Absolute Zero

“A fuckin’ Demon!?!”

Oh Christ. Here it came. Harlem knew Lee would react badly. Like any sane person. It didn’t make the shock and anger coloring Lee’s voice any easier to hear, he still flinched, his back turned to Lee and his eyes on the coffee in hand. It was too milky. Lee never made coffee right. “I told-“

“What the hell, Harlem? A Demon? Are they even real? How the fuck can Demons be real?” Lee’s hand landed on his shoulder, and when that did nothing, he forced himself between Harlem and the bedside table, shoving him backwards a few steps with a firm push against his sternum. “It’s not like tha-“

“What did you do? Did the Demon give you…powers or something? Is that how you healed me?”

Coffee scalded Harlem’s thumb when he took a stumbling step away from Lee, that fast boiling anger starting up beneath his skin and making his mouth twitch. He took a short breath, trying to keep a grip on his calm. God knew that getting angry at Lee never helped anything. It only led to idiotic fistfights he had assumed would end once they grew up. Which, of course, Lee hadn’t done.

“Lee, just listen to me for-“

“Coz you aren’t supposed to make deals with devils! Ain’t that how the stories go?” Lee jabbed an accusing finger at Harlem’s chest, forcing him another step backwards across the motel room. “I might not be some…walking occult dictionary, but I do know that much.”

“Shut up!” Shoving Lee back, Harlem’s hand clenched around the coffee cup, crushing it and slopping scalding liquid over his arm. The cup dropped to the floor, rolling forgotten across the carpet, while Harlem bounced on his feet and waved his hand around in the air. “Shit, shit, shit, mother-fucking, cunting…Argh! Shit. Fuck, that’s hot!”

In a second, Lee was up in his personal space, anger replaced with concern as he grabbed for Harlem’s arm. “Shit, you okay?”

“Ow. Ow! Don’t touch it, you idiot!” Slapping Lee’s hand away, he made a beeline for the bathroom, shoving as much of his arm under the cold water that sputtered from the faucet with Lee hovering annoyingly over his shoulder.

“I’m not the one who spilt scalding coffee all over myself. Did you get burned?’

“No, fuck off. I’m fine.” He snapped, meeting Lee’s eyes in the mirror and surprised to find a massive, open grin on his face. A white flash of teeth and silver eyed amusement. Sure, Lee laughed at his pain all the time, being a dick head, but it was such a good thing to see when the bathroom counter was still speckled with watered down spatters of blood. Pale pink against the stained, off white linoleum.

He looked fuckin’ perfect, and it was Lee. Lee. Who he had kissed like, not ten minutes before.

Harlem’s eyes tracked automatically to Lee’s mouth. The mouth he had felt and freakin’…tasted. Yanked Lee down with a hand in his hair and god damn…macked on him. Christ. He was doing a great job of pretending it never happened. It wasn’t really surprising. He didn’t have the same level of awesome denial skills as Lee, and even if he did, that wasn’t something to be completely ignored.

Seriously. It wasn’t like it was going to happen again, or anything. He was a little surprised Lee hadn’t decked him in the face for it. Or even chewed him out. Which really made no sense. The last gay guy to try and lay one on Lee, talking about his cocksucker lips, had ended up with face full of Lee’s fist.

He cleared his throat and averted his eyes, spectacularly aware of the stupidly hot blush flushing his neck. Christ. What was he, a freakin’ teenage girl? It was a dumb, spur of the moment thing to do. Really, really dumb, and he was sure if he psychoanalyzed it enough he’d find plenty of logical reasons that explained his actions. Loneliness, for example. He hadn’t gotten laid in like, a month, and Lee was right there. Like, all the god damn time. And Lee was freakin’ laughing at him.

“Fuck. You’re such a Burk. There weren’t no need to go all Incredible Hulk on your coffee cup.”

Harlem ducked his head to hide his stupid blush, and snatched a towel off the rack. He dabbed lightly at his hand and arm, where the skin had gone red and blotchy, but was devoid of any actual burns. He’d burnt his hand before, his whole palm. Not fun with their lifestyle, because it wasn’t enough to put him out of action. Daniel had still dragged him out to do practice on the shooting range, and he’d ended up with more skin on his pistol than on his hand. “Shut up. It was your fault. You shouldn’t be so annoying.”

“Whatever, Princess…By the way, you might wanna look in my bag. There’s something there that’ll interest you.”

That caught Harlem’s attention. He dropped the towel onto the counter and watched Lee close from the corner of his eye. The coffee had been a distraction, sure, but was Lee deviating from the subject? He’d been eager to find out about the Demon three minutes ago, but it would be just like Lee to change his mind and, like the kiss, pretend it never happened. He decided to humor Lee, for now. Wait and see if he returned to the issues at hand. “As if I’m looking in your bag. I don’t know where you’ve been.”

Lee’s eyebrows shot up at that, and he snagged Harlem’s arm, all but hauling him out of the bathroom and shoving him in the direction of Lee’s oil stained duffle. “No, I’m serious. I got something for you.”

Okay. This stunk of a prank. Back in Salem, he didn’t go through Lee’s stuff as a general rule. It was a little different on the road, where they practically lived in one another’s pockets, but there was a shiftiness in Lee’s body language that made him nervous. It was only natural that he hesitated, mouth thin with suspicion as he eyed the bag. “This had better not be some kind of joke, Lee, or I swear to god I will-“

“Oh, just shut up and look already. Geez, you’re worse than a woman.” Lee rolled his eyes, hauling the bag up off the floor and throwing it at Harlem’s chest. There were a lot of things that Harlem wanted to say to that, but something about the color creeping up Lee’s neck made him change his mind. He looked… nervous, when he thought about it. Or shy.

So, humoring Lee, he unzipped the bag and shoved his hand in amongst Lee’s clothes. Shit. They really needed to do some laundry. Everything was grass stained, and sweaty, and Lee must have spilt gun oil in here at some point, because that was all he could smell. Wrinkling his nose, Harlem sat on the edge of the bed, trying to figure out exactly what Lee’s body language was trying to tell him. “What the hell am I s’posed to be looking for?”

“A brown paper package.” Lee grinned. Broad and bright, but tinged with his usual defenses. He was hiding something, but Harlem was clueless as to what.

Finally, shoving aside a pair of holey jeans, his fingers brushed something dry and crunchy. He couldn’t help the little triumphant smile that crossed his lips, yanking the package from Lee’s bag and spilling half his clothes in the process.

He heard Lee squawk indignantly, jumping to catch the ammunition box that hit the bed and bounced towards the floor, but Harlem ignored him. He turned the package in his hand, listening to the stiff paper crackle and feeling something solid and heavy inside. It wasn’t dick shaped, so that ruled out prank, and it wasn’t gun shaped, so that ruled out practicality. He really had no clue what it could be.

“Dude- be careful with my shit!” Lee groused, shoving clothes back into the bag and elbowing Harlem in the ribs. He winced, twisting away to kick Lee’s shin then retreat to the far corner of the bed before he could retaliate, holding the package between them like a shield.

