by Cole McCade
Yet Wally didn’t respond. His silence was a hovering thing; no sound of swishing paper towels or the click of a fork or the clunk of a mug against the table; nothing at all. Until he said, quiet and neutral, nothing more than:
“I see.”
Joseph tore his gaze from his food to Wally. Walford sat with his hands in his lap, his face a rigid mask of bland silence, gaze locked on his plate. But his shoulders were stiff, and he wasn’t eating. Wasn’t looking at Joseph. Wasn’t…anything, and Joseph swore under his breath, a little fillip of panic twisting through him.
“What?” he asked. “What did I say wrong?”
“Please don’t compare me to Miriam,” Wally whispered tightly. “She may be my sister, but I am not her.”
“No. No, I—” Joseph groaned, dropped his fork, and dragged his hand over his face. “Goddammit. I’m sorry. I keep fucking this all up. I didn’t even think you’d be sensitive about Miriam because of…”
Wally lifted his head fractionally. “Because of…?”
“Us. Because there was a me and her before there was a you and me, and you saw how I was about her over all these years.”
With a wan smile, Wally shrugged. “It does make a fellow feel like it’s rather difficult to measure up.”
“There is no measuring up.” Joseph stretched his hand across the table, palm up. “You’re two different people. Yes, I loved her. Madly. Obsessively. So obsessively I’m not sure that was even love. But you…” He shook his head. “This is too new to know how I feel about you, other than that it’s good. Good in ways it never was with her, and I can make that comparison because now I see everything that was poison with her and everything that’s equal and caring and kind with you, and how backwards I had things with how I felt about both of you for all this time. I feel good when you’re here. I’m grateful that you’re here. And that’s for you. You, Walford. When I woke up in that bed with that IV in my arm, the only person I wanted there with me was you.”
It wasn’t quite what he wanted to say. It wasn’t quite I’m sorry, I fucked up, I was an asshole, but it was a step on the way there. He’d get it out, soon. This was more important, when that crestfallen look on Wally’s face was fucking well killing him and he’d do anything to make it go away.
“Objectively, I know that,” Wally said—but with a sigh, he laid his hand in Joseph’s, long fingertips brushing his wrist. “I’ll simply have to try harder to remember.”
“I keep upsetting you.”
“We keep upsetting each other. We’ve still quite a history, and so many things to untangle.” Wally squeezed his hand briefly, then let go and picked up his fork. “But I’d like to show you something, after you’ve eaten—if you feel up to a quick walk outside. No farther than the yard.”
“But—”
But we need to talk. I need to say things. I need to make this right.
But Wally was still looking down at his plate, gathering up a forkful of food with stiff, reserved movements, and it didn’t take a mind-reader to know that Wally was still stinging inside, still hurting, no matter the brave face he put on it. This wasn’t quite fixed. It wasn’t going away, and they’d have to have a real talk about it one day.
Okay. Okay, then. If Wally wanted to show him something or go off on another of his mad adventures, okay. If that was what would make him happy, that was what Joseph would do.
“All right,” he said, picking up his fork with a smile he didn’t quite feel. “Okay. I should be able to handle the yard. And Wally?”
“Yes, darling dear?” Wally asked, without quite making eye contact.
“Thank you. For…all of this. For being here.”
“You have to know I’d do anything for you, Joseph.”
“I do,” he said, and now it was his turn to look away.
Miriam had spent years abusing Wally’s generosity, his kindness, his softness toward the people he loved. No doubt others had taken advantage of that, too.
And Joseph was starting to wonder…what really made him any better?
* * *
JOSEPH WAS STILL BROODING, BY the time they finished breakfast—and Joseph had forcibly insisted that Wally let him clear the table. Even if his hands shook, he still managed to clean up and put the dishes in to soak; although Wally fretted and fussed at his shirt cuffs, he finally acquiesced to allowing Joseph to do the dishes once they’d returned.
“It doesn’t feel right,” Wally muttered, and tugged at his cufflinks with little agitated movements. “It’s quite untoward. I made the mess. I should clean it.”
