By request, here’s the Paris version of the Infected soundtrack. For everyone who likes to dance, and some who like a little Brit rock. Enjoy.

3 – Washburn

“Do you have any idea what it was like?” Oliver continued, tears welling in his eyes. “We thought he was murdered, and we’d never know how he died or who killed him. They’d get away scot free, and we’d never know what happened to our dad or why. And now, after all that agony, this. That fucker is still alive? So he just walked away, is that it? Can people do that?”

“People do it all the time; men more than women, but they do it too.” He got out the box of tissue he kept on hand for crying clients – he had a lot of clients who cried, which made sense, as he was usually the last resort for these people – and put it on the edge of his desk, close to him. “Do you have a photo of your father from before?”

He took a tissue, wiped his eyes and nose, and nodded convulsively. “Yeah, yeah I do.” He balled up the tissue and sniffed as he dug in his man purse once  more. He put the print on his desk, and followed it with a yellowed Polaroid, of a rather average looking man in his early thirties, with brown hair thinning at the temples, soft, pale eyes nearly lost in his doughy round face, his nose a sharp blade that dominated his otherwise unremarkable visage. He looked tired, and seemed to be sitting at a kitchen table, with a red and white gingham checked cloth beneath his blue coffee mug, dishes in a rack visible over his left shoulder.

The print picture was in profile, while the Polaroid shot was head on, making this a bit more dicey. Still, there were some obvious similarities – the nose appeared exactly the same, as did the shape of the chin. The face was thinner, but in an expected way, one you might expect from someone who had aged over several years. “How old is this photo?” he asked, holding up the Polaroid.

He was dabbing his face with the tissue again. “Fourteen years old.”

He quickly did the math in his head. “The year he disappeared.”

Oliver nodded again. “It was taken on his birthday, in May.”

Roan studied the photos carefully, one right against the other. Neither picture was especially sharp, but they weren’t bad either. There was a nagging similarity between the photos, and there was no way he could deny it. “They are the same, aren’t they?”

Would he be getting his hopes up if responded in the affirmative? “There is an uncanny resemblance. But you are aware that occasionally someone can look almost exactly like someone else but not be them.”

“Yeah, I know. But it’s him, I know it’s him. And I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel about that.”

A fair point. “You need to understand something before you hire me: I may not be able to find him. Even if he is your dad, he may have moved on or just been passing through Seattle. I have no name, no location, no nothing. In essence, I am looking for a ghost, and it may ultimately be pointless, a waste of your money and my time. So do you still want to do this?”

He nodded, his expression oddly chastened. “Yes. I hafta know.”

“Can you even afford me? I don’t know if I can fit in a college student’s budget.”

“It’s not me paying, it’s my Aunt Abby, my dad’s sister. I emailed her as soon as I realized what was bugging me about the pic, just to make sure I wasn’t insane. She thought it was him too, and she wants to know what the fuck he’s been up to. We decided not to tell the rest of the family until we’re sure it’s actually him.”

“Good choice.” Best that two people were disillusioned rather than everyone all at once.

They discussed payment and everything he was going to need from him about his dad, who was named Adam Jephson. Oliver seemed surprised he wanted to know everything there was about Adam, but it was the only thing that might help him figure out how a guy like this would have thought, and where he may have gone.

He had the basics: Born Adam Frederick Jephson in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on May 29th, 1963, he was the only son of Fred and Susan Jephson (he had one sister, Abigail, two years younger), he went to college at the University of Delaware and he married one Annette Eberle in Dover, Delaware on June 16th, 1985 (coincidentally – or perhaps not – Oliver’s older sister, Caroline, was born in November of that same year). Adam went on to work at an insurance company, the same one his father worked for, which was simply not a coincidence. They had two other children in quick succession – Oliver was born in 1988, followed by another sister, Melanie, in 1990 – and an otherwise unremarkable life. Anette eventually started working for a florist, and they were your perfectly average white nuclear family.

Until Adam disappeared.

According to newspaper articles he found thanks to Lexis Nexis and Google searches, it barely warranted an inch high notice in the paper when it was first reported, on September 3rd of 1996. But as the days wore on, it got more notice, and the discovery of the car kicked things into overdrive. The newspapers were breathless in their speculation that something horrible had happened to him, that the car was proof of foul play (even though the cops said there was “no sign of foul play” – meaning, in police speak, they found no blood or bullet holes in the car).

