Reflex

by Madelynne Ellis

  Luthor chose that moment to reappear at his side. Xane swore the whole room took a collective in breath. Gawd. Really? These people needed to get out more, consider getting laid, or you know, investing in a gay porn subscription.

  He briefly allowed his gaze to slide over his lover. Elevation from roadie to drummer hadn’t changed his attire much. New pair of shorts that were still stupidly weighed down with stuff. Still no belt, so he was flashing a slice of his boxer briefs. That in particular, made Xane’s fingers itch to sort him out. Of course, it was a toss-up whether that would entail dressing him correctly or relieving him of clothes altogether. Nine months of pretty much nonstop shagging hadn’t dimmed his appetite for this man one iota.

  Luthor smelled of Dani’s perfume. The two of them had disappeared outside onto the boardwalk for a while. It amused him how often they felt the need to slip away to enjoy a bit of intimacy. He didn’t give a fuck that the world knew the three of them were a thing. To his astonishment being outted as bisexual… pansexual… sexually fluid – he wasn’t big on labels – hadn’t harmed his image. So what was to say admitting he was in a poly relationship would be any different?

  “I think that’s the first time you’ve taken your eyes off Spook since we left the arena,” Luthor remarked in response to Xane’s slow perusal of his person.

  Xane shrugged. “And what exactly is wrong with that?” Someone needed to be watching over him after the shit at the arena earlier. Who better than him? He sighed as he watched Spook empty the contents of yet another highball down his throat. Pretty soon he was gonna slide off that stool and turn into a boneless puddle on the floor.

  Luthor shifted so that he was lined up shoulder to shoulder with Xane, looking in the same direction. “I never intimated there was anything wrong with it. What I don’t get is, why, if you’re so concerned, you aren’t over there? Also, the looking on from afar, guardian angel thing, is kind of freaky.”

  There were whole hosts of reasons why he was maintaining his distance, Ava being the primary one, but there was also the matter of how much Spook loathed talking about emotional shit. He wasn’t going to spill a goddamned sentence until he’d downed enough alcohol to fell a hippo. Quite possibly, he wasn’t far off that now. Then again, Spook was way beyond anal about bottling his emotions. It was just as likely he’d pass out before he uttered a thing.

  “You know, he should really be in the hands of medical professionals, or filing an incident report or something,” Luthor remarked. “Tranquilising himself with spirits isn’t going to fix anything. I know you’re pissed at management over Ava being here, but I’m more bothered by the callous lack of regard for his mental well-being. I’m gonna go talk to him.”

  “Don’t.” Xane stilled Luthor’s forward motion by clasping his hand. “Let him have his space. All you’ll do by crowding him is piss him off. He’s not going to open up to you, Luthor.”

  “Yeah, well I’m sick of standing around doing nothing. Xane, it was hard enough watching what went down with Elspeth when she went off the rails, and she was an absolute bitch to me. Spook’s never been anything but decent.”

  “He’s hardly out of control.”

  “Are you sure?” Luthor retorted. “Quiet doesn’t equate to control. He’s Swedish. We’re not particularly explosive. Do you want to tell me how many cocktails he’s downed since we arrived, ’cause by my reckoning that’s at least seven—” He glanced at his watch. “—in under an hour.”

  The actual count was nearer twelve. “I didn’t say that we should do nothing.”

  “Would you be hanging back like this, doing nothing if it had been me or Dani that jerk assaulted?”

  Apparently Luthor hadn’t heard Xane’s last remark.

  “Of course not. Trust me, Luthor; the bastard wouldn’t be alive right now if he’d laid a finger on either you or Dani. But for God’s sakes listen to me. If you start pressuring Spook, he’s as likely to break your nose as thank you for your support. I’d rather not see you scrapping. I’m aware he’s sinking cocktails like they’re fruit squash, but we have to let him deal with this in the way he thinks best. He’s an adult, with body autonomy.”

  “He’s going to wind up having his stomach pumped. Jesus, Xane, I’m not going to shake him until he explains how he’s feeling, I’m just going to stand at the bar with him so he knows there’s someone there if he needs to reach out.”