“I ate the byproduct of the mess.” Joseph nudged him with his elbow. “Let me do my part. Like you said, when two people share space, it’s natural.”
Wally sighed, then smiled ruefully and smoothed his hair back. “Very well, then. Shall we…?”
“We shall.”
Joseph followed Wally outside, into the mellow midmorning sunlight. The first thing that struck him was the crisp, cool bite to the air; the brewing, drowning liquid warmth of summer lingered, but the edges of that warmth had taken on a touch of curling brown and orange dryness, that particular cinnamon, earthy scent he always associated with autumn. The leaves on the trees dotting the yard still fluttered green, but they carried with them a sense of waiting, a yellowish tinge that promised soon they would be turning, and then would come the fire and brightness and a relief to the endless heat.
A cold snap must have come while he’d been out. He paused on the porch, closing his eyes, breathing in, letting that promise pour down his throat and bring with it a sense of peace.
“Joseph…?” Wally asked.
“I’m coming. I’m sorry. I’m coming.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “It’s just that I can taste autumn on the air, that’s all.”
Wally led him down the steps into the yard—a yard that was bizarrely clear of overgrown grass, the calf-high stands cut down neatly into a velvet carpet of green, the stepping stones little gray lily pads floating in a smooth emerald lake. Joseph arched a brow, tilting his head, and gave Wally a dry look—but held his tongue as he followed him down the path leading around the side of the house. The back yard had been mowed as well, tidied, the tools and wheelbarrow and other things left lying about now gathered neatly and propped up against the shed nestled in the corner of the fence. But it was the shed itself that made Joseph stop and stare; he’d not been out back in a short forever, and the shed had been left moldering and decrepit for so long that the boards had gone gray and wrinkled and weathered and cracked, starting to crumble—or they had the last time he’d looked.
Now those weathered boards had been patched in with fresh, smooth planks, the leaning walls shored up to stand straight. The square eight-by-eight shed looked fresh and new with a clean coat of paint in pale lilac, the one broken window pane replaced, both windows now hung with little white decorative flower boxes sprouting bright pink verbena in frothing clusters.
Joseph tilted his head one way, then the other, but the shed remained exactly the same. He wasn’t seeing things. “Wally…what did you do?”
Wally laced his hands together behind his back and rocked on his heels, beaming, his withdrawn quiet replaced by a brimming sense of excitement. “Spruced things up a tad. Nothing more.”
“That’s not sprucing things up. That’s a home renovation project. I—you—how did you even? I never heard the lawnmower, or hammers, or saws or…”
Wally burst into low laughter. “Of course you didn’t. You’re quite the heavy sleeper when you’re medicated, dear boy. And morphine is one hell of a drug.”
“So you did this while I was unconscious.”
“You needed the rest, and I needed something to pass the time or I’d have fretted myself into a nervous aneurysm.”
“You’re insane.”
“A tad bit, yes.” Wally’s smile brightened, and he cocked his head. “We’re all mad here.”
Jo
seph stared at him. He still didn’t understand this funny feeling he got in his chest when Wally just did things, but it was overwhelming, this unnamed and overpowering thing. “I don’t understand why you would,” he said. “I ran you off. I hurt you.”
“You were upset,” Wally said, as if it really was as simple as that. “Believe it or not, I love you even when you’re upset.”
That feeling in his chest throbbed harder, painful. “You like saying that.”
“I’ve been holding it in for over twenty years, darling one. I have some catching up to do.” Wally’s eyes glittered impishly, and he crooked a finger. “But this isn’t even what I wanted to show you. Come see.”
Puzzled, Joseph followed Wally inside—up the two steps of the shed, which had been resurfaced and sided with little white wicker weave framings, and past a completely new door that had been re-hinged and painted a darker shade of purple. Of course it was purple.
But whatever he’d expected when Wally had opened the door, it wasn’t what waited for Joseph on the other side of that threshold.
