Behind his bedroom door, Trist leaned against the wood and let the breath he hadn’t know he was holding out. Gavan rarely brought anyone home, even lovers, but for him to randomly bring a friend home was unheard of. Even if his cousin wasn’t aware of it, there was a reason for it, and the reasons were still blurred and chaotic to Trist. The weekend would give him plenty of time around the silent, tall, man to pick the voices and visions apart and hopefully make some order of it.

For right now, he needed to relax. He’d been bothered by the burning itch to go deliver that silly message to Val that afternoon and had been in a state of anxious unease until he’d relented. Just when he was starting to relax, Gavan had brought the man home again. He hadn’t meant to pick so much off of Val, but once he’d reached out there was so much, under the steady, placid surface, begging to be noticed.

Not the least of which was the sight of darling Valentine writhing and moaning in his roommate’s arms. Sometimes being a psychic wasn’t all bad, sure most times he saw visions of violence, death, blood and gore, saw people at their worst moments but on the rare occasion he got a little jewel like this. It actually was lovely enough to make him horny and that was something Trist hadn’t felt in far too long. So long, in fact, that he’d forgotten what it felt like to feel something that wasn’t pain, depression and sheer exhaustion. He planned on savoring it as long as he could.

He pushed away from the door and stripped his clothes off as he made his way to his bathroom. Instead of letting them drop as he walked, he draped them over his arm and tossed them into his hamper inside the bathroom door. He had a nervous habit of cleaning and not being able to sit still when things were cluttered. The bathroom door pushed easily shut and he turned on the water to the shower.

He never minded being nude, but Trist hated the sight of himself in the mirror. Every year he was getting skinnier and skinnier and he was afraid one day he’d wake up and be gone. The more stressed he felt, the less he ate, the stronger, more violent the visions, the more likely he was to get sick. The more bad days he had, the less there was of him and the last year had felt like one, long, endless bad day.

What was worse wasn’t his own fading waist line or the way his skin looked pulled too tightly over his muscles, it was seeing the worry in Gavan. The bad days weren’t just bad on him, they were bad for them both. The poor fellow needed to get away from a few days and Trist only prayed he’d be able to keep it together until Monday. He would, he’d tie Val up and gag him to keep him from calling Gavan home early if he had to.

That made a happy mental image and chased some of the worry away from Trist’s mind. It wasn’t just that Val was pleasant to look at but he was so distant, so shut down that all Trist wanted to do was pry the man apart. There was anger there, deeply rooted and violent, such anger that the first two meetings had knocked him off balance and made him angry as well. He was certain there was so much more then just anger. Like a child with a fancifully wrapped present, he wanted to take his time and peel back the layers.

He pulled the tie from his hair and shook it out of it’s tight braid. It fell in wavy strands around his face and softened some of the starvation induced angles. He’d started growing it while still a teenager mostly because it had pissed his grandmother off. He’d kept it long because it had come to mean something to him, even if the few lovers he’d managed to attract had urged him to cut it. They’d complained it made him too much a cliché, a psychic with long hair was a dime a dozen. Trist liked it, liked the way it felt loose and free around his shoulders and back. It felt good to release the braid occasionally and let go of a little control, let things float a bit.

The water was hot and stream was filling the bathroom. As he’d lost weight, he’d lost all tolerance for being cold and found that unless the water was hot enough to turn his skin red, it wasn’t hot enough. It felt almost indecently good to step under it’s beating spray, the heat and water soothing the tight muscles of his back and shoulders that never relaxed any more. It was a physical pleasure, small though it was, and his life was too short on those. The feel of his hair, dry or wet, against his skin, the heat of shower, the comfort of being wrapped in a blanket, that was all he really had left.

Then there was always the happy little visions like what he’d plucked from Val’s head. There was no doubt it was from Val directly, all the glimpses were from his point of view. He let his eyes half close as he washed off, let the fragmented memories that weren’t his own tease his mind.

Matt had been tall, delightfully tall, all long legs and long body, lean long muscles. Val had liked that his roommate’s hands were larger then his own, he’d liked the way one hand could curl around his shoulder so totally. Trist knew that the only way Matt had stayed on the basketball team was because Val had tutored him, it was one of the reasons why they’d gotten along so well to begin with. The college aged Val who had felt a deeper bond to his books then he’d ever felt toward a person, had been drawn out by the popular basketball star.