  “He won’t see it that way.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  Knowing him.

  Unlike the rest of them, Xane knew why Spook kept himself emotionally unavailable. He grasped the logic behind his desire to remain celibate, even if he couldn’t get on board with it. Sex for him was an out. Sex for Spook was… Well, it was something different. What everything boiled down to though, was that Spook had been broken before Xane ever met him. He’d glued himself back together over the years, but every now and then, something reopened a crack. The solution was never to sit him down and ply him with tea and sympathy. It was to let him work himself into enough of a state that all the anger, frustration, and hurt poured out. And then to hold him while it did.

  Was it a psychoanalyst approved method?

  Fuck no.

  Effective?

  After a fashion.

  It thankfully wasn’t often that something dramatic enough to knock Spook out of his comfort zone occurred.

  “Xane?”

  Xane dragged his gaze away from his friend long enough to turn to face his lover once again. Fear, hurt, and confusion were all there in his mismatched eyes. “If you’ve an explanation, I want to hear it.”

  He shook his head. Spook’s demons weren’t his to share.

  “Right. Then I’m going over there.”

  “Luthor—wait.”

  “Xane—”

  “Oh, fuck!” Xane cut him off. Bloody Ava, again. He ought to have been playing closer attention, because now the bitch had gone and got a gander at Spook’s mucked up face, and her eyes had lit like it was Christmas. Everyone knew Spook Mortensen was not the troublemaker among them. He was the blinking UN peace-keeping force. Hence, if you possessed any smarts at all you had to wonder why he was sporting a shiner and split lip. Ava, for all her many faults, wasn’t dumb.

  “Oh, sweetie, what happened? Who did this to you?” she screeched, loud enough for Xane to hear her across the room. “You poor thing.”

  Did anyone actually believe her feigned sympathy? The woman was an alligator. He could see the cogs turning in her head. Cue her gaze sweeping the room for the rest of the band, and giving them each the once over for signs of injuries.

  Rock Giant’s hands…click…trouble at the top…click. She might as well have been composing the next Black Halo takedown article aloud.

  “Shit!” How had he not realised she had a photographer with her? The guy was with her in a flash, his oversized camera right up in Spook’s face.

  This was going to go south fast. It was as if he could already hear Spook screaming inside his brain.

  “It’s all still on the rocks, then? Makes sense of why you’re all so quiet tonight.”

  That got her nothing, which could hardly have been unexpected. Everyone knew Spook didn’t do interviews; or rather he never spoke a word during them. Anything of that ilk, Spook was strictly there to provide additional eye candy. The rest of them did the talking.

  “Punch up, was it? You and Rock Giant. Must have been right as you got off stage. What did he do? Stand on your lead? Scratch your purple baby?”

  The bitch was deliberately speaking at top volume to attract attention.

  “Doesn’t look like you hit back? Are there sides, or is it you versus the rest of them? I notice none of them have been over to talk to you.”

  She was absolutely beaming. “Your fans are going to be seriously gutted when they learn you’re on the verge of quitting.”

  “I’m not quitting.” Spook’s words were barely audible, said as they were into the lurid blue co
cktail in front of him, but Xane was practically psychically linked to him. He heard him perfectly well.

  “Get out of his face, Ava. And stop inventing trouble.”

  If he could’ve physically inserted himself between her and Spook he would have done. As it was, he had to content himself with being close enough.

  “Mr Geist,” she oozed cheerily, leaning in and kissing him on both cheeks.

  His mouth was instantly full of bile, which he was sorely tempted to spit at her in the hopes she might dissolve.

  “Nice of you to finally say hello.”

  Nice!

  “So—” She lifted her hands and formed them into an arrow-head shape pointed at Spook. “—this is why you’ve been acting as a decoy? Didn’t want me to see the truth about your fucked up little band? Shit, mustn’t let Ava see we’re still on the rocks.” She fluttered her overlong false eyelashes.

