by Noah Harris
The people on the sidewalk seemed to get louder as they passed, and Shaeffer braced himself before joining them again, walking back to the art studio, The Burgundy Gallery, and Konrad’s apartment above it. He was sure Konrad was fine, there was really no reason to worry. It was all so silly. He’d show up to Konrad’s apartment, make sure he was still breathing, and duck back out, and they’d never talk again. And even if Konrad didn’t want to talk to him, well, it wasn’t stalking. He was just checking on him for his own peace of mind. He didn’t want Konrad’s blood to be on his hands. Stay the night.
But Konrad wasn’t like that. Whatever sadness he had wasn’t self-destructive, it was artistic. Shaeffer was sure of it. He turned a corner and the building came into view, a lighter red in the sun, like blood, out of a nightmare. This was just like that, a nightmare. It was far-fetched, but he needed to see Konrad, touch his warm, breathing skin, hear him talk, pinch himself, just to shake himself out of the death-sleep. Maybe he just needed to see him, and nothing else.
He’d just walk up to the apartment, look in the big windows, see Konrad moving around. If Konrad saw him, the embarrassment would be pure torture, but then he’d leave and it would go away, and his mind would be soothed. Just a tiny look, a reassurance. That was all.
As he approached, he saw the door to the gallery open, slender legs walking past it. Purple hair, pale as bellflowers. He stopped in his tracks as Fiona Lovelace, holding her phone up her to ear and talking angrily into it, turned around. They made eye contact and he resumed his walk, acting like he hadn’t seen her. Maybe he’d be able to just walk by her, say a simple hello, what a coincidence, oh, yes, well, I’m just heading to so-and-so’s apartment a few blocks down, great to hear about Konrad’s show, alright, see you at the next one.
Her hand raised, though, and she waved urgently.
“Shaeffer! Shaeffer! Thank goodness!”
Unwanted Visitors
Konrad Fontaine
“Konrad, I swear to fucking…are you ignoring me?” Konrad could hear the birds chirping outside, feel the soreness of his back from…sleeping on the ground? He sat up slightly, keeping his eyes closed because they hurt. His phone was ringing from the other side of the room, loud, too loud. His eyes, they hurt a lot. And the sun wasn’t shining in through the skylight, or through the windows, like it usually did. Everything was dark, foggy, his eyes felt crusted shut, like when he drank too much. Maybe it was that, the wine, and Shaeffer, fucking Shaeffer.
But Shaeffer wasn’t the only thing that had gone wrong last night, and it hit him like a ton of bricks. He lifted his hands, blocking out Fiona’s screaming from the other side of his door and the incessant chirping of his phone, and felt his eyes. The explosion in his hands, the magnesium, burning white and nearly too bright for him to look at directly. The chemicals, screaming hot, leaping up at his face, like staring directly at the sun and then flying into it. And then sleep, or simply unconsciousness. He hadn’t dreamed. It had been a complete knock-out, and his body was already starting to heal, but he still couldn’t see the light through his eyelids. Just darkness. It felt like his eyelids had molted, but instead of shedding, the skin had dried and glued to his eyes. The heat of a fire burns your corneas, the light burns your retinas. Always wear your goggles! Instructional videos from college, blurry and with that happy-go-lucky tone, something he’d never listened to. He was a goddamn dragon, he lived in the fire. But now…
His heart felt like it, too, had been crusted shut, struggling to pump blood into the rest of his body. Complete and utter terror. What had he done to himself? How had he ruined himself this time…irreversibly? The word crossing his mind, irreversible, made that terror turn into rage just as white-hot as the magnesium last night, making him want to tear through his apartment, out of it, into the sky, burning everything down. He tried to stand, the anger sending a rush of adrenaline through him, but he wheezed. He felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. He felt for the burns on his chest, reassuring himself that those would heal quickly, his dragon blood speeding up the process. The same would happen for his eyes, he convinced himself. It wouldn’t be permanent.
He just needed to open his eyes. A deep breath, held in his chest. Then he summoned all his strength, all his courage, and opened them. He whimpered slightly when he needed to reach up and pry them open with his scabbed fingers, and then let out a shaky breath when he realized nothing had changed. He still couldn’t see. Everything was pitch black.
