by Todd Young
“I’m going to come blood?”
“It’s not blood.”
Angel turned to Finn, who’d drawn his knees up and placed a hand over his ass.
“Can you get out of my room?” Jason said. “Both of you.”
28
Angel and Finn cooked themselves some cheese on toast and then sat in front of the TV. Jason hadn’t come out of his room, and though Angel wanted to go and see if he was okay, Finn said to leave him. Now, after the sex, it somehow seemed easier with Finn. The tension or antagonism Angel had been feeling toward him seemed to have dissipated, and Finn was obviously happy.
“I just hope it works, dude,” Finn said.
“What do you think’ll happen?”
“Hopefully, I’ll end up like you, and then, if you can manage it, if you can love me, we might have a way out.”
“Out?”
“Out of the mundane and out of the dark.”
“And where would we be?”
“In the light.”
“The light?”
“Heaven. Or I’d say so.”
Angel shook his head disbelievingly.
“So you think you could love me?”
“I don’t know, Finn.”
Finn sighed. “I love you already, you know that?”
“You love me?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you love someone?”
“I don’t know how anyone could find it hard. To me, it’s like asking someone how to piss. I’m always in love. I’ve been in love with 50 guys at once.” He hesitated for a moment. “I was in love with my dad.”
Angel swallowed and thumped his chest as a bit of cheese went down the wrong way. “Did you say you were in love with your dad?”
“Yeah. He used to abuse me, when I was little. Maybe I was three or four when it started. I don’t know. And it wasn’t ordinary stuff. A lot of pain and binding and well — sick stuff. I suppose I hated it at first. And then I saw beyond it, to who he was, and how he was thinking, and I started to fall in love with him, like you’d fall in love with a regular guy.
“Then, when I was about seven, I started to see the dark. I suppose that’s what did it — the stuff my dad was doing to me — and the love, because I really did love him. It freaked him out.”
“But didn’t you say he kicked you out of home when you told him you were gay?”
“Yeah. He’d moved onto Tristan then, my kid brother, and Tristan wasn’t giving him the sort of response I was — the love. And, well, I suppose my dad hated it. What he was doing was hate — that’s where it sprang from — and in return I was loving him.”
Angel nodded. He glanced at the door for a moment, simply to turn away, and when he turned back again, Finn was watching him. He leaned forward unexpectedly and kissed Angel on the cheek. Angel’s body stiffened. He supposed he was meant to respond in some way, and during the sex he wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but now? To be tender with Finn? How could he ever love him? He could find him sexy. He could fuck him again. But love? Could he manage that?
“What do you say we get a place together,” Finn said. “I don’t think Jason wants us around, and if you let me, if you give me a few weeks, then I can show you how I love you, and maybe, I know it’s a lot to ask, but maybe you could love me too.”
Angel nodded slowly. He didn’t feel as though he could refuse. Without Finn, where would he be? He’d have no idea what was going on with his body. And now, now that his body seemed to be reacting sexually, it might be better to be with someone who he could be with sexually. The only other choice was to go out infecting people at random, and he’d avoid that if only because being with the dark scared him. Finn had said he’d show Angel how to see the mundane world again, so really, how could Angel say no?
29
They found an apartment three blocks over and told Jason they’d come to visit. As they said goodbye, Jason wore a stunned expression, standing in the doorway as they hesitated on the landing. He’d lost all his body hair, and in the same way it’d happened to Angel, he was losing his grip on the mundane world.
In the new apartment, they painted the walls, and then, once they’d found some furniture, Finn set about redecorating the place, his piece de resistance being the bedroom, for which he bought a bed he then festooned in white sheets and curtains. They paid rent to a dark guy, but he was a small fish, Finn said. No one to worry about.
In the mornings, Finn would wake Angel early, stand beside him at the window and point out passing cars or pedestrians. Occasionally something shimmered, and Angel saw a little of what Finn was showing him, though for the most part the streets remained empty, run down and battered.
Two weeks later, things had changed. Angel could go out and be confident in his assessment of who was passing him on the street. Many of the mundane, the more fucked up of them, as Finn put it, were making a reappearance, and a week or two later, Angel figured things were looking as normal as they were going to get.
The real problem was Finn, whose body had gone through a revolution. He’d always been short, and he was still a little short, but he’d added an inch or so to his height. He’d shed his skin and his body hair, but his eyes had intensified until the gray, mirror-like sheen was almost impossible to look at. It had gone beyond human now, and Finn told Angel how he’d been bullied about it in school, which to Angel sounded like a strange thing to be bullied about. But then, Finn was strange.
They had sex every night, Angel on top, as always, until one night when Finn said, “Could we try it the other way?
“The other way?”
“You bottom.”
Angel agreed. He’d never liked being passive, but once they’d started and Finn was moving into him he felt something new and overwhelming and unexpected, something that went beyond mere love making, as though he was crossing a threshold to another world.
He bit his lips in silence, closed his eyes and came.
