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smackenzie"I don't know. I guess. I should probably tell someone, and you're not gonna... judge me, or whatever the house is gonna do." He sits up, shifts a little - Diego doesn't even move - and says "I started seeing things everywhere. Not just, like, a little thing for ten seconds next to a guy at the bus stop, but everyone. Everyone had a, a hallucination, a vision, whatever they are. I was seeing things all the time and I didn't know what any of it meant. I couldn't go anywhere. I couldn't even stay in the house because there's eight of us and that was just... that was too many people. There's no one at Grandpa's place but him. He sent me some money for the bus and I, I left. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you."
"Why couldn't you tell your friends? You even live with them."
"I don't know. They don't always believe me, that sometimes I see things. They kind of, um...." He snaps his fingers, apparently trying to remember. Diego wakes up, turns in a circle like a dog, and goes back to sleep. "Patronize me. Is that the word? Like they're just humoring me. So what could I tell them? I was hallucinating everything everywhere, around everybody? Putting all of us in one room was too much. Right before I went to my grandpa's, I couldn't even leave the house - any, any kind of crowd just gave me a headache. You know what kinda helped?" He chuckles. "I found someone's sunglasses at the house. I probably looked really stupid at night, wearing these sunglasses, but they kinda made it better."
"So why did you come back? Did it get better?"
"It's gone." He looks at me, surprise and relief all over his face and in his voice. "I don't see anything. This friend of Grandpa's came over to take him a couple places in town - Grandpa's not allowed to drive and I don't know how - and I stared at the guy for twenty minutes and didn't see anything. He took me too. We were out a couple hours, we even had lunch at a cafe, and I didn't have any... visions. I didn't see anything that wasn't there. Like, nothing." Kay's half turned to face me now, one leg up on the couch cushion and the other almost pushing him off the floor. "I don't know what happened. It's just, it's gone."
I have a sudden, freaky feeling that when he lost his weird little magic power, it came to me. I squint at him, trying to force myself to see some kind of vision or hallucination or clue to a future event, but there's nothing. I remind myself I don't have the same problem he did - I don't see things for everyone, everywhere, all the time. Just occasionally. This must have been what it was like for him two or three weeks ago, when it was still normal.
He leans back, looking unsure about my determined regard, and school my face to look normal again.
"I think I inherited it from you," I say.
"You what?"
"A couple of days ago I thought I saw a wedding band around my friend's finger. He's has a long-time boyfriend, but he's not married. This morning I saw a garter snake around the barista's head at The Drip and Donut. I saw goldfish swimming around Maya at the studio. They were there one second and gone the next. I don't know how it happened, but it sounds like when you stopped seeing things, I started to."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's not your fault, unless you did something nice for an old witch and she granted you a boon."
"A what? What's a boon?"
"It's a favor. Didn't you read fairy tales when you were growing up? You do something nice for an ugly old lady out in the middle of the woods, and she turns out to be a fairy queen in disguise and does you a favor in return."
"I didn't talk to anyone. I didn't go anywhere, once I got to Grandpa's. Nobody did me any favors, after Grandpa sent me some money to get there. He kind of, um, I think he got tired of me being in his house, and he told me to go home. He didn't give me enough money to get here, and that's why I had to call you from Winslow. I'm really sorry, Sparrow. I'm sorry I didn't tell you where I was going and I'm sorry I made you come get me."
"It's ok." I lean forward and take his hand and hold it reassuringly. "Really, Kay, it's fine. I'm glad you called me, because I'm not sure your friends would have thought of it."
"I would've come by your studio." He smiles a tight, shy little smile. "I'm not... I'm not totally without manners."
"You just tend to disappear without warning." I grin. He ducks his head, probably embarrassed, and I feel bad for teasing him. "I'm sorry. That was probably mean."
"No, I think I deserved it." He carefully picks Diego up and deposits him on the couch, then stands, stretches, and asks "Can I - I didn't ask - can I stay over tonight?"
"I thought I said you could," I tell him. "Didn't I? Maybe I didn't. Yes, you can stay. I wasn't planning on taking you home tonight."
"I think you did offer. I think. I just wanted to be sure. I don't want to... presume."