“It’s still night,” he mumbled to himself, not really believing it, and reached out blindly in front of himself, groping for anything to help him stand. The couch. He could feel it. It reminded him of Shaeffer, and he growled.
“Konrad, open this fucking door. I can hear you! Fucking idiot. You can’t still be asleep!” It’s not night. It’s morning. His heart was in his mouth, and he couldn’t breathe. He felt his chest again, some of the scabs on the edges already lifting. The scabs on his eyes…if his chest was healing already, his eyes would have to. They had to.
As a dragon, as part of Clara’s flight, part of his life was their monthly trips to the country, letting their animal side take control. They’d pluck cows and sheep off the fields, spook guard dogs, light a tree or two on fire on stormy nights. The first evening of the month where the fog was heavy enough to cover their enormous shapes in the sky, they’d take off. If he couldn’t see, not only was he useless in the air to keep guard for anything that might deter their trip or spot them…it wasn’t even worth going.
His livelihood, too, depended on his eyesight. He was an artist, and it was his everything. If he couldn’t see the infrared, the ultraviolet of the flaming chemicals he experimented with for his artwork, brighter to his shifter eyes…if he couldn’t see the colors that humans didn’t even have names for, if he could never see them again, create them again, what was the point? He would be lost.
His eyes had to heal. They would. There was no other option. It would take everything from him. If he couldn’t see and couldn’t fly, he wouldn’t be a dragon, a real, able-bodied dragon. And if he wasn’t a dragon, he wasn’t the alpha of his family, the only child there to take the claim to alpha status. If he wasn’t an alpha and he wasn’t an artist…he wasn’t a man, a dragon, a human. Always caught between the two worlds, human and shifter, and now he didn’t know, couldn’t be, either.
Fiona banged her fist on the door, and his phone chirped again. Fiona. Clara. Clara Anaheim, she would help him. It was her life’s work. But he wasn’t sure how to face himself like this, never-mind her, who would’ve mocked him for his human emotions, and probably his very human meltdown, just the night before. It would take time, but he wasn’t sure he had that right now, with Fiona slamming what sounded like her entire body against the door.
He bit back a growl, knowing she was already pretty sure he was inside; that was obvious from her shouting. Yelling at her to go away would only prove her suspicions that he was, in fact, in the apartment. And then she’d be demanding entry, probably breaking the door down to get to him. Vaguely he recalled the show the night before, which had faded into the background of this new crisis. She was here because of the reviews, whatever they were. Probably bad. Probably worrying.
And now keys, jingling outside his door. Shit, he thought, but then realized her keychain was weighed down with them. She had a key to every dragon’s apartment, house, loft, on Drake Street. Glasses, sunglasses, he thought desperately, trying to remember where he’d left them. The kitchen island. He lunged in that direction, and felt his ankle get tied up in something, the other foot stumbling over a rubbery mass. He fell forward, slamming his face into the wall loudly. He groaned in pain, raising his hand to his face and rubbing his nose. He reached out to feel the wall and gritted his teeth, turning around. He’d been facing the entirely wrong direction. More carefully he walked toward the island, knowing he was now oriented correctly, and felt around on the countertop, there! He slid them on quickly, just as he heard her ja
mming her key into the lock.
“Fiona, wait, I’m not dressed,” he yelled, fumbling for the nearest chair to sit down in, recline. He couldn’t find it. Maybe he’d hide in the bathroom. “Can you just…go away? Seriously, I’m fine, I don’t want to talk about the reviews, you can just go and break into Gillian’s apartment, I’m sure she’d be happy to see you,” he yelled, and she let out what sounded like a shriek behind the door. The wrong key?
“Eat shit, Konrad,” she snapped, and he winced. Wrong key and he’d taken it a bit too far with the breaking and entering joke. “I’m just fucking worried about you, Clara’s worried about you. Do you at least give a shit about her?” He cringed again at the mention of Clara, feeling guilty. Clara, always looking out for him. He groped his way toward the bathroom, more confident after he found the kitchen island. He remembered their conversation, as Fiona struggled audibly with her keychain outside the door, at Fort Anaheim when he’d first brought this show to Clara, asking her to fund it, to fund another one.
