“You've always had me ... and my heart. My soul. Everything. I wish it hadn't taken this long for me to man up.”
“You are perfect the way you are." Blay's voice was strong. "There is nothing wrong with who and what you have always been. I'm proud of you. And I love you. Now ... and always."
Qhuinn's vision got wavy. Hard-core.
"I'm proud of you. And I love you," Blay repeated. "Always. Forget about your old family ... you have me now. I am your family.”
“Shit. With Qhuinn looking at him like that, he couldn’t remember his own name. Blaysox? Blacklock? Blabberfox? Who the fuck knew…”
“Because I was, and I remain, utterly and completely and totally…in love with you.”
“I think that's Justin Bieber.
Standing in front of a line up of Lay's potato chips, Qhuinn looked overhead to the speaker inset into the ceiling tiles. Yup, I'm right, and I hate that I know that.
Next to him John Matthew signed, How do you know?
The little shit is everywhere.
I swear, that kid is proof the Antichrist is coming.
Maybe it's already here.
Would explain Miley Cyrus.”
“I have loved you for years. I have been in love with you for years and years and years ... throughout school and training ... before transitions and afterward ... when you approached me and yes, even now that you're with Saxton and you hate me. And that ... shit ... in my fucking head locked me down, locked everything down ... and it cost me you.”
“In the Old Language, she hissed, “If any harm shall befall him, I will come after you, and find you where you sleep. I do not care where you lay your head or who with, my vengeance shall rain upon you until you drown.”
That last word was drawn out, until its syllable was lost in more growling.
Dead silence.
Until Doc Jane said dryly, “Annnnd this is why they say the female of the species is more dangerous than the male.”
“I am very comfortable with conflict, be it of the legal or mortal kind. My father was a mediator, a bridge maker. I am a grave maker.”
“Let me kiss you.” Qhuinn groaned as he leaned in. “I know I don't deserve it, but please ... it's what you can do for me. Let me feel you....”
Qhuinn's mouth brushed his own. Came back for more. Lingered.
“I'll beg for it.” More with the caress of those devastating lips. “If that’s what it takes. I don't give a fuck, I'll beg...”
“Will you get off me!"
"But I'm giving you CPR-"
"I will die before kissing you, Hollywood." Z tried to sit up, his breathing heavy.
"Don't even think about it.”
“Straightening up so the full force of that cold blast hit him square in the face, Qhuinn glared into the rush, picturing those pines ahead that he couldn’t see because his eyes were watering from the wind. Opening his mouth, he screamed bloody murder, adding his voice to the maelstrom.
Godd*mn it, he wasn’t going down like a pussy. No ducking, no pathetic oh-please-God-no-saaaaaave-me. F**k that. He was going to meet death with his fangs bared and his body braced and his heart pounding not from fear, but from a whole boatload of . . .
“Blow me, Grim Reaper!”
“Love, after all, was universal. Qhuinn closed his fist up tight, and knew he would never, ever take that ring off. “Always,” Blay murmured. “Because family is an always kind of thing.”
“Vishous to Qhuinn: "Listen, I gotta go. I need both hands to hold my gut as I laugh my ass off attcha. Later.”
“I lived for the night, because I could go over to your house. It was the only thing that kept me going. You were the only thing, actually. It was… you.”
“I love you. You are my heart beating
outside of my chest.”
“And what do you know, John's hands flew through the positions
of ASL in various l-got-this combinations.
"Is he deaf" the guy behind the cash register asked in a stage
whisper. As if someone using American Sign Language was some kind
of freak.
"No. Blind."
"Oh."
As the man kept staring, Qhuinn wanted to pop him. "You going
to help us out here or what?"
"Oh ... yeah. Hey, you got a tattoo on your face." Mr. Observant
moved slowly, like the bar codes on those bags were creating some kind of wind resistance under his laser reader. "Did you know that?"
Really. "I wouldn't know."
''Are you blind, too?"
No filter on this guy. None. "Yeah, I am."
"Oh, so that's why your eyes are all weird."
"Yeah. That's right."
Qhuinn took out a twenty and didn't wait for change-murder
was just a liiiiiittle too tempting. Nodding to John, who was also measuring the dear boy for a shroud, Qhuinn went to walk off.
"What about your change ?" the man called out.
"I'm deaf, too. I can't hear you."
The guy yelled more loudly, "I'll just keep it then, yeah?"
"Sounds good," Qhuinn shouted over his shoulder.
Idiot was stage-five stupid. Straight up.”
“Blay’s head whipped around to his mate. “Really? You asked my dad?” Qhuinn nodded, then started to smile like a mother fucker. “It’s my one and only shot. So I wanted to follow protocol.”