"You are so strange sometimes." I can't help but smile at him, with affection and maybe even love. Kay is pretty weird sometimes, but the longer I know him, the more I think it's a nervous kind of weird, a shy and I-don't-want-to-be-any-trouble kind of weird, as if he's putting himself through contortions just so he won't impose. But I've never felt as if he was. He's my friend and I'm his, and aside from his vanishing act he's never given me any trouble.
He just shrugs. "That's what I've been told."
"Kay... the last time I saw you, over a week ago, you said you could feel something coming. Something ominous. Do you still feel that way?"
He chews his lip, thinking. "I don't feel anything. I mean... I don't know. Maybe it was a, a, like a magic surge, when I could see everything all of a sudden. It was like magic overload. I didn't know what I thought was coming. I was just... I was kind of afraid of it. Do you feel it?"
"No. I don't feel any different. Nothing's different, except that eventually I'm going to have a hallucination around someone that I don't understand."
"Welcome to my old life," Kay says softly. He seems almost amused, and almost apologetic. I push myself off the couch and put my arms around him. He sags into me, rests his head on my shoulder, and murmurs "If I asked if I could, if I could, um - I don't want to sleep in the guest room."
I have to laugh. Coming from anyone else, in any other circumstance, that would sound like the clumsiest of attempts to sleep with me. Nila, in the early days of our relationship, used some of the most laughable lines to get me into bed with her. I always laughed at her, but I still fucked her, and I did it willingly. And she learned what to say that would not make me crack up and tease her. To be honest, I was an easy lay, and so was she, but that didn't mean I wanted her to use her tired and cliched lines on me.
But coming from Kay, this isn't a line, and if it is, I'm certainly not going to treat it as such. I won't have sex with him and he knows it. Maya thinks he has a crush on me and she might not be wrong, but all the same, he might not be the best educated boy but he's not completely stupid. He's also not at all suave. He has no game, as they say. But it doesn't matter to me. That's not what I want from him, or what I expect he wants from me.
The last time, he stayed on his side of the bed - helped by Diego lying in between us - and tonight is no different. He took a backpack with him when he took off for his grandfather's house, and now he pulls out a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and goes into the bathroom to change, and very considerately takes up less than half of the bed. Diego follows us into my room, jumps on the bed, walks over Kay's body about five times, and settles himself smack in the middle of the mattress. By the time I've changed into pajamas and brushed my teeth and washed my face, both Kay and my cat are fast asleep.
Kay stays with me another three days, despite what seems like the entire house's worth of his friends coming to the studio to talk to me, question me, or read me the riot act. Maya is vastly entertained by this low-budget soap opera and the fact that I've acquired a houseguest who is almost entirely dependent on me to get around. Kay is more than happy to walk or take the bus any time he needs to go anywhere, and I don't mind giving him some money, and I don't see why Maya finds it so amusing.
"He's a baby!" she exclaims. "What does he do all day in your house?"
"I don't know. Watch TV, play with the cat, wash my dishes, sweep my floors, water my plants, empty the litter box, and for all I know, do the laundry. He cooks." I like to cook, or at least most of the time I don't mind cooking, but it's so nice to have someone else do it. "I'm going to go get him during my next break and bring him back here, unless he wants to wander around town for a while. I'll be honest - I feel weird leaving him in my house alone all day. It's not like he can go very far. He hasn't wanted to go home yet."
"Why would he? Your place is probably a lot more comfortable, plus you have a cat. And you said he shares a house with, what, seven people? I bet he likes the peace and quiet."
"He said he does. He also said he can't live with me forever. I think he's just putting off having to explain to his friends why he bailed and why he didn't tell them. I don't think he knows why he did it."
Well, I don't think he knows why he didn't bother to let anyone know where he was going. He does know why he left. But his magic problems are his own, and not mine to share with Maya.
I don't have any more strange little visions until my last client, when I see a silver breastplate cover his chest, sparkle, and vanish. During our conversation while I'm inking him, I discover that he belongs to the SCA and works at Renaissance faires over the summer, as a jousting knight. So that explains that particular sight.
