by A. F. Henley
Matthew was unable to speak. He shook his head, meaning to flail it from side to side, but the best he could manage was a twitch. In seconds, he was going to follow the path that Randy had forged when Randy first saw a change. He was going to pass out.
"You look beautiful, kid," Gavin said. "But I think he's seen enough."
Rafe rested a hand on Lyle's shoulder. "Probably. Unfortunately, we don't just get to turn it off, do we? Before one wanders too far down an unfamiliar road, one should keep in mind that they still have to turn around and walk the distance again to get home." He kneaded Lyle's tight deltoids. "Put it back to bed, love, if you can."
With a long breath, Lyle's face relaxed but Matthew didn't watch the process reverse. He turned his face and buried it against Gavin's chest. There'd been a reason he'd wanted to see what he'd just witnessed—he remembered that there was a reason—but for the life of him he couldn't remember what it was.
There was a clump as Lyle lurched for the table and sat down hard. Gavin followed Lyle's lead, pulled out a chair, and made Matthew do the same. From across the expanse of wood Lyle and Matthew stared at each other.
"Impressed?" Lyle asked.
"Ayuh," Matthew croaked.
Silence settled in the kitchen, then there was the patter of small feet hurrying down the hallway. Vaughn growled. "I told them to—"
"Leave them be," Randy countered. "He's their brother." He turned to Matthew. His expression seemed softer than it had before, though whether that was due to Matthew's reaction soothing some sense of guilt over his fainting, or just the fact that it had made Matthew more relatable, Matthew didn't try to figure out. "Are you okay?"
Matthew nodded, all the while telling himself in silence to pull it together. He'd seen worse. Surely he had. He had countless stories that would give truth to the idea that human beings were cruel beyond comparison. Only secondary, in fact, to how cruel Nature could be when it decided to. Still... this was unlike anything he'd seen before.
Goodness gracious, was it ever.
Matthew found his tongue and forced his throat to cooperate. "My friend," he said, speaking to Randy, "never let anyone tell you that you're weak for fainting after seeing that. If Gavin hadn't been holding me up, I would have done the same."
This time Randy was the one to nod. "I thought so."
"You're welcome," Gavin said. He drummed at the table with his fingertips. The quick, consistent pace of his hand said he was playing a tune of annoyance, but his expression was calm and unaffected. "Should we open the wine?"
*~*~*
The front door of the former Connor residence shut behind Matthew with a little more force than he would have assumed necessary. He blamed it on the wind and carried on down the hallway toward the kitchen. So the sound of Gavin's shoes being dropped at the entrance, though dramatically loud, didn't really register in his head. He did give Gavin a quick look when Gavin first flicked open one of the kitchen cupboards hard enough to make it snap against the wall and again when it was shut with just as much of a bang. But it wasn't until Gavin reefed on the door to the fridge and set everything sitting on the little shelves inside it dancing and jangling, that Matthew finally said something. "Did you get a sliver in your heel on the way home or something?"
Gavin pulled his head out of the inner workings of the fridge and gave Matthew a smile as cold as the bag of blood he now clutched in his hand. "I don't know what you mean. I'm perfectly fine."
Matthew could almost hear his mother sighing in his head. The two of them had never been supporters of not talking about what was bothering them. It was pointless. Ridiculous.
"Ah, I see." Matthew leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. "So you're going to go with 'fine.' A more socially acceptable word, yes, but I think I liked the cursing better. At least there was some truth to it. You know, you have a long life ahead of you, Strauss. Why don't you attempt to learn how to deal with issues and emotions so that you don't end up like some melodramatic teenage-love-interest-vampire that would be best served with a slap upside the head? I'll even start the conversation for you to show you how it's done. Say: 'Matthew, I'm feeling,' and this is where you'll insert the emotion that's made you start beating up our house, 'and the reason for that is'... Go."
The blood was dropped on the counter with a definitive plop. The door to the fridge was shut with exaggerated care. Gavin slowly turned. "Why are you so fascinated with them? What is it about them that makes you so..." he spun his hand in the air, searching for the term, "so fucking besotted?"
