Ascension (11 page)

“Dad,” Ro tried again, but just as before, Roger didn’t even bat an eyelash. Ro cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Dad!”

Roger kept nodding at something Adela was saying, but—“Do it again, just like that,” Conner told Ro.

This time when Ro yelled, Conner’s pulse kicked up. Usually it amused him how his spirit form mimicked his former body, but right then he was over it, because he’d seen something. “Again, Ro, please.”

The third time, Martin jerked his head back like he’d been slapped. He rubbed the back of his neck and unobtrusively shifted his gaze all over the room.

“He heard me?” Ro whispered, putting a hand out. It hit that invisible barrier the same as it had before. “Damn it!”

Martin stood up and said something before walking out of the room. Conner took Ro by the arm and popped them outside to where Martin was standing on the porch. The light was off and the darkness almost complete as the sky was clouded with an incoming storm.

Martin stepped up to the rail and leaned out, looking up at the clouds. “I don’t know where you are, Ro, or if you can hear me, but God damn it, we miss you so bad. I was a shitty little brother, but I thought…” Martin sniffled, then sobbed, “I thought we had longer.”

Ro stuffed his fist in his mouth to push back a sob of his own. Conner was going to end up crying at this rate. He caressed Ro’s shoulders for a second then nudged him forward. “Try it. Just maybe like…like a little gust of air or something.” If Ro spoke and Martin heard him, Martin might just go head over ass off the porch.

Ro moved closer to his brother, and Martin stopped mid-sob, hiccupping as he stood up straight and turned towards Ro. Conner watched as Ro concentrated on giving his fingers some density, then Martin’s hair was brushed off his forehead and out of his eyes.

Martin opened his mouth to scream, Conner could see it coming, feel the panic like static electricity—then just as suddenly Martin slapped his hand over his mouth and stumbled backwards. He started to tip over the rail and Conner didn’t think, just acted, not wanting Martin to land in the thorny rosebush below. He swooped and thought and pushed, all of which resulted in Martin shooting forward and through Ro.

Both brothers yelped, and Adela came flying out of the front door. She stopped like she’d hit that invisible wall, and she cupped her face with her hands.

“
Chingada madre
,” Adela hollered, eyes wide.

“Watch your mouth, Adela,” Ro snapped, probably before he could think not to.

Understandable, Conner figured, considering that his little sister had just shouted ‘mother fucker’ in Spanish loud enough to wake the whole neighbourhood.

Adela didn’t watch her mouth, though, cuss words tumbling out as panic twisted her features. Martin ran over to her, whooshing through Ro again, which made them both gasp, but he grabbed his sister.

“Stop, before Dad comes out and sees this!” Martin said, giving her a shake. “He’s already stressed to the point I’m worried he’s going to have a heart attack or stroke or something!”

Conner got his arms around Ro quickly, whispering to him even though he didn’t think Martin and Adela could hear him. “Give them a few minutes. They’re badly rattled.” Normally, Conner would have been kind of amused by their expressions, but he was learning that his sense of humour was warped and he didn’t care for it much at times. “They can hear you, I think, maybe even sense you. It must just be your dad that’s blocking us somehow.”

“Ro?” Adela rasped shortly thereafter. “Ro, are you here? Are you—?” She glared at Martin. “I feel like a fuckin’ idiot.”

“Adela, your mouth,” Ro said quietly. “Mama would whip your butt for that.”

Adela froze, not even breathing at first as she stared at them, or at least in their direction. Martin sniffled and cupped his hands over his mouth.

Finally Adela shook herself and said, “Mama always did have a double standard for you boys and me. A lady shouldn’t cuss.” She rolled her eyes then promptly burst into tears.

Martin stopped covering his mouth and instead hugged his sister, but it was Ro he addressed. “How…? How can we hear you? Why are you here? Is Mama with you? Are you in Heaven or—?” He stopped and huffed. “I guess you’re not in Hell, but why can’t Dad hear you? I know he’s angry, but that’s just because that guy showed up here the morning after you died and told Dad he’d, uh, that y’all had, uh. Uh.”

Conner wasn’t far off from being shocked, which was hard to do to him. “That guy, the JD guy, came to talk to your dad?”

Ro squeaked and his siblings almost wet their pants, Conner would bet.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” Martin chanted as he started backing up again. “He is here, Adela!”