I can't figure out if what I'm seeing is something from the future, the past, or just a random part of the person's life. This seems like just a random bit of information about the client, but then what was the wedding band I saw on Mel's finger? Was that some kind of precognition? Will I get a phone call one day saying he and Bodie are engaged, and will I come to the wedding?
That is in fact what happens that night. I'm cleaning up from dinner - I told Kay that if he kept cooking for me, I was going to have to start cleaning up more - when the phone rings, and when I answer it Mel practically yells "I'm getting married!" at me.
"What?"
"I'm getting married! Bodie proposed today! He got down on one knee! It was so romantic I burst into tears!" I try to picture big, broad, stoic-looking Mel bursting into tears of joy, and fail miserably. "You'll have to come to the wedding. We don't know when it is, but you'll have to come."
"Of course I'll come! Thank you for giving me a lot of time to get a wedding present." I hope he can hear me grinning over the phone. "And congratulations! You didn't give me a chance to say that."
"Thank you! Ok, I gotta go, there are a lot more people to tell. I can't stop smiling. I'm so happy. Goodbye!"
I put the phone back and notice Kay looking at me curiously. "My friend Mel's boyfriend proposed to him," I explain. "He's really excited."
"Cool," Kay says.
"I thought so. Do you want dessert? I have ice cream."
We're watching an old spaghetti Western on TV when my sister calls, and because he's closest to the phone and I've gone into the kitchen to get a little more ice cream, Kay answers it.
"It's your sister?" he calls.
"Is that a question?" I call back.
"No, it's - she wanted to know who I am and why I'm answering your phone."
I come back into the sitting room and take the phone from him. "Hey, Tristan," I say into it. "It's late for you."
"Who answered your phone?" she demands. She sounds suspicious.
"A friend of mine. His name's Kay. He's having some issues with his housemates, so I said he could stay in my guest room until they work it out." Not strictly true, but in spirit, not entirely a lie. "What's up?"
"I called so we could plan Mom and Daddy's anniversary party. I want it to be a surprise."
Oh hell no. There is no fucking way I'm going to be able to plan an anniversary party without my mother's involvement. There's no way my sister is going to be able to do it either. I've mentioned my mother is a control freak, yes? Because she is. And so is my sister. And in many ways, so am I. There is no way this can end well.
Besides, even though my parents and I are on speaking terms again and I'm trying not to be quite so antagonistic, I could not be less interested in doing anything for my mother that involves any more effort than finding something vaguely inoffensive to wear when I see her.
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"Why couldn't you tell your friends? You even live with them."
"I don't know. They don't always believe me, that sometimes I see things. They kind of, um...." He snaps his fingers, apparently trying to remember. Diego wakes up, turns in a circle like a dog, and goes back to sleep. "Patronize me. Is that the word? Like they're just humoring me. So what could I tell them? I was hallucinating everything everywhere, around everybody? Putting all of us in one room was too much. Right before I went to my grandpa's, I couldn't even leave the house - any, any kind of crowd just gave me a headache. You know what kinda helped?" He chuckles. "I found someone's sunglasses at the house. I probably looked really stupid at night, wearing these sunglasses, but they kinda made it better."
"So why did you come back? Did it get better?"
"It's gone." He looks at me, surprise and relief all over his face and in his voice. "I don't see anything. This friend of Grandpa's came over to take him a couple places in town - Grandpa's not allowed to drive and I don't know how - and I stared at the guy for twenty minutes and didn't see anything. He took me too. We were out a couple hours, we even had lunch at a cafe, and I didn't have any... visions. I didn't see anything that wasn't there. Like, nothing." Kay's half turned to face me now, one leg up on the couch cushion and the other almost pushing him off the floor. "I don't know what happened. It's just, it's gone."
I have a sudden, freaky feeling that when he lost his weird little magic power, it came to me. I squint at him, trying to force myself to see some kind of vision or hallucination or clue to a future event, but there's nothing. I remind myself I don't have the same problem he did - I don't see things for everyone, everywhere, all the time. Just occasionally. This must have been what it was like for him two or three weeks ago, when it was still normal.
He leans back, looking unsure about my determined regard, and school my face to look normal again.
"I think I inherited it from you," I say.
"You what?"