Roan knew there were a couple of possibilities here. He walked – he wouldn’t be the first man, overwhelmed by family life, a boring job, and a rough (?) marriage to just walk away. Second possibility: His car broke down, and he got help from the wrong guy – since serial killers of straight white men was a statistical non-starter, the most likely violence scenario was a robbery gone wrong. And because the would be robber was something of a pro, he knew not to use the guys’ cards, just dump them and take the cash. (He went missing with a bank card and two credit cards, none of which were ever used again.) Third scenario – he committed suicide. Adam abandoned his car and walked into a river, filling his pockets with rocks before going for a midnight swim. It was possible that his body would never turn up if there was enough of a current.

But right now, he had to work from the possibility that Adam walked, and a photographer caught him in the background of a shot taken at the Seattle pride parade last year. Could Adam be gay? Just because he was in the background of the shot didn’t mean he was gay, he could have been crossing the street or living on the block. But if he was gay, it gave a good reason for him abandoning everything and starting over. He could have been living a double life, with a wife and family and a male lover on the side (or just a series of anonymous sexual encounters, or both), and finally got sick of having to juggle them. He decided to pick one, but to save his family from “shame”, or him from guilt and a protracted legal battle, he walked away, and allowed them to think he was dead.

He had one place to start his search: that neighborhood, and the local gay bars. He’d have to work on the assumption he was gay and local, because he had nothing else to work with. The Eagle was close, wasn’t it? He liked the Eagle; it was his kind of gay bar. Hard to find, small and unpretentious, you pretty much went there just to have a drink. Oh, and maybe pick someone up, but there was no deafening dance music, no place to dance actually (unless you went upstairs, but even then the tables and the pool table took up most of the space). He never actually hooked up with anyone there, but he made friends, and that was probably better.

Roan found himself getting slightly nostalgic at the thought of going back to the Eagle, and got up to go, shrugging on his coat and making sure he had the photo taken of the Adam wannabe at the pride parade. Even at the Eagle, saying his kid was looking for him might bring out protective shields, but saying he was hired by a lawyer to find him because he inherited some estate? Again, people were more than happy to get involved when there was money on the line.

As he came out, Fiona was just getting up. “Hey, I was gonna ask what you wanted for lunch.”

He shook his head. “Take the rest of the day off. I’m going out to start banging on garbage cans.”

“Whatcha looking for?”

“A guy who may or may not be a guy who supposedly died in Delaware fourteen years ago.”

“Wow. Emo boy brought that one in?”

“Yep. It gets even more emo – it’s his dad.”

She let out a low whistle. “That’s gotta be worth an Oprah episode or two.”

“If it is his dad. Right now, it could be a guy who just looks like him. That’s my impossible job.”

“Awesome,” she replied, with a tinge of sarcasm. With her eyes alone, she seemed to be asking why he would take such a hopeless case, but he only shrugged. Why not seemed to be the only appropriate answer.

The door opened, and while Roan took in the physical features of the tall, skinny guy in the tattered overcoat, his cat senses had kicked into overdrive. He was already moving when he pinpointed the thing that set it all off: gun oil. The kid smelled like gun oil, gunpowder, and hate.

Roan’s intention was to land a kick in his solar plexus, sending him flying out into the parking lot, but that’s not what happened. The gunman had withdrawn the gun just in time for Roan’s feet to impact his chest, like he was jumping off of it, and in fact he was. He managed to wrench the gun from his hand and pushed off with his feet as the guy was already falling backwards, doubling his speed as gravity pulled him down. The gunman hit the outside asphalt with bone crunching force, his head bouncing off the pavement like a basketball, as Roan managed to turn in midair, feet scraping the ceiling, as he landed in a crouch inside his own waiting room,the gun clutched to his chest. “Holy fuck!” Fi exclaimed, more surprised than anything else. “How the fuck did you do that?”

He wasn’t sure what she meant, just like he wasn’t completely sure what he’d done. It was all instinct, the cat just under the surface and taking over with the sudden adrenaline rush. It didn’t know what was impossible, not for him, and didn’t obey too many rules in any case.

