Autumn: A Crow City Side Story

by Cole McCade

  “I thought…what if?”

  What if. And yet this time as he searched Joseph’s face, he was left wondering not what if but what now, when Joseph still looked so very thunderstruck, lost. Were he another man Wally would have feared revulsion, violence, but at the very least…

  At the very least, he had nothing to fear from Joseph but rejection.

  “God, you’re just full of fucking surprises,” Joseph said, then let out an explosive sigh, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You really are this goddamned enigma who’s fooled everyone into thinking he’s got his heart on his sleeve.”

  Wally winced and ducked his head. “It sounds quite terrible, when you put it that way.”

  “No. No, I know it’s…it’s your way, to try to put a smile on everything. I’m—I don’t—” Joseph made a frustrated sound. “I’m kind of struggling with words right now. I really had no clue, Walford.”

  Perhaps not, but those careful non-answers tell me everything.

  “I didn’t want you to know.” Resignation was already settling in, and Wally told himself if he just breathed it would turn into acceptance. Breathed, and laid his cards on the table and expelled it from him as though expelling a sickness. Perhaps once it was out, he could get over this. “It’s still a frightening thing, to be gay in this country. And while you’ve always known I’m no more straight than a hula hoop…even when the words you said hurt, I knew you’d never hurt me for who I am.” Wally reached for his tea to give himself something to do with his hands, anything, when his fingers trembled and he only stopped them by curling them against the cup. “But that changes for so many men, when they find themselves the object of desire. It’s rather sad how most men never realize what a strange and threatening thing it can be, to be desired by a man you do not desire in return.” And he remembered those younger days, when he was still bold and full of so many needs, and the wrong turns and the bruises and the sneering and cruelty… “And so they hurt us, because they do not want to understand the fear they inspire so easily in others.”

  “I’d never have hurt you,” Joseph protested. “Even if I didn’t want you back, I’d never have hurt you, Wally. Ever.”

  “Do you?”

  Joseph blinked. “Do I what?”

  Wally almost laughed. He’d already put the thought out of his head, clearly. It didn’t even register in context, because the idea was simply so far out of the realm of possibility.

  His own fault for falling in love with a straight man.

  “Do you want me?” he spelled out, then snorted and looked away. “But then you already said so, didn’t you? I believe your precise words were ‘You, me? Never going to happen.’”

  Say it. Say it so I can let go of this daft, terrible hope.

  But Joseph said nothing. Wally didn’t dare look at him, not when he would die inside to see the expression on his face and the carefully constructed, neutral answer piecing together behind his eyes. Sometimes rejection was harder when people tried to be gentle about it.

  Not that anyone had ever been gentle with him. There was never an it’s not you, it’s me. I’m sorry.

  It was always I can’t help myself. You’re all right to pass the time, but I love your sister more.

  He must be a masochist, expecting anything different from his sister’s ex-husband.

  “I don’t understand how you can still want me, even after the awful things we’ve said to each other,” Joseph said haltingly, then ground out a gravelly chuckle. “And it’s a little much for one day. From shouting at each other over coffee to you love me before lunch.”

  Wally tried a smile, but his lips barely wanted to twitch. “That’s not an answer.”

  “I’m not gay, Wally.”

  And there it was, exactly what he needed to hear to close the lid on this and lock it up tight—his secret, his heart in a box, sealed with a key he could throw away and never look for again.

  “But I’m…not sure I’m a hundred percent straight, either.”

  “What?”

  A sharp jolt rocked through Wally, as if his entire body had seized, his sinking emotions halting their downward plunge so quickly they locked his muscles in iron bands. He lifted his head, staring at Joseph, waiting for the laugh, the deflection, anything that said Joseph was making light of this—but he found only frank uncertainty on Joseph’s face, and when their eyes met Joseph colored brightly, before his gaze darted away.