Trist’s mind stumbled on one moment, one that was bright in Val’s mind and had been easily picked up. The pair had been studying, bent over a copy of some dry, dull English literature book. It made Trist smile at how most of Val’s sharpest memories were tied so closely to books, not a vision but a strong sense from the man. Matt had been loosing interest fast in the lesson Val was trying to get across and Val, being oblivious as always, hadn’t noticed.

Matt put a hand on his roommate’s jean clad knee. “How about a break?” He’d whispered.

“Not until we get through this chapter.” Val had scolded, missing the meaning of the soft touch and whispery words.

The hand trailed higher up Val’s inner thigh, instantly making him hard, making him forget what it was they were reading. The vision was so strong, even over so many years, that Trist’s own breath caught and his own body grew painfully aroused. He tossed his head back under the spray of the water and moaned a little, letting the vision consume him as his soapy hand found his too often dormant length.

“Ahh, Pony,” Matt had whispered against Val’s neck. His nibbling lips had sent shivering tingles along the body he was tormenting, shivers that Trist’s own body echoed. “I need motivation.” His hand, those long fingers, had slid up to rub in hungry circles against Val’s hard cock. “Help me, Pony, help me understand.” The breath had ruffled Val’s hair and pulled a whimper from the trembling, normally silent throat.

That was all Trist could stand. He never would have suspected Val could feel such passion. The memory of that moment burned so brightly, it pushed Trist over the edge. He cried out and came under the steamy water. His body trembling, shuddering, shivering in pleasure. For a moment, everything felt so good, so perfect, he almost wept, he almost forgot who he was and that the memory wasn’t his own.

As his heart slowed and the euphoria faded away, Trist found an interesting thought in his mind. Most times, when his sight picked up some intimate moment from someone else, all it did was disgust him. It was like watching a bad porn movie. Only this time, something in Val’s mind stirred him and he wanted more. As he finished his shower, more relaxed and stable then he’d felt in a long while, a single thought floated up. He didn’t just want to pry into Val’s memories of being with another man, as passionate as they were, it wouldn’t be enough. Trist found he wanted to be the other man, he wanted to be the one that drew such noises from the seemingly dry and passionless man. Under the hot water, he smiled a wicked smile and liked the idea of the challenge.

 

Val sat, just where he’d been placed, and rolled the beer bottle between his hands. The cold was a good point of contact to focus on and that was far more comfortable then remembering Matt. Behind him, he heard Gavan on the phone, calling in dinner for the three of them but he really wasn’t listening. It barely registered when the voice stopped and the phone clicked off.

“I thought I told you not to think about it too much.” Gavan teased but his voice was gentle. Val was still frightfully pale and he was staring at the bottle in his hands like it might have more answers to give.

Val shook his head and swallowed hard. “Gavan, it’s just, Matt and I…”

He reached a hand over to the back of the other man’s neck, the same way he could for Trist. “Hey, it’s not a big deal. I don’t care one way or another and Trist, well, trust me, he’s seen worse. It doesn’t matter if you’re straight or gay or neither or both, it doesn’t matter.”

“No, it does, it’s just, God.” He sighed and glanced over. “It’s good to know someone else knows.”

Gavan patted a shoulder as he slid his hand away. “Trist always says that everything happens for a reason. Maybe we actually spoke last night because you really needed someone to know that, it can be an awful burden to carry in silence. I do understand. I didn’t date a guy until I was twenty two but well, a secret like that isn’t one for long around Trist. He thinks the entire world would be happier if they were all bi.”

It took a couple of long swallows from the bottle before Val could even think his stomach and mind were settling down. “I can see how he’d scare people off.”

“Yes.” There was a theory to selling a home, the agent walks the couple inside and stays silent. Whatever they say, the agent agrees to and adds on along the same vein but never speaks the first word. Gavan had long since learned the same theory worked will for Trist.

“I’m not frightened.” He wondered if he meant the words even as he was saying them. Matt wasn’t the only thing locked inside his head, inside his memories, that he didn’t like talking about. “So, I guess you should call Wally and tell him to pick you up in the morning.”

Gavan hovered a moment between acceptance and uncertainty, too used to not getting his hopes up to believe. “Serious?”

“I’ve had odder birthdays.”
That broke Gavan into a huge grin. “If I didn’t think you’d deck me, I could almost kiss you!”

“I would hit you.”

That only made him laugh. “Alright, I’ll print out a list of phone numbers in case. Okay, let’s see…” His mind was spinning, it had been so long since he’d left Trist in someone else’s care that he wasn’t sure where to start. In the end his mind settled on the basic care. “As I’m sure you saw, he’s not eating right.”
“Almost anorexic if you ask me.”