“What is this? It seriously better not be some kind of prank, coz I’ll kick your ass.”

Lee snorted and moved to sit next to Harlem, flinging an arm around his shoulders. “Just open it, you pussy. I swear it won’t bite.”

Letting go the few lingering tatters of suspicion, Harlem ripped open the paper and felt him face crack into the widest, stupidest grin. So broad his cheeks hurt. He just couldn’t help it. “Oh, you’re fuckin kidding me! This is so awesome!”

“Yeah well. That’s coz I’m awesome.” Lee mock drawled, snatching the chunky old Polaroid camera from Harlem’s hand to snap a picture. Yeah. Lee was awesome. He was the most fuckin’ brilliant person in the world. Harlem had been looking at cameras for so long. Maybe he hadn’t had this in mind, but a Polaroid seemed so much better than some cheap digi, that would also require a computer, cables, printing, printer paper. All the stupid ‘luxury’ shit they could never afford. A Polaroid was damn awesome, and for a long moment Harlem was entirely torn between wanting to hug Lee and express his gratitude in a girly, emotional torrent, and tackling him to get rid of the pent up fuckin glee that had him smiling so bright.

He chose to tackle. Sneaking in a half hug before they toppled from the mattress onto the floor.

Lee landed with an oomph, lips stretched wide over a grin as he caught Harlem’s wrist. “Man! You’re heavy. My lungs!”

“Shoulda thought about that before giving me gifts.” Harlem didn’t put up a huge fight when Lee flipped them. Carpet burning his elbows and the back oh his head making a hollow thunk against the floor. Lee pinned his wrists and sat on his knees in a play fight move that would have Daniel blue in the face with annoyance. “Oh! That’s how it is? I gift you and you wind me? Well. Never doing anything-“ Cut off suddenly, Lee’s shoulder hit the wall, his words getting mangled as the two of them grappled like Harlem was fourteen again. “…Anything nice for you. I’ll just have to teach you a lesson.”

Harlem laughed, genuinely happy, as he wrestled his arm form Lee’s grip. Playing dirty, he pinched Lee’s side, listening to him yelp indignantly, then yelping himself when he got his hair pulled for the effort. Free for all, no rules except to steer clear of balls and pressure points. “Oh yeah? And what lesson would that be?”

“My complete and utter awesomeness.” He grunted, Harlem’s knee somehow ending up in his gut when they rolled, his own arm shoved against Harlem’s cheek, squishing his face into the carpet. “Admit it. I’m awesome. I’m the bestest Blood Brother in the world”

“Ow. Ow! You’re gonna give me carpet burn, you jackass!” Harlem laughed, couldn’t breathe for laughing, and Lee squishing the air out of his chest. With a heave he rolled them again, then again, hit the wall, until Lee grabbed his shirt and yanked it up over his face, smothering him in darkness.

He struggled and spluttered, one arm twisted awkwardly behind him, and Lee sitting on his hip, laughing victoriously. “What am I?” He crowed, digging a knee into Harlem’s kidney and yanking the shirt tighter.

“A two year old! This isn’t fair! Lemme up.”

“No way dude. Not until you say it.”

Harlem redoubled his efforts, managing to break his arm free and shove Lee in the chest. He tumbled to the floor, elbow hitting the carpet before his head, one boot getting caught beneath the bed frame, and one cheek smooshed against the wall, with Harlem pinning him down. Two hands planted firmly on the floor, both their chests heaving, and massive, stupid grins on their faces.

Lee’s eyes were so bright. His smile so wide and god-damn perfect. Lee was perfect, and Harlem wanted to kiss him, suddenly wasn’t so surprised about the desire in the first place. He hadn’t been before it happened, and he wasn’t now. It must’ve been sitting there, under his skin for so long. Because it was Lee. Lee who was awesome. Lee who he wrestled with. Lee who bought him Polaroid cameras. Lee who he stitched. Lee who was scarred in almost all the same ways. Lee. Lee. Lee.

The whole thing was absurd. Fuckin’ stupid, and made Harlem nervous and itchy under his skin. A little queasy even. But it was Lee, and it just made sense that he might want kisses, and closeness to go with everything else they shared.

Except for how it was something Lee wouldn’t even consider.

So with a breath Harlem let it go. Collapsed like a deckchair and wrapped Lee in the tightest, most crushing hug he could, face buried in the crook of his shoulder and breathing him in deep. “You’re fuckin awesome.”

He more than half expected to be laughed at and shoved off, but Lee didn’t even hesitate before hugging back, one hand going to Harlem’s hair, the other resting in a fist between his shoulder blades. Harlem could feel his smile, soft and glowing in comparison to the hard, natural strength that was Lee. That was so different to any girl. And the moment suddenly became more than it had been. Gladness and appreciation running between them is some weird tandem. Just happy to be there, with one another.

“M’ sorry your birthday was so crap.” Lee said quietly, air warm on Harlem’s skin. He let his eyes blink closed, smelt gun oil on Lee’s skin, and the faint whiff of Strawberries underneath. Lee smelt like strawberries when he didn’t smell like the road. And it was weird but good. “I woulda said something sooner but…you know. Monster claws and morphine. Not so good for my head.”

“S’okay Lee. You’re still awesome.” He murmured, shifting when Lee did, looking to where he fumbled to reach the Polaroid. Harlem rolled off Lee’s chest and onto his back, still held close by Lee’s arm around his shoulder, and grinned up to where he held the camera. Their head close, smile bright, hair tousled from their wrestling. Almost like one of those cheap couple shots, taken by people too victoriously in love to care how cliché they were being.

And as the flash went off Harlem wondered, just for a second, what it would be like to be able to turn his head and kiss Lee. Have Lee kiss back. Then it was gone, and his thoughts swirled into the red and purple hazed world of blood and death and Demons.

They both fell silent. Again like they were on the same wavelength. The same emotions running under their skin. Something like grief made itself known in his chest, for no apparent reason,

Harlem wasn’t going to break the silence. He wasn’t going to move either. It was nice there. Close to Lee’s skin, both of them radiating warmth from their soft exertion. Their ankles crossed, arms pressed together. Breathing in sync. Lee’s left hand sitting an inch away from his, not toughing but….he could still feel the buzz between them. Whatever had happened in Glacier Park, it was deeper than he’d expected. He could feel their link, like static electricity, even when their hands weren’t touching. Knew that his happiness, their happiness was built on proximity. On ease that was their solitude in one another’s company. On the fact that they weren’t just two people.

It was Lee who broke the moment, clearing his throat harshly in the quiet room. “So…we gonna head to a bar or something? Celebrate a little? You don’t turn twenty everyday.”

“Lee…you know we don’t have time for that.” Harlem sighed, hauling himself off the floor. He wished they did. It felt like years since he’d been able to relax, flash his fake ID and knock a few back. The two of them sitting side by side, knee’s brushing under the table, and verbally sizing up the women in the bar together. Though, both of them hardly ever got up from the seat. Just looked, and talked big like they would.