He gulped air and ran out into the parking lot. The guy was laying flat out, wheezing like he was drowning on dry land, and yet he was still trying to pull himself across the lot, trying to move. Roan heard the screech of tires as a car, some ugly ass Toyota in a shade of primer gray, sped out of the edge of the lot like its ass was on fire. The guy’s compatriots, abandoning him as soon as it was a dead cert that he had lost. Roan walked over to the kid, and just listening to his labored breathing and the lumpy look of his chest, he figured he had busted his ribs, perhaps collapsed his entire fucking torso. He hit him like a Human missile, and there was no counter for that.

A fear stench was coming off him in waves, and he wasn’t sure why until he realized he was growling, and Roan forced himself to stop. The guy was trying to say something, but he couldn’t get enough air to do it. A quick glance confirmed a spider web tattoo on the back of his hand, the kind with the hidden SS symbol in it, a prison special. “FCC?” he asked, but it wasn’t really a question. He already knew.

He heard police sirens, loud but fading, and figured cops had already picked up the speeding Toyota. Another prowler turned into the lot, briefly blaring its siren before the black and white pulled parallel to them. He didn’t recognize the cops that got out, a stocky Hispanic guy built like a fireplug and a doughier, taller white guy, but apparently they knew him. “What happened here?” the stocky guy, named Morales, asked.

“This idiot pulled a gun on me.”

The white officer, named Fisher, snorted derisively. “Oh my god, you attacked Batman? Jesus Christ, you gotta death wish or somethin’?”

“He needs an ambulance.”

“He’s gonna need a fuckin’ mortuary once I’m through with him,” Fiona exclaimed, stomping out into the parking lot. It looked like she was going to kick him, but his obvious physical distress and the cops made her pause. “What was this fucking fuckface asshole thinking?!”

While Fisher radioed in for an ambulance, Morales told her, “I’m assuming he was gonna shoot your boss.” He patted down the legs and chest of the guy on the ground, searching for hidden weapons. He found a wicked looking hunting knife with a serrated blade that would actually be very clumsy to use in a fight. Morales must have known that, because as he pulled it out of the sheath on the man’s leg, he held it up and asked, “Really?”

The gunman’s eyes were glass bright and shiny with panic. He couldn’t breathe, or at least he was having such a hard time breathing his brain was kicking into full on animal mode, where nothing mattered but the pure basics of existing.

He handed Morales the guys’ gun butt first, and said, “He was gonna assassinate me with this.”

He looked at it dubiously. He was wearing latex gloves, so he wasn’t going to worry about contaminating the evidence. “A .45?”

“I know. If I didn’t collapse his entire chest, I’d feel insulted.”

“How did that happen, by the way?”

“I drop kicked him.” Well, that was essentially what he did. It was a bit fancier than that. Morales just stared at him like he didn’t quite believe him.

“With what, a battering ram?”

Roan figured, with his luck, the ambulance would be Dee’s, but no, it was a crew he’d never met before (and he was kind of relieved). As they were loading the guy onto the stretcher and shooting him slightly dirty looks (he didn’t mean to crush his chest – he didn’t know he could kick someone that hard) when his phone started vibrating in his pocket. He checked the read out, saw it was Doctor Rosenberg, and decided to answer. She’d done a scan of his chest the other day, just to see if the phantom muscle that blocked the bullet was still there or not. She must have had an answer by now. “Hey there Doctor Nick,” he said, figuring she’d get the reference.

“Drop whatever you’re doing and get to my office now,” she said, her voice all steel. “I mean it, none of your bullshit, just do it.”

“Why -”

“Do it, or I’ll send one of my interns to come get you. Do you understand me?”

He was completely baffled by her hostility. “What -”

“Now. When I call back, you better be on the road.” And with that, she hung up. He stared at the  cell for a moment, wondering what he had done to piss her off. Well, there were so many possibilities to choose from, he didn’t know which to select.

He’d already given his statement to Fisher, so he was okay to leave the scene, and since Fi was fine and knew they were done for the day (certainly now, if not before) he went ahead and took off. He wanted to go to the Eagle, but later – he knew Rosenberg well enough to know she actually would send an intern after him if he didn’t do what she said.