"A couple of days ago I thought I saw a wedding band around my friend's finger. He's has a long-time boyfriend, but he's not married. This morning I saw a garter snake around the barista's head at The Drip and Donut. I saw goldfish swimming around Maya at the studio. They were there one second and gone the next. I don't know how it happened, but it sounds like when you stopped seeing things, I started to."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's not your fault, unless you did something nice for an old witch and she granted you a boon."
"A what? What's a boon?"
"It's a favor. Didn't you read fairy tales when you were growing up? You do something nice for an ugly old lady out in the middle of the woods, and she turns out to be a fairy queen in disguise and does you a favor in return."
"I didn't talk to anyone. I didn't go anywhere, once I got to Grandpa's. Nobody did me any favors, after Grandpa sent me some money to get there. He kind of, um, I think he got tired of me being in his house, and he told me to go home. He didn't give me enough money to get here, and that's why I had to call you from Winslow. I'm really sorry, Sparrow. I'm sorry I didn't tell you where I was going and I'm sorry I made you come get me."
"It's ok." I lean forward and take his hand and hold it reassuringly. "Really, Kay, it's fine. I'm glad you called me, because I'm not sure your friends would have thought of it."
"I would've come by your studio." He smiles a tight, shy little smile. "I'm not... I'm not totally without manners."
"You just tend to disappear without warning." I grin. He ducks his head, probably embarrassed, and I feel bad for teasing him. "I'm sorry. That was probably mean."
"No, I think I deserved it." He carefully picks Diego up and deposits him on the couch, then stands, stretches, and asks "Can I - I didn't ask - can I stay over tonight?"
"I thought I said you could," I tell him. "Didn't I? Maybe I didn't. Yes, you can stay. I wasn't planning on taking you home tonight."
"I think you did offer. I think. I just wanted to be sure. I don't want to... presume."
"You are so strange sometimes." I can't help but smile at him, with affection and maybe even love. Kay is pretty weird sometimes, but the longer I know him, the more I think it's a nervous kind of weird, a shy and I-don't-want-to-be-any-trouble kind of weird, as if he's putting himself through contortions just so he won't impose. But I've never felt as if he was. He's my friend and I'm his, and aside from his vanishing act he's never given me any trouble.
He just shrugs. "That's what I've been told."
"Kay... the last time I saw you, over a week ago, you said you could feel something coming. Something ominous. Do you still feel that way?"
He chews his lip, thinking. "I don't feel anything. I mean... I don't know. Maybe it was a, a, like a magic surge, when I could see everything all of a sudden. It was like magic overload. I didn't know what I thought was coming. I was just... I was kind of afraid of it. Do you feel it?"
"No. I don't feel any different. Nothing's different, except that eventually I'm going to have a hallucination around someone that I don't understand."
"Welcome to my old life," Kay says softly. He seems almost amused, and almost apologetic. I push myself off the couch and put my arms around him. He sags into me, rests his head on my shoulder, and murmurs "If I asked if I could, if I could, um - I don't want to sleep in the guest room."
I have to laugh. Coming from anyone else, in any other circumstance, that would sound like the clumsiest of attempts to sleep with me. Nila, in the early days of our relationship, used some of the most laughable lines to get me into bed with her. I always laughed at her, but I still fucked her, and I did it willingly. And she learned what to say that would not make me crack up and tease her. To be honest, I was an easy lay, and so was she, but that didn't mean I wanted her to use her tired and cliched lines on me.
But coming from Kay, this isn't a line, and if it is, I'm certainly not going to treat it as such. I won't have sex with him and he knows it. Maya thinks he has a crush on me and she might not be wrong, but all the same, he might not be the best educated boy but he's not completely stupid. He's also not at all suave. He has no game, as they say. But it doesn't matter to me. That's not what I want from him, or what I expect he wants from me.
The last time, he stayed on his side of the bed - helped by Diego lying in between us - and tonight is no different. He took a backpack with him when he took off for his grandfather's house, and now he pulls out a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and goes into the bathroom to change, and very considerately takes up less than half of the bed. Diego follows us into my room, jumps on the bed, walks over Kay's body about five times, and settles himself smack in the middle of the mattress. By the time I've changed into pajamas and brushed my teeth and washed my face, both Kay and my cat are fast asleep.