He scooped up the bag of supplies he’d bought, looking through to see nothing had spilled before setting it down next to Lee. Lee, who was glaring at the ceiling like it was the cause of all their problems. “I got you some food. Eat something…and not just the chocolate.”

And yeah- that got a grin, even if it was a little stretched. Lee immediately rocked into sitting, snatched the bag and dug out the ginger ale, strawberries and chocolate. Of course.

“Dude. Sweet.” He instantly made to unwrap the chocolate, till Harlem snatched it from him, ignoring his rumble of protest, and instead shoved a sandwich into his hand. “I said not the chocolate. You can have that after you eat something healthy.”

“What? This doesn’t even have meat in it! It’s freakin’ rabbit food!” Lee was looking at the sandwich like it offended him, so before he could do something childish like throw it at the wall, Harlem snatched it back with a sigh and replaced it with the chicken one instead. It still seemed offensive. Lee peeling back the wrapper and sniffing it. Christ.

“Eat it. Or I’ll take away anything with sugar.” Harlem said, before Lee could protest anymore, ignoring the eye-roll he got in return.

“You’re such a woman.”

“I mean it Lee. The shit you’ve been eating hardly counts as food.”

“And? No’ like I’m ever gonna have t’ worry abou’ cholest’rol, or choked arteries.” Despite his complaints, Lee bit into the food, words coming out muffled around his mouthful. “And don’t you go thinking I’m letting you off this Demon shit either.”

“So you were stalling?”

“Huh? No…I was just…uh-“

Harlem sighed, sinking down onto the bed with the throbbing beginnings of headache behind his eyes. “I woke in the woods, and Mon….the Demon…was there and-”

“ I can’t even believe you keep saying Demon.”

“Christ sake Lee! Shut up for a moment will you?” Harlem snapped, irritation curling the edges of his voice. “Just eat your god-damn sandwich and let me talk.”

Lee raised his eyebrows but fell silent. His face infuriatingly neutral as he looked up at Harlem from his position on the floor. He could be so frustrating, so damn stubborn and…and Lee.

When it looked certain that Lee would stay quiet, hear him out, Harlem took a breath. “Mon told me that we were in danger. The Necromancers want something from us, something to do with you….dying. Because you died, we, the both of us, can use The Dead place, The Necros are coming after us, Lee, and whatever they want its important enough for Demons to care. Mon said that if we want to get out of this mess alive we have two options…”

“Oh, this should be fun.” Lee rolled his eyes.

“…We either summon a Demon.”

“Because that sounds completely sane.”

“Or…” Harlem raised his voice above Lee’s, waiting for his complete attention. “Or, we can go back to Daniel.”

Back to his father. Who could possibly help them but was probably responsible for this entire situation in one way or another. And had possibly, definitely caused most of Lee’s emotional angst.

He watched the lightning strike of distress cross Lee’s face, glorious and devastating, before it vanished back into even neutrality, and could only wonder what was going on behind his eyes. Nothing good, judging from the way he’d shut down. Lee might not wear his emotions on his sleeve, but for anyone who knew him, his defenses were a good enough tell.

“No. We aren’t going back to him.” Lee said, hard and dry, picking himself up off the floor with his mouth a thin line. He turned away from Harlem and went to the window, glaring out at the parking lot and eating the food that would probably only make him sick. His shoulders were tense, muscle bunched, the faint pinched edges of pain visible on what parts of his face Harlem could see. Their wrestling couldn’t have been good for his injuries, healed or not…

With a sigh he dropped his head into his hands, trying to press the headache back into the recesses of his brain with his fingerprints.

He knew Lee was going through a tough time with this whole Daniel thing. The ultimate betrayal, but there was a limit to his concession. If they needed his Dad’s help…

“Why not, Lee? You’d rather summon a Demon than see Dad again?”

“I didn’t say we’d summon a Demon either, there has to be another way.”

“He raised us.” Harlem sighed, a little alarmed by the soft hurt that came out with his words, the grieving he didn’t really know he felt. Lee heard it too, and turned, the edges of concern creasing his forehead.

“Yeah- and a damn fine job he did.” Lee huffed, but there was no bite to the words. Harlem could see that misplaced sense of duty to protect raising its head, and knew that if he played the card enough, the ‘I’m hurt and miss home’ card, Lee would cave. It’d be a low blow, made Harlem kind of angry just thinking about it, and he dismissed the idea. “He did what he had to. He’d really never try to hurt us.”

The concern vanished, and Lee looked tense again, his glare fixed on the bedside table by Harlem’s knee. “You don’t get it.”

“No. I don’t. I really, really don’t.” He did. “What exactly has he done to make you so…so scared of him?” Harlem knew, but he wanted to hear Lee say it. He wanted to hear Lee say ‘he hurt me, just not where anyone can see’. But that was getting emotional. He expected to be brushed off, to get a scowl and a snide remark, but Lee was silent, and that, of all things, was more telling than any words.

Lee ducked his head, scratched the back of his neck, then seemed to steel himself. “We aren’t going to Daniel, and we aren’t summoning a Demon.”

“Lee. We don’t have a choice.”

***

The brake lights of each car flicked on as they slowed, and crawled to a stop, stacked behind one another for the length of the street, because the road was blocked by people. Or, not by people, but whatever had their interest enough to stop them in their tracks, and keep them from where ever they were going. On the other side of the bunched up cars a fire truck gleamed dully in the wet, and firemen in bright yellow mingled amongst curious gathered on the blacktop.

Glancing briefly to the passenger seat and meeting Lee’s eyes, Harlem turned Catalina onto the side of the road. Their doors swung open simultaneously and they weaved their way through small town traffic to the milling crowd of people who stood in a vague circle. Apparently unalarmed, but curious, caging in something on the road.

A prickle of cold crawling down his spine, Harlem eased his way to the front of the crowd and stopped. The dead, glassy eyes of a white horse looking up at him.

It shocked him, despite the hundreds of dead things he had ever seen. The pale tip of the horses nose not an inch from the end of his boot.

Tackless, against the wet, black tarmac its dappled coat was stark, the neck extended, head thrown back, and its long, pale mane like some morbid parody of a saints halo. Long angles and lines, smooth muscle. Its legs bent almost like it were captured, flat against the pavement, in mid flight. It looked nearly alive, except for the thick cloud of death that hung over its body in an invisible haze. Heavy and bitter where it pooled in Harlem’s lungs, and reminding him of all the things he wished he never knew.

There needed to be a reason for death. Maybe it was a car that had hit the horse.

He could imagine the horse leaping out onto the road. The screech of white and buckled metal, the heavy whump of a collision with soft, living flesh. He sought out a wound. His eyes flickering form the tips of the animals ears, to the hard, black edges of its hooves, but he could find not one mark or scratch. Nothing that could clue him in on how a horse had wound uninjured, but dead, in the middle of the road.

Lee shouldered up beside him, disgust, disturbed disquiet then schooled blankness chasing their way across his face. Harlem watched him fold his arms across his chest, tucking his fingers away from the cold air in a gesture that seemed normal enough, but would scream discomfort to anyone who knew Lee well.

