Page 40 of Refrain
He played a few familiar tunes, staying clear of Black Halo songs and opting for rock classics instead. Following that, he made shit up for a while, with Xane improvising lyrics, or at least the pitch and timbre of lyrics, even if the words weren’t there. The domesticity of it reminded him of his youth. He and his sisters lined up holding tea towels, responsible for drying while his grandma washed the pots after a big family meal. She’d sing as she washed, old folk songs mostly, things she’d learned in her youth. He was surrounded by music all of the time, but he could only remember a few lines of most of the songs, and choruses. They tended to stick in the brain more easily. He wondered if his grandma had ever known all the words, or if she’d only sung the parts she remembered.
All the playing and the assaults on his memory swiftly set him off yawning, so that he was dozing in the rocking chair by the time Xane finished his stint as a domestic goddess. The kitchen gleamed. Yeah, even by candlelight, and the place smelled of a citrus fruit underscored with the nostril-tingling scent of scouring powder.
“I don’t want to talk,” he said, when Xane brushed the hair away from his face. The fire had burned down to glowing embers on a bed of white ash. It’d need sweeping out tomorrow. Keeping the fireplace neat was one of the only things he’d been fastidious about. “I’m tired. I just want to sleep.” His sleep cycle was shot to pieces, but this evening it was on track with the rest of civilisation.
Strangers pegged Xane as being self-obsessed, and ultra-high-maintenance. He was, but that was only one side of his personality. Xane had depths he tried hard to hide from the world. He could be boundlessly empathetic. It was a duality that served him well and was probably the reason why his song writing spoke to thousands upon thousands of lonely teens and adults alike. When he wrote, Xane poured his heart into every word and note.
“Then I guess we don’t have to talk tonight.”
He must have shed his relief like a second skin, because Xane chuckled. “I’m not here to drag you back into civilisation. Well, I am…but not this second. I’m just glad to see you, and that you’re more or less in one piece.”
He was still walking, talking, and had his limbs attached. He guessed that qualified as one piece. Mentally… yeah, that was a different matter.
“So, I did notice there’s only one bed. Are you going to let me cuddle? It’d be a bit cruel to banish me to the floor after I cooked and cleaned up for you.” He flashed Spook one of his best panty-melting smiles.
While he hadn’t asked for either of those things, his sense of fair play along with the rules of basic hospitality won. It wasn’t as if there was a sofa he could put Xane up on. Hell, there wasn’t even a bathtub they could dress up as a bed.
“I suppose I can let you, just as long as you don’t get any ideas about jabbing me with your dick.”
“Pretty sure you asked me to perform said jabbing last time, but, considering the fallout, a reprise probably wouldn’t be the smartest move. We both have people—”
“You have people,” Spook corrected. He shook his head. “Dead end. And before you open your mouth and have an opinion about that, we’re already done on the subject. It’s off limits if you want a bed tonight.”
“Got it, hard arse.”
He probably ought to be creeped out by how beatific Xane’s smile was, but frankly, he hadn’t the energy for it. Instead, he let his friend haul him out of the chair. Xane saw to the embers, while he dealt with the locks and the lights.
He was sitting on the far side of the bed, T-shirt halfway over his head, when Xane followed him into the bedroom. “Who’ve you told?” he asked.
Xane dropped his shirt on the floor, then started on his jeans. He peeled those off, while Spook stood with his hand still on the waistband of his baggy joggers.
“I haven’t told anyone your location, if that’s what you mean. I’ve sent Luthor a message to let him know I found you and that I’ll talk to him tomorrow. I’m not going to expose you, Spook. I never have before. Why would I start now?”
“Colour me wary.”
Xane shed his socks, then his boxer briefs too.
“Really?” Spook rolled his eyes. It wasn’t like he wasn’t intimately aware of every inch of Xane’s body, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be treated to the sight of his tackle, or bed down next to it.
“Sue me, I like to let my bits breathe.”
“Do you not own pyjamas?”
“Fuck no! I don’t sleep in pyjamas, and you know it. Nor do you.” He flung back the covers. “Get in.”
Spook followed his cue and shed the rest of his clothing. Thank God, it was a king-sized bed, though the room could barely hold it. They could both happily lie side by side without touching one another, with space in the middle to spare. He turned off the light.
As was often the case when his head hit the pillow, his brain fired up. All the things that had happened, and might, circling on endless repeat, and coupled with them, a sense of doomed emptiness. When his eyes were closed, it seemed he was forever plodding along a misty road, with swamps to either side of him, and ghost-like candles flicking over their surface. If he looked into the water, scenes would play out as if he were viewing them on a television screen. Scenes from his life he took no pleasure in revisiting, and ones that broadened the already significant cracks in his psyche. There were some visions he refused to endure. Then, he’d force his eyes wide, and stare up at the ceiling instead, while he forced himself to do calculus in his head or recite pi or play guitar adagios. It took him a while to realise that Xane had rolled onto his side and was watching him.
“Is it my presence that’s causing the agitation, or do you always play yourself to sleep?”
“It isn’t because I’m not tired.”
“I figured that. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. I don’t want to talk about myself at all. Not a whole lot has happened of late, and anything else, I don’t want to touch.”
“Do I need to find you a bedtime story?”