He began to dream of birds, to dream of drifting through the sky with thousands of them, and then he began to dream of one bird in particular, of a dark-winged bird, which he supposed was a raven. Deep in the night, Angel would be possessed by this bird, or rather, it was he who would possess the bird. They’d fly high over the ocean, cruise through green valleys and wheel towards the sun, as though searching endlessly for something hopelessly lost. The raven would arch his head one way and the other, examining the ground speeding beneath them. He’d wheel in a graceful arc toward deserted cliffs, but whatever he was searching for seemed to elude him, to elude Angel, because they seemed to be one and the same.
Then one morning, Angel woke caressing Finn’s face. He hadn’t been dreaming. He hadn’t been thinking of anything as far as he could remember, but when he opened his eyes, he was cupping Finn’s cheek with one hand and brushing his thumb over Finn’s lips.
As Angel pulled away, surprised at what he was doing, Finn woke.
“You were touching me?”
“I just … I was doing it in my sleep.”
“Were you dreaming?”
“No. I don’t know why I was doing it.”
Finn smiled. He reached forward and ran his hand through Angel’s hair, brushing it away from his forehead and smiling deeply into his eyes. Though when Finn looked at Angel now, it was hard to tell if he was really looking, if there was a person in there at all, because all that could be seen bar his pupils was a reflection, and within this, Angel could see his own face.
“I’m going to make you breakfast,” Finn said.
“I really just want Nutri-Grain.”
“How about some French toast?”
“I suppose so.”
Finn got out of bed and stretched, his body angular now, with the same extraordinary mix of bones and muscles as Angel’s had taken on. Though on Finn it seemed like something miraculous. His torso ran down into his groin with a grace that a model would die to have, and Finn had suggested that both of them take up modeling, or try a
nd see if they could get some work.
“I’ve got this fifty thousand from my mother,” Angel said.
Finn nodded. Angel had told him about it before. “But you don’t want to be using it on me. And I’ve got to pay my way somehow. I kind of guess you don’t want me hustling.”
“Finn, if I find you hustling, you can forget the whole thing. I won’t want to see you, and I won’t be sharing an apartment with you, let alone a bed.”
Finn nodded. “I figured as much.”
“We can use my money.”
“You want to do that for me?”
Angel hesitated.
“There. You see. I’ll have a look online. Get myself some photos taken at an agency. Maybe get myself some contacts, seeing as how that always seems to be the problem.”
When Finn came home, long after sunset, Angel did a double-take. Finn looked extraordinary — extraordinarily different in the most obvious way. He gazed at Angel for a moment, and then said,
“They’re green.”
“Like Joel’s eyes.”
Finn shrugged.
“You really had some thing for him, didn’t you?”
“I loved him. Like I keep telling you, I love a lot of people. But he was — just too good to be true. And he never would have accepted me. My dark side.”
“So you’ve got a dark side?”
“Everyone has a dark side, Angel. Even you.”
Yes, Angel thought, and considered Finn again. Strangely, now that he had the contacts in, Angel didn’t find him half as attractive.
“I had some shots taken. With the extra height and the contact lenses, well, I figure I’ll get some work.”
Angel nodded. “Can you take them out?”
“What?”
“The contacts.”
“You don’t like them?”
Angel shook his head.
Finn frowned. “I always thought. I mean, if there’s one thing I would have wanted to change about myself, then it was my eyes.”
“I like your eyes.”
“You like my eyes?”
“I didn’t at first. But I’ve gotten used to them. And I like that — look they give you.”
“What look?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. It’s just — hell, I want you, Finn. I really think, maybe, it just might work. I’ve been wanting you all day.”
“You want to fuck me?”
Angel nodded.
Finn took the contacts out and put them away. They fell into bed laughing. The world outside seemed a distant thing to Angel now. Everything he’d accepted about it — the mundanity of it — had been shattered. And now Finn was telling him there was a place called heaven, where they could go, though right now, Angel didn’t think he wanted to be any other place than here with Finn.
Finn lay on his back while Angel traced his fingers over Finn’s perfect skin. The paleness suited Finn. Though the veins sometimes pulsed a little too closely beneath the surface, it made him look like a rare piece of marble. Still, he was warm, and his body rippled with pleasure as Angel teased him gently, tracing his fingertips all over Finn’s body.
“I can’t stand this,” Finn said.
“Get used to it.”
“You like this sort of thing?”
“I like being gentle.”
A frown creased Finn’s forehead. “It’s not what I’m used to,” he said. “Ever since I was little, well, sex has meant pain, something rough and bizarre, but with you, it’s like you think I’m made of china. Like if you touch me too hard, I might break.”
“I don’t want to touch you hard. I don’t want to fuck you hard. I like things gentle and soft.”
Finn sighed.
“Does that make it difficult?”
“No. It doesn’t make it difficult. Like I told you, I’m in love with you already, Angel. I loved you the first moment I saw you, that first day at the institute.”
30
Finally, they were sweaty and spent. Angel had come twice, and simply from the sensation of Angel’s cock in his ass, Finn had come himself. Angel turned to Finn now and wrapped his arms around him.
Finn sighed. “Can you massage my shoulder blades?”