“So shut up so we can hear what he has to say for himself,” she scolded, crossing her arms over her chest. She tapped her foot. “Well, Ro, why were you having nasty sex with some scuzzy guy in the alley? You know he showed up here telling Dad that you two were fuck buddies and he was really going to miss the way you took his—”

“Stop!” Ro tried to double over, as if he was going to retch. Conner held onto him and rubbed between his shoulder blades, trying to comfort him. “He came here and told Dad…”

“I can’t believe you’re really here,” Adela said, her voice full of wonder. Martin was standing, staring with his mouth gaped open. “So it’s true, about the spirits? I mean, I didn’t not believe Uncle Sev, but it’s different. Now it is real to me. Can I touch you?”

“No,” Ro said faintly. “I don’t know how to do that yet. It took a lot to just move Martin’s hair.”

Adela looked at her younger brother and scowled. “Yeah, if he’d ditch that stupid emo haircut he might actually be cute.”

“Whatever,” Martin grumbled, still looking shell-shocked.

“What did Dad say?” Ro asked, sounding gutted. “God, I can’t believe JD did that.”

“Why not? You said he hurt you.” Conner hadn’t forgotten. He was going to see to it that JD paid for doing so, too. “And remember, before you answer, they can hear you, too.”

“Dad said he showed up drunk, very drunk and maybe stoned from drugs, too. He looked like he’d been crying, and he told Dad it was his fault you died, because he’d been too rough when y’all had—” Adela made a lewd gesture with her hands. “Done it.”

Ro scowled at her. “You can cuss like a sailor but you can’t say ‘when y’all had sex’?”

She wrinkled her nose as she grimaced. “Yuck. Not when it comes to my brothers. That’s just disgusting. Anyway, Dad didn’t say anything to anyone else, but he made JD leave and threatened to have him arrested if he came back around. He didn’t want people knowing his son was being a cheap floozy in the alleyway. His words, not mine, bro.”

Ro groaned and sank against Conner. “He hates me now.”

“He doesn’t. He hates what you did, and feels guilty that you were so lonely and lost that you did it,” Adela corrected. “He thinks that if you hadn’t been obligated to stay and take care of him and Mama, or at least keep them company, you wouldn’t have been giving yourself away to a scumbag like JD, and you wouldn’t have ended up dead.” Adela took a deep breath then continued, “Dad actually begged and pleaded with Doc Hamlin not to do an autopsy. He didn’t want anyone else to know about that. Doc Hamlin said he wouldn’t do one, I don’t know how he got around it. Maybe because the cause of death was obvious. I didn’t ask. I just know that Dad is a mess, and like Martin said, maybe dangerously so.”

“We can’t lose him too,” Martin said. “You need to stay away from him, Ro. I’m sorry, but you do.”

Conner wanted to argue, but Martin wouldn’t hear him, and anyways Adela was nodding and so, God damn it,
was Ro.

“Yeah, yeah you’re right. I already hurt everyone by being stupid.” Ro tugged on his arm until Conner released him. “Look, I won’t come around again. I can’t get close to Dad anyway. I can’t hear him, he can’t hear me. I’m sorry, for all the good it does. I love y’all.”

“We love you too, but it has to be this way for now.” Martin stood beside Adela, who murmured her agreement. “I hope to see you when it’s my time,” Martin said, then Ro was flying, soaring, and Conner was right behind him, knowing Ro couldn’t flee his pain. Life and death didn’t work that way. He caught up to Ro in the alley of Virginia’s Café. As much as Conner hated the place, he wouldn’t leave Ro there to stew.

“It’s done, it’s the past, you can’t change it,” he said as Ro glared at the spot where Conner had seen him with JD.

“I don’t get why Dad is so angry about it. Why he’s so ashamed!” Ro threw a punch at the wall, cursing when his fist went through it effortlessly. “He’s going to hate me now because I had sex with a guy here? Is that really so evil? Or is it because it was a guy? I never thought Dad didn’t accept me, but maybe that was just because he hadn’t had to think of me with another man.”

Conner didn’t think it was any of those things, or at least, it wasn’t for the most part. “There are things we don’t know about ourselves until something happens, some climactic event or tragedy that forces us to say or do things we wouldn’t normally say or do.” He moved over to Ro and stroked his hip as he spoke. “Maybe your dad was shocked, and angry, and hurt. He didn’t see you as a sexual being, because he’s your dad and also he never had a need to. You didn’t bring guys around or even mention any. So he didn’t know, and then it was right there, in his face, in the form of a drunken obnoxious fool.” And that was Conner being nice in his description of JD. “He’d just lost you, and JD blabbed then your dad felt guilty, really guilty. He didn’t want your name smeared in town, and maybe part of it was he didn’t want it to get out for his sake, too. But really—” Conner positioned himself in front of Ro, looking into his eyes. “Really I think he did it because he wanted everyone to remember the good things about you, and even though what you did with JD didn’t negate those things, you know how people are. They love a scandal, and gossip. They’d have made it sordid—”

“More sordid,” Ro corrected. “I was lonely. Mom disappeared, and you—” Ro hissed and bit his lip.

