by Noah Harris
He breathed in deeply, trying not to panic, and thought he smelled the murky, dirty smell of the bayou outside Houston. He turned in his flight, flew over it again, and the smell seemed to coat the inside of his nostrils like the algae that grew in the water.
The only way to land safely in the water was to turn back into a human. As a dragon, huge, weighing several tons and having no idea how close to the ground he was, trying to land would be too dangerous for him and for the houses he knew were on the shore. He glided over the water again, steadying his breathing.
It would be like jumping out of a low-flying plane into the water. It would be fine. It would be fine. Konrad’s dragon whimpered.
Then, as he took his final deep breath, readying himself, summoning the courage, he heard the thunder explode above him, and the next moment, before he could even trigger his shift, he felt the heat of the lightning above him. Then it was on him, shocking him so hard he felt all his limbs, his wings, everything, shudder and petrify. It passed through him, into the water, and he gasped for breath as his prone body fell out of the sky. He thought he saw, with his eyes half-open, groggy, a shadow in the clouds, getting larger and larger, but it was too late.
He hit the water, hard.
Realizations and Reunions
Shaeffer Gipson
“Shaeffer, I know you’re in and out of consciousness, here,” came a voice, familiar, soft, urgent and scared. It cut through the darkness he’d been floating in, and he felt himself pulled back to reality, to consciousness. “But I’m going to try to explain the best I can.”
He opened his eyes drowsily, feeling like they’d been glued shut, and tried to focus on the vague, blurry face above him, surrounded by fire. He blinked a few times and recognized the face, Fiona. She’d dyed her hair red, bright red.
“Fiona?”
“Shaeffer, thank fuck,” she breathed, then winced at someone apologetically. Shaeffer followed her gaze, a woman in a blue nurse’s uniform was behind him. He was being pushed. The movement suddenly caught up with him, and motion-sickness clenched his stomach.
“Make way!” she shouted, and people careened into the sides of the hallway, looking in terror at him. He returned their looks, confused.
“We’re taking you to a special wing of the hospital, Clara had it opened when she started the community on Drake Street,” Fiona said quickly, and he looked back up at her, realizing she was still running beside them. She was out of breath, looking frazzled and frightened. She wouldn’t look away from his face.
“Why?” he asked, his voice coming out like a croak. Fiona cringed and looked up at the nurse, who nodded and shrugged, not bothering to look away from her path.
“You’re pregnant,” she whispered. “But there’s still a chance for you and the baby to survive. I didn’t know until Konrad told me,” she said, and he almost tried to sit up before his arms gave out under him, no, the nurse had pushed him back down.
“Konrad knew? Wait. How could I be pregnant?” He felt like he hadn’t woken up, he was still floating in the darkness, but his mind was trying to distract him, or something. Or maybe he had had the champagne, finished the show in a giggly daze, maybe he’d gone to some afterparty and someone had gotten him high on something, maybe…
“He didn’t know, but he knew. He told me something that sounded like you might be in danger, so I flew to Tokyo.”
They slammed through double doors, the frame Shaeffer was lying on rattling with the impact, and then he was wheeled into a large white room, with curtains separating the beds. Baby basins on the side. There was one other man in there, belly swollen, eyes screwed shut, and no women. I’m high; I am fucked up on something right now. This is impossible.
“We’re going to lift him on three,” the nurse said suddenly, and he realized they were next to a bed, and Fiona was staring at the nurse in trepidation.
“Shouldn’t another nurse…”
“You’re here, so you’re doing it. On three,” the nurse said bluntly, and they crammed their hands underneath him. “One, two, three,” she said with a grunt, and they lifted him with some effort and transferred him to the bed. Shaeffer’s eyes roamed the room dreamily, where was he really? And then he looked back at the gurney they’d been pushing him on. It was covered, from the middle down, in blood. His blood.
“Where’s Konrad,” he rasped, and Fiona looked at him regretfully.
“He doesn’t know, I-I didn’t get a chance to tell him. I wasn’t sure I’d be right, and then I was, and I just had to get you here. I didn’t have time to call him.”
