by Rhys Ford
All except one.
That man wasn’t as tall as the others. His face didn’t share their rugged Irish planes, square jaws, or ocean-hued eyes. Instead he was a pretty mélange of exotic cheekbones, hazel irises, and a full mouth Damien knew from experience could fling out the foulest string of profanities when its owner was pissed.
He couldn’t breathe. Something was choking him, closing his throat up from the inside out, but Damien still took a step forward, unable to believe he was staring at the one man he loved as a brother. The world must have moved around them, because the distance between them closed. Somehow, in the dim awareness of suffocation and his thundering heart, he found himself with an armful of warm Miki and a face full of tears.
Miki smelled of coffee and cloves, his chestnut hair tickling Damien’s nose. There was so much noise around them, a querulous buzz accented with craggy stones and emerald hills, but Damien pushed it all away, tightening his grip around his brother. Then his lungs began to work again, and he whispered through his tears, unable to find anything deeper to say but the one word he thought of as home.
“Sinjun.”
From somewhere in the noise, Damien heard his name. It was dipped in gold and warmth, a litany of tears and chanting mantras strung together into a song of sparkling white lights and shadowy blues. Miki’s arms were around him, stronger and firmer than he’d remembered. His friend… his brother… squeezed him hard, then cupped his face, and Damie’s heart skipped a beat when he saw the familiar, off-kilter cant of Miki’s ring finger, its first joint twisted slightly in from the man’s odd way of writing. Those arms were back around him before Damien could cry about their loss, and Miki’s shoulders shook as he cried with the shock dealt to him.
“Oh, Sionnie boy, what have you done?” A man’s fierce, peaty timbre cut through a crackling noise of softer accented male voices, and Damie nearly shoved Miki behind him so he could defend his lover, but in that instant, he found himself frozen in the amber of memories pouring over him. “Who the hell have you brought with you?”
The next rumble Damie heard was even stronger, a patriarchal blade slicing past the chatter to call for quiet. He swallowed and blinked, his eyes flitting across every face until he found the man speaking.
He was a mountain, a solid piece of stone quarried from the slabs of Irish beauty around him, but his strength was left undiminished by time and the trials of life. Silver flecked the black hair at his temples, and while his eyes weren’t as brightly cerulean as the men around him, they were forged steel honed sharp by the passing years. He reached for them both, and his enormous hands closed over first Miki’s shoulder, then Damien’s, shielding them from the battering verbal storm brewing around them.
It was a different type of warmth. So very different from the encompassing wrap of Sionn around his soul or the beacon flash of starshine of Miki in his heart. This man, Damien realized, resonated with a fire hot enough to melt rock, and he would flow around those he loved, protecting them from anything they weren’t quite strong enough to withstand.
“Da… we don’t know if he’s… real.” Someone in the pack spoke up, but the man quelled him with a sharp look.
“Yer wrong, son. I’d know Mick’s brother anywhere. God knows I’ve seen him on Ryan’s walls now for years, and no one else could have brought that awe to Miki’s face. So shush, all of ye, and make way.” Now that man stood around him… for him and Miki… as he squeezed their shoulders reassuringly. “Come on, ye two. Let’s find ye someplace ye can have some peace and our Miki can welcome his Damie boy back.”
IT HAD been an ugly cry. There was no getting around that fact. Even knowing that, Damien was surprised to find himself feeling as if he’d drowned in the bay. His face was swollen, nearly tight to the touch, and everything tasted of salt. Sniffing, he was thirsty, but he didn’t want to move off the bed he was lying on. Especially since Miki was lying beside him, their sides touching as they nestled on a mound of pillows and stared through a sliding glass door to the darkness outside.
Donal had led them from the main house, letting the remains of Sinner’s Gin hole up in a small studio apartment behind the garage. It had to be someplace Miki hid in often, because the place smelled like him. Even the bed’s daisy-dotted cotton sheets, soft and worn from use, held a scent of the man next to him. As well as a cedar-citrus something else he now knew came from a man named Kane Morgan.