“God, he was probably too young to be this old, but life had a way of being about experience, rather than calendar days.”
“Love’em or hate’em, by blood or by heart, family was a kind of oxygen. Necessary for the living.”
“Lassiter skidded in from the billiards room, the fallen angel glowing from his black-and-blond hair and white eyes, all the way down to his shitkickers. Then again, maybe the illumination wasn’t his nature, but that gold he insisted on wearing.
He looked like a living, breathing jewelry tree.
“I’m here. Where’s my chauffeur hat?”
“Here, use mine,” Butch said, outing a B Sox cap and throwing it over. “It’ll help that hair of yours.”
The angel caught the thing on the fly and stared at the red S. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“Do not tell me you’re a Yankees fan,” V drawled. “I’ll have to kill you, and frankly, tonight we need all the wingmen we’ve got.”
Lassiter tossed the cap back. Whistled. Looked casual.
“Are you serious?” Butch said. Like the guy had maybe volunteered for a lobotomy. Or a limb amputation. Or a pedicure.
“No fucking way,” V echoed. “When and where did you become a friend of the enemy—”
The angel held up his palms. “It’s not my fault you guys suck—”
Tohr actually stepped in front of Lassiter, like he was worried that something a lot more than smack talk was going to start flying. And the sad thing was, he was right to be concerned. Apart from their shellans, V and Butch loved the Sox above almost everything else—including sanity.”
“I think you and he need to talk. And once you do, I won’t have to worry about being jumped like a felon again.”
Blay frowned. “He and I have nothing to say to each other—”
“With all due respect, the ligature marks around my neck would suggest otherwise.”
“In so many ways, he had wanted this his whole life—or at least ever since he’d survived his transition and had any sexual impulse at all. This moment was the culmination of countless daydreams and innumerable fantasies, his secret desire made manifest.”
“Qhuinn looked at each of the hoods again. How ironic, he thought. Nearly two years ago, an Honor Guard of black robes had been sent to him to make sure he knew his family didn't want him. And now, here these males were, come to draw him into a different kind of fold-- that was every bit as strong as that of blood.”
“Blay didn’t shake the hand that was offered. He reached over, took a hold of the fighter’s face, and drew Qhuinn in for a kiss. It was supposed to be only a split-seconder— like their lips were the ones doing the handshake thing. When he went to pull back, though, Qhuinn captured him, and held him in place. Their mouths met again… and again… and once more, their heads tilting to the sides, the contact lingering. “You’re welcome,” Blay said roughly. Then he smiled a little. “Can’t say it was all a pleasure, though.”
“He was the first to reach the aircraft, and he went for the door that by some miracle was facing outward and not into the concrete wall. Wrenching the thing open, and getting out his flashlight, he didn’t know what to expect inside—smoke? Fumes? Blood and body parts?
Zsadist was sitting rigid in a backward-facing seat, his big body strapped in, both hands locked on the armrests. The Brother was staring straight ahead and not blinking.
“Have we stopped moving?” he said hoarsely”
“In his fantasy, he kissed his best friend again, pulled back, and… “I love you,” he said into the spray of the shower. “I… love you.” As he closed his eyes against the pain, it was hard to know how much of what ran down his cheeks was water, and how much was something else.”
“The kiss that was pressed against his own mouth was reverent, the contact no heavier than the warm, still air in the room. It was the consummate lover’s kiss, the kind of thing he had wanted even more than the hot sex they’d just had.”
“Fuck my cousin, it's got nothing to do with my cousin for me. If you were alone, I'd still be right on this carpet, on my knees, wanting to be with you. If you were mated to a female, if you were dating someone all casual and shit, if you were in a million different places in life … I’d still be right here. Begging you for something, anything one time, if that’s all you’ve got.”
“The hardest thing is being with other people - it's like they're on a different wavelenght, but only you know it. They talk about their lives and what's wrong with them, and you kind of, like, just let them go. It's a whole different language, and you've got to remember that you can only respond in their mother tongue. It's really hard to relate.”
“And as he held his first true lover against him, feeling that familiar difference in their heights and smelling that wonderful cologne, part of him wanted to debate this break up until they both gave in and kept trying.
But that wasn’t fair.”
“You know, there is only one letter's difference between lonely and lovely," I told him once when he was down. "There is only one letter's difference between loner and loser," he retorted.”
“Nothing spells trouble like two drunk cowboys with a rocket launcher.”
“In existence there is no inferiority complex anywhere, and as a corollary there is no superiority complex either.”
“The genome of every human cell has memory. You know what that means? As evolved beings we have in our genes memories of the far past, of long-ago generations, memories of experiences not our own.”
“What did couples talk about after so many years together?”
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