“Oh, God,” Shaeffer moaned, looking over at the lonely man with the stomach even more swollen than his. Was he going into labor? How did that work? He looked back at Fiona desperately. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”
“What? No, Shaeffer,” Fiona said, horrified, and then looked abruptly at the doorway. A man in tight khakis, a navy button-down, and powder blue gloves had just strode in, looking serious. He didn’t have a single wrinkle on his face, as if he’d never smiled in his life.
“How long?” he said smoothly, and both Shaeffer and Fiona looked up at him, lost. He pulled out a flashlight, merely a small rod, and reached toward Shaeffer’s face. He flinched backward, and the doctor rolled his eyes. “I have a man over there who needs immediate attention, and yet I’ve been ordered to check you out first. Sit still.”
Shaeffer looked up at him, following the light of the flashlight as he’d seen it done on television, and the doctor put the light away. He cut the bodysuit, Shaeffer’s heart broke as he watched the beautiful, glittering material get pulled away from his body…and revealed Shaeffer’s swollen stomach.
“How long have you been pregnant? Do you have any idea?” the doctor asked, pressing his fingers lightly against different parts of his stomach, his bladder, his ribs.
“I…no, I don’t have any idea,” he answered, and the doctor pursed his lips. “I’m sorry, does that mean something bad? Will you be able to figure it out?”
“Of course, I will. We just need to do an ultrasound.” The word made him think of even more television shows, women who didn’t know they were pregnant, teenagers who got pregnant, rich housewives who got pregnant. Where did he fit in all of this? Fiona looked at him remorsefully.
“I didn’t even know men could get pregnant,” he said quietly, watching the doctor continue to poke and prod his hard stomach.
“Your mate didn’t discuss this with you?” the doctor paused, eyeing him carefully.
“My mate?” He looked at Fiona for help. “I don’t have…”
“Konrad didn’t talk to him, no; they haven’t even mated yet.” Shaeffer looked between them, baffled. Mating? This couldn’t be real.
“Are you sure I’m not dying? What about all the blood?” He glanced at the yet-to-be-moved gurney.
“You’re not dying. We’d know if you were dying. We’re more concerned about the baby right now. It’s late enough that we wouldn’t be able to abort it, even if you wanted to.”
“I don’t want to do that. I would never do that to Konrad and my, our…” Shaeffer gasped and stuttered, but the doctor ignored him and continued.
“We have to start thinking about a miscarriage. But I don’t think that’s the case here.”
“Where’s Konrad?” he demanded. Fiona bit her lip. “Where’s Konrad?”
“Okay, I’ll call him.” The doctor spread cold jelly on his stomach, and he shivered. “After this.”
“Now, Fiona,” he urged, and she shook her head.
“This is more important, Shaeffer. We need to know the status of the baby before I call him here. He’ll kill someone if he isn’t prepared beforehand.” Shaeffer stared up at her, shocked by her words but somehow agreeing. He’d never seen Konrad truly angry before, but he could see the possibility of it in his serious eyes, his strong hands.
“The status of…what if it’s dead?” He looked down at his stomach, suddenly feeling faint.
&n
bsp; “I’m sure it’s okay,” she said, looking at the doctor with wide eyes. Help me out here. He lowered the ultrasound wand, which looked very different from a normal one, Shaeffer noted stressfully, over Shaeffer’s stomach. He looked over Shaeffer’s shoulder, and after a few moments of him studying whatever screen was back there that Shaeffer couldn’t see and Fiona obviously couldn’t understand, he nodded.
“We’re going to need a blood transfusion,” he said, lifting a radio to his mouth.
“A blood transfusion?” Shaeffer asked weakly, and the doctor nodded, still looking at the screen. He felt dizzy. The doctor was sliding out of focus.
“Well, what for? What about the baby?” Fiona demanded, and Shaeffer tried to wait to listen to the doctor’s reply, but it was so hard. He felt himself falling backwards, his eyes shifting out of focus, and then he was back in the dark.