It wasn’t a long drive to the university, although when she called back he was stuck in traffic. She barely believed that.

She all but shoved him into her office, and as soon as she walked to her desk, she started her spiel. “Couldn’t find the muscle on the scan, but I know it’s there. What I did find … shit, kid, I don’t know how to tell you this.”

“Kid?” he chuckled, taking the chair in front of her desk. “You know I’m pushing forty.”

“Young compared to me. But so is Methuselah, so don’t be too flattered.” She sat behind her desk with a sigh, and brought out a color scan of a torso, presumably his. “I want to check into the university hospital, right now. Have you been having visual auras lately, migraines, random head pains, loss of consciousness? And please, be honest here.”

“What? What the hell is this about?”

She handed him the scan. He looked at it, seeing the outline of a chest and arms in bluish light, with organs highlighted by various colors, and muscles like traces holding the sketch together. There were also some odd, tiny dark spots scattered around, like a handful of pepper spilled on the image. “What the hell are these specks?”

“They’re not specks; they’re about the size of a pea.”

“Okay, what are the peas?”

She scowled, emphasizing the thin lines gathered around her mouth. He suddenly realized she wasn’t angry, just upset. “They’re tumors. We went through all the digital views of the scans available in the database, and we’ve counted fourteen. There appears to be one in your stomach too, which I really don’t like. I want to check you in right away and get a biopsy of some of these. My hope is this is just a form of hyperplasia and nothing to worry about,  but it’s best we make sure, especially considering how fast it’s come on, and I want to do a brain scan right away to make sure that area’s clean.”

Maybe it was the fact that he crushed a man’s chest less than hour earlier, or all the pain pills, but this seemed unreal somehow. “I thought tumors didn’t spread.”

“They don’t.”

“But I have more than a baker’s dozen of them? How?”

“What do you think I’ve been asking myself?” She sighed and rubbed her eyes, temporarily moving her glasses up to her forehead. “Look, you are a hybrid organism, and your physical adaptation to your unique condition has been miraculous. But there are problems that come with being a hybrid organism, and this is terra incognita. We don’t know what could plague you, we don’t know the full life cycle of the virus, we can only take educated guesses at certain weaknesses. This surprises me as much as you. But we need to work fast to make sure this is contained, that this is not as bad as it looks. Please work with me here, Roan.”

Suddenly things started falling into place, in a very weird way. He wasn’t surprised by any of this, nor was he at all afraid. He knew he should have been, but again, it was all from a remove, from a distance, as if this was happening to someone else. “Brain scan. You think I have a brain tumor.”

Not a question, but she took it as such. “You have a history of migraines and aneurysms, and it’s better safe than sorry. If these tumors have spread everywhere, it’s best to cover all the bases. None of these tumors are especially serious, although we do have to remove the one on your stomach wall and one on your left kidney. But if you have one in your brain, you know how damn serious that is.”

That was the diplomatic answer. He chuckled, suddenly finding this all very funny. “This ain’t gonna kill me. This isn’t how I go down.”

Her glasses settled on the end of her nose, and she stared at him again. “You know this for a fact? You know how you die?”

“For a certain fact? No. But violently seems to be the obvious conclusion. Somebody tried to kill me before I got here.”

“And what happened to them?”

“Crushed sternum, punctured lung.”

She looked alarmed. “Seriously? You fucked them up that much?”

“I didn’t mean to. It got a little out of control on me.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s the other thing. It could explain it.”

“Explain what?”

“A tumor. A small one, in a very specific area of your brain, could be part of the reason you’ve been losing control of your shifts.”

It was turn to stare at her for a very long moment. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. It’s only started happening recently, yeah?”

He had to consider that, and even then, he wasn’t sure. “I guess. But …” He didn’t know what he was going to say.

A wave of relief washed over him, so intense it almost brought him to tears. Maybe it wasn’t all his fault; maybe he wasn’t completely insane. Maybe all wasn’t lost.

Maybe he wasn’t lost.

2 – Greetings From The Great North Woods

Holden was correct about him knowing Jessie, only when he knew Jessie, Jessie was still on the street – and still a man.