  “What’s up? Your thrall over them slipping? Can’t quite keep them all in line anymore? Add one too many to your fuck team?” She flicked a gaze at Luthor, let it linger at the level of his waist, and scowled. “No, I’ve got it.” She further pissed him off by twisting a lock of his hair around her finger. The bitch had no right to such intimacy. “They were squabbling over you, and which of them gets to warm your bed tonight, and who only gets to suck your sidekick’s dick.”

  Xane pulled away from her, sacrificing a few hairs in the process.

  Ava laughed, flashing him her porcelain-enhanced pearly whites in a way that made his fists clench.

  Luckily for her, he didn’t hit women.

  Both Ash and Paul were now on their way over. This was going south fast.

  “You’re gross,” Luthor muttered. “We’re not all enjoying a polyamorous relationship, but even if we were, it’d be none of your goddamned business, and everyone in the world knows Spook wouldn’t be part of it. He’s fucking celibate, but maybe you don’t comprehend what that means.”

  “I know it’s a fucking good gimmick for scoring girls,” she crowed.

  “It’s not a ruddy gimmick.”

  Xane shoved Luthor behind him. “Cool it. She’s doing it to deliberately rile you, so that you’re tricked into giving her something juicy.”

  Her manicured nails scraped the front of his chest. “And is there something juicy to unearth, Xane? Some nice squee worthy piece of gossip you have for me? I’m sure you can give me something tastier than why your golden boy looks like he’s been in a boxing ring?”

  He held his silence by sucking on the back of his lip piercing.

  “Then again, those wounds are rather intriguing.” She had the audacity to tug on his nipple ring. “No doubt a little cash influx into the right hands will get me the sordid details.”

  He fucking hated how true that likely was. They had some clout when it came to the roadies—most of them were old-timers keen to hold onto their jobs—but the venue staff? They wouldn’t give a shit.

  “Better you tell me all, don’t you think, so that I can get all my facts straight.”

  “For fuck’s sake!” Luthor blurted, failing to keep a lid on his temper. “Is it really necessary to be such a fucking cow?”

  Xane jabbed him hard in the thigh. He’d rather concoct a bullshit disagreement leading to a fight between Spook and Paul than let Ava get her hands on the truth. They could easily laugh off a brawl. People got pissed off at one another, especially when they were forced into close quarters for months on end. Yeah, they had a bit of a barney, but no biggie, he could already hear himself saying in some future interview. It cleared the air. Everything’s good.

  “Go on, honey. Do tell all.”

  There wasn’t the opportunity, as Spook suddenly scraped his stool back from the bar. Glass in hand, he leaned forward, getting so far up into Ava’s space she was forced to take a backwards pace. That didn’t get her anywhere. Her photographer was right behind her, and the rest of the band stood in a semi-circle around them.

  Spook’s eyes were two blue splinters. His jaw clenched iron-tight. “Din jävla fitta!”

  Xane didn’t know much Swedish, but he knew what that meant.

  “What?” Ava retorted; eyes wide, and her cheeks burning with anger and embarrassment. “What? Say that to me in English.”

  Instead she was treated to a tirade of words in fast and furious Swedish delivered right into her stuck-up face.

  Bingo. It looked like they’d hit emotional jackpot pay-out time.

  “Spook,” he said.

  It didn’t get a response. The stream of venom continued, eventually drawing to a climax when he brought the hand in which he was holding his drink down hard upon the bar. The glass smashed on impact, showering Ava in blue curaçao and splinters of ice and glass.

  She shrieked.

  The bar staff all shot to the opposite end of the bar.

  “Helvete!” Spook swore, before turning on his heels and staggering in the direction of the gents. They were all left staring at his retreating form.

  “What did he just say to me? What did he say?” Ava demanded. She was unhurt, but soaked. Blue spots splattered across her cream blouse.

  “How the hell am I supposed to know?” Xane was way more concerned about Spook than her.

  Ava’s attention moved to Luthor, who had his hand in the long strands of his fringe. He shook his head. “There is no way in hell I’m translating all of that. Let’s just summarise it as ‘Stay the fuck out of my shit, you fucking cunt,’ and leave it there, shall we?”