Shaeffer sat in Konrad’s apartment, everything blurry unless he looked directly at it. Konrad was in the kitchen, opening and closing cabinets, standing in front of the open fridge, staring into nothing with his hands planted firmly on the island, seeming, to Shaeffer, to be miles and miles away. He felt like he couldn’t make out his features; even when he looked directly at him, like he’d done with the couch and the firebird painting and the vase near the window, Konrad’s image didn’t sharpen. He was just a foggy shape behind the kitchen’s island, walking around aimlessly.
“Konrad,” he said faintly, but Konrad didn’t hear him. He just kept picking up and putting down a wooden bowl. He looked down, his belly more swollen than it had been the last time he remembered looking at it. He didn’t feel like it had any weight, though, it just…floated on his body.
“Shaeffer,” he heard Konrad say, his voice cracking with pain. He looked back up and saw Konrad, now a bit closer, between where Shaeffer was sitting and the kitchen. He hovered there, holding the bowl aloft, a whisk gripped in his hand. His eyes were closed.
“Konrad, what…what are you doing?” Shaeffer asked, feeling unsettled. There was some stretched quality in his face, uncanny, Konrad but not Konrad. A wrongly remembered version of him. How’d he get back to the apartment, now that he thought about it? Shaeffer didn’t remember anything between the ultrasound and now. Had they brought him there, Fiona and the nurse? Konrad paced, still far away from him, still looking like there was a pane of frosted glass between them.
“No,” he moaned. “Is he okay? I’m coming now. Don’t worry about me. One of the flight found me. I’m fine. Is he still passed out?” Shaeffer watched him, completely bewildered, feeling more and more frightened. Where was he? This wasn’t Konrad’s apartment. This wasn’t Konrad. Was he dreaming?
“Konrad, I’m scared,” Shaeffer said loudly, trying to get his attention, his skin crawling. Konrad didn’t look at him. He could feel Konrad’s strong aura, it seemed to glow around him, golden. He watched him put the whisk in the bowl, then the bowl at his feet. He walked toward Shaeffer, taking one slow step at a time, joining his feet between every stride. He would have been staring at Shaeffer if his eyes weren’t closed.
“I’m coming,” he said finally. The glowing aura around him got stronger and stronger, nearly blinding Shaeffer, and he covered his eyes. He could feel Konrad getting closer, like their energies were magnetized to one another. He lowered his hands, squinting up at Konrad, who was now standing next to him, over him. Then he sat down, heavily, robotic, on the couch, and Shaeffer felt himself get dragged away from him, like he was being sucked into his own body.
Then he was awake. He was still on the hospital bed, no, it was a different one. He was in his own room. The moaning pregnant man was gone, and the room was smaller. The curtains were pushed to the side, and the light pouring through the windows made his eyes water. He was lying almost completely flat, and he turned his head to look out the windows, only to see a large vase, larger than the one Konrad had in his apartment. It was blue, royal blue, and it had intricate veins of gold laced across it. A kintsugi vase, from Clara’s house. He knew it was from her, there was no doubt, and he knew why she’d sent it.
She was saying he was a kintsugi piece. Shot through with gold, Konrad’s golden genes, creating something beautiful inside him from their history together. Their history made their relationship beautiful, and his past did the same for him, helping him to know who he was. Without Konrad, he would’ve been a lot more broken. Konrad had helped him pick up his pieces and puzzle them back together, unbreakable.
But where was Konrad? The dream he’d had, Konrad’s slow approach…he thought when he woke up, Konrad would be sitting on the bed, holding his hand, waiting for him to wake up.
He sat up, struggling slightly, his swollen belly felt more solid now, now that he knew what was inside. A child. Their child. He eased himself up onto the pillows and leaned back, then his breath got caught in his throat.
Konrad. He was sitting in a chair in the corner with his hands folded over his stomach. He had sunglasses on, but Shaeffer knew he was sleeping from the way his chin drooped and his shoulders raised with his slow breaths. As Shaeffer looked at him more closely, he noticed cuts and scrapes and bruises all over his exposed arms and face.
He wondered what had happened in his absence, and hoped, with a pang in his stomach, that Konrad hadn’t hurt himself because of it. He looked at Konrad, his mate, someday, and tried to pick out every feature, memorize it all.