Angel moved his hands into the deep hollow of Finn’s back, and then outwards, to the ridges of his shoulder blades, where the skin was tender and fine.
Finn whimpered.
“Too much?”
“No. I want you to touch it. I want …”
“What?”
“I want my wings to sprout.” He was silent for a long time, breathing sharply each time Angel ran his hands over his blades. Then he said, “Do you think it’ll ever happen?”
“I don’t know, Finn. Sometimes it seems like a dream to me. I sometimes wonder if I’m not back in the institute and they haven’t got us drugged up on something. But the things I’ve seen, that old lady gunned down I told you about, well, I can’t deny that. And I can’t deny you, either — or Jason — but I think we ought to go and see him. It’s been a couple of days since we heard from him.”
Finn nodded, and Angel pulled away.
They dressed and walked down to Jason’s place. New York seemed to be New York again as far as Angel could tell. He could pick out one of the dark fairly easily — at least, he was getting better at it — but Finn would still pull him up every now and then, drag him off the sidewalk and start some bizarre conversation while some guy passed. Then he’d explain, say the guy was a lord or something, and that you had to watch out.
The thing that was happening now, which Angel had first heard from the guy who’d gunned down the old lady, was that the dark were targeting gay guys. Many gay guys lived on the edge, dabbling in drugs and the more extreme forms of sex, BDSM and the like. And here, they met with the dark, and there was a subculture of gay guys who were wising up to what was going on in the world. So now, perhaps inevitably, random attacks on gays had skyrocketed over the past few weeks. Or that was what Finn had heard, though none of it was being reported in the media.
“Jason,” Angel said, rapping on the door. There was no answer. Angel rapped again, a little harder. Something fell inside the apartment, perhaps a vase, and then the door was pulled open and Jason fell through it, facedown onto the landing.
Angel heaved him to his feet. He was out of it. On something. Muttering something insensible. And the apartment was a mess. They dragged him inside and sat him on the couch. Something acrid filled the air. Finn said it smelled like crack.
Angel slapped Jason’s face a couple of times. “Jason,” he said.
Jason lifted his head, peered for a moment, as though trying to get Angel’s features into focus, and then his head drooped forward again.
Finn made coffee while Angel pulled Jason’s sneakers off. And then, while Angel tried to get Jason to drink something, Finn started tidying up. Someone had been here, obviously. There was a pair of lavender briefs on the floor near the bathroom door, briefs too small for Jason.
It was an hour or two later before they got any sense out of Jason, though. He’d been out, to a club, picked someone up, but as Angel and Finn had told him, all he was seeing — everyone he was seeing — was dark. He’d crossed over and wasn’t able to see the world of the mundane any longer. He was in the domain of the dark, and within it, virtually everyone posed a threat to him.
The guy, some guy named Matt, had had some crack and had started smoking it with Jason, and then, he’d moved toward Jason and started undressing him. The crack had been laced with something, or the guy had spiked Jason’s drink. Jason hadn’t known what was going on, but he remembered the guy saying, “You’re an angel, right? How long you been infected?”
Jason said a week or so, and the guy suddenly started beating into him, going on about how he’d wasted an evening on a fuck who couldn’t even help him.
“What was he?” Finn said.
“What?”
“What did he look like?”
“All thin
and weedy. But with a nice face, a pointed sort of face. I thought he was cute.”
“He’s a noncer,” Finn said. “Jason, you need to stay home. No. Better. You need to come over and stay with us for a few days, just until I can get this sorted. You need to open your eyes.”
31
And so that’s how things changed. They’d moved away from Jason, to be together, and now Jason was moving in with them. The place was bigger, so it made sense. The noncer might come back to Jason’s at any moment.
“He’s after anything,” Finn said. “Wants any disease he can get into his body. He’s totally fucked. His head’s fucked. His body’s screwed. And Jason, if you’d been with him, and caught what he’s got, well, you’d be dead — or as good as.”
The following morning, over breakfast, Angel caught a smile pass between Finn and Jason. Jason kind of smirked. His eyes glittered, and Finn smiled shyly in reply.
Angel frowned. He ate the rest of his Nutri-Grain, got up and rinsed his bowl, and then went into the bedroom and lay on the bed with his hands behind his head. He tried to tell himself it was nothing, but it was something. He felt like walking into the kitchen and confronting them. He could hear them talking. Jason laughed, and Angel imagined it was about him — that they were laughing about the way he’d cleared out of the kitchen.
Just when he thought that something might happen with Finn, just when he thought that there might be some hope of his returning some of this so-called love, Finn had gone and started fucking around with Jason.
Or had he?
It was a smile, Angel said, and turned onto his side, wrapping the pillow around his head.
A smile.
“You okay?” Finn said.
“Yeah.” Angel unwrapped the pillow and turned to face Finn, who was standing in the doorway.
“I’m going to take Jason for a walk, catch the subway into Central Park, so we’ll be a few hours.”
“Right.”
Finn hesitated. He looked at Angel, or appeared to look at Angel, though it was always so goddamn hard to tell with Finn. Was the look meant to be reassuring, or was he merely staring blankly?
