Talker's Redemption (10 page)
“Uhm, Talker?”
“Yeah?” Tate kicked off his shoes and went to sit on the bed next to Brian’s good arm, so he didn’t bump the bad one. Brian was busy looking at the rat with something like fierce concentration.
“This isn’t Sunshine.”
Tate was so surprised he almost missed the edge of the bed. “What do you mean it’s not Sunshine! That’s our rat!”
Brian laughed a little, and looked down on the little creature sadly and shook his head. “This may be our rat
now,
but this rat is
not
Sunshine!” And with that he turned the critter’s back end toward Tate and Tate almost fell off the bed again.
“Bwaaaa! Holy God, are those
balls?
They’re a third its body weight!” Tate took the rat from Brian and turned the animal around. The markings on the little head were
very very
similar to the rat he’d thought had been in the brand new little rat-castle that Craig had made for it. “How did I miss that?”
Brian took the rat and put it on his chest, and then wrapped his arm around Tate’s shoulders and drew him in for a snuggle. “I think you were distracted at the time. What do you think happened to Sunshine?”
Talker thought about it, and winced, feeling sad and guilty and awful all at once. “The night you got hurt,” he said, thinking. “It was really cold, and power was going out all over the city, and I told Craig to go check on her and to get me some clothes. He… it seemed to take him forever. I didn’t get to change until….” Hell, he’d been sedated for nearly twelve hours. He hadn’t even been sure what day it was. “Until after you woke up from surgery,” he finished. Brian knew—Brian had known when they’d woken up in adjoining beds. But who wanted to remind a lover that you were weak and sad, and dissolved like a wet breath mint when things got bad?
“Aw…,” Brian murmured, coming to the same conclusion. “The power must have gone out—she must have….”
The new rat bumped his chin and he petted it. Talker added a finger to the little cone-shaped muzzle and together they got to know this new development.
“Awww…,” they said together, petting New Rat sadly.
“But why didn’t they tell us?” Talker asked, bemused. “I mean… you know, shit was going down and all, but, damn! Did they think we wouldn’t notice?”
He looked up to find Brian’s eyes intent on his face. “I think they figured we’d see the truth when we were ready to,” he said softly, and Talker swallowed hard.
“I think that’s pretty wise of them,” he answered, but it didn’t seem to be enough, and the hand petting New Rat, the disfigured, scarred one, was suddenly shaking hard enough to blur. Brian’s good hand, the one
not
in the sling, cupped over it. They wove their fingers together, and Talker spoke to their clasped hands.
“Brian, I was raped,” he said. His voice was soft, but it
was
his voice.
“Baby, I know.”
“I went on a date, and I ended it, and Trevor Gaines raped me, and... and I’m so sorry. Jesus, Brian… if I’d… you know, sacced up, done something, pressed charges, gone public… anything but… just crumbling and making you take Trevor out when I didn’t even notice….”
Brian’s hand tightened on his. “It’s not your fault, baby,” he said roughly. “I took that fucker down because it needed to be done. You know what?”
Talker shook his head, still looking at the rat.
“Now look at me when I say this, because you need to see it’s true.”
“We both know that’s my weakness,” Tate said, trying to laugh and failing. Brian didn’t laugh, and Talker looked up into his lover’s amazing eyes. The white part was still rimmed with red, and the scars from where the stitches had been were still a little puffy. He had a rainbow of bruising under his eye and along his jaw, and Talker knew without looking that he was missing one of his back teeth. His hair had been shaved unevenly above his eyebrow when they’d lanced the swelling over his eye, and the long fall of it was interrupted.
He was still the most beautiful man Tate Walker had ever seen.
“Are you seeing me?” Brian asked, and Tate nodded soberly. “Good, because this is what I need you to know. I’d do it again. Even having the rest of that shit coming, I’d do it again. Because…” Brian’s voice cracked a little, “because I know what you were thinking of doing, those months between. Between you being attacked and me talking you out of the crazy tree. I’d do anything to make sure that didn’t happen—even get beat to the ground, you hear?”
Talker nodded and wiped some more helpless tears.
God
, he was tired of being weak, he was. But Brian was so easy to lean on, even hurt, and the world just turned a better color when he leaned his head on Brian’s good shoulder. His hair was back in a queue today. He hadn’t spiked it in weeks, and it was, in fact, growing out on the sides a little. It was still patchy over his tattoo, but with the tatt, you couldn’t see how much was scalp and how much was really hair. Talker thought maybe it was time for a new look, because this one made it easier to lean his head on Brian’s shoulder, and that had to be a good thing.
“I can’t believe you did that,” was what he said. “Brian, you’re so….” He looked at their still-twined hands, still getting to know New Rat. “You’re so gentle. I can’t believe you hit someone.”
Brian shook his head, and Tate pulled his hand away enough to rub the scars on the back of Brian’s knuckles. He’d done this many times before, he realized, but he’d never known what put them there.
“I don’t remember much,” Brian said softly. “I gave Trev a chance to defend himself, and the next thing I know, Jed was pulling me off of him.”
“Fucker,” Tate said, sincere venom in his voice. “It’s more than he deserved.”
“I threw up afterward,” Brian told him, as though that meant something. Talker looked up at him and found himself smiling. He remembered throwing up on Henries, and thought that maybe Brian was right. Maybe it did mean something.
He remembered that first day they’d met, on the bus, and the day Brian had first seen his scars. The all-American poster child and Tate-the-tattooed-twitch—it seemed unlikely, but Brian hadn’t seen that. He’d seen that they were more alike than different.
Maybe they were.
“So what are we going to name him?” Tate asked after a minute.
Brian scratched the rat under the chin and tutted to him some more before answering. “How ’bout we name him after you this time?”
“You’re going to name the rat Talker?”
“Naw.” Talker looked up to see Brian’s fierce grin, unblemished and untainted by the last month. “We’re gonna name him Harry. Big Harry Nads.”
Talker snickered. “After
me?”
“Yeah, Talker. Man, after what you did to keep my ass out of jail, I don’t know who else we’d name Big Harry Nads. You think?”
Talker blushed and looked down at the rat again. “Well, it
is
a sweet ass,” he murmured, and heard Brian’s chuckle, “but I’m not that brave.” Brian’s kiss on the fuzz growing in on the top of his head felt like a benediction.
“You survived all that, Talker. You tore yourself open when you were already falling apart, and you did it for me. You’re fucking fearless.”
“God, I love you.”
“I love you too. So—Big Harry Nads?”
Tate smiled shyly into the world created by Brian’s chest and his faith and the love that seemed to have survived in the core of them, and nodded. “Yeah. Big Harry Nads the rat. He’ll fit right in.”
The moment was quiet, and the music started up in Talker’s head again. He started singing, “‘Dance, then, wherever you may be….’” And Brian started humming it too.
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Amy Lane
teaches high school English, mothers four children, and writes the occasional book. When she’s not begging students to sit-the-hell-down or taxiing kids to soccer/dance/karate—oh my! she can be found catching emergency naps, grocery shopping, or hiding in the bathroom, trying to read without interruption. She will never be found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever or sometimes for no reason at all. She writes in the shower, while commuting, while her classes are doing bookwork, or while she’s wandering the neighborhood at night pretending to exercise, and has learned from necessity to type like the wind. She lives in a spider-infested and crumbling house in a shoddy suburb and counts on her beloved mate, Mack, to keep her tethered to reality—which he does while keeping her cell phone charged as a bonus. She’s been married for twenty-plus years and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn’t see any reason at all for that to change.
Visit Amy’s web site at http://www.greenshill.com. You can e-mail her at
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