Back home, they had dogs. Two massive Rhodesian Ridgebacks named Sid and Nancy. Daniel always saw them as tools for their work. They could sniff out and bring down Dead Dogs faster than any person, sounded the alarms whenever anything from Underhill was nearby, but Lee couldn’t have cared less about that crap. He loved them, treated them like members of the family. On more than one occasion, Harlem had come into the house to find Lee rolling around in yard the with the dogs, covered in slobber and mud and grass. But his love for animals extended past the dogs. He hated seeing anything hurt, or anything injured.

Or, of course, anything dead. There was just something so wrong about the pale horse lying on asphalt, surrounded by people. Disrespectful and disquieting It didn’t sit right against Harlem’s skin, like the sky reflected off the horses unseeing eye should wink purple, and the horse should stagger back to its feet.

“It’s an Andalusian, I think.” Lee said, his voice automatically hushed to match the volume of every other wondering, awed spectator. He crouched down, the heel of his boots grinding on the tarmac, and reached out his hand to touch the flecked, soft fur on the horses neck. He barley brushed it before he jerked his hand away and stood. “I don’t see any smashed up cars, do you?”

“No. What do you think happened?” He breathed, easing away from the velvety grey nose. It felt like the horse. The dead horse, was looking at him. It eyes so wide, staring, fanned with thick, dark lashes.

It was beautiful. Eerie, but beautiful.

“No idea man, but it’s creeping me out. Let’s just go.” Lee didn’t wait for him, just turned and stalked away, shouldering his way through people with his hands tucked into his pockets. The horse had disturbed him, for whatever reason, and Harlem felt the familiar coils of concern turning his stomach. Something was up, he just didn’t know what. Daniel always told him to trust his instinct, and instinct was kicking up a God damn fuss. Over a dead horse.

Dancing around the people in his path, he followed Lee, the car keys digging trenches into his palm.

There was tension back on Lee’s shoulders, and an angry abruptness in his movements when he yanked the passenger side door open and dropped into his seat. He was on that knife edge of anger again, and there were a possible million reasons as to why.

It could have been their earlier conversations. Harlem’s ‘ultimatum’, as Lee liked to call it. It could even be the horse, if Lee was feeling so uncomfortable that he’d hide his reaction with anger. He could have seen something, the way he’d seen Liam. Maybe there was something off about the horse after all.

Lee jumped when Harlem snapped closed the car door behind him, watching the road silently with his hands in his lap for a long minute.

He felt it, like the ghost of fingers over his skin, when Lee looked at him, annoyance written in the curve of his lips. “Dude, are we just gonna sit here? Turn around. Go the long way, or whatever.”

Spur of the moment, he picked up the Polaroid camera and snapped a picture of Lee, the protests going unheard as he held the printed image by the corner and watched it dry. Lee’s face faded slowly into focus. Soft and fuzzy, the way Polaroid’s always were, but capturing his expression perfectly, the faint lines on his face that, if allowed, would one day turn to wrinkles. The downward slant of his eyebrows, the shadows beneath his cheekbones, and flecks of purples trapped in one iris. They stood out. Bright, like tiny purple stars. Light flares that disturbed him. Reminded him of what Lee had said about everything that was returned from Underhill.

“Man, what the hell is wrong with you lately? You’re acting like a complete schiz.” Lee groused, making a grab for the photo.

Harlem jerked it away, tucking it and the camera into the pocket of the door. “Did you see something? With the horse?”

“What? No.”

“Lee, come on. These things are important. I need to know if you saw something or not.” Harlem sighed, rubbing his temple. “Did you see something?”

“No...well. No. I just…it was just weird. Okay? Excuse me for being creeped out by a huge ass, dead horse.” Abruptly, Lee twisted in his seat to glare, waving his hands emphatically. “Why can’t you just take my word for it?”

Was Lee seriously asking that question? Over the last few weeks Lee had lied to him more than he ever had. Harlem trusted Lee with his life, but right now his word was looking less and less valuable. But that was an argument for another day. He felt tired and worn already, grated down to his last nerve by Lee, by the weather, by what little money they had left, by the constant paranoia niggling at the back of his brain. Like he expected another Naomi to jump out from around the corner.

He was being haunted by the smell of death, too. He knew well enough that it was in his head, just his brain playing games, but every time he was alone, every time he saw a murder on the news, walked past a cemetery, turned into a darker alley, he smelt it. Like he had almost every other day of his life.

He staved off answering Lee’s question, putting the car into gear and peeling away from the traffic, heading to the edge of town the long way, back past the Laundromat they’d just come from. “The place I found is pretty decent. No electricity, it’s kind of old, but the stairs are sound, and nothing is going to collapse.”

Lee read the diversion for what it was, and sagged back into his seat with a roll of his eyes. “I hate squatting. Last time I got fleas.”

“That’s because you played with that stray when I told you not too.”

“Whatever, Grandma. I got dibs on the good mat.”

Harlem didn’t bother to argue, and after a minute of silence, Lee flicked on the radio, listening to the local channel play bad 80’s pop. He had the heater turned on high, and the collar of his jacket turned up against his neck, face tilted towards the window as he watched houses roll by.

The place was only a little ways from town. A narrow little house with peeling clap board and faded blue shudders hanging askew form the windows. The left side was crawling with vines, blooming tiny white flowers that smelt sweet and sticky even in the wet air. They completely fringed the highest window, situated in the centre of the house’s triangular roof. Shutterless, a gaping black eye.

He shut off the car, and they sat for a moment, listening to the ticking sound of Catalina’s cooling engine and looking out the front windshield.

It was Lee who broke the silence, socking Harlem in the arm unexpectedly with an indignant look on his face. “Dude, did you have to choose the world’s creepiest house for us to crash in?”

Despite himself, Harlem laughed, hauling ass out of the car to fetch their stuff. “Take a look around, would you? Make sure there’s nothing….you know…ghosty about.”

“Sure thing, Princess. You want anything else? Nails painted? A tiara maybe?”

“Just go, you ass. Be grateful I’m not making you carry the bags.”

Lee flipped him the bird as he turned and hopped up the houses grey front steps, the door swinging open easily under his palm, and disappeared inside.

Almost immediately Harlem felt his insides pull. A throbbing through his veins that was disturbing, and had him slamming the boot closed in double time. Lee had already gone upstairs once he was inside, boots rigging hollowly on the wood above, and Harlem unconsciously tuned into the sound while he set up their gear on the dry side of the room.

It wasn’t, nor had it ever been, a grand house. There was little furniture left, all rudimentary in design, no chandeliers, or mouldeirng piano. Even the wall paper peeling off the walls looked like it wasn’t pretty even when it had been new. Water obviously came in from around the windows when it rained, and there were probably a few holes in the roof, but the door was good enough to be barricaded, and a car wouldn’t be able to drive past unnoticed.

It was just a place to sleep, for a night or two, until they could get more cash, and with that in mind Harlem unrolled the sleeping mats and sleeping bags, setting them down in the far corner of the room. Lee’s bed on the outside, his on the inside. The way it had always been.