Now Jessie was a social worker of some kind, and a very hippie-ish woman who favored granny glasses, long skirts, and peasant blouses, very much someone he’d describe as a crunchy granola type. Her transition was an impressive one; you barely noticed her Adam’s apple.

He pulled her aside and told her he was worried about the girl because she was so quiet, acquiescent, and never scared. Some people took silence or meekness for fear, but he could smell the difference. As he told Jessie this, she canted her head like a parakeet, looking at him curiously, and when he was done, she said simply, “You were abused, weren’t you?”

He just shrugged. “Who wasn’t?” Now, if she’d ever asked if he’d ever been hit with a crosscut saw, he might have had an emotional moment, but now he no longer cared. Nearly everyone had a “smacked around as a kid” story, and he wasn’t as bad off as Katie. He got scared, he got hurt and scarred, but he never got broken. That had to wait until Paris died.

At least Katie was in good hands now. Even though Holden gave him a funny look, he agreed to take him home, and when they were in the car, he said, “You realize you’re stone cold sober now.”

“Uh huh. I hurt like fuck.” It was a shame to be back to normal, but the partial change had caused him to fully metabolize the pills and the booze. But at least he’d been fucked up enough to keep a handle on the beast for the whole time (more or less). Maybe that was the way forward from now on – get super fucked up and keep in control during the change.

“And yet you’re so cavalier about the violence.”

“Child rapers are the lowest of the low. As far as I’m concerned, whatever they get, it’s not as bad as they deserve.”

Holden stared at him for a moment, before putting the keys in the ignition. “At least we’re on the same page there. Which kinda bothers me.”

What was there to say to that? So he said nothing, and searched his pockets for any pills. He found a couple, and when he was sure Holden wasn’t looking, he dry swallowed them.

By the time Holden dropped him off at the Magnolia place they currently called home, the pain had ebbed to a dull roar. The house was dark and he knew Dylan was upstairs asleep, because he caught his scent still in the air. He must have come home within the hour.

Roan glanced at the only clock in the house with a readable time on it, and wondered how it got so late. It hadn’t taken that long to beat those guys up and get Katie out of there. Maybe it was the drive.

As for the clock, it was designed as a fishbowl, and the minute hand was a goldfish that made the slowest rotation in history, with the hour hand the type of underwater castle you see in a goldfish bowl.  There were no numbers, merely lines, but he could still figure out what time it was. In the living room was a huge clock the size of a hubcap, shaped like a starburst. Did it have any hour markings of any kind? No. It had hour and minute hands that pointed at nothing; you were supposed to guess the time by position. He wasn’t an idiot – he didn’t like to think of himself as an idiot, at any rate – but he found it impossible to read that fucking clock. What was the point of it? It didn’t even look that good as an object d’art.

Staying in this expensive, archly decorated house, it seemed to emphasize the differences between him and Dylan. Roan knew his lower middle class roots were showing in the fact that he found this house almost appalling on several different levels, while Dylan just shrugged and chalked it up to different tastes. But as different as he and Dyl were, he thought this was a good thing. They had separate lives, they weren’t in each other’s business all the time, they had different interests and time apart, all of which was good. He didn’t know how couples who were  together all the time ever made it. You needed your own space. Just because you were married (or civil partnered, or whatever the fuck you wanted to call it) didn’t instantly turn you into conjoined twins.

He took a shower in the absurd downstairs bathroom (this house had three, all absurdly decorated, and large enough to be spacious living rooms) washing away any lingering traces of blood (okay, only he could smell them and barely, but why take the chance), wondering what was so wrong with him that he wanted to take a sledgehammer to this place – because he was sure you could feed all the homeless of Seattle for a year if you sold the furniture? Actually, you could probably feed Tacoma’s homeless as well. And why even have them? The couches were ugly! And uncomfortable. The ninety dollar one he picked up at a thrift shop was comfortable enough to sleep on, and didn’t look like a drunken leprechaun had thrown up psychedelic mushrooms on it.

Oh shit, was he turning into some bitter old queen? (In his mind, he could hear Dee snort and say, “Turning? Try have been and get back to me.”) Bitter, cynical … vicious. That trafficker who took a shot at Holden was dead. Maybe not this second, but he would be. There was no way you could use a man’s skull to shatter a sink and not kill him. He didn’t feel bad about it – he was selling the girl; she had simply been one in a series – but he thought he should. He was hardening, becoming more of a predator by the day. Or was that a convenient excuse?