  He turned away too. Xane followed.

  “Are you going in there after him, or am I?”

  “I will,” he said. “It’s past time we all left.”

  -6-

  “Spook?”

  Xane entered the gents’ loos, half expecting to find him slumped in one of the stalls talking to God on the great white telephone, but miraculously he was upright by the sinks. The tap before him was running, turning the glass cuts on his fingers into a sprinkler system of ruddy-coloured droplets. He made no response to the calling of his name, and none to Xane’s approach. Instead, Spook’s gaze remained unsteadily focussed on his reflection in the mirror.

  What are you seeing, my friend?

  Xane could hazard a guess at the answer, which was not the gash on his temple or the bruise around it, nor the similarly dark contusions around his eye socket, or his scabbed over but still fat and misshapen upper lip. The ghosts of Spook’s past were alive in his hollow stare. Xane had seen that swallowing void and the monsters that resided in it before. He knew their names. A decade ago he’d been reeled in by a hopeless sense of intrigue about the shadows in Spook Mortensen’s eyes. A lifetime later, he better understood the chains of pain, rage, fear, and guilt that entwined Spook’s heart and stopped him from being free. Normally, those ghosts were locked up tight, but tonight had sheared off at least a couple of layers of freshly grown skin.

  “I’m well aware I look like shit. It’d be cool if you didn’t insist on making me feel it, too.”

  Xane moved closer, so that his reflection appeared in the mirror beside Spook’s. “How’s your hand?”

  Spook shrugged. He didn’t bother to look down. The water flowing down the plughole remained pink. Xane shut off the flow, curled his fingers around his friend’s lower arm, and gently lifted his hand up to assess the damage. There were a couple of obvious shards of glass, thankfully none of them overly large, that he carefully extracted. Done, he brushed his lips against the centre of Spook’s palm, before pressing a wad of paper towels into his hand for him to clench.

  “Guess she hit a nerve.”

  “Has she pissed off yet?”

  “I didn’t stick around to find out. You know she’s not going to forgive you for that.”

  Real fear drizzled through Spook’s frozen expression. His eyebrows twitched, and two neat furrows appeared between them. The trembling that had barely been under control since the arena zipped up a level too. Xane held back from wrapping himself around Spook’
s body and holding him tight. His boy was still clad in spikes.

  “I don’t want her fucking digging. Like things aren’t difficult enough with one person on my back, insisting on getting more than I want to give. They’re not entitled. Nobody’s fucking entitled to know anything, or get anything.”

  “Spook,” Xane determinedly kept his voice soft. He turned his friend, and held him by the shoulders. “I know. Your past, your desires, what happened tonight, they’re none of anyone’s goddamned business. You don’t owe anyone anything. And you only have to give what you’re comfortable with.”

  “Right.” Spook’s tongue swept over his lower lip.

  “Right,” Xane echoed. He ought never to have let Spook come to this place. He should have split with him, got him away from everything.

  He watched him agitatedly shift, Spook’s balance buggered enough by the God knows how many shots to make full-on pacing an impossibility.

  “I want them all to piss off. Judgemental fucking arseholes. Why’s it so difficult to grasp that I don’t want to screw anyone or anything?” His arms waved in over-exaggerated emphasis. “Celibacy is a choice, Xane. It’s a choice. My choice. It’s not a fucking placeholder for some alternative sexuality.”

  They could argue that some other time, because in a sense it very much was, but the point Spook was making was spot on. He wasn’t off limits to the girlies because he was hiding the fact he was actually into guys. Nor was he ace. Only, screwed the fuck up, and drunk on top of it.

  “Ava, that fucking twat from the arena. Allegra. Especially bloody Allegra. You’d think after nine fucking months I’d have got through.”

  Xane pulled him to a standstill, then closer again, so that their foreheads rested together. “I think the fact you’re still having that conversation after nine months might be the reason you haven’t got through. You’re pulling her closer with one hand and pushing her away with the other. If you wanted nothing to do with her you wouldn’t talk to her every night.”