Lee’s footsteps above him slowed, then stopped, and it was the silence Harlem tuned into. Complete silence, like the inside of a tomb.

It had his heart rate kicking up a beat, his own fear overlaid with a strange, uneasy tug in his chest. A flicker, like something seen from the edges of his vision, before the sounds of Lee’s footsteps started up again.

Lee came down the stairs a moment later, his face pale and his fingers gripping white knuckled to the old, broken banister. In a second Harlem was by his side, pulling him close and checking him over for injury, urgency coloring his voice. “Are you alright? What happened? Did you find anything?”

He looked dazed, distant, and shook his head before speaking, a tremble running over his skin. “No…it’s nothing…M’ fine. We can stay here just…just don’t go upstairs.”

Harlem opened his mouth to speak, but Lee tore away from him, spiriting through the open front door to puke over rusty metal railing.

***

The purple sky was choked with clouds. They whipped, like the TV weather in fast forwards, though there was no wind to touch the high standing grass outside the tumble down house. Nothing but stillness so complete it was airless. Soft and tangible, but cold. Icy, as the Dead Places always were. Lightless, except for the ever iridescent violet that sunk everything in permanent twilight. Lee turned his eyes form the crumbling, shattered house, to the sky. A girl was watching him from the upper window. No mouth on her pale face, or none he could see behind frosted glass. The neck or her dress was high, choking her with white lace, and her eyes glowed huge and purple. He didn’t want to look at her, at the complete lack of humanity in what she was, and instead turned his eyes to the clouds that moved impossibly quick. They made him dizzy, the longer he looked. Gave him the feeling that days and days were passing while he stood and let the cold seep into his bones.

At least he was alone here. Not like in the woods, where the dead things had crawled to him, and tried to eat out his insides. The little shreds of his soul. And he really was alone. In the physical sense of the words. Liam was gone, even though the jade Wellstone still sat, heavy, against his chest, but the dead place hadn’t yet had the same horrifying, emptying effect on him.

His chest still felt warm. Still felt like it had his heart beating inside, and he realized without needing to think that Harlem was responsible for that. Harlem was there, even if Lee was alone, and it was reliving. So damn reliving to know this empty place couldn’t hold him. It could try, it could torture him, but it had to let him go, because he was Harlem’s. HarlemHarlem.

The Light flickered. Mottled and racing with the clouds that spun overheads, and with his breath empty in the air, Lee walked, with no real direction, around the side of the abandoned farmhouse. It was fields there, he knew. Ones that stretched for a long, long way.

The moment he turned the corner. The clouds stopped moving. They were gone. The sky dark as indigo, and smoldering against the horizon. Time was cemented here. Matched with the real world. This he understood on some other level. Knowing that when a breeze rippled the grasses here, in his spot, it was the same on the other side.

Almost immediately, he spotted a horse. Her head was bowed to the grass, mottled, fur soothingly white and grey in a landscape that was so much ghastly color. Her tail swished. Silently whipping through the air, and she moved slowly. A step here, a step there. Searching out the grass.

Inexplicably, Lee was drawn forward. He followed the horse, slowly, and reached out to touch its smooth shoulder, stocking soft, cool fur.

The horse huffed, quiet and contented. Lifted her head to nudge against Lee’s side, his hands sliding down a muscled neck, through long, silky stands of mane, then holding the horses heavy, heavy jaw. So docile. So kind and gentle. He didn’t mind this place.

“Hey pretty. What are you doing here?” He asked to no one, scratching the horse’s ears where her head was bent by his waist. Her eyes were closed, huffing quiet contentment, as he stroked and petted. Rubbing over her nose, up the sides of its face.

It wasn’t until he touched something cold and wet that he jerked his hands away. Looking to see his palms smeared with sticky, black blood in the ominous light.

He stepped back abruptly, disquiet settling deep in his stomach as he tried to wipe the blood away.

The horse jerked her head up, nostrils flaring, eyes flying open to reveal deep, dark, empty eye sockets, slowly bleeding down her face and neck, staining her beautiful coat in ugly rivulets.

The light changed. Shifted like the sun had done a full rotation, and the shadows about them were suddenly extreme. In the new light Lee could see all of her bones. The ribs poking out from beneath her skin, the jagged points of her hipbones. The places where her fur had fallen out in tufts. And he remembered with sudden clarity the horse he had seen on the road. Her beautiful mane a halo around her head, and her huge, beautiful, but empty, brown eyes reflecting the sky.

She whinnied. The sound shrill and piercing, but pained, stepping forward, blindly, and reached out for Lee. He could see that she was hurting and afraid. And reached out once more. Horrified by the blackness gouged into her face. Bleeding. Faster and thicker, till it was gushing down her front, over her legs.

She wasn’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t where she belonged at all. Cold and wasted, stuck in the go-between of earth and whatever afterlife there was. Heaven or Hell. Paradise or Pain. The horse was the first animal he had seen here, and she didn’t belong. Gaunt and staggering. In agony. Empty eye sockets that should have held beautiful brown eyes.

He didn’t understand how, but he knew, she had been bought here. Ripped from her body, left in the road, and trapped in this place of searing nothing, and she had come looking to him for help. Somehow, she knew he didn’t belong, just like herself. She knew he wasn’t the same as the scraps and tatters of human beings and monsters that whipped through this place like loose and faded flags in a hurricane. He knew it too, but he couldn’t help but step back when she moved forward. Sickness curling in his stomach.

Then she started screaming. Head thrown back, lips drawn over her teeth. The retched sound of a horses agony and fear echoing over the empty place as she swayed, then staggered sideways. The earth seemed to break beneath her feet, her hind legs collapsing like she’d gone through ice. But it was blackness that rose up around her hocks, pale gleaming legs sinking into tar that bubbled up from the cracking crust of a purple stained earth.

Lee could only watch, horrified, as the blind horse writhed and struggled with blackness. It clung to her, began to crawl up her skin, engulfing her flanks and peeling away to form a sticky, sludgy shape upon her back. It seeped away from under her, until she was floundering in nothing but dirt, with the weight of the darkness sitting atop her pale hide.

The smell of smoke filled the cold air. Thick and rich, almost overpowering, like he were breathing downwind from a raging fire, and as he looked the blackness began to change. It roped around the horses face and peeled back to show a bridle and reins, dripped away from leather gauntlets, metal, cloth. Run from masses of tangled, dirty blonde hair, and rippled away from a skull. A white skull like none he’d ever seen before. With jaws and teeth and horns that spiraled out into deadly points. There was a face, or something, beneath the skull, cast into shadow, and as the rider hauled one handed on the rains, the white horse, foaming at the mouth, lurched to her feet. To the jingle of chain mail.

In his other hand, he held a scythe.

The rider cast a shadow across Lee, and looked down. The sickness and fear so thick that he could not move his limbs. Couldn’t breathe past the cold and the smell, and taste, of smoke. The rider, with his gleaming sickle blade, was looking right at him. Lee could not see his eyes, but he knew them to be there, somewhere beneath the bleached, monstrous skull. It would kill him, he was sure. That’s what it was sent to do. Claim its horse and murder. Black and wrong. And still, he couldn’t move.