Matthew blinked. He tilted his head to the right. "You're jealous!"
"I'm not jealous," Gavin hissed. "It's just annoying is all. I mean, do you have a thing for fur? Is that it? Do you get off by dressing up in weird animal costumes and fucking men dressed up similarly? I mean, what?" He slapped the counter. "What? What the fuck is so awesome about them?"
"I think you should eat," Matthew deadpanned. "Maybe you'll be less cranky."
Before Matthew had even finished speaking, Gavin was in front of him. He would have jumped back had there been room to move away. Instead, Matthew found himself leaning backwards over the counter with both hands gripping the edge.
Gavin's eyes glittered with emotion. His face was tight and his lips a thin line, but his voice was calm and quiet. "Maybe I should. Maybe that's exactly what I need, Matthew." He caught Matthew's chin and twisted Matthew's head to the left. "Or maybe what I should say is that I should have eaten when I had the chance, hm? When you were practically begging me to bite you." His left hand rose. He pressed the pad of his thumb against Matthew's pulsing carotid artery. "Maybe you don't like it when someone is too nice to you. Is that the problem, Matthew? Do I not impress you because I haven't given you cause to be afraid like they did?"
Anger flushed through Matthew's blood. He slapped Gavin's hand away and wrenched his face free. He set both hands on Gavin's chest and pushed. Although it was like trying to shove aside a brick wall, Matthew leaned forward and continued pushing while he talked. It wasn't easy—to push or talk. His teeth were clenched so tightly that every word was forced. "Don't. You. Ever. Threaten me."
Gavin turned away so quickly that Matthew had to catch himself from falling forward. "It wasn't a threat. It was a suggestion. You're just acting so damn pathetic, Matthew. One minute you're falling into a puddle in front of me and in the next I'm practically having to drag you away from that pack of wolves. I don't get you."
"You don't get me?" Matthew's question ended in a squeal of disbelief. "I don't get you! What are you even—"
"You're the one who had to leave the house to find a miracle," Gavin growled. "I was right here. This morning I showed you skin that had healed in a breath of time. Skin that healed so quickly that if I slit my own throat, by the time the blood was starting to fall from the far end of the cut, the other end would already be healing. And what did you do when I presented that miracle to you? You all but shrugged and walked past me, desperate to go talk to the wolves. Last night I had you so fucking high on endorphins that I bet I could have made your body dance just by wiggling my fingers. Me, the puppeteer, and you, the bouncing marionette. I've told you things that no other vampire would ever tell you, and I've shown you how it works. And yet you still had to come up to my room and tell me you needed to find a fucking miracle. Like one wasn't standing here, staring at you in the face. What's wrong with me? What the fuck is so insignificant about my miracle?"
Why, you insolent, self-absorbed child!
Though his brain was screaming the words, the only thing Matthew could do was stare, dumbfounded. Did Gavin really feel like what he'd allowed the Center to do to him could in any way compare to something so mind-shatteringly new and interesting as human beings that were born with the God-given ability to shift into animals? And at what point had Gavin decided that he wasn't impressed with Gavin's abilities, anyway? He'd not thought that at all. It hadn't even crossed his mind. So where was the insecurity coming from? He had
n't even been flirtatious with any of the flipping wolves. With Randy, yes, a bit. In the beginning. But that was before Gavin and he had even gone to bed together...
A low growl rolled up Matthew's throat. And now he was defending himself? As if Gavin really was some kind of husband? Gavin was nothing but a stranger. A man—a self-made monster—that had led him there under false pretenses, who had lied to both him and the other executives of the GDBCG, as if this was all some kind of game.
Gavin picked up his feed off the counter and dug his fingers into the pliable surface like a little kid playing with a handful of Play-Doh. "Look, just forget it. We don't need to talk about this right now. I probably do just need to eat and—"
"You aren't a miracle," Matthew whispered. "You aren't even an anomaly. You're a self-made abomination. If you can't see the difference between those things, then don't get at upset with me because I can."