“I like this one, Konrad,” she’d said in her scratchy voice, the voice of an ancient being. He still had no idea how old she was. He’d never ask.
“I’m glad. I’ll use my gallery, of course, but I just…I need a little help with the publicity for it, some posters and flyers, maybe some word of mouth…” She looked at him, hard, her hawkish, yellow eyes squinting. He looked away, feeling transparent, and instead busied himself looking around the living room. It wasn’t obviously decadent, but there was an air of extravagance to the soft, embroidered furniture, the glittering, crystal light fixtures. The fireplace was huge, nearly filling the entire wall it was built into, but covered in picture frames and old books in different languages. Everything was expensive. It was covered in enough antiques and keepsakes that it looked lived in, unassuming. The only thing that was spotless in the entire mansion, with all its rooms decorated similarly to this one, was its immaculate, shining pink marble floors.
“How much do you need?” she asked, and he looked back at her in surprise.
“I-I didn’t think I’d get this far, to be honest,” he said, and she finally smiled, shaking her head and reaching out to pat his hand. Her skin was thin, papery, draped over her sturdy bones. It made her look frailer than she was. He knew she was anything but.
“I will always help you, Konrad. I will always do what is best for you. I like this piece, and I think others will, too. The others in our flight, especially. It is good for you, and for the community. Ask Fiona to take care of whatever you need.”
“Thank you, Clara, thank you so much,” he said, standing up and leaning over her to give her a hug. She reached up and patted his back lovingly.
“Please tell me when you plan to perform it. I would love to come.” He grinned at her and kissed her cheek, warm and downy.
“Absolutely, Clara,” he said, and she nodded gratefully.
“Now go, I am having tea with Darian,” she said, returning to her business-like persona.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, hiding a smile, and then walked out of the room into the main entrance, high-ceilinged with a spiral staircase and a huge matching chandelier, and the same pink marble floors. He marveled at how lucky he was to have met Clara, to be blessed enough to have been swept under her wide-reaching, generous wings.
The garden out front, which he had to walk through to get back to Drake Street, was filled with topiaries of other shifter creatures. Dragons, of course, and wolves, tigers, bears, stags…they looked real, like they might climb down from their mounts and circle you, predator and prey. He walked through the main gate, looking back at the mansion, Fort Anaheim, his home, and kissed his fingers. Then, checking to make sure no one saw him, he raised them in the air toward the mansion, sending all his love and thanks to Clara, past and present, and to all the kindness and care she would give him in the future. She would feel it.
Now, though, he felt nothing but irritation, pain, and a complete lack of hope for the future. Fiona was still outside, fumbling with her keys. He reached out desperately and nearly let out a shout of triumph when his hand landed on the doorknob to the bathroom. He twisted it and nearly fell inside, kicking it shut behind him.
“You can verbally abuse me any other day, but right now you need to let me…” she grunted those last words, and Konrad heard another key slide into the lock. It turned, and he heard the barely audible squeak of the hinges. “In!” her voice was chipper now, and he grumbled. “Konrad?”
“I told you not to come in. I’m in the bathroom,” he said lamely through the door. He heard her huff exasperatedly.
“I don’t care if you’re taking a shit, Konrad. You had a radio interview this morning,” she said, stomping into the apartment. He didn’t follow the sound with his head, staying turned away from her. It sounded like she was so angry that she didn’t even notice his sunglasses. “And guess who never fucking showed and made a fool out of me, and Clara, and especially yourself!” she hissed, slamming her bag down on the kitchen island he’d just stumbled away from. “I assume it’s because you got shitfaced last night, you fucking wannabe-Rolling Stone.” There was a hint of derision in her voice, and a hint of humor. He took the second one as a good sign. Forcing a hearty laugh from his stomach, that made his chest hurt, he nodded.
