It was easier to react to things then sit around and think about them after things settled down. Val moved, he needed to keep moving and doing, to soak paper towels and lay them over the still damp bloodstains on the carpet. He’d done the same thing the night he’d been called about Violet. He’d kept moving, kept doing until days later after the funeral when there wasn’t anything left to do. Navef’s family had taken care of closing out their house and setting it on the market. All he’d had to do was sign papers and nod, but it hadn’t kept him busy. Those were the worst moments, when there was nothing to do and he’d been left standing alone in his apartment.

Now he was left standing in the middle of Trist and Gavan’s apartment. He sighed and carried his bag of clean clothes and shoes to the other bedroom. It was odd, Val wasn’t one to be afraid of the dark, but he found himself turning on the bedroom lights before be turned off the living room. It was the lamp by the bed so the main bedroom light could go off and that stayed on as he crawled into the bed.

The sheets smelled like crisp laundry soap. They were soft, of a high thread count and comfortable. The pillow was firm, the way he liked it and fit his head well. There was nothing uncomfortable in the room except his thoughts and Val was too tired to really examine them. What he wanted was a book, something to read.

Gavan had a small stack of books under the nightstand. Val doubted the man would mind terribly so he reached in and fished one out. Each book made him blush more, it started with a collection of short gay erotic tales, moved to a book about gays and lesbians in history. There wasn’t one, but two trashy romance novels but the lead characters were both men and the final book he pulled out he had to turn over to read the title.

“The Joy of Gay Sex.” Val dropped the book like it was a viper. “God, this is so not funny.” He restacked the books and shoved them back under the nightstand. It wasn’t worth trying, he clicked off the light and tried to go to sleep.

Only he lay there in the dark for what felt like forever, his eyes wide open. He could almost hear the minutes ticking off in his head and still sleep refused to arrive. It wouldn’t be so bad if his mind was working, but it had stalled and left him in blank darkness.

The bedroom door clicked open, softly but it was like the crack of a whip in the silence of the room. Val froze and held very still in the darkness but he saw the shadowy form of what could only be Trist slip inside and ease the door shut behind him. The moon was just bright enough to make out the shape and show that Trist carried a blanket and pillow in his arms. Confused, Val waited to see what the silent shadow of the man would do but when he saw he was still confused. Trist carefully crept close to the side of the bed before he knelt down, dropped his pillow and wrapped the blanket around him. As if it were the most normal thing, he curled up on the floor beside the bed and sighed softly.

“What are you doing?” Val whispered into the darkness.

“Oh!” Trist started. “I’ll leave. I didn’t mean to wake you.” He felt his face blushing at being caught.

“What’re you doing?” He repeated.

“I…” he sighed. “I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes when I can’t sleep I sleep with Gavan but I didn’t think you’d really want to wake up with me in bed with you so I thought I’d make do with this. It’s not so bad, I sleep on the floor all the time.”

God was so laughing. It was one huge joke, that was the only way any of this made since. Val sighed. “Don’t go, if I let you sleep in the bed, will you pretend I’m Gavan?” Which was a nice way of asking if Trist was going to behave or try to pull something like a goodnight kiss.

Trist nodded. “Promise, I just, promise.”

Val patted the side of the bed, the way he had once for his nephew and niece on the few occasions he’d slept over at Violet’s house. Both Kamil and Ziya had demanded to sleep with their uncle and they’d piled into the bed like puppies and snuggled tight against him. It had almost made him want children until he remembered that Kelly had no intentions of starting a family.

There was no pause, Trist dropped the blanket and pillow and crawled to the empty side of the bed. He slithered under the covers but he didn’t stay on his side of the bed, before Val could settle into the idea of not sleeping alone, Trist was pressed against his side. Not really sleeping spooned against him, but his curled up knee brushed the side of Val’s leg and his hand rested slightly against the side of Val’s arm.

“Trist?”

“Yes.”

“What are you doing?”
“Trying to sleep.”

“Is this how you sleep when it’s Gavan here?”

“You‘re not Gavan.” He hated it and half wished it had been his wrist slashed to ribbons not his arm in this latest fit.

Val didn’t speak, he just found an arm under the covers and tugged until the chilled and tense body was beside him fully instead of lingering to his side. Trist shivered, his entire body trembled but with a long, releasing sigh, he relaxed.