The entire interior of the shed had been cleaned out, scrubbed, whitewashed—and his workroom, untouched for years, had been restored as if new. A long sanded pine drafting desk took up the entirety of one wall; a chair sat before it, by its shape obviously designed for ergonomics and tailored for workers with disabilities. The black upholstery was half-obscured, however, by the fluffy pink checkered back and bottom cushions that had been tied on with little bows; Joseph stared at it, before tilting his head back, looking with wide eyes at the bright dome lamp that hung suspended from the ceiling, the steel workbench with its built-in soldering station, a dazzling array of gleaming new tools for everything from graphing calculations to cutting sheet metal by hand, some of them still with the tags, all neatly categorized in bins and on wall hooks and shelves. Many of the older tools and machineworks that had rusted and moldered for years had been scrubbed and sanded until they shone. Several of his engineering, drafting, and mechanical design books from the house had mysteriously migrated to the shelves, and on the desk an enormous four-by-five pad of graph and sketch paper waited, fresh and clean and untouched.
He turned slowly, taking it all in, his blood pounding and his head light. This was his workshop, reborn—his engineering workshop, and bloody fuck those were arm rails, arm rails he could grip to cross the room and maneuver about when the crutches were too unwieldy in the busy space, and he’d bet everything he owned that the mini-fridge in the corner was stocked with everything from backup doses of medication to caffeine-free fruit teas. As if it had been made for him, designed specifically for his comfort and his comfort alone.
Because it had been.
After what a dick he’d been, Wally had done all this for him.
Heart skipping, Joseph turned to stare at him. “How…?”
“Guesswork. A little more leaning on young Devon, who was really quite enthused. A few bumps and bruises here and there, but I’ve always prided myself on being quite handy.” Wally looked uncomfortable, and he looked away, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear. “I’ve no idea if this is everything you need, but we can fill in the gaps later, wouldn’t you think?”
“Need for what…?”
“Why—anything you wish, darling boy.” Wally glanced back to him with a tiny smile. “You miss it, don’t you? Designing things. Engineering things. Making things that simply work. Perhaps it’s not the same as doing it for a living, but if it’s what you love that’s all the purpose you need. Simply…make things because you want to. Create because it makes you happy.” He ducked his head, scuffing one shoe against the freshly-sanded, waxed floor. “…in a little more comfort than you might have before.”
“Walford.” Fuck, Joseph couldn’t stand this. He was shattering inside, and it was both wonderful and terrible. “I don’t deserve this.”
Wally’s smile was bitter. “Who ever said this had anything to do with anyone deserving anything?”
“I don’t even understand. Did you do all this to buy my forgiveness? Do you even know what you did wrong?”
“Not a clue.” Wally spread his hands. “I did this because you were upset and in pain, and I wanted to make you happy. Whether you forgive me or not has nothing to do with it.” He cocked his head. “…I wouldn’t mind a hint as to my error, though. So I don’t commit it again.”
“You want honest truth?”
“I generally prefer it, yes.”
Say it. Just…say it. Even if it was immature, childish pride, even if he’d taken something small and let it get under his skin like a grain of sand inside an oyster, irritating and irritating and irritating until the layers wrapped around it grew bigger and bigger…he had to say it, because it wasn’t fucking fair to Wally for Joseph to keep taking from him and taking from him and not even giving back an explanation for why he’d shoved him away.
“I wanted you to be more bothered than you were, when I wasn’t up for sex,” he blurted before he could talk himself into hedging, then blew out sharply. It was out there. It was out there, and it unstoppered a torrent of words, fumbling though they were, clumsy as if he was trying to grasp them and order them properly but his fingers couldn’t hold on. “But I would’ve been angry if you’d been upset and made me feel guilty for something I couldn’t help. And I was embarrassed that my fucking cock wasn’t cooperating, which isn’t even your goddamned fault when I wanted to be turned on by you so fucking bad it was killing me. I guess I had more issues with that after Miriam than I thought. Score minus ten for the goddamned male ego.” He forced a smile. “No-win situation, huh?”
