Page 8 of Flesh and Bone

If Marshall were a smarter man, more cautious, he would’ve questioned it. Would’ve refused until Everett could at least look at him and tell him what he wanted. But he was an animal of easy urges he’d never seen reason to deny, not when what he wanted was offering to crawl right into his lap.

He reached for Everett, meaning to draw him up, wanting to kiss him the way he wanted to kiss any man he tangled with, warm and wet and easy.

Everett jerked back like Marshall had put the muzzle of his Colt Paterson revolver to Everett’s temple instead of cupping his face in one hand.

“Not like that,” Everett said, gone still as stone.

Despite the way his heart contracted at the denial, Marshall went along with it. If Everett was the one setting the pace, that couldn’t leave the man any room for regret. Shame didn’t come naturally to Marshall, so he underestimated just how deep it ran in his friend. All the way down to the bones, and then some.

???

“Sorry I couldn’t loveyou the way you wanted,” Everett mumbled.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Marshall lied. “We did okay.”

“No, we could’ve done better. I could’ve given you what you wanted if I tried harder.”

“Don’t work that way.”

Everett shifted against Marshall’s chest, restless and uncomfortable, the fever making him jittery and the chills making his jaw clench and his hand tremble. He tried to push back against Marshall’s groin. Pulling in a ragged breath, Marshall pressed a kiss to Everett’s temple, over his hair. He stank like alcohol, like an open wound gone off, and Marshall wanted to cry. Everett twisted to face him, pressing closer, gripping him hard with his knees, their belt buckles catching.

“You oughtta rest,” Marshall said reluctantly, holding him at bay.

“I know I’m not thinking right. Mind’s running in circles and they keep getting smaller and smaller, honing in on this one fixation where I just want—”

Everett broke off to swallow. Marshall watched his throat move, heard it click.

“I want such awful things,” Everett admitted wretchedly. “Worse than before.”

Worse things than he used to want, or the same things wanted more badly, Marshall wasn’t clear. Wasn’t convinced Everett would be able to articulate it in this state, anyhow. Exhausted and heartsick, Marshall tried to catch Everett’s face between his hands. Just like before, Everett jerked back, this time with his teeth bared like a cornered dog, the whites of his eyes shining.

“Don’t you kiss me like some faggot,” Everett warned, and then Marshall was the one jerking back like he’d been hit. “You want to fuck me, fucking do it. But don’t — You can’t just—”

“That’s the fever talking,” Marshall said firmly, disentangling from him.

Marshall wasn’t naïve, and he wasn’t sheltered. He knew how men talked, what they thought. If Everett had been in his right mind, Marshall would’ve knocked every pansy-assed insult from his mouth like loose teeth. But Everett had never talked to him like that in his right mind, not even drunk, not even after that night under the moon. Marshall wrapped his fist in the sweat-damp bedsheets instead of driving it into Everett’s blood-stained mouth.

“Lay back and quit making things worse,” he ordered. “Let me take care of you and you’ll be all right.”

Everett shook his head furiously and tried to crawl forward, dragging himself over the bedcovers as Marshall retreated. “Isn’t this what you wanted? You wanted me to want you back. So, finish what I started that night. Can’t get worse than this, can we?”

When he advanced again, Marshall caught him by the shoulder to hold him off. Everett’s expression turned cold and calculating like Marshall had never seen. Like Everett had been carved away and underneath was nothing but mean hunger. It unsettled every one of Marshall’s natural instincts, as unnerving as a dousing of ice water. Clarity cut through him like a bullet. Whatever was sitting there facing him on that bed wasn’t his friend anymore.

They both sat unmoving for a second, waiting to see what the other would do. Marshall’s revolver was on the dresser beside the lamp. He didn’t take his eyes off Everett’s face, but he knew exactly how far he had to reach to grab it. Everett growled, a deep animal rumbling from out of his chest. His lips curled, flashing inflamed gums, new teeth pressing out like an infected boil trying to burst. When Marshall recoiled, Everett lunged.

Marshall dragged Everett’s back against his chest again, wrapping one arm over Everett’s collarbones to keep him pinned. Everett thrashed and snarled, trying to smash the back of his skull into Marshall’s face, to sink his teeth into Marshall’s forearm. He was a rabid dog, stinking with fever and fighting with more strength than he should have left. He wasn’t fighting to escape but to deal as much damage as he could, snapping his teeth like he wanted to rip out Marshall’s throat. Marshall was at a disadvantage, trying not to hurt him in return. Marshall hopedEverett would exhaust himself or pass out from blood loss before Marshall got tired. If he didn’t — if his brain was boiling too hot for his body to recognize its own limits — that didn’t leave Marshall too many options.

If he was a sick dog, a lame horse, that poor disembowelled steer, Marshall would’ve done him a kindness and put him down. But Everett was the boy he’d grown up alongside, the man he’d spent more hours of his life with than anyone else in the world. The only one he’d loved in years, long before that fat July moon when Everett had come onto him, red-faced even in the dark, and Marshall had been too pathetically hopeful, his brain too full of longing and bullshit poetry, the same bullshit poetry he’d stolen glances of from Everett’s weather-beaten chapbooks over the years, to turn him down like he should have. The minute Everett hadn’t let Marshall kiss him was when he should’ve called it off, pretended stumbling drunkenness, pretended he couldn’t remember anything the next day.

Marshall had an obligation to put him down before things got worse. Because it wasn’t just a matter of watching Everett suffer through a bad fever, or trying to find him a doctor before gangrene took hold. Marshall had seen that monster outside. He knew what fate had in store for the man, even if Everett didn’t.

Everett writhed in his grasp, his eyes rolling back as he moaned and shuddered like his body wasn’t his own.

“Hurts,” he panted. “Hurts, god, Marshall, let me—” He bucked, teeth snapping an inch from Marshall’s throat with a rough, barking growl.

“Don’t you fucking bite me,” Marshall growled back, shoving Everett off him, too rough for the man’s injury. Everett fell offthe edge of the bed to the floor, landing on one hip, his arms still twisted up out of the way with Marshall’s knots.

“Let me,” Everett begged, his voice a rough and ragged thing. He hardly sounded like himself. Marshall didn’t know what exactly what he was begging for anymore, a touch or a fuck or a bite out of Marshall’s throat. He doubted Everett knew for sure himself.

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