He looked older, now, than he had before. Not much, but sometimes Shaeffer forgot their age difference. His silver beard was longer, cut haphazardly, and the imperfections in his skin were like constellations, stars you see when the storm clouds dissipate. Behind the fire and smoke, Konrad was sweet and open. Maybe he didn’t seem older. Younger, maybe. Shaeffer couldn’t tell, he just looked ageless, handsome, kind and affectionate, his Konrad, a little different, without any labels attached.
He looked wise, confident, settled, like he’d experienced some change, some trauma, while Shaeffer was away. Maybe they both had. Shaeffer didn’t want to wake him up, but the urge was strong, perhaps too strong. He wanted to ask Konrad what had happened, what his time away had done to him, to both of them. He needed to talk to him.
“Konrad,” he whispered. If he woke up, it was meant to be. If he stayed asleep, Shaeffer would leave him alone until he awoke on his own. But he needed to try.
Konrad jerked out of his sleep, sitting up immediately.
“Shaeffer?” he whispered, and Shaeffer smiled tearfully.
“I’m here,” he said, and Konrad stood up quickly, feeling his way over to the bed. He reached out for Shaeffer’s hands, cozying up next to him. There was silence for a moment, and then Konrad smiled, a beaming, light-filled thing. Tears started to run down his cheeks and get lost in his beard.
“I’m going to be a dad, I hear,” he said thickly. Shaeffer laughed in relief and nodded, squeezing his hands.
“I’m so sorry I left. I’m so sorry,” he said, his throat stinging. “And for not telling you what the other doctors said. They said it was a mass, I should’ve just told you, you would’ve known,” he said, leaning forward and pulling Konrad’s hands. He needed him to know how sorry he was. It could’ve all been avoided. Konrad shook his head and shushed him.
“We’re here now. There’s no reason to…to talk about what happened. We were both wrong.” Shaeffer wiped his face and looked up at him. Konrad was still smiling.
“What happened to you?” Shaeffer asked, reaching up to trace a finger over a deep gash on his face. It had already scabbed over, nearly healed.
“I went for a flight,” he said with embarrassment.
“Konrad!”
“I know, I know. I said we were both wrong, didn’t I?” A small, humorless chuckle. Shaeffer traced his other wounds.
“What happened?” Konrad sighed and pulled off his glasses.
“Well, I was having a pretty rough night, and you…I was missing you,” he paused, looking down. Shaeffer tilted his chin back up. “And it started
thunder storming. That’s when my flight has permission to fly, and I just felt this need to get into the air. The air would help, I knew it. And I went up, and it really wasn’t that bad, the flying itself.”
“How did you navigate?” Shaeffer asked in awe, never failing to be impressed by dragons and their abilities and magic and majesty.
“The air currents,” Konrad said. “But then, um,” he paused, and Shaeffer watched him try to form his next words in his mind. “There was a lightning strike, and I was over water, over the bayou. I was the biggest and highest target, with no trees around. It knocked me out of the sky.”
“Oh my God, Konrad,” Shaeffer said, and then lunged forward to hug him. “I am so grateful you’re okay. How…” he leaned back. “How are you okay?”
“Well, I wasn’t the only one who went out for a flight. There’s a woman, also in my flight. She must’ve seen me falling and pulled me out of the water.”
“Well, I’ll need to thank her for saving my mate,” Shaeffer said, and Konrad laughed awkwardly.
“Yeah, Fiona mentioned that I’ve been keeping some things from you,” he said bashfully, and Shaeffer nodded impatiently.
“We have a lot to talk about.”
“Well, before that, I want to show you something. I-I made you and the baby something while you were sleeping.” He took a deep breath and scooted back on the bed slightly; Shaeffer watched him curiously.
And then he began to sing. His voice was deep, comforting, like that of a soul singer. The words, though, Shaeffer didn’t recognize. They flowed from his mouth like a whisper, airy and floating through the air, a hymn. It felt raw, emotional, complete. Just like Shaeffer, just like the vase, Konrad was a work of kintsugi too; shot through with binding, powerful gold, magic, healed by their relationship, by this newfound talent, by the child their love created. Konrad sang to Shaeffer, and the room filled with it, like a protective spell or coating.