“I do admit it leaves me with few options, but if it’s how you feel, it’s how you feel.” Wally shrugged as if that was that, simple and accepting, and Joseph felt even more the idiot for not trusting Wally to understand, to listen. Wally cocked his head, studying him with gentle, frank curiosity. “Why did you want me to be bothered, darling dear?”
“Because I wanted to feel like you wanted me. It’s been a long time since anyone has. People have this habit of looking through someone like me, like I’m sexless and celibate and couldn’t ever want…anything. When I did. I wanted you.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t playing games to get a reaction out of you, but when you weren’t even a little disappointed that you couldn’t have me…”
Wally’s laughter was both startled and startling, sharp and quick before he hid it behind his hand, dark-glittering eyes watching Joseph through his spread fingers. “Oh, but darling, I was.”
“You were…?”
“Quite awfully so. But fussing and bothering and making you feel terrible wouldn’t have helped anything, so I held my tongue.” Wally stepped quickly closer, erasing the distance between them, and caught Joseph’s face in searing palms, his smile bright and unfettered by the shadows that had haunted it all morning. “Never doubt that I ache for you, Joseph. I have ached for you for more than twenty long years. I would spend every hour of every day touching you, if I could. But when I cannot, my heart is full simply being near you.”
Ah…God. Joseph leaned hard into Wally, closing his eyes and pressing into that touch. All those shattered things inside him shivered, trembled, and it hurt yet he’d never known pain to be so fucking good.
“I didn’t ask you to be that mushy, you sentimental fucking bastard,” he whispered.
Wally chuckled and brushed his lips to Joseph’s cheek, cool against his unbearably burning skin. “You’re fetching when you blush, darling dear.”
“Fuck you.”
“Perhaps some other time, if you’d like to try again.”
Joseph opened his eyes, meeting Wally’s, making himself look at him even as fear nibbled the edges of this strange euphoria ragged. “What if I can’t? Ever? What if that’s it, and I’m no good for sex ever again?”
“Then we will be fine.” Wally kissed him gently, tracing his lips with a delicate touch, then murmured, “That, I am certain of.”
Joseph le
aned harder into him, resting his head to his shoulder. Like this, with Wally’s lean frame keeping him upright, he was safe to slip out of one crutch, propping it against his thigh and wrapping his arm around Wally’s waist, snaring his fingers in his shirt, clutching it against his back.
“I’m sorry I blew up on you,” he murmured. “It wasn’t your fault. Not really.”
That rolling, lyrical voice teased near his ear, a husky brush of sound as intimate as skin to skin. “Am I allowed to say it’s all right?” he teased, and Joseph laughed and pulled him closer.
“Yes, you weirdo.”
Wally’s fingers curled against his nape, and Joseph looked up at him. He wanted to say thank you, but something in Wally’s eyes, something at once sweet and painful, silenced him, and he wondered how many times Wally had been hurt by the people he loved that to him, it was enough to accept an explanation, and not to expect…
To expect better.
I want to be better for you, Joseph thought. I want to be better than Miriam was to me. I want to be better than the me I was before, the me who said careless things and thought only of what you’d done to me, and not how I could hurt you.
I just…want to be better, so that when you smile at me there’s not the slightest flicker of doubt in your eyes that you deserve better than I’ve given you so far.
He curled his hand against Wally’s jaw, tracing his fingertips over the crest of his ear. For this moment he let himself look at him, drink him in…before tugging him down to kiss him.
He wanted nothing more than this: the softness and the silence, the way Wally sighed and leaned into him in that perfect way that tucked them into each other’s spaces until every quiet touch of their lips filled the absences inside each other and somehow, from two scatterings of broken pieces, made something that was more than whole. He didn’t just want to kiss Wally; he wanted to know him, and he took each second that their mouths pressed together and held it fast until he was done with it: until he had taken every taste of Walford and every plush giving curvature of his lips, every teasing graze of caressing teeth and that perfect stroke of slickfire wetness, and completely savored each in that instant before moving on to the next. He filled himself with Wally, until he tasted and knew nothing else, and Wally’s every sigh was the pulse that made his heart beat, that stirred his blood and ignited a need that trembled in his limbs.