He went upstairs, to the insanely large master bedroom with its round bed (ludicrous – who had a round mattress, and most importantly, why? Even Dylan admitted he had no idea how they ever bought the sheets for the thing), where Dylan was curled up on one side of the spacious bed. He remembered how the bed was all white when they first moved in – white sheets, white blankets, white shams, whatever those were. (Both he and Dylan found that weird. “We’re just not all white people,” Dylan had said, and Roan ran a hand through his red hair and replied, “Speak for yourself. If I was any whiter, I’d be translucent.”) In a spare bedroom closet, Dylan found a comforter that was a very gay shade of lilac, but at least it was a color, so he moved it to this bedroom and was currently huddled beneath it. Roan crawled into bed carefully, so as not to wake him up.

His eyes were adjusted to the dark, so he could see Dylan’s shoulder, the delicate latticework of bones beneath taut olive skin, and he carefully traced the scapula with his fingertip.

They were a relationship of two different worlds. But it wasn’t the divide people expected. It wasn’t that Dyl was an artist and he wasn’t, or that Dylan was younger than him, or that he was Hispanic and Roan was clearly a whiter shade of pale, or even that Roan was infected and he wasn’t.

It was that Dylan was totally Human, and he wasn’t. He wondered if that would ultimately tear them apart.

****

When his bladder finally forced him awake, Roan found himself confronted with the punishing bright accusation of the sun, streaming through the gauzy white curtains like a stream of curses. He squinted and grumbled as he made his way to the bathroom, which was all white marble and gold colored fixtures, and it took Roan a moment to realize what was wrong: the birds. At home, he could hear the birds chirping sometimes very loudly, as if they were right above his head. Here, the landscaping kept them in the ornamental trees some distance from the house, and perhaps the building materials also kept the outside sounds muted. It was a shame, as he actually had gotten used to the noise, of birds and wind and branches scraping and slapping against the side of the house. He was a city boy and he knew it, so he had no idea why those sounds made him feel better.

Since it was such a sunny, pretty day, he decided to just go ahead and stay in bed with the covers pulled up. He seemed more accustomed to rain, fog, and gloom. Still, he smelled toast, and wasn’t surprised when the door opened and Dylan came in, eating toast and carrying a mug of tea. “So, when were you gonna tell me about the video?”

Roan sighed as he pulled the sheet off his face. “When I found the right moment. I never did.”

Ultimately he compromised with Bolt, and while it didn’t involve him compromising on personal principals, he still felt dirty. He shot a quick video that would be on Divine Transformation’s page and in general on YouTube. It wasn’t much really, just a statement of intent: he would resist any registry, and encouraged any and all infected to do the same. He doubted they’d arrest them all, but he kind of hope they tried, because then the registry would be revealed for what it was. He encouraged them to all stand together, and promised them, the infected viewing audience, that he would fight this as long as he could. There was nothing radical on it, nothing saying he loved the church or even liked them, it was simply a statement of fact. One that might get him investigated by the FBI, but fuck it. Playing it safe didn’t appeal to him.

He sat up as Dylan sat on the edge of the bed, and offered his tea and toast to him, possibly because he thought he might have a hangover. He didn’t, but he was starving, so he accepted them with a nod and helped himself to a bite and a gulp. The toast was at least sourdough, and the tea some weird green tea berry combination that was actually pleasant. “So are you leaving me?” he asked between bites of toast, mostly just curious.

“No. I must say you sounded very reasonable. I have no idea why some people are losing their shit over it.”

“Because I am encouraging the armed rebellion of infecteds against the normals. It’s the apocalypse, and I’m God or Satan, depending on who you ask.”

“I missed the armed part.”

“I think it’s implied, me being me and all.”

“I see.”

He set the tea down on the end table, and put a hand on Dylan’s naked back. He was wearing nothing but pajama bottoms, pale blue with white and red snowflakes on it, and Roan found himself once again entranced by the long lean line of his spine. “I’m just gonna apologize now for all the shit that’s gonna come ’cause of this, okay?”