Kay stays with me another three days, despite what seems like the entire house's worth of his friends coming to the studio to talk to me, question me, or read me the riot act. Maya is vastly entertained by this low-budget soap opera and the fact that I've acquired a houseguest who is almost entirely dependent on me to get around. Kay is more than happy to walk or take the bus any time he needs to go anywhere, and I don't mind giving him some money, and I don't see why Maya finds it so amusing.
"He's a baby!" she exclaims. "What does he do all day in your house?"
"I don't know. Watch TV, play with the cat, wash my dishes, sweep my floors, water my plants, empty the litter box, and for all I know, do the laundry. He cooks." I like to cook, or at least most of the time I don't mind cooking, but it's so nice to have someone else do it. "I'm going to go get him during my next break and bring him back here, unless he wants to wander around town for a while. I'll be honest - I feel weird leaving him in my house alone all day. It's not like he can go very far. He hasn't wanted to go home yet."
"Why would he? Your place is probably a lot more comfortable, plus you have a cat. And you said he shares a house with, what, seven people? I bet he likes the peace and quiet."
"He said he does. He also said he can't live with me forever. I think he's just putting off having to explain to his friends why he bailed and why he didn't tell them. I don't think he knows why he did it."
Well, I don't think he knows why he didn't bother to let anyone know where he was going. He does know why he left. But his magic problems are his own, and not mine to share with Maya.
I don't have any more strange little visions until my last client, when I see a silver breastplate cover his chest, sparkle, and vanish. During our conversation while I'm inking him, I discover that he belongs to the SCA and works at Renaissance faires over the summer, as a jousting knight. So that explains that particular sight.
I can't figure out if what I'm seeing is something from the future, the past, or just a random part of the person's life. This seems like just a random bit of information about the client, but then what was the wedding band I saw on Mel's finger? Was that some kind of precognition? Will I get a phone call one day saying he and Bodie are engaged, and will I come to the wedding?
That is in fact what happens that night. I'm cleaning up from dinner - I told Kay that if he kept cooking for me, I was going to have to start cleaning up more - when the phone rings, and when I answer it Mel practically yells "I'm getting married!" at me.
"What?"
"I'm getting married! Bodie proposed today! He got down on one knee! It was so romantic I burst into tears!" I try to picture big, broad, stoic-looking Mel bursting into tears of joy, and fail miserably. "You'll have to come to the wedding. We don't know when it is, but you'll have to come."
"Of course I'll come! Thank you for giving me a lot of time to get a wedding present." I hope he can hear me grinning over the phone. "And congratulations! You didn't give me a chance to say that."
"Thank you! Ok, I gotta go, there are a lot more people to tell. I can't stop smiling. I'm so happy. Goodbye!"
I put the phone back and notice Kay looking at me curiously. "My friend Mel's boyfriend proposed to him," I explain. "He's really excited."
"Cool," Kay says.
"I thought so. Do you want dessert? I have ice cream."
We're watching an old spaghetti Western on TV when my sister calls, and because he's closest to the phone and I've gone into the kitchen to get a little more ice cream, Kay answers it.
"It's your sister?" he calls.
"Is that a question?" I call back.
"No, it's - she wanted to know who I am and why I'm answering your phone."
I come back into the sitting room and take the phone from him. "Hey, Tristan," I say into it. "It's late for you."
"Who answered your phone?" she demands. She sounds suspicious.
"A friend of mine. His name's Kay. He's having some issues with his housemates, so I said he could stay in my guest room until they work it out." Not strictly true, but in spirit, not entirely a lie. "What's up?"
"I called so we could plan Mom and Daddy's anniversary party. I want it to be a surprise."
Oh hell no. There is no fucking way I'm going to be able to plan an anniversary party without my mother's involvement. There's no way my sister is going to be able to do it either. I've mentioned my mother is a control freak, yes? Because she is. And so is my sister. And in many ways, so am I. There is no way this can end well.
Besides, even though my parents and I are on speaking terms again and I'm trying not to be quite so antagonistic, I could not be less interested in doing anything for my mother that involves any more effort than finding something vaguely inoffensive to wear when I see her.
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