For what felt like an eternity, Lee was frozen in place with the riders eyes on him. Fearing the worst.

Then, it turned away. Looked around itself, scanned the farm house, and he realized, it could not see him.

***

He woke by opening his eyes to no more than the water stained sealing. Picking out patterns in the darkness and seeing flares of purple, and pitted holes of black every time he blinked. The Dead Place left him feeling sick. A coil of cold in his stomach that didn’t dissipate when he tightened the blankets around his shoulders. There was an icy numbness in his toes, and he could see his breath mist with every exhale. Pale ghosts of the warmth leaving his body with the air he breathed. The cold was uncomfortable. Not like those few times he’d come from the dead place before…Probably because it had been a dream this time, a real dream, if that was possible, and not a figment of his imagination. It hadn’t been his body that went to the Dead Place. Just his head.

Yet, undeniably the cold was there. Intensifying. God fucked cold that numbed his toes and made his anklebones ache. Burn, and kept him from drifting off into what he could only hope would be dreamless sleep.

He tried. Closed his eyes and counted sheep, but the cold was creeping. It rolled up his legs, slowly. Its frost bitten nails sinking into his kneecaps as it dragged itself upwards. An invisible monster that filled his stomach, and eased its way into his lungs, burnt his shoulders and hurt his fingers. Settling over him in a heavy, immovable blanket of ice that grew colder, and colder, and colder. Until he was finding it hard to breathe.

The minutes were trickling past. He counted out the seconds, his eyes squeezed closed as cold raked its unforgiving nails against his skin and dug itself deeper. Burrowed into every pore until he began to shiver. Uncontrollably. Tight tremors through his muscles. his body’s useless attempts to warm itself. The air tight and icy in his lungs, and the flashes of purple behind his eyelids slowly, slowly becoming a toxic wash that drenched him to the core.

He had no clock to watch, but he felt time crawl by. Waiting, like he did every night, for sunrise. Only for a different reason.

It was hard to focus on the shadows in the corners of the room when every agony was turning inwards, in the form of a chill that turned his veins into frozen rivers of blood. The sun would bring with it warmth, he just had to wait. Wait through the hurt that was becoming utterly unbearable. It felt like dying. Or waking up from the dead. Coughing and spluttering inside Daniel’s guttering circle of candles, the wrongness of death clinging to him like alcohol fumes.

The cold was smothering him. Draining his insides, leeching his life. It didn’t matter how many blankets and sheets he wore. They were useless. As warm as lying naked in the snow. Every ounce of heat sapped from his body and dunk by the air around him. Greedy fingers stripping him bare and leaving him defenseless.

Oh Christ, he was pathetic. It was just the cold. He needed to snap out of it. Open his eyes, unclench his jaw and his fists. It was a nightmare, that was all, and he just needed to open his God damn eyes and get over it. Except for how he couldn’t. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Cold crushing his lungs, his windpipe. Forcing fingers down his throat and trying to reach his heart.

Fuck. He couldn’t do this anymore. Where was Harlem? He needed Harlem, and it was weak and pathetic but he needed him to make the cold go away. He was dying. The purple was taking over. Shoving itself into his skin, polluting him like the cold. It was going to take him back to the Dead Place, where he would suffer like The Oracle, and the beautiful horse. They would tear him apart. He didn’t want to go.

Harlem was going to think he was so weak. His Dad was right, and Harlem was going to see it, and he didn’t want Harlem to see it. He was supposed to be stronger than this. He was supposed to look after them, and make sure everything was okay, but Christ. He needed Harlem. Needneedneed

God. It hurt. He was so cold, it hurt, and he was dying.

He felt, rather than saw, his makeshift bed move, distantly beyond the screen of cold. But when his left hand was gripped it set off a trail of blazing fire directly to his heart. Liquid heat that razed the cold in its path, and tore the prison of Lee’s personal Hell. His eyes snapped open, the sound of his own harsh breathing loud in his ears as he reached up and desperately tugged Harlem close. Wrapping his arms around Harlem’s broad chest, fisting the soft folds of fabric between Harlem’s shoulder blades. Waves of dark hair screening his vision. Warm skin, hard muscle and solid bones when Harlem hugged him back, pulled him close and held tight.

“Shh, shh, Lee. Shh. It’s okay. I’m right here. It’s okay.” Harlem folded, rubbing his hands over Lee’s skin and leaving slow ripples of warmth in wake. The cold was still biting, still hurting. His teeth chattered, shivers still shook him, but Harlem was there and he was so, so relived. He’d needed Harlem, and Harlem was there. With every ragged, shaken inhale he breathed him in. The smell of his skin. A blanket against the cold. The only one who could help him. Protector. The only one who would help him. Strong and unwavering and so unfamiliarly sure.

It was a hard image to place alongside every picture Lee had of Harlem. It didn’t fit with the kid Lee remembered. The one who tripped and cried because he grazed his knee, or got pissed because Lee ate all the ice-cream before he got a bowl. But it was Harlem. Wiping him clean of every taint with the fire he sent rushing through Lee’s veins. The matching rhythm of their hearts, the washing, even tides of their shared blood, and the bonds of so many years. Harlem was strong. Harlem was smart. He deserved so much better than what Lee could give, but Christ. Lee could never be strong enough to let go a second time. He was pathetic, but he needed Harlem. Like air.

He’d die for Harlem. As many times as he needed to, but he wouldn’t let him go.

“Fuck, Lee. You’re so cold.” Harlem whispered, warm air against his cheek. yanking the blankets up tight, and curling around Lee. Lee, who was only quiet. Couldn’t find the words beyond his sudden, weary fatigue, and the relief of warmth slowly burning through his skin. There was fear in Harlem’s voice, and he felt gutless for putting it there. Harlem should never need to worry for him. Never, never.

In the dark, Harlem’s eyes were shadows, but Lee knew his face so well. Had so many memories, knew every expression Harlem ever made, even if he couldn’t always know what they meant. He knew how smart Harlem was. How intelligent. So much smarter than himself. He knew the cunning that could burn behind his eyes. He knew the contours of hard bones, so similar to Daniels, yet so different. The nearly feline grace to his every movement. The sharp definition of his cheekbones, the curve of his mouth.

He knew what Harlem’s mouth felt like. Tasted like. He knew how Harlem kissed. Hard and demanding. Shocking the air from Lee’s lungs, shaking his foundation, caused him to really, really look at the kid Harlem no longer was.

Forcing his numb lips to move, the air that left his lungs felt cold. Ice tinted words that faded inside Harlem’s space. “Don’t- Don’t worry. I’m better…I’m better now.”

“Christ. You scared me.” Harlem sighed, dropping his head against the pillow. Their noses close enough to touch. Sharing air. Harlem’s calloused fingers curling into the hair on the back of Lee’s head. Making him feel strangely mute and humble, uncomfortable but so safe.

This was too close, too familiar, but he didn’t want to move. Not yet.