“Yeah, well, it was such a success I felt the need to get blackout drunk. What better way to celebrate? And then this little twink…I saw you talking to him, Shaeffer Gipson,” he said, and she stayed silent. The frustration at not being able to read her face, only her sounds, was grating. It didn’t even matter that he was hidden behind the bathroom door. If he were out there, it would’ve been the same. “Well, I brought him up to the apartment and we both got drunk on this great bottle of wine, Lumière Du Feu, and he basically ran to my bed. You should’ve seen him, Fiona,” he said, his stomach turning at the thought of Shaeffer, pale as moonlight, writhing in his bed. But the act of bragging was necessary to get her off his back.
“Stop, Konrad,” she said seriously.
“A model. As good as they come, and quite an exhibitionist,” he said in a low voice, and she squawked again.
“Fucking stop! You’re disgusting, just…” she hesitated. “Just stop,” she said, and it sounded like a plea. He furrowed his eyebrows, behind his sunglasses.
“Okay, alright,” he said through the door. “Just, do your magic, Fiona, get them to reschedule the interview, I swear I’ll make it to the next one. I can’t publicly apologize, that’ll look bad for me, but if you do it…”
“You’re a pain in my ass,” she huffed, and he heard her rustling papers. The review. His stomach dropped. He could smell her trepidation.
“You have the reviews?”
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “It’s really…it’s not too bad, Konrad. There’ve been worse.”
“Well, just do it, then, get it over with.”
“I know,” she whispered, and he looked around, out of habit, before remembering that even if he couldn’t see, he was in the bathroom anyway. This blindness was an easy way to forget where you were. He wanted to ask who she was talking to, but the worst-case scenario popped into his head: she’d brought the interviewer. His feet felt numb. They couldn’t see him like this, not the public. Or maybe it was the other worst-case scenario: Clara, come to make sure he hadn’t already seen the reviews and drowned himself in alcohol and drugs. What the hell was going on?
He inhaled, deeply, trying for the first time to smell his apartment. He’d been avoiding it since smelling Shaeffer’s scent on the couch. He recognized the scent, a second person, someone he knew more intimately than one night should afford.
Shaeffer, himself, back in Konrad’s apartment. Shaeffer, who he’d just bragged—lied—about fucking the night before. Shaeffer, who he definitely didn’t want seeing him in such a wounded and insecure state, especially after getting stood up last night.
Any other day, this would have been catastrophic, but he found that, oddly, he
cared more about the reviews, Clara helping him regain his eyesight, and Fiona’s reaction to his stupidity, more than the cute model that had abandoned him the night before. There were bigger things on his plate right now.
Tip-Toeing
Shaeffer Gipson
Shaeffer didn’t like this, not one bit. Konrad was alive, breathing, but there was something strange about him. Shaeffer had only wanted to make sure he hadn’t met the same fate as Lukas, poor Lukas, especially after the reviews for his show. Shaeffer stood in the doorway, holding two cups of coffee that Fiona had thrust into his hands so she could find the key to Konrad’s apartment. Her keychain was packed with them, and he’d wondered what they were all for before losing that train of thought when Konrad had yelled through the door.
Honestly, he couldn’t believe how commanding Fiona was when she wasn’t trying to weave her way into inner circles at parties and galas. This Fiona was in charge. He’d taken those coffees without hesitation, just wanting to stay on her good side.
But now they were inside the apartment, Konrad hiding in the bathroom, and Shaeffer realized Konrad didn’t know he was there. Let’s keep it that way, he thought desperately, the coffees burning his fingertips. Was this how assistants felt? It was terrible.
What was more terrible were the jokes, crude and untrue, that Konrad had made about him. An exhibitionist? Well, he might’ve been right about that one, but he was a model. It was his job. And if he remembered correctly, Konrad had carried him to the bed.
The most awful part of it all, though, was that he couldn’t get himself just to run, escape the entire awkward situation. He could just walk away, put the coffees down. But as Konrad demanded through the door for Fiona to just read the review, get it over with, he was painfully reminded of Lukas. Sweet, kind Lukas who’d never hurt a fly. He only hurt himself. Shaeffer could remember the last time he’d seen Lukas and done nothing, assuming his agent would sort him out. The time he’d admitted to his drug use.