Well, that was a new guilt Conner would have to live with. He’d do it, too, because if he had contributed to Ro’s need to meet JD in that alley, he’d have to find a way to make peace with that. “It’s okay. I did avoid you. I wanted you and thought you pitied me, and it hurt like a mother when I saw you here with JD. I saw you before, too, with some other guy. I couldn’t take it. I shouldn’t have been such a coward.”

Chapter Thirteen

Ro picked up right away on what Conner wasn’t saying—now Conner would feel responsible for Ro’s death. He’d believe that by avoiding Ro, he’d pushed him towards JD, and that in turn had led to Ro crashing.

Ro wasn’t having it. He was tempted to grab Conner by his ears and rattle some sense into him, but he wouldn’t. Unless it was necessary.

“Look.” Ro placed his hands on Conner’s shoulders and glared at him. “This is bullshit, you thinking you are in any way responsible for what happened to me. I was—am, rather—an adult. I would have put out for JD whether you popped in and said ‘hi’ or not, Conner. Why? Because I’m a guy, and I get horny, and all I wanted was sex, not love. Not from him, or any other guy, because I was already in love with you.”

Conner opened his mouth to speak and Ro shook his head. “Let me finish. I know I said I couldn’t say that, but it’s true. Maybe it started out as a crush, but I heard so many stories about you, and saw how you’d interact with Sev and Laine over the years. I grew to love that man who could make them laugh and make Laine snarly and happy at the same time. I loved the way you didn’t abandon them even when it seemed they only thought of you as a prankster rather than the spirit who helped them and saved them at times. I knew you before I died, Conner, and I know you now. I love you, and no one on Earth would have made me happy, because they wouldn’t have been you.”

“But—” Conner began and Ro decided to shut him up and make him forget whatever it was he’d been about to say. Ro climbed up Conner’s body and got his legs around Conner’s waist at the same time that he kissed him.

It wasn’t a gentle kiss by any means, Ro clutching at Conner’s muscular back, digging his heels into Conner’s thighs while he nipped and bit and moaned. Conner’s moan flowed into Ro, filling him with even more need. He didn’t wait for Conner to will their clothes away. Ro did it himself, craving the touch and feel of his lover against him.

Conner hefted him up high, a move that wouldn’t have been possible had they been living bodies, Ro didn’t think. Conner braced him by the backs of his thighs and he sucked the tip of Ro’s cock as Ro hung onto his head. Conner pulled him forward, taking more of Ro’s length. Ro gasped and thrust, his eyes closing. The world shifted and he was on his back, Conner sucking his shaft down to the root.

Ro bucked and yelled, and Conner swallowed, his throat muscles contracting around Ro’s cock with such erotic perfection that he couldn’t hold back. He arched and keened as Conner pushed one thick thumb into his ass, then cum jetted from his cock. Conner drank it down. He suckled until Ro was too sensitive for another lick. Ro’s dick slipped from his lips with a pop then Conner was on his knees, jerking himself off as he panted unevenly.

“Gonna come on you, Ro,” he gasped, hand speeding up on his length. “Can I?”

“Please.” Ro was oddly touched that Conner had asked before spraying his spunk all over Ro’s belly and chest. Conner watched, wide-eyed, as each burst of cum splattered on Ro’s skin. Ro ran his fingers through one splotch of it and proceeded to lick them clean as Conner moaned and licked his lips.

Ro would certainly never think of this alley the same way again. He’d avoided it, and had intended to keep doing so because he had been ashamed of what he’d done here. Now, he didn’t feel guilty anymore. Maybe he’d been wrong to let JD be as rough as he had, but he refused to castigate himself over it anymore. That was in his past, and it wouldn’t rule him any longer.

“Thank you,” he told Conner as soon as he could speak. “I do love you.”

Conner scooped him up, rubbing against Ro’s sticky chest. “I love you too, Ro. I have for a long time. I don’t even remember when, exactly, because it’s been in here so long.” Conner leant back and started to reach between them. “Eh.” The spunk vanished and Conner grinned. “So much easier to clean up than when I had to actually breathe to survive.”