He supposed he should have been frightened as he walked away. Had Gavin the desire, Gavin could destroy him on a whim. Gavin even had allies that could make everything look like just another accident. But as he sat down on the stairs of the porch and stared out at the dark yard, he felt more awful than he did scared. It was terribly uncool that Gavin could read his mind but that he didn't have a clue on what Gavin was thinking. Had Gavin really been hoping to get the same kind of reaction that Gavin imagined he'd been giving to Lyle? With all of Gavin's abilities to get into people's heads, had Gavin misinterpreted his fear for respect? Or admiration?
He slumped forward and rested his head on his knees. The awful feeling in his gut was bubbling into nausea and he hated himself for that. It wasn't fair. He shouldn't feel bad because someone else had misinterpreted him.
Behind Matthew, the door clicked open. While Matthew straightened, footsteps fell on the bare wood of the porch. They stopped at the stairs and Matthew didn't need to look over to know it was Gavin. Even if the fact that Gavin was the only other one in the house hadn't made it obvious already, a soft wind was winding itself through Wolf and it carried Gavin's scent on it.
Gavin stepped onto the stairs, hesitated, and then stepped down two more before he sat. When he looked over at Matthew, he had to look up to do it. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I'm an idiot. And you're right. I was jealous. I am jealous. But instead of doing what I should have done, which was sit you down and ask you if you thought you might ever have any feelings for me, I reacted badly. This is... I can't explain... I..." He folded his hands in his lap. He sighed. "I think I've spent too many hours watching you. Telling myself that I was falling in love with you. Except even I know that it wasn't you I was falling in love with. It was the person that I was imagining you to be while I watched you, and that person..." He paused to spit a dry chuckle. "…that person positively adored me."
"That's creepy. And delusional."
Gavin shrugged. "Yes. And it also doesn't excuse my behavior. I've been catered to for far too long and I'm forgetting what it's like to interact with normal, mentally healthy people. I do know that fear is not respect and I wouldn't want that kind of admiration even if it was. Lyle is a beautiful young man with an amazing talent and... " He blew out a long breath. "And Randy does have a fantastic smile. As much as half of me tells me that any warm-blooded gay man would notice those things, the other half of me hates that you do. Because I like you and I want you to like me. And I'm going about all this wrong and I don't know any other way to do it."
Matthew clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He finally gave Gavin the eye contact that Gavin had been trying for since Gavin started speaking. "Have you considered the fact that I was obviously attracted to you enough that I slept with you?"
"Yes." Gavin chuckled and shook his head. "And then a little voice in my head wakes up and tells me it was just the shine of fascination. Which makes watching you get fascinated by someone else unbearable."
"I wasn't," Matthew insisted. "I was scared, not fascinated. Not that I feel the need to defend myself over this. We aren't husbands in real life, Gavin. We aren't even really friends yet."
"I know." Gavin lifted both hands and scrubbed at his face. "Can I try again?"
"How about you stop trying?"
Gavin's eyebrows rose, then knitted themselves together. His lips parted as if there were something on his tongue that desperately wanted out and then he snapped them back together hard. He looked like he'd swallowed poison and it was either pillaging his intestines or burning through his chest.
"Just be yourself," Matthew added. "If you're being yourself, you don't have to try. You can just... be."
Relief washed across Gavin's expression. He looked away—down the driveway, across the street, anywhere, it seemed, but at Matthew. When he finally looked again, he was working at holding back a smile. "That sounded pretty intense, oh wise one. But I think you might have stolen it from Yoda."
"I don't just think it, I know I did," Matthew said. "So... eat, did you?"
A real smile lit on Gavin's face. "Oh, now you're going to go completely Yoda on me. Well, then, not I did."
"I nor have. And making me lightheaded, the wine is. Shall we?"
"Good God, you're a nerd." Gavin stood, then offered Matthew his hand. "Will you forgive me?"