  Oh…oh bloody hell, don’t do this to me…you’ve no idea, hope is a more painful emotion than unrequited love by far…

  “Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t play with me, Joseph. That’s not bloody funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny. Do you think after everything Miriam’s done to me that I’d ever want to make someone else feel the same way?” Joseph worked his jaw, making a few odd sounds, almost words that never quite crystallized, until, “I don’t know what the fuck I’m saying, Walford. But I’m not trying to toy with you. I’m just kind of fucking confused. Okay? I’m confused.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh?”

  “Oh.”

  Wally closed his eyes. He had to remember to breathe, but his lungs were caught in those same iron bands and his chest was in stitches, and he couldn’t—he didn’t—In every imagining, in every unspoken question where he’d asked what if, in daydreams that belonged to children and bright teenaged girls full of brave wild magic and not to grown men, there’d never been half a second when he thought those wistful longings could ever be real. Never a second when he’d thought, if he ever asked could you? the answer might ever be maybe.

  “I…I-I’ve no bloody clue what to say,” he forced out.

  “That’s a first.”

  “I’d laugh if I didn’t want to bloody well kick you.”

  He felt so young, in this moment. Young and in love for the first time and torn in a bloody mess of adolescent hormones lifting him up one second and crashing him down the next, and all of it caught up inside his head with doubts and wantings and anxieties, talking himself in and out of things between one second and the next while Joseph looked at him with no idea of the things Wally was doing to himself over the gorgeous, stubborn, quietly prideful man sitting right there within arm’s reach and yet so far away.

  Grow up, Wally. Grow up and simply…talk to him like a bloody damned adult.

  “Okay,” he said, and took a deep breath. “Okay. Why do you think you might be…?”

  “Confused? Curious? Questioning? Completely out of my mind?”

  “The word you’re looking for is ‘bisexual,’” Wally said dryly. “It’s not a dirty word, I so very solemnly vow.”

  Joseph wrinkled his nose. “That. Yeah.” He shrugged stiffly and scrubbed at his beard with one thick hand; his gaze darted away from Wally again. “I dunno. I’ve just…you know, thought things sometimes.”

  “Things…?”

  “…I notice stuff, okay?”

  Wally’s lips cracked into a smile before he could stop himself; fondness welled up inside him, a spring bubbling to overflowing. At least he wasn’t the only old man acting a bloody juvenile fool. “Please do be so kind as to define ‘stuff’ for me, Joseph.”

  “Oh, don’t you dare.” Joseph narrowed his eyes at him. “Don’t you dare take on that schoolteacher tone with me. This is hard enough as it is.”

  “I’m terribly sorry.”

  “You are not.”

  “Marginally.” At Joseph’s skeptical look, Wally hid a laugh behind his hand. “Ten percent sorry?”

  “I have a feeling that’s the best I’m going to get.” Joseph made a face. “Look, I know it’s normal for you…but it’s not for me. I’m…I’ll catch myself noticing a man’s lips, or…remembering how I felt when he touched me…”

  That bright bird of hope in Walford’s chest fluttered against the bars of a cage he tried so desperately to keep locked. He held his breath, tried to sound casual, but he gripped the teacup so hard it was a wonder it did
n’t break.

  “A man…?”

  Joseph scowled, but underneath his beard he was pink as carnations. “A man.”

  “Might I ask who?”

  “You know who,” Joseph snarled, smacking his hand on the table, and Wally jumped; the cups bounced and rattled. “Who the hell else is in my life? I have no bloody friends except Maxi. I never had time for friends, raising Willow alone, and then suddenly I was alone and in that goddamned bed while my daughter worked herself to death for my medications, and there’s only one fucking man in my life, isn’t there? And don’t you fucking say Willow’s brother. I can’t even stand that I’m living off his charity right now.”

  Joseph’s glare was so very mutinous, so very embarrassed, so very adorable. God, Wally was bloody well screwed, because even if this conversation went to hell he’d never pry those hooks of hope out of his heart, now.

  Even if Joseph hated him by the time he left, Walford would never be able to stop loving him.