“I can’t believe you’re here.” It was Miki who murmured those words this time. When they could finally talk, exhausted from the tears and then the laughter of holding one another again, they’d passed them back and forth, breathing them in then exhaling the phrase back out, the words warmed between them. Miki’s fingers clasped over his and squeezed, reminding Damie his brother was next to him again. “Fucking hell. D. Dude.”
“I can’t believe you named your dog Dude.” He laughed at the sheer joy filling him. “Shit, I can’t believe you have a dog.”
“He kind of just moved in. He’s an asshole. Reminds me of you. He steals shit too. Like sneakers.” Miki inched even closer. “Kane kind of did too. Sort of. Moved in. Not steal my sneakers. His feet are damned huge. My shit wouldn’t fit him.”
“He’s nice,” Damien admitted slowly. “Can’t believe he didn’t tell you they’d found my fingerprint on that envelope.”
“Yeah, we’ll talk about that later.” Miki’s melodic voice turned dark. “They were arguing about it when I came in. I was so fucking confused, and then suddenly you were there. Fucking cops. Fucker told them. You believe that shit?”
“Hey, you married one. Sorta. Kinda.”
Kane was definitely a presence. The man hovered, watching Miki with fiery blue eyes whenever he moved about the room. He said very little, mostly small comforting phrases, then led Miki to the small apartment, reassuring them both the door would remain closed until they were ready to come out. He’d kissed Miki first with an intense passion, then simmered it with a reassuring slide of his lips up over Miki’s jaw to his ear. Sinjun laughed, pushing Kane away, then rubbing his earlobe where his lover’d bit him.
Miki’s laughter had been the happiest Damie’d ever heard from him. It was as if the happy Damie’d felt in the house had somehow found its way into Miki, and a tiny part of him was sad, mournful he’d not been able to put it there.
He wanted that kind of happy.
And he kind of wanted that kind of happy with Sionn.
Sinjun’s bashful smile and fierce hug chased his regret away, especially when they’d both fallen over onto the bed and begun talking.
After the tears. After the hugs. Then after the relieved laughter and a few heart-wrenching sobs, the words finally came.
He’d told his brother about waking up at Skywood, carved up and stitched back together like a rag doll. He tried to explain about the fake parents who showed up every so often and the person everyone’d thought he’d been. Damie touched briefly on the man who’d driven him to freedom and the dog who’d left drool on the back of his neck.
Then he spoke of trying to get to San Francisco and how it felt to fill his lungs with the bite of fog, even if he didn’t remember where he needed to go. He spent a lot of time talking about his headaches and the flashes of memories he kept having. He almost lost himself when he spoke of the morning, when he’d stood in the rain and found a fire escape missing its long-legged singer.
“This has been the best fucking day of my life,” Damien murmured. “Just… everything. Everyone in it. You. Sionn. Fucking everything.”
“Your parents. Shit, guess we’ve got to tell them.” Miki made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “They keep pushing for shit. I won’t let them sell our stuff for marketing. It’s pissed them off.”
“God, I love you.” He grinned at his friend, Miki’s hair tickling his nose. “You remembered. I’d have kicked your ass if I came back and SG was selling shoes or shit.”
“Fries. Sweet potato fries. Or maybe instant saimin,” Miki
said solemnly. “I’d only sell out for things that were really important to you. Oh! Maybe a car. But only a really cool car. Okay, I kind of wanted to let them use something for a chick flick, but then I thought you’d bitch because you didn’t at least get the chance to bang one of the actresses. That’s shot to shit now you’ve hooked up with Sionn. Well, shit.”
“You’re good that way,” he proclaimed, nodding emphatically. “Fuck, my parents. I don’t know what the hell to do there.”
“I think we’ve got to get you to a doc first. Check out your brain.” He could see Miki plotting things out in his head. “Who the fuck put you in that place? And how? We’ve got to make sure they can’t put you back. We’ll need to find someone who doesn’t think you’re crazy. Might be kind of hard, but we can pay someone off. I’ve still got money.”
“Shit, I don’t have any money. Oh, fuck this shit,” Damien growled. “I’ve got to get my money back.”
“Edie, unless you’ve forgotten her too.” Miki sneered playfully at him. “If she can’t fix this, then no one can.”