“Thank you.”

He let his hand stroke the still damp, loose hair. “Welcome.” He tried to tell his body that the chilled hand that rested against his bare chest wasn’t something to get excited over.

“It’s just,” Trist tried to explain. “I can’t help them all. I can’t.”

“Huh? All of them?”

“The voices, the spirits, whatever, there’s only so much I can do. Sometimes they get angry with me, they gang up, get noisy. They’ll shout at me, tell me all the things I tell myself.” He tucked his head against the warm chest.

“About feeling like a burden?”
“I am a burden. Gavan would be so much better off without me. I know that I’m ruining his life, I’m crazy, not stupid. He’d be so much happier if I was gone.”

“Don’t ever even think that.” Grief split across him. “Don’t, you’ve no idea what loosing someone you love feels like. If you care for him, don’t wish him that pain.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shhh.” He went back to petting the hair.

“I just, I woke up with the headache still and I went and got some water and got the Tylenol out but when I saw myself in the mirror, they started and I couldn’t get them to stop. They’re right, I’m so revolting, so pathetic.” He squinted his eyes shut. “I hate myself most days, hate what I am. I wonder what I did in a past life to deserve this.”

“Is that why you smeared up the mirror?”
Trist nodded and liked the way his face felt rubbing against Val’s chest. “I thought, if I couldn’t see myself, they’d leave me alone. I hate seeing how much weight I’ve lost.”

“But they didn’t?”

“No, I’d made a mess and they kept laughing, kept saying all the things you don’t want to hear from other people. I dropped the glass or broke it, I can’t tell, it got hazy about then. I just know that I had the bottles open and the pills lined up and they kept wanting me to take them, maybe I broke the glass then? I don’t know. Did I call you?”

Val nodded. “Yes.”
“I can’t remember. Thank you for coming, they said no one would. When you left, they kept saying you weren’t coming back.”

“But I did.”

“You did. I’m sorry, Val, I’m so sorry.”

“Shhh.”

“I just, for one day, I just want to feel…” He groped for a word. “Normal, safe.”

“We don’t pick our lives, we just make the most of what we’ve got to work with.” He repeated back.

“The wise words of your dear uncle.” Trist sighed. “Was he an ass or am I getting that wrong?”

“Do you ever stop?”

“I wish I did. Hate me?”

“Not even a little bit.” He confessed without thinking. “My uncle wasn’t an ass, not really, well, he just wasn’t good with people and didn’t like children. He was a stern man.”

Trist yawned and tossed a leg up over onto Val. “He hurt you.” He mumbled as exhaustion started pulling him down. “He’s sorry for that, says, he was wrong and he’s sorry. Says, he didn’t know shit, not his words mine, he’s a wordy bastard.” Another wide yawn overpowered him and he finished it with a sleepy sigh. “Says, he’s sorry that he didn’t try to understand, that you should forget all his shit and be happy.” The words mumbled off into contented sleep, snuggled against Val’s warmth.

Sleep wasn’t so kind to Val. The casually muttered words kick started his mind and sent it whirling off into random directions. He had so much unresolved with his uncle, so many words that hadn’t been said that should have been and too many said that shouldn’t have. It only served to remind Val that he needed answers from Trist, he needed to know how much of the slightly snoring man’s words were random and how much could be believed.

Curled against him, Trist twitched in unhappy dreams. His hands balled up into fists and he buried his face tightly against Val’s chest. It broke some of the random, circling thoughts that Val had been chewing over. He brushed at the drying hair, stroked a hand down across Trist’s shoulder.

“Shhh, it’s just dreams.” Val whispered into the night. “Just dreams.” And wondered if, for a man like Trist a dream could just be a dream.

Touch or words soothed him, some of the unease faded. Trist’s hands fell limply against Val, the line of tension between his eyes soothed out and he dropped into restful sleep again. There was no reason to continue to stroke Trist’s hair or arm but Val did. It just felt so good to touch someone. Tears for his sister, tears for himself, welled up in his eyes but they didn’t fall. Val sniffed them back and pulled Trist closer to him and slipped, unaware, into sleep.