Instead, he let his eyes slide back closed. That way he didn’t have to look at Harlem. Just let memories play against the inside of his eyelids like a movie. Like long nights in the Cabin, supervising the fire in the den and watching Harlem melt marshmallows on a fork. Laughing when they melted and got in Harlem’s hair, or dripped on his clothes, but secretly afraid he’d burn himself.

Lee’s last clear, perfectly happy memory. Going fuzzy around the edges and ending right before the Cabin window shattered and…

Harlem ran his fingertips over the notches on Lee’s spine at the base of his neck. Their left hands still linked, little welling pools of warmth that ran through Lee’s veins and heated him from the inside out, chased the vicious cold from his skin. Replaced it with familiarity. Heavy and comforting.

His head swam. Eyes weighed down with lead, and the warm, hard comfort of Harlem so close. Nearly his whole body covered. Nearly every inch touching, legs tangled, the sheets hemming them in. Their heartbeats in rhythm, pumping shared blood and static through their veins. He felt Harlem’s hand tighten, pressing down against the points of his star. The shift of clothes and blankets dull against his skin when the warmth pouring from Harlem brunt through the feeble layers, slowly filling his chest, and his head. Like the later days of a Salem summer, when the ocean was lit white by the setting sun, and clouds piled high in the distance. Water turning to a beaten field of gold, the fringes of heaven seated on the horizon, and grains of sand beneath his palms still warm with the slowly ebbing day.

“Harlem.” He spoke quiet. His voice a lull between them, his lips moving against skin. Harlem’s fingers curled through his hair, tickled his skin, and he felt the shift and bunch of muscle and bone beneath his palms as Harlem moved them, tugged Lee closer still. The shift fitting them together perfectly. Line for line. Right down to the pale press of lips. The one he barely noticed through the unburning inferno that wrapped him, safe and close, in possessive, loving fingers. A simply pursuit of closeness, the soft chase of a kiss that was barley there.

The air between them vanished. All Lee could taste, and smell, and feel was Harlem. His world reduced to the friendly fire that threaded through his blood in lapping, reaching coils, and left him breathless. Thoughtless to all but Harlem’s fingers through his hair. The strange sinking sensation of becoming less than two people, tiny flashes of electricity, the blackness of whole and complete comfort. He let himself be led into the feeling. The curve of Harlem’s mouth beneath his. Soft lips and softer intentions, pulling spots of smoldering red up behind his eyelids, until he was burning, kindly, from the inside out.

It was everything.

Like years, and the only peace he had ever known. The warmth turning inwards to focus somewhere at his core, and filling his head with liquid amber. The kiss close, closed mouth until they breathed, warm air passing between them, the space quickly sealed. Harlem keeping him close, the soft, warm slide of their mouths becoming deeper. Fixed, leaving spinning circles inside Lee’s head. Nothing mattered. Nothing at all.

Except for how it did.

The white gleam of a horned skull filtered through the gold, somewhere, and Lee became suddenly aware of himself once more. His heart was beating fast and hard, frantic like a frightened rabbits, his veins singing with the all too familiar twinge of lust, and at the very same time he and Harlem separated their hands.

For a long, heavy moment they watched one another in the dark, wide eyes and racing heartbeats reflected back. Like neither of them believed it had happened again.

Almost immediately, Lee felt the twist of unease in his stomach. The one he’d come to recognize as guilt, and felt a flush of shame creep up the back of his neck. Neither of them moved, and Lee could still feel the coil of familiarity in his chest that was somehow Harlem. The odd, weighty sensation of being not all of one person, but more than just himself. The one that had followed him around since the incident in the woods, and made him ache confusingly when it wasn’t like this. Whatever this was. Proximity? God. What the hell must Harlem think of him? He was so pathetic. Freaking out because of the cold. Needing Harlem to keep him warm, then kissing him, like a faggot.

His stomach turned in on itself. Twisted and uncomfortable, every breath of Harlem scented air feeling like it wasn’t getting to his brain, where he needed it. Harlem must think he was such a freak. Fag. For…for.

He swallowed, feeling Harlem draw his hand away from where it sat against Lee’s neck, leaving space for the cold to creep in and leech away the warmth still clinging to his skin. Reminding him exactly where he was, in an old tumble down house, where a girl in white lace died in her bedroom, and the blackness pushed on him, like the cold, to open a gulf beneath his feet.

This was it, Harlem was going to call him weak and leave him. He couldn’t help but flinch, waiting for a scoff, turning his face to the pillow like a pathetic, cowering baby.

But it didn’t happen. Harlem’s fingertips flickered uncertainly over his skin, then he settled his hand back against Lee’s shoulder. “Shit, Lee.” He breathed, his voice tinted with what Lee could recognize as fear. Fear that he’d put there. What he didn’t get was why Harlem was still there. “Shit. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

The unhappy edge to his speech redoubled, but Lee was suddenly confused. Why was Harlem apologizing?

He caught Harlem’s expression in the darkness. That it mirrored his own confusion, but had the shadows of the unidentifiable. A look that Lee couldn’t read anymore than he could speak Italian. It could be disgust, though. Looked awfully similar, and had his insides twisting when Harlem went to move away, hiding his face in darkness.

Lee’s hand clenched in Harlem’s shirt before he gave it permission. But once it was there it refused to let go. Harlem turned to look at him, was still and silent for a second that seemed to stretch. Whatever he saw on Lee’s face made him stop, and he lay back down beside him, inches between them, but his hand, solid and scarred, went back to Lee’s shoulder.

Lee bottled away his relief, his absolute gratitude. Shut it up behind thinned lips and closed eyes and let warmth seep back in under his skin. Because he knew, at some level, he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve Harlem’s love. It took him a stupidly long time to relax, listening to the slow, deep, in out of Harlem’s breathing. Matching every inhale and exhale, then eventually opening his eyes. Feeling sick inside his skin but knowing he couldn’t just leave Harlem without a word of explanation.

But what did he say? I’m sorry I failed you. Or. I’m sorry I’m not who I’m supposed to be.

It surprised him when Harlem spoke first. Words pitched low, without the tremors of before. “I promise I won’t do it again.” He said. Fingertips ghosting over the lines of The Rosy Cross that scared Lee’s skin. Habitual and familiar. “I’m sorry.”

But the words, the apology, only unsettled Lee more.

“What for?” He whispered with a frown turning his lips. Trying to keep his voice steady and surprised when it came out clear and dignified. Himself, and not the sketchy noise inside his head. Maybe because he was sure that Harlem had nothing to apologies for.

“For…kissing you. Again.” Harlem ducked his head, dark waves of hair covering his face and eye’s. It wasn’t necessary. In the black Lee couldn’t see much past planes and shadows. If Harlem was trying to hide something in this light, he’d give it away with his body, and not whatever expression he wore. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me…”

What’s wrong? Whats-

Lee didn’t know if he felt better or worse. His stomach did that nasty turn again, and his chest felt too empty. Helium instead of oxygen. Cold instead of warm with Harlem. Because of a kiss, which hadn’t made any sense, because Lee had kissed Harlem. Or he thought he had. He’d at least kissed him back. There was nothing wrong with Harlem. Nothing. If it was anybody’s fault it was Lee’s. For needing a god damn cuddle because he had a nightmare and got cold. But it wasn’t Harlem. No fuckin way.