“Hell, Edie. I remembered her. I just couldn’t get my brain around all of it. Not until this morning. Shit’s still kind of patchy.” He sighed, remembering their battle-ax manager with a fondness he probably would regret sometime soon. “She doing good?”
“Yeah. I think she’s in Europe right now.” His friend’s hand tightened again. “We’ll call her. Later. Not now. Right now, I kind of—”
“Just us.” Damien finished for him.
“Yeah, just us.”
Miki told him about Shing’s and Vega’s murders, then about falling in love with Kane. Damien teased, drawing out a blush and profanities. They talked about the Morgans—the sheer glut of Morgans—and Damien actually felt the blood leave his face when he found out he’d not even met half of them or experienced the worst of the terrors, the Dreaded Morgan Matriarch.
“Fuck, okay,” Damien exhaled. “We can move that dresser thing against the door. Good idea.”
“She’s fucking scary, man.” Miki puffed out his cheeks. “She’s got these tiny little feet and wears heels, so you can hear them tapping down the hall when she stalks you. It’s like one of those fucking raptors, and you’re running through the kitchen, but you can’t find a freezer to hide behind, so you know she’s going to catch your ass and shove food or something down your throat. It’s like you know birds come from dinosaurs, because she’s feeding you like you’re something in her nest. Or worse, she makes you sit down in the living room and talk to her about shit. Fucking terrifies me. Kane’s kind of made this my hiding place. Once I’m through the door, they all leave me alone. Gives me some time to… breathe.”
“Oh shit, you actually crash here? On this bed? With your cop? Damn it. These are clean sheets right? I don’t want to be lying on your fuck space. I love you, man, but I don’t—” He yelped when Miki’s fingers pinched his left nipple. “Hey, watch those nails. Fucking asshole. They’re sharp.”
“What happened to the rings? You went through hell for those.” Miki shoved Damie’s collar aside and peeked in to inspect his naked nipple. Tapping the length of Damien’s chest, he nodded. “We gotta compare battle scars. Talk to me about you and Kane’s cousin. Finnegan’s? Really?”
“First off, the old lady’s gone. She was Sionn’s grandma. He said she went out the way she came in. Screaming and kicking ass. But, Sin, it’s a shitty place to get tips,” he admitted about the pub. “Not if you’re under the awning. Tourists figure the place is paying you.”
“But you still hung out there?”
“Yeah, first because it reminded me of you. It was like I knew we had something there and I’d found it. Then because he’d come out and talk to me. Bring me shit. God, I drank so much fucking coffee.”
“Not beer?”
“Usually it was morning. Beer’s not good for playing. I’ve got a piece of shit electric. I don’t need to be drunk off my ass when that thing snaps. Strings cut like crazy, but damn, it’s got a sweet sound for playing old-school shit.”
“I can’t believe Finnegan’s let you play up front. How many fucking times did the old lady shove a broom up our asses?”
“Enough so I still shit splinters.” Damien chuckled. “But Sionn… damn. He talked to me, Sinjun. About stupid shit mostly, but he spent the time, you know? I kind of missed that after that guy with the gun found me. Then everything became so real. It fucking scared me, Sin. That guy showing up made everything too fucking real. I was scared he’d hurt Sionn. Me—it didn’t really matter ’cause, you know, I was already dead, but Sionn, it was like he was keeping me alive.”
“If I had to lose you again—” Miki’s voice broke. “If I found out you were alive and then you were gone before—”
“I’m okay, man.” Damien turned over to face his friend and hugged him tightly, resting his forehead on Miki’s tear-wet cheek. “I’m here now. I’m here.”
He lay against Miki, holding him. Miki’s tears were sparse until Damie felt the tightness in his own chest shatter and his own sobs poured out. If he’d felt drowned before, he was past waterlogged by the time he and Miki were reduced to sniffles.
Kissing Miki’s forehead, he murmured, “We’re okay here, Sin. We’re good now. We’re together.”
“And Kane’ll kick anyone’s ass who fucks with us.” It was good to hear the pride in Miki’s voice when he spoke about his lover, even if it left a minute pang of jealousy in his heart.