It was Dylan’s turn to sigh. “You do realize if you start doing that, you’ll have to keep doin’ it forever.”

“Oh, I know. Thanks for not killing me before now.”

He glanced at him over his shoulder, eyebrow raised. “I married the gay Die Hard. What did I expect? I have no one to blame but myself.”

“Did you just compare me to Bruce Willis? I’m insulted.”

He patted his thigh comfortingly. “I meant the character, not the actor. We all know you’re better looking. Even with all the ink.”

“Hey, some of this is yours.”

“The best, yes.”

“That’s right, hon, embrace humility. Speaking of which, how’d the show go last night?”

He seemed to perk up at the very mention. “Pretty well. I sold a few paintings, and someone wants me to do something on commission. Normally I don’t do that kind of thing, but I was intrigued, so I took his number. I figure if I don’t like the idea, I can just back out.”

“His number? Are you sure someone wasn’t just trying to pick you up?”

Dylan smirked at him. He liked it when he showed a little jealousy. “He wasn’t my type. Oh, and a couple of people wanted to buy the photo montage of you. I turned them down, because how could I part with that? It’ll be nice to have a reminder of when you had a rockin’ bod after you get all old and saggy.” He was now grinning like a smart ass at him.

“Old and saggy? You bastard,” he said, and pounced on him, pinning him down to the bed as Dyl laughed. There was something curious about that joke, though – old and saggy. Infecteds didn’t live long enough to get old and saggy, unless they were infected at an advanced age. But since his infection was weird and his body seemed to be adapting to things he never should have been able to adapt to, maybe he did have a shot at becoming old. What would that be like?

It suddenly occurred to him that he never really contemplated the future. He simply lived for the now, because he assumed that was all he had left. Maybe that wasn’t true anymore. How weird would that be? Should it cause him to feel a brief spasm of pure dread? “I will never be old and saggy,” Roan proclaimed, with sarcastic vanity. “I will be beautiful forever.”

“Wouldn’t that require you being beautiful now?” Dylan retorted, smiling.

“Asshole.” He then tickled his ribs, knowing he was ticklish and hated that. He bucked under him, laughing even as he grabbed his wrists and rolled over, pinning Roan beneath his body.

He liked the weight of him, the feeling of his skin against his skin, and Dylan seemed to be aware of that. His smile became playful and sensuous, and Roan returned it to him before they kissed, with the odd sensation of stubble scraping against stubble (neither of them had shaved yet, apparently). Roan’s cell phone, still tucked in the pocket of his jacket on a chair across the room, started to buzz, and since it was right up against the chair’s metal frame, it was hard not to notice. “Ignore it,” Roan said between kisses, wrapping a leg around Dylan’s leg to hold him down. That made him laugh, suggesting he was never even tempted to answer it.

Well, why would he? They had something better to do.

****

Dylan eventually reminded him he said he’d be into work today, and that Fiona would be waiting, so after a quick shower (he didn’t bother shaving) he headed out.

He arrived at the office ten minutes later than usual, but he had a good excuse for being late, although he didn’t need it. After all, he was the boss – who did he answer to?

Fiona was there when he arrived, but so was a stranger. As he came in, she stood up, but so did the stranger. “There you are,” she said, giving him a look suggesting she didn’t find his lateness amusing.

“Sorry. Traffic.” He could have told her he was having sex with his husband, but that was too much information. Besides, he knew that when she watched porn – rarely – she preferred gay porn for some reason, and he didn’t want to give her any kind of mind fuel.

She gestured to the stranger, and said, “We had a walk in.”

“I see.” The walk in was a boy who looked barely old enough to shave. He was a boy of average height and average weight, although tending towards a bit pudgy, a situation not helped by the fact he was wearing two shirts (a long sleeved black shirt beneath a sleeveless white one) and a coat on top of all of that, one of those Army surplus coats in olive drab. He had a floppy haircut, one where his heavy bangs threatened to obscure his eyes, dyed a bottle blond and highlighted with blue and purple streaks. A buckshot of acne highlighted his weak chin, but his pale blue eyes were open and friendly. It looked like he was trying to grow out some stubble, but could only manage a few wispy hairs that were hard to see until you were up close. His mouth was thin and uncertain, like an anxious cartoon character, and as Roan extended a hand towards him, his lips seem to recede further into his face. He looked about fifteen, but the smell of a cologne that wasn’t Axe body spray made him push his age up further. “Hello, I’m Roan McKichan.”

