole otherworldly line of defense right under the mountains over there. Which makes me safe. And I believe that.” He pointed to his temple. “In here I believe that. But enough bad shit happened to me that it’s hard to convince myself I believe it in here.” He patted his chest. “Know what I mean?”
“Yeah. I get that.”
“So that part, what’s deep inside me? That’s something I haven’t figured out how to fully control. That part of your mind that ignores the other part that tries to tell it what to do. The scared part of your mind that doesn’t care about facts, the animal part. It just knows what it knows and all it knows is past experiences. Do you get what I mean by that?”
“I do. I understand completely.”
Tyler had just described his PTSD in the most Tyler way possible. Straightforward, a little rough around the edges, but raw and real. But then...it was more than just trauma from past events in Tyler’s case, wasn’t it? Going by what Nolan said, Tyler had lived with what amounted to an active threat for a long time. A target on his back—and that was both chilling and heartbreaking. Tim doubted he himself would be as strong in the same situation. And yeah, now he felt extra-wimpy for falling apart just because he had to attend a party with benevolent aliens.
He was finding it excruciatingly hard not to throw his arms around Tyler, but felt it crucial to remain a cool, accepting presence right now. Despite Tyler’s quiet voice and appearance of casualness as he twisted his beer glass on the bar, this conversation had to be emotionally taxing. So he settled for resting a hand on Tyler’s knee.
Tyler placed his own hand over Tim’s, and their fingers intertwined, a warm if fragile lifeline. “So anyway, the cusp of this,” Tyler said. “The reason I’m trudging all this up is that I really wanted to go home with you when you asked me to. And it fucking bothered me that I couldn’t. Surprised me how much it bothered me. Brett said I wouldn’t ever be able to have normal things with someone unless I opened up, and that’s why I’m telling you this now. You might have figured out I’m not exactly comfy with opening up. But you make me want some of that normal stuff, so I’ve made the decision to try and change things. Within myself.”
Tim was so moved, so overcome with emotion he could hardly breathe. “Oh.”
“It’ll take time. But I want to try.”
“I would never ask you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. You being okay is way more important than any of my desires, Tyler.”
“And what if I’m not?” Tyler looked at Tim. “What if I’m not okay sometimes? What if I’m not okay a lot of the time? Would you still have those...desires?”
Tammy set the onion rings down in front of them, but seeming to sense the tension of the conversation, walked quickly away without banter.
Tim took both Tyler’s hands in his. “You know what I think?”
“No.” Tyler frowned. “That’s why I’m asking.”
“Okay.” Tim chuckled. Tyler was so damn literal sometimes. “I don’t think anyone’s okay all the time. But most importantly, I accept you the way you are. And I don’t think there’s a single thing in the goddamn universe that could stop me desiring you.”
Tyler’s brows rose. “Nothing?”
“Well, I’m not sure you’d look good with a mustache...”
“Tim, come on.”
“No, Tyler, nothing. I mean it. Remember when we were at my house? In bed?”
Lashes dipping, Tyler nodded.
“I said it was the most exciting thing that had happened to me, and you asked if I really wanted you that much. I did. I do. And it’s not going to change just because sometimes you’re not okay. I want you happy and healthy, obviously, for your own sake. But I don’t desire a better version of you. I just want you, as packaged.”
“You sure about that? I’ve had to do some things others might consider morally questionable.”
Tim stared back at Tyler, this sexy beast who protected humanity from monsters, this hardened tough-guy with the most vulnerable eyes in the world. “I’ve never been so sure about anything.”
Tyler smiled, then released Tim’s hands and grabbed an onion ring. “Me too.”
Tim trailed a finger up and down Tyler’s spine, just needing to touch him. “You know, Ty, this whole thing is sort of ironic if you think about it.”
“Why?”
“Because earlier today I decided I need to work harder to acclimate myself to the strange and unknown. Because of you, I want to acclimate myself to alien weirdness. And because of me, you want to acclimate yourself to boring normalcy.”
Tyler chuckled. “Well, I don’t find you boring. But that is kind of funny.”
“It is.”
“You really decided that because of me? That you want to work on accepting the strange? Because you were singing a different tune not so long ago.”
“Why do you think I’m behaving so calm and nonchalant this evening in the face of learning I’m being stalked by animatronic drones?”
“Yeah, I did notice you weren’t freaking out so much tonight.”
“Yep, well, that’s why.” Tim grabbed an onion ring. Pointing it at Tyler, he said, “There’s common ground in that. The fa
ct that each of our worlds are alien to each other. And that we both want to try getting comfortable with something new. So I don’t want to hear any more of your bullshit about how we don’t have common ground.” He stuffed the onion ring in his mouth.
“You’re saying our differences are our common ground.”
“Yeah. In a way.”
Tyler was nodding. “I was scared to talk to you about all this. But I liked this conversation.”
Tim smiled. “You did?”
“Yeah. Wasn’t so bad.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
Giving Tim his shy gaze, Tyler leaned in. “Did you mean what you said before? That you want to make me happy tonight?”
“You think of something you want besides onion rings?”
“I don’t sleep much.” Tyler took a sip of beer. “Gets really boring being alone at night. Would you come back to Nolan and Elliot’s with me? Would you maybe want to sleep over?”
“Tonight?”
Tyler nodded. “I just thought it might be...fun.”
Tim kissed Tyler, quickly but firmly. “It will definitely be fun. I’m so up for a sleepover.”
“Good. I’ll finish these onion rings, then we’ll go.”
“Great.”
Grinning like a little boy, Tyler faced the bar and bit into another onion ring. Tim found it both odd and endearing that this hard-bitten man could have so many childlike attributes. Not immaturity exactly, but bits of him that maybe never got to grow up properly, emotional parts still navigating the ‘normal’ world with some difficulty. But right now, Tyler looked completely happy, like he had everything he wanted in life right there at his fingertips. He’d missed onion rings and he’d missed Tim. Tonight, he had both those things, and it seemed to please him immensely.
Tim didn’t mind having to compete with deep-fried snacks, he was just glad to be included in the equation. He watched Tyler’s eyelids flutter as he ate, softly groaning in greasy pleasure. Tim decided he’d find a way to top that groan later tonight. If it was a competition over who could make Tyler groan the loudest, there was no way he was losing to a basket of onion rings.
I really do like this weirdo.
And for the first time, he was starting to think maybe there was a chance he wasn’t completely fucked because of it.