“Yeah, I think Sionn would too.” Damien twisted his mouth into a grimace. “I think. Maybe. I dunno. Fuck, I’d hope so. I would for him, you know? For sure.”
“So you like him, then?” Miki teased, laughing when Damie pinched his leg. “Is this where I ask you if you like like him, or what? I didn’t do high school. Shit, I don’t even know what to call Kane. Most of the time, it’s… the cop. Or K. Like he’s Men in Black or something. Talk. Sionn. What’s up? Really.”
“Dude, I let him fuck me,” Damie admitted. “Hell, I wanted him to fuck me. It was all I could think about.”
“So you’re doing that now, D?” The singer whistled softly. “Or just him?”
“Just him.” He’d not bottomed in years. Even before his forced incarceration, he usually found himself on top, plugging away at another faceless body. It’d felt like he was giving too much of himself, and if he were honest, most of the guys he’d hooked up with wanted to have his dick up their asses more than anything else. “It’s crazy, Sin. I wanted to taste him. Fuck the condom. Fuck common sense. One damned taste. I think I even said something about testing. Should have stayed at Skywood. I’m nuts. Crazy for him. Like I can’t breathe.”
“Got in your fucking brain, then?”
He’d missed that about Miki. The guy could boil things down to one thought, taking a few words, sharpening them, and plunging them into Damien’s chest.
“Yeah, he got in my fucking brain.” He stretched out, lying on his back. Scratching an inch above his navel, Damie stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know why. Yeah, he’s hot, but so are a lot of guys. I guess it’s ’cause he… takes care of me. Not like a put-me-in-diapers creepy fetish kind of thing, but stupid shit like feeding me or tossing money in my case when it’s lean. He’d say stuff like, oh, I liked that song, but it’s crap. Just a lie he tells so he can slip me a twenty.”
“And he brought you here,” Miki reminded him. “He’s been gone. Today was the first time I’ve seen him.”
“Yeah, he dragged me here. We didn’t know you were here. Sionn knew Kane was hooked up with a musician, but he didn’t know it was you. Shit, if we’d known… I would have been here sooner. He just wanted me to talk to Donal.”
“Donal. You’re going to love Donal. He’s very cool. Like an Ent or something. But more kick-ass. Hard to explain.”
“I liked him. The dad, right? Shit, imagine having that dude as your dad.”
“Yeah, get used to him. He doesn’t go away… solid, you know? And yo
u can use him to hide from Brigid.” Miki snuggled back into the pillows. “He’s really nice. Doesn’t push, but you know he’s there. Sionn should have come by sooner. Brigid’s pissed at him for skipping the dinner ritual, but hey, now we know what he’s been doing on Sundays.”
“One Sunday!” Damien held up his index finger. “Today. Shit, I better go find him soon. I don’t want him to….”
He didn’t know what he wanted, or rather, hoped for, with Sionn. Yeah, he’d found Miki, but Sionn… he wasn’t willing to walk away from the Irishman with a kiss good-bye and a fast thank you. Going without the man for a week had been bad enough. Losing him forever ached too much to look at.
“You don’t have to leave him behind, D.” Miki’s hazel eyes went owlish, peering down into Damien’s soul. “I saw you with him. When you came to hug me, I saw how long it took you guys to let your hands go. Why not see where it goes? Why the fuck not be happy?”
“Never thought I’d be the one to hear you say that.” Damien wiped at his face, refusing to look at the well of emotions boiling up inside of him when he thought of Sionn. “First, talk to me about your arm. What the fuck happened there? That’s a long-ass scar.”
“I got shot!” Miki’s grin split his face nearly in half, and he pulled up his sleeve, baring the finger-long pink scar. “Don’t tell Edie. I thought it would freak her out, so I told Kane not to say shit to her about it. But, dude! Shot! Like I’m all gangster or something.”
“He could have killed you, Sin.” Damien sat up, staring down at his friend in amazement.
“Yeah, but he didn’t. And I gave as good as he gave me, so fuck him. I’m not going to go all batshit emo about it. I’ve had worse.” Miki hoisted himself up, then rolled up his jeans’ leg, showing the crisscross marks left behind from his knee surgery. “Got broken here from the accident. I was kind of fucked up. Missed your funeral.”