Val woke slowly, stretching and yawning. He always slept soundly but something about waking up this time felt better, deeper. With another yawn he rubbed his eyes and saw in the very late morning light the indentation of where another body had slept.

“Trist.” He sighed and traced the flat spot on the other pillow where the slender man had slept. Val had woken once, sometime around dawn and found that they’d wrapped around each other while they were sleeping. Trist was a comfortable, warm, weight in his arms and Val had quickly drifted back to sleep.

He staggered from the bed and found the bathroom. On the counter was a hairbrush and a toothbrush, new it’s packaging and a tube of toothpaste, on the other side of the sink was a new razor and a bottle of shaving cream. He shook his head and yawned again, trying to shake off the final clutches of such a sound and restful sleep. He was still yawning when he pulled on the clothes he’d grabbed the night before and stumbled into the living room to find coffee.

“Hey!” Trist grinned from the kitchen. “You’re up!”

Val blinked, once, twice and shook his head. “Your toaster is on fire.”

Trist turned and sure enough, the waffles he’d put into the toaster for Val’s breakfast were smoking and burnt. “Oh! Shit, fucking hell!” He pulled the cord from the wall and tried to force the toaster to spit out the blackening waffles. The toaster refused and he burned his fingers in the process. “OW! Aw man, stupid ass thing!” He smacked the side of the still smoking toaster.

Val yawned and moved into the kitchen. He jiggled the toaster, smacked the side and the burnt waffles popped free. Still yawning, he turned it upside down over the sink and let the charred remains fall away. “Coffee?”

With his mouth hanging a little open at how easily Val handled the minor crisis Trist nodded. “Want me to get it?”

“God, no, you’ll set that on fire too.” Still half asleep, Val poured a mug and slurped on it black. “What were you trying to do?”

“Breakfast, for you, for your birthday.”

Val frowned. His birthday. “Oh, shoo, out of the way.” He yawned and sipped his coffee and let himself wake up slowly while mixing eggs and flour, milk and vanilla into a bowl. He put one of the nice copper skillets on the stove and heated up butter and in short order, was turning pancakes out onto plates. “Hungry?”

“Fuck.” Trist whispered, in awe of watching flour become food.

“I’ll assume that’s a yes.” He pressed the plate at Trist and made more pancakes for his own breakfast. “How’s your foot?”

“Hurts but been worse.”

Val nodded and slid his mug and plate onto the counter and moved to sit down. “Huh? How long have you been up?”

“Oh, hours now. I slept so well.” He sighed and grinned. “Got the blood out of the carpet. Thanks for putting the paper towels on the spots out here. Gavan has this cleaner, they use it for crime scenes, it gets blood off of anything. Took me longer to get my mirror cleaned off.” He took a huge bite of the pancakes. “Oh, my god, these are good.”

Val just nodded. “Are you okay today?”

“I’m better.” He nodded. “Val, I’m so sorry, I…”

“It’s okay, happens.” He waved it off.

He opened his mouth to protest that it shouldn’t happen but he shoved a piece of pancake into it instead of letting words out. Val didn’t look awake, and he didn’t look like he wanted to talk. “So? What do you want to do for your birthday?”

“Forget it exists.”

“How can you not like your birthday! You’re born on the most romantic day of the year!”

“My parents named me Valentine. Isn’t that punishment enough?”

He chewed and swallowed his bite of pancake. “We’re going out today.”

“No, we’re not.”

“Yes we are, I promise I’ll behave, I want to show you something. I can’t go far on this foot anyway.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Well, I’m going with or without you. Choice is yours, you can tell Gavan I got lost and wound up as some homeless guy talking to his underwear.” He grinned cause he knew Val would go with him. “I’m ready to go when you are.”

Which wasn’t entirely true but Trist never worried to much about such things. He had to change clothes, bundling up against the damp cold of the outside world but he was careful to shove his feet into his shoes after Val had left to go ahead down to his apartment to get his coat.

He was nervous going out, he always was. It wasn’t a fear of being away from his home or of the unknown, but the anticipation of trouble. As he’d gained some stability in this life, the day to day solidness of life, he’d found he hated to have it broken by the chaos of the world at large. With Gavan along, he’d not worry too much but alone, well, it had been years since he’d ventured outside while sane, without Gavan.