  “Shh,” he said, and reached across the table to brush his fingertips to Joseph’s hand, biting back a thrill at the warmth of him, the coarseness of his skin. “Shh. I’m sorry for prying. I’m sorry for making light, I’m merely…I’m in shock.” And he needed to hear it out loud, even if only this once, please, please… “You…noticed me, Joseph?”

  “Or something like that,” Joseph growled sullenly.

  But he didn’t withdraw his hand.

  “Have you never noticed another man before?” Wally asked.

  “No.” Joseph smiled, self-deprecating and quick, there and gone again in a nervous flash. “But to be fair, when I was sixteen I’d have gotten sprung off anything with a pulse, and in college I didn’t have time to think about sex or attraction. The engineering course is brutal.” He trailed off, eyes lowering to their hands, that nebulous touch, fingertips to skin, and Wally prayed he wouldn’t pull away. “And then there was Miriam, and everything and everyone else became inconsequential.”

  Wally tried to ignore the plunge in his gut at the mention of his sister’s name. “So when you were a teenager…?”

  “I don’t know. I had confusing thoughts sometimes, around some of my father’s coworkers from the refinery. I…” Joseph frowned. “I never really looked into it. Just chalked it up to overreacting hormones.”

  “Then perhaps it’s simply something that has always been a part of you, waiting to be acknowledged.”

  “How would I know?”

  Oh…oh, temptation was terrible. Terrible in how those firm lips remained parted so uncertainly; terrible in the silence that came with only the faint hitch of nervous breaths that filled Wally’s mind with wicked suggestions; terrible in how Joseph looked at him, normally so stubborn, so assertive and yet now uncertain and hesitant with a vulnerability that made Wally want to reach out and simply cradle his head to his chest and stroke his hair and tell him it would be all right.

  His mouth dry, his heart stuttering in fits and jerky shots that made his pulse pound with terror and wanting and hope, he shifted his hand just enough. Just enough to cover Joseph’s, just enough for those ridged knuckles to press into his palm again, just enough for those faint bristles of hair on the backs of his fingers to brush light against Wally’s skin.

  “I can think of one way,” he murmured. “If you would let me.”

  Now Joseph would jerk away again. Now he would give Wally that look, and say never going to happen. Wally waited, trembling, hoping, dreading, needing, he was going to explode—and he’d never thought of himself as particularly brave, but it took all his courage not to bolt so he wouldn’t have to hear it when Joseph said no.

  Joseph wet his lips, swallowed, his voice emerging thick, rough at the edges. “What if I’m bi, but not attracted to you?”

  “…do you want me to kiss you or not, you fucking asshole?”

  A small smile haunted Joseph’s mouth. “I think I do.”

  Wally’s breaths caught. His pulse became a torrent, a storm, and he leaned closer. The table might as well not have been there, not when Joseph’s warmth flooded over him. He slipped his fingers between Joseph’s again, lacing them together as he pushed himself up from his chair, supporting himself by leaning on their clasped hands. Joseph looked up at him, eyes dark, and when his gaze dropped to Wally’s mouth and lingered Wally fought back a sound in the back of his throat—because that look struck as deep as every touch, every kiss he’d ever imagined, pressed against his mouth in phantom echoes.

  “Then take your foot out of your effin’ mouth,” he whispered. “It’s not leaving any room.”

  “It’s not?” Joseph tilted his head, leaning in closer, his breaths soft against Wally’s lips and cheeks, a faint scent of blueberries and white tea luring him closer. “Sorry.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yeah,” Joseph breathed—husky, low, and the pit of Wally’s stomach drew up into a hot, trembling little knot.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Wally hesitated for only an indrawn breath longer—then leaned forward, closed that last distance, and with a low, needy sound he couldn’t restrain when this was the first and might be the only…pressed his mouth to Joseph’s.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WHEN HE WOKE UP THIS morning, Joseph never thought he would be kissing Walford Gallifrey by noon.

  Yet that soft pink mouth was sealed so lightly against his, and Wally’s shadow fell over him, his long, slender fingers warm and entangled with Joseph’s as if holding him steady when those ripe, curving lips trembled him in ways he’d never expected to feel again in his life.