Before he realized what he was doing, Lee was sitting up, their roles reversed as Harlem caught his sleeve to stop him, and rushed explanation bubbling form his lips that sounded so much more like the teenager Harlem had been a short while ago. “I know you didn’t want it….I have no clue what the fuck is wrong with me but I’m-”

“There nothing wrong with you.” Lee cut him off. A little shocked by the vehemence of his own words. His old protective self rose up with force, shoving fear and pathetic weakness to the background. He needed to make sure that Harlem was okay. That he never said or thought stupid things like that.

They were talking about a kiss here. A kiss Lee had reciprocated. Might have started. On the thought his eyes turned to the contour of Harlem’s mouth, their position mirroring the first kiss in the motel room. That had been different. Rough and demanding, a kiss. This time it had been a touch. So close and warm and home with Harlem’s light burning in his chest. Both completely different to anything he had experienced before.

Not a girl. Not a stranger.

The one person in the world he shared a heartbeat with.

He wanted it. Would take as much of that home as he could get if it didn’t make him sick with alien nerves and anxiety.

There was nothing wrong with Harlem.

He brushed back hair from Harlem’s face and leant down. Reassurance, love, devotion, compounded into the kiss he pressed to the corner of Harlem’s mouth. Soft, warm skin and smooth lips, a faint, nervous hitch of breath that had his heart beating off kilter, before he drew away. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Somehow, when he lay beside Harlem, touching from shoulder to shin, he felt lighter. The fire in his chest that was purely Harlem’s glowed with something new, and he felt the thing between them tug him close. They were silent, Harlem moving to twine their fingers together. Restart the steady pulse. His voice barely above a whisper when he spoke. “You were dreaming, weren’t you.”

Those little words meant more than they were. They stirred equal parts of pride and fear in Lee’s chest, because Harlem was so smart he knew without having to ask. He knew it had been more than a dream. Something important, significant.

“About the horse on the road. And a Demon.” He said, quiet. His eyes on the ceiling above his head. Where he heard the dead girls feet move if he listened close enough. Heard her stifled sobs. The sound of Harlem’s breathing blocked her out, and unconsciously, Lee matched the rise and fall of their chests. Not thinking about kisses, or the sense of being more than one person.

“You need to make a decision.” Harlem mumbled. Lee only nodded.

They slept. Lee was warm, and with their hands linked, the purple faded from the inside of his eyelids.

***

Harlem knew something was wrong when Lee came to pick him up from class.

It was freezing. The heater had died the day before, and Harlem had been told off by the teacher for kicking it and saying ‘this thing is fucked’, the way Lee would have. Mrs. Lydon had never liked him, though he did well in her class, and she was busy scolding him for doodling guns next to his division sums when there was a knock on the classrooms cream painted door.

The Deputy principal was peering in through the glass pane in the door, her hair a white mass of frizz on top of her head. Mrs. Lydon sighed, and hurried away from Harlem’s desk, the click of he heels muffled on the standardized navy carpet that every school seemed to have.

He watched her go, the cold feeling in his stomach, a feeling he’d been carrying around all day, and had nothing to do with the weather, tightening into an uncomfortable ball.

Beside him, Shelby Cox drew a flower in pink gel pen on her pencil case, her attention half on the picture, half on Harlem’s dark eyes. He noticed her looking and grinned, false, but bright, elbowing her under the table. “Dragon ladies come to take you away, Shelby. You’re gonna go to the dungeon.”

The girl rolled her eyes, though the action didn’t hide the faint blush that rose to her cheeks.

They didn’t pay attention to the two adults talking quietly by the door. Not until Mrs. Lydon turned and called out. “Harlem, would you come here please?”

Her voice was uncharacteristically soft, and he shared a look with Shelby before scraping his chair backwards and winding through the desks to the door.

More than the look on the Deputy’s face, more than sympathetic pat he got from Mrs. Lydon, it was Lee’s presence by the stairs that turned the pit into a crevasse. He knew something was wrong, just looking at Lee. The tenseness to his shoulders, and the calculated blankness on his face. He didn’t listen to whatever the teachers were saying, just went straight to Lee’s side, touched gloved fingers to gloved fingers, his expression questioning.

Lee only gave him a tight smile before winding an arm around his shoulders and leading him outside.

The car was parked up on the other side of the road, and though Harlem was squirming with dread and confusion, he kept his mouth shut. This, whatever it was, was important, it was bad, and he needed to wait for Lee to speak. Needed to be patient and quiet until Lee had got the right words.

That was what he expected, words. Which was why it shocked him when Lee hauled him close the second they were in the car. Across the bench seat and into his lap, even though he was far too big, and the car far too small. He barely had time to register Lee tearing their gloves off and twining their fingers together until he felt the pull of blood through his veins. The shiver before their hearts aligned. Faster than his had been, hiking up with fear.

Lee held him close and buried his face against Harlem’s hair. His breath coming out almost like a sob against Harlem’s skin. “Oh fuck. Fuck.” And he was shaking. Quiet little shivers and tight, hitched breathing. His arm tight around Harlem’s middle.

Harlem didn’t even think about it. He folded, hugged Lee back, and found himself shaking too. Because Lee didn’t do this, something terrible must have happened, and the knowledge was almost more than he could take.

“Lee?” he sounded small, even to his own ears. Quiet and afraid, and suddenly Lee was holding his face, kissing his cheeks, his forehead, even his mouth. “Fuck- Harlem. I thought it was you. Mom told me- she said someone died and I thought it was you and I was so….fuck. Fuck. I almost…”

Harlem’s insides went cold. Hard, and his fingers clenched tight on Lee’s sleeves. Friends, family, running through his head. “Someone died?” And that was when Lee broke. Heaved in a gasp and began to cry, clinging to Harlem and hiding his face against his shoulder. “Dad. My Dad’s dead.”

Note:

I know. I took WAY too long with this, but I balled up the way I wrote it and then my brain collapsed. It was way too long, so I split this into two chapters. The next chapter is like, 85 percent done, so I’ll have it up within a week (I swear) so hopefully that will make up for my dread full delay. :D

I’ve had exams, finals in like, two weeks, but the real reason for the slowness is that these characters have been kicking my ass. The kiss was entirely them, by the way. Wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did. Because now I’ve started I cant get them to stop. Pandora’s bloody box.

I should probably add that things from Lee’s POV need to be taken with a grain of salt. His perception of the world is kinda skewed, if you haven’t noticed already, which is why I generally stick with Harlem’s head. Even I don’t understand Lee properly :S

Anyway, I hope ya’ll enjoyed it. My boys are finally coming together. Please tell me what you thought of the chapter…or, you know. Just compliment me endlessly. That’s awesome too.

Speaking of. This chapter goes solely to MidnightLunar, Who’s fangilring fills me with Glee.

Thank you to everyone else who reviewed as well. I really appreciate it. It’s good to know that people are actually enjoying the stuff I write.