Page 73 of Refrain
“Not now, Luthor. Don’t lecture me. I just can’t… My brain hurts… My heart hurts. I miss Dani every single day, and I’m terrified… I’m terrified of exactly how close to the edge he’s walking right now, and conscious of what the consequences might be if I push even slightly too hard. And I ought to go check on him.”
He didn’t move.
“Come here.” Luthor hopped down from the wall and crossed to him. He grasped Xane’s hands and pulled him to his feet, before swaddling him in an embrace. “He’s in bed. He’s safe, Xane. And if he chose otherwise, there’s nothing you or anyone could do about it. You can’t fix people. You can be there for them, support them, but only they can figure stuff out for themselves. Dani will talk to us when she’s ready. She doesn’t get it. We both know why, and maybe she never will. If that’s so, then we have to deal with that. The same for Spook. Though really, he needs a therapist. A really fucking good therapist.”
“He does, right?”
“Yeah.” Luthor stroked Xane’s hair back from his face and kissed him. “A therapist and a fuck of a lot of really great consensual sex.”
“But not with me…”
“But not with…” Luthor broke into a lopsided grin, before kissing Xane again. “I might have changed my mind on that. I actually don’t think who it’s with is the important part, more that it’s guilt and shame free, and involves a shit ton of mind-blowing orgasms.”
“They are good for the soul.”
“And if I thought it’d work, I’d advocate us jumping him and showing him a good time right now, but… maybe you and him are complicated enough. I’m really fucking serious about the toxic dependency thing. You can’t be his only crutch, Xane. It’s not healthy, and it’ll hurt you both in the long term. It’s hurting you now. You’ve demons of your own, don’t forget that, because when you ignore them, that’s when they bite you.”
He nodded. “I know. I do know that.”
He wasn’t swearing it’d be enough to stop him.
“And I know that you know that.” Luthor slid his hand around Xane’s and linked their fingers. “Let’s go in. I’ll make you a brew and you can brood over it sexily while I wash the dishes.”
That got him smirking. “That’s so fucking domestic.”
“It is, but I like being domestic with you. Love isn’t all angst and squirmy times. Sometimes, it’s just about home and routines and watching TV together.” They exchanged soft lip grazes, then Luthor led them inside. After the dishes were done, they nestled together, and binge watched a mini-series on Xane’s phone screen. Xane poked his head around the bedroom door just the once, whereupon his enquiry as to whether Spook needed anything was met with a silence so painful he had to pour himself a double vodka.
Luthor stole it from him before he had a chance to down it. “Let him have some space, will you? He’ll come out when he’s ready.”
“Right. Right… I can’t.”
Luthor slid between him and the door.
“I need the loo.”
“Pee in a bucket.”
“Harsh!”
Luthor poured more vodka and put the glass in Xane’s hand. “Sit. There are another four episodes of this series yet. I’ll permit you a bathroom trip after that and not before. He needs space, and you need time out.”
“What if he needs a hug even more?”
Luthor shook his head. “He knows where you are.”
As it turned out, Xane dozed off on Luthor’s shoulder halfway through the penultimate episode, and it was the following morning before he woke.
Spook didn’t rise that day. He stayed in bed, and he didn’t eat. And only drank a single glass of water. Nothing Xane said to him made any difference. He assured him over and over that it wasn’t his fault. Mid-afternoon, when he tried to lie down beside Spook, he was unceremoniously told to fuck off. Luthor tried to get him to go for a walk, but he couldn’t leave. He couldn’t take that risk.
-29-
Spook
“How fucking could you? I thought we were friends. I thought I could trust you.”
The words Dani had spat at him while they were docked in Gothenburg onboard theQueen Victoriahaunted Spook’s thoughts. They’d been spinning in his head for hours. She, Xane, and Luthor had been solid before that point. Happy. Stable. And he’d destroyed it for them, as he destroyed everything. His friends might claim he wasn’t a monster, but the evidence was against him. Everything he touched turned to shit.
Fuck knows why Luthor was humouring him.