He shook his hand limply; his grip was almost nonexistent, and his hand was cold. “I know, I recognize you from your picture. I’m, um, Oliver Jephson.”

“Nice to meet you. Shall we go into my office?” He didn’t ask where he recognized him from, mainly because he was afraid of the answer.

Not waiting for the kid’s response, he headed into his office, aware of his phone continuing to hum in his pocket. He checked his phone after he got dressed, and discovered it was Seb asking him if he just wanted to make his life harder and cursing him out, showing an uncharacteristic burst of emotion. Maybe because if the registry did become law, it would be Seb that would have to arrest him. He was expecting to get a similar, if more profane, call from Dropkick. It was probably her, so he didn’t answer.

Only when he came in and shut the door did Roan see Oliver was carrying a man purse beneath his coat, adding to his bulky appearance. Since he didn’t smell gun oil on him – just cologne, acne cream, detergent, deodorant, and a smidge of body odor – he wasn’t concerned about its contents. “Can I ask how old you are?” Roan asked, taking a seat behind his desk.

“Um, yeah, I’m twenty two,” he said, taking the seat in front of his desk. He didn’t smell a lie, although the kid was clearly nervous. Was it about this whole scenario, or being alone in a room with him? “I know I look younger, though. I can show you my ID if you want.”

“I’m not selling you booze, kid, don’t worry about it. So what can I do for you?”

The kid settled in his seat uncomfortably, and for a moment didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. Once he stopped fidgeting, he said, “This is kind of, um, weird. I’m not sure where to start.”

“The beginning’s always good.”

He nodded convulsively. “Yeah.” He scratched his face, clearly considering his options, and just dived in. “So I’m from Milford, Delaware. When I was eight, my dad went missing. He went to work, and he was supposed to come home, but he never did. I remember it was fall, ’cause, like, I was worried about going back to school and junk, you know? I did okay in school, I was just picked on a lot. I was small for my age.”

Was that all? Roan was getting a gay vibe from him, and it had nothing to do with his black painted thumbnail or somewhat high pitched voice, although those helped. There was an undefinable something that just set off his gaydar.

“So anyways, it was really hard. It was big news for a while, and when his car was eventually found in Wilmington, in a vacant lot with its door open and the battery dead, everybody feared the worst. The police never found much, though, and I think by Christmas of that year we figured he was probably dead. Mom didn’t make it official until the summer I turned fourteen though, she had him declared legally dead, then married my step-father Ken.” He rolled his eyes, easily implying that they didn’t get along. “He’s a nice enough guy, I guess, but he and I just couldn’t stand each other, and when I graduated high school, I applied to every college I could think of on the West Coast, to get as far away from him as possible, and I got accepted to the you-dub first.” U-W, otherwise known as the University of Washington. Roan wondered when he was going to get to the point of his visit. “Anyways, just a couple of weeks ago, I was getting photos for a photo essay, and I was on Flickr. You know what Flickr is?”

Was that a veiled old crack? “Photo sharing software and site.”

“Yeah, right. Anyways, there’s this one guy, Rearadmrl42, who takes great photos, and I was looking through some of his shots, and one caught my eye and I wasn’t sure why.” He moved his man purse to his lap and started scrabbling through it, finally pulling out a photo print. Although the photo had a nice composition, it seemed like an otherwise unremarkable street scene, of three men standing and smiling. Two had their shirts off and a third was wearing a too tight tank top in an oddly pastel orange color; all three men had their arms around each other’s shoulder. Roan recognized the building in the background, knew it was taken in Seattle, and the rainbow bedecked float slightly out of focus off to one side indicated it was taken at the pride parade.

Oliver put his finger on the very edge of the left side of the photo and tapped it. “See him?” He was indicating a man in the near background, almost completely out of the shot, but he was in focus, and his profile was visible as he was on his way out of frame. Roan nodded once, just to let him know he had. “This is my dad.”

Oh, okay. Now he knew why he was here.