  He didn’t even know what to do with a man—but right now it didn’t matter if Wally was male or female or anything else when Joseph’s world narrowed down to the heat of plush, yielding flesh, the delicate sugared taste of him, the sudden shivering bolt of yearning that curled its way through Joseph with a building tension hovering on the fragile cusp of breaking. Just this morning he had been filled with hate and fury and fire…yet with every brush of Wally’s lips, that fire mutated from loathing and anger into a quiet and building desire that had nothing to do with his body and everything to do with the empty ache that had missed such a simple, wonderful touch.

  He’d never wanted to admit to being lonely, but a part of him cried out in protest that the moment this captured instant of time ended, he would once again be alone.

  And so he held fast—lifting his free hand, slipping his fingers into Wally’s hair, lingering on how the dark strands fell cool and slick over his fingers, on how Wally’s breath hitched in surprise, on how he leaned into Joseph’s touch. He’d forgotten how it felt when someone responded to him, when his every touch and kiss and caress made them bloom into something open and vulnerable and needy, and he wanted that with an urgent ferocity. He curled his hand against Wally’s nape, drawing him closer, and where a breath ago that gentle touch of lips to lips had been enough now he needed more: pressing his mouth to Wally’s more firmly, testing how they fit together, nearly groaning when Wally’s lips parted just right until they locked together and melded and mated in a way that made Joseph’s chest swell with warmth.

  He tasted Wally slowly, lingering, wanting to imprint this on his mind and chase away the echoes of the last person he’d kissed, the last person he’d loved, when even if they were brother and sister…Wally and Miriam were so far from each other that he couldn’t stand for the memory of one kiss to taint the newness of another.

  Fuck. Fuck.

  He really was attracted to Walford Gallifrey.

  And he thought he might have been for far longer than he’d realized, or ever wanted to admit.

  Wally tasted like every sweet thing he had ever known: forgotten dreams and shyly twined fingers and the crispness of an autumn day, and Joseph dared to delve deep, drinking of him hungrily, need prickling under his skin—until Wally’s melting whimper stopped him, pulling him from his hypnotized absorption. Fuck. Fuck, that had been—

 
“Sorry,” he gasped, parting their lips, leaning into Wally, curling his fingers deeper into his hair because if he fucking let go, he’d have to be lonely again. “I…I kind of forgot myself for a minute there.”

  “Can’t say I’m complaining much.”

  That rich, rolling voice held a note Joseph had never heard before, a sort of low, silky thrumming that shot right through him in delicious ways; when he opened his eyes Wally was watching him, those dark eyes black as night and dilated, his lips and cheeks flushed. Joseph fought with the satisfaction that he had done that, but God help him he…oh, fuck.

  “Fuck my life,” he whispered, and touched Wally’s lips with his fingertips; they sank in so very deeply, as if one kiss had made Wally’s mouth tender, the lush sensation making Joseph groan. “I had no idea that would feel that way.”

  Wally laughed, husky yet shaky. “Caught me out a bit myself. I…that was all right, then?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, more than all right.” He traced Wally’s mouth gently, then shivered when Wally kissed his fingertips. Surely Joseph’s hands must be too coarse to touch Walford, a beast defiling a flower, tracing fragile petals he could all too easily bruise and crush. “I…fuck, I could see myself doing that again.”

  “With me?”

  “Maybe,” Joseph hedged, if only because the yes came so quickly, so easily, it was unnerving. As if it had been waiting years for this moment, held at bay behind the tangled wall of all the words they’d never said, until the day when a kiss cut down that wall and forced Joseph to see what he’d refused to see all along. He swallowed hard and pulled back, untangling his fingers from Wally’s hair. “It’s…not that easy, Walford.”

  Wally faltered, gaze flicking over Joseph before meeting his eyes; a touch of doubt sparked in that black gaze, a touch of something dark as fear, and Joseph hated himself for inspiring it—but God damn it, things were complicated.

  But then Wally smiled faintly and sank down in his chair once more; he looked down at their hands, still resting together on the table, then gently squeezed Joseph’s.