Matthew let himself be tugged up. "Yes. But forgiving you doesn't mean that I love you, or that I will love you, or even that I might love you. And I'm probably still going to be upset with you for a while."
Gavin nodded. He put his hand on Matthew's back and led him back into the house. "That's okay. I can handle upset."
*~*~*
Although they sat in the same room, neither Matthew nor Gavin said much as the night slipped by. An old movie played in the background, something black and white with Humphrey Bogart, a lot of fog, and a line or two that Matthew could remember having heard before. ("How do you like your brandy, sir?" "In a glass.")
There was too much going on in his head to enjoy it, though. At three a.m., he excused himself to go to bed, but the sun was already rising before he managed to drop off. It was only six minutes before noon when his eyes opened again and no matter how many times he told himself he hadn't had enough sleep to function properly, his head wouldn't let him fall back into it.
So he got up. He made the bed. He put on coffee. He called his mother, and then lied about things like business-as-usual and everything's-mostly-quiet and listened to her fill him on family and friends and life. Even though he hadn't come clean about anything, he still felt two-hundred-percent better when he hung up an hour later.
He was holding a tepid, undrinkable coffee when the mail truck stopped at the end of the driveway, and since his options had been reduced to sending the GDBCG an update or seeing what had been deposited in the box, he slipped on a pair of thong flip flops he found in the hall closet and stepped outside. The difference in temperature from the previous day was surprising. The yellowing in the deciduous trees was spreading like cancer, claiming more of the leaves and converting the suggestion of color into an obvious statement. Some of the low-lying bushes had taken on a flush that Matthew had no doubt would be brilliant when they were in the full throes of their change. Against them the evergreens stood tall and proud, as if flaunting their ability to stay consistent and green regardless of the weather. Slips of clouds that looked like milky smears reached across the horizon.
Matthew was so lost in the sight that he didn't realize he was wandering down the driveway with his gaze in the air and not on much else until he tripped over a rut and almost went sprawling. Although he managed to avoid meeting the gravel with his chin, he did do the dance of the puppet recently released from its strings, with both arms flailing and both legs wobbling. Embarrassed, he looked left, then right, and groaned when someone raised their arm in a salute from the end of the O'Connells' drive.
"First day with your new feet?" an unfamiliar voice called.
Matthew frowned, interested. He walked closer. "Apparently, yes." He raised a hand and waved at the sky. "D
istracting, isn't it?"
"A whole different kind of beautiful," the man said. He extended a hand when Matthew was close enough. "Henry Connor," he said. "You must be Matthew."
"And you must be Randy's father," Matthew said, taking Henry's hand and giving it a firm shake. "The resemblance is striking."
"Well, I'm far too old to be his brother," Henry chuckled. "And I'm pretty certain Randy doesn't have one of those, anyway. At least none that I know of. My apologies for not meeting you last night when you were by. I sat down on the couch after dinner and..." He sucked air through his teeth and shrugged with an oh-so-very-Randy grin. "Let's just say that when you hit a certain age, the combination of food and television acts as a very powerful sedative."
"I'm surprised anyone could sleep with those two little ones running around the place," Matthew said, recalling their clumping footsteps as they took off after Lyle's display. "Even with a recently fired tranquilizer gun and a full turkey dinner in their belly."
"You know, I remember when they were half as big and twice as loud," Henry said. "But I'll admit that the 24-7 concept of kids did take some getting used to again when I first moved out here." He shook his head and gave Matthew a pointed stare. "A lot of things did."
Matthew nodded. "No doubt. I'm sorry about your wife."
A frown tightened Henry's forehead. "Yeah. Me too. I still don't quite know what to make of that."
Once again, Matthew's interest was piqued. Was there more to Rafe and Lyle's story than what he'd been told? They'd said that when Mrs. Connor had been found dead, both of them were back in Wolf. They blamed Arius, and the fact that she hadn't lived up to her supposed promise to deliver a willing Lyle into Arius's hands. They did not buy for one minute the heart attack that the coroner had listed on her papers.