“He eats, he just can’t always keep it down. It’s mental, totally, the more often he gets sick the more he expects to get sick the less he’s willing to try. You have to make sure he’s eaten but don’t sweat it if you find out he’s had like thirty twinkies or something awful. Anything he wants to eat, let him, it’s better then when he has no interest in food. No more than a single beer, at most two and only with food and no hard liquor. Alcohol doesn’t dim the voices, it just dims his control of them. Ahh, shit, sleep.” Gavan bit his lip.

“What? He needs a bed time story?”

“No, he sleeps better with someone in the apartment. I’ll put fresh sheets on my bed. If he’s having a bad night, would you mind…”

“Staying up here?” He raised an his eyebrows. “I think I could deal for a night or two.”

The breath he’d been holding whooshed out. “Cool! Nights are often harder on him, it’s the nightmares. Come on, I’ll show you my room, I keep his meds there.” His eyes slipped to the other bedroom, on the far side of the apartment and led Val toward his bedroom.

Val followed. “I thought he wasn’t on meds?”

“He’s not but I’ve all his prescriptions filled in case. We’ve some pretty heavy sedatives on hand too.” He pushed his room door open and let it drift shut behind him.

The bedroom was tidy, orderly and not what Val had expected. It had the same clean professional look of the entire apartment and little personal warmth to it. The bed and dresser was a light wood, the bedspread was toned in blocks of various shades of brown. Gavan moved to the bottom drawer of the dresser and pulled it open. It was nearly filled with dozens of pill bottles.

“Jesus.” Val whispered and he wasn’t sure the hospital pharmacy had quite so many.

“Scary looking isn’t it?” Gavan moved and sat on the edge of the bed and let Val gingerly pull bottles out to read labels.

“Pertofrane, Nardil, Prozac, Remeron, Ludiomil, Adapin…”

“That’s the anti-depressant side of the drawer.”

“Ludiomil and this one here, the Desyrel, they block neurotransmitters, the others increase them, they’re total opposites.”

“I know but I told you they’ve had him on just about everything at one point or another trying to get it to work. Sometimes it takes me months to wean him off that shit.”

Val kept digging and felt more and more horrified. “Lithium, Risperdal?”

“Ah, the bi-polar zone.”

“Clozaril, Geodon, Haldol, Thorazine, Jesus Gavan, this, this isn’t right.” He kept pulling bottles up and saw the increasing level of sedatives. “Some of these dosages, for how much he weighs…”

“They’re close to overdose levels, I know. That’s another thing. I keep them in here because well, depending on how bad the day is, he’ll take one, and than another and a fourth and sixth without remembering he took any. Not often but he doesn’t come in here when I’m not in here, it’s our deal. I stay out of his office, he stays out of my bedroom.”

Val dropped the bottles back into the drawer and pushed it shut, happy to have the orange bottles out of sight. “Is he suicidal?”

Gavan just shrugged. “Do I think he wants to die? Some days, but I don’t think he’s ever deliberately tried to kill himself. He doesn’t think like we do, if cutting himself up stops the visions, he’ll do it. Don’t worry, he hasn’t been that bad in months.”

“What triggers him?” He leaned on the dresser and finished his beer.

“Who knows? If he’s working too much, that’ll make things worse. Crowded places, places of death, like hospitals, cemeteries, or, like, driving past where there was a house fire and people died, he’ll get it. He’s erratic, he’ll get swayed by other people’s emotions, especially repressed emotions. He says you’re filled with anger, that’s why he was so enraged last night.” Which sounded really freaky and odd even to his own ears.

“Can he read my mind?” Val wasn’t sure he’d believe it but he had to know.

“Not really, he’ll pick up images, impressions of thoughts sometimes, visions of memories, emotions, that sort of thing. Honestly, I don’t know what he’s capable of, he’s never had to try before. Still not freaked out?”

“Oh, close to it, but I want answers.”

“Good luck getting them.” The doorbell rang breaking into their conversation with the arrival of dinner. “Oh, and be warned, he’ll swing from not wanting to be touched to begging to curl up next to you. Just, if he gets like that, think of him as a child. He gets scared, it helps to be petted and told it’s okay.”

“I’m not very good at that.”

Gavan’s smile softened. “Don’t worry, he’ll understand. After all, he has promised to behave.” He prayed anyway.