But the elevator doors opened and he spied Val in the lobby. Wearing his simple brown coat, collar turned up to keep his neck warm, looking handsome and alone. It made him smile, warmly, and know they needed to do this.

“Hey!” Trist called as he hurried from the elevator, not limping and forcing a smile.

Val shook his head. Trist was bundled into a thick, warm, black wool coat, double breasted that still managed to make the slender man look too skinny. There was a black knit cap pulled down over his ears and black gloves on his hands. Around his neck was wrapped what looked to be a handcrafted knitted scarf in varying shades of rich dark purples, blues and greens. The man looked ready for knee high snow drifts, not the relatively sunny late winter day.

“Will we need a cab?”

“Yes, there’s one waiting.”

“You’re limping.”

He hadn’t thought he was. “Foot hurts.”

“Then you should stay off it.” Val frowned.

“I’m not a child or a woman, I’ve had way worse, it’s nothing!” He snapped back loud enough to gain the uneasy eye of the doorman. They had orders to not let him from the building if he was acting oddly. Orders they’d been given by Trist himself with Gavan’s agreement.

Val shrugged. “Fine by me, if you make it worse you know we’ll end up at the hospital.”

“I’ll risk it.” He looped an arm around Val’s and laughed at how the other man blushed in awkward embarrassment while pulling him toward the door and waiting cab. The doorman nodded to them, his eyes checking to make sure Trist didn’t look anymore crazy then normal before letting them out of sight.

Trist pushed Val into the back of the cab while giving the driver the address. He wasn’t fond of cabs, but since they didn’t own a car and neither did Val, it would have to do. “I figured this was better than having me ride on the handlebars of your bike.”

That made Val smile. “Indeed. Am I allowed to ask where we’re going?” The smile fled at the serious expression Trist wore.

Trist rubbed at his eyes a moment, wondering how much to explain. “When I was twelve, I had to live with my grandmother. I’d worn out my welcome with my parents and well, Gavan needed a chance to be a kid. She and I, we don’t get along. Anyway, when I was fourteen we had this huge fight.” He sighed. “I ran off. She has trouble seeing things about me, I block her she says. I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. I made my way here.”

“You ran away from home?”

Trist grinned. “Yeah but what kid doesn’t think about it? I just have impulse control issues.” Val hadn’t, he’d felt smothered, felt trapped but never even thought about leaving his uncle’s home. Trist liked that the idea of running never occurred to Val.

“How long were you gone?”

“Almost two months. It wasn’t bad, I mean, I was loopy half the time but people avoid the crazies so no one messed too badly with me. One day, I was crouched by a dumpster, waiting for the voices to die down enough to let me think straight and this woman stepped up to me. I thought she was a vision, not real cause she looked right at me and shook her head. No one looks at street kids, so I figured she was in my head. Then she holds out her hand and says, ’come on child, I’ll make you some chicken soup.’” Trist laughed at the memory.

“So she was real.”

“Very. My family had been frantic trying to find me and with my Grandmother unable to see where I was it was a guessing game. They’d sent word out to others with the gift in near by towns, hoping one of them would pick up my trail and it was Eshe that did. It’s in her line too, her father had the gift, his father. They connect to ink on paper, she reads tarot. They’re good people. I stayed with them for almost five months. It was the first time I’d met someone even close to being like me that wasn’t in the family.” Trist glanced to his gloves and wished he could bite his nails and still keep his hands warm. “It was the first time I’d ever been around anyone that didn’t wish I wasn’t around. Even Gavan as a kid, he hated that he had to put up with me.” He smiled widely. “Not that I blame him, I’d run screaming for the hills if I were him.”

“I didn’t know, you two seem so good together.”

“Now, yeah, but hell, we both were kids. I’d worry about him if he didn’t resent me, resent what was expected of him. I was such a pain in the ass during puberty.”

Val grinned. “Still are.”

“True!” Trist nodded but there was no bitter sting to it. “So, Eshe and her father Nuru, they’ve been good to me. Anytime I’ve needed a place to hide, they’ve had the door open.”

“Is that where we’re going?” He suddenly felt ambushed.

“Yup, oh, don’t look so trapped. You’ll see why soon enough, I promise I won’t embarrass you too badly.” To prove his point, he didn’t snuggle against Val in the cab for the rest of the ride.