Too late for Christmas comes this atrocious, abominable tale that shouldn’t be read by anyone with a heart condition, dyspepsia, dropsy, dysplasia of the skull, male pregnancy, headupyourassitis, toffee beak, or anyone who’s had a humorectomy.

This is foul, nasty, uncalled for, blasphemous, and anachronistic. So, hope you enjoy.

Foul language and violence, as always.

If you haven’t turned back by now, it’s too late.

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Manger Massacre

By Andrea “You’re Just Asking For Trouble” Speed, with Some Dialogue Bits and Other Neat Stuff by Brandon “Yes, She’s Asking For Trouble” Schatz

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What has God wrought?” Joseph asked, kicking the head of Melchior closer to its former body. Heads weren’t perfectly round, so it didn’t roll very well; it just sort of tumbled over the blood soaked sand, resting in the divots made by desperately clawing fingers before their owners met an unholy demise.

“Hey, this ain’t my fault,” God said, pulling the rest of Gaspar’s body out of the dead donkey’s butt. Jesus had decided to be cute and build his own Nativity display, only the Three Wise Men were offering their heads as gifts, and everything had been painted with their blood. The crib was full of bloody testicles that looked like they had been torn off by hand. Balthazar’s headless corpse had been put under a dead camel in a way that suggested he was being sodomized by it.

Jesus Christ - he was one sick customer. “Yeah, it is your fucking fault,” Joseph snapped, wondering whose kidney he was currently looking at. Or was that a spleen? He needed some kind of organ reference chart. What the fuck did he know about body parts? He was a carpenter, goddamn it. “If you didn’t pork my wife, this shit wouldn’t be happening.”

“Oh, do I smell jealously? I guess Mary hasn’t let you into the candy store, huh? Well, it’s not her fault. Once you have the best, it’s hard to have the rest.” God said, flaring his tentacles in a manner that was both preening and obscene. Although he seemed to walk on two legs (hovering an inch or so off the ground at all times), his upper body and head were more suggestive of that sea creature known as the octopus. His head was large and round, his skin a mottled brown like discolored leather and glistening faintly, as if anointed with dew, and he had two eyes like gelatinous dark plums over a mouth that disappeared beneath thin, almost whisker like tentacles that frilled when he talked and echoed the movements of his lower limbs. Where his shoulders began, his body was swamped by grey-brown tentacles as thick and long as horse’s legs, eight in a line that seemed to move and sway of their own accord, covered by grasping little suckers that seemed to obscenely resemble part of a woman’s private anatomy. But if you dared to even think a disparaging remark about him, he’d rip your head off so fast you could see your own headless body before you died. That was the only reason Joseph hadn’t killed the ugly fucker yet.

“You know I hate your fucking guts,” Joseph snarled, kicking at the corpse of a gutted sheep. As he did, a small organ rolled out … no. Not an organ. A bloody head of an infant, Human, that must have been shoved inside the sheep. “Jesus Christ.”

“Son of a bitch,” God confirmed, almost cheerfully.

Joseph glared at him. “That’s my wife you’re talking about, fucker.”

“It was awesome. You should try it sometime.”

It took him a moment to figure out what he meant; it all fell into place as soon as he realized God thought he said “fuck her” instead of “fucker”. “You motherfucking -”

His insult was cut off by a loud explosion, a bright fireball that lit up the surrounding hillside like it was noon instead of a cloudless moonlit sky. As the shock of the light faded, Joseph could dimly hear the screams over the hard crackle of flames.

God looked towards the hill, lower tentacles frilling slightly in the breeze as he sighed wearily. “I’m too old for this shit.” But he then started trudging up the hillside, his brightly colored dashiki rippling like a psychedelic blur behind him. Joseph followed, because he didn’t know what else to do, but he took out his axe and held on to it tightly, the wood in his grip just making him feel better.

He didn’t know the name of this village, but he supposed it didn’t matter, as all that would be left of it was a char mark. The smell of roasting flesh - both Human and animal - was nauseatingly good, making Joseph realize he hadn’t ate for some time, not since all this shit started. Why had God chosen him as a partner? Was it to rub in what he’d done to his wife, how he’d fucked over his entire life? He’d embraced atheism, told him to his face he didn’t believe in him in hopes of making him disappear, but he was still here. Damn it. Maybe he should worship Baal next. Could Baal kick God’s ass? He’d love to find out.

God strode over corpses burning like logs, the flames not even touching his silken garments, and Joseph stopped as he realized the center of the village had been set up as a staging area. Spears bigger than men had been arranged in a large semi-circle, around a wooden statue perhaps fifty cubits in height. It was a statue of a young, lean man with flowing shoulder length hair and a long beard down to the base of his throat, his eyes cast up as if appealing to the sky. In one hand he held a sword, and in the other, he held a severed head by its hair. Who was that? Was that Jesus? No, it couldn’t be. This was an adult. He was just forty eight hours old!

But he wasn’t a mere Human - no mere Human could have cut such a swath of devastation and destruction in such a short period of time.

“Well, look who’s here,” a strangely high pitched voice said. “The fucknuts brigade.”

Joseph saw the swirl of God’s tentacles, and followed his gaze to one of the rough straw roofed huts that was still inexplicably standing. There in the doorway was a lean, long haired man wearing a snowy white toga and a fuzzy sash made of rodent pelts. He had the eyes of a mad horse, too big and showing too much white, while his face was too long and too pale, like a squashed powdered doughnut. No one should be as white as he was unless they had no blood left in them at all. And while his hair appeared stringy and brown, sometimes the wind ruffled it and it looked like tentacles. It was switching back and forth. How fucked up was that?

“Jesus, it’s over,” God said, sounding very weary. “You were a mistake. You get as old and bored as me, you fuck up sometimes. No big deal. So come on, let’s blow this pop stand.”

“Fuck you, has been! This is my world now. Get lost!”

God chuckled. “Don’t sass me, boy. You started off as a crotch stain, and you can go back to one.”

“Yeah, whatever. I’m, like, so scared. Go to bed old man.” His eyes then flared, seemed to glow like embers in a dying fire, and his hair was back to tentacles growing straight out of his ass white scalp as he raised his hands up to the sky and shouted, “Arise, my followers! Rise!”

Joseph looked around as he heard strange noises - rustling of cloth, wet noises that sounded like water plopping to the ground, someone tearing meat apart with their hands - and saw that the mostly intact bodies were standing up. Even the one that was on fire. That one was going to be trouble, assuming they didn’t completely burn up before they could get into action. It turned out there were two or three of them.

The earth around them started to explode in small muddy clots, and skeletal hands started reaching out, pawing the earth as the dead bodies started crawling out. It looked like the population of a couple of villages were getting up from their eternal rest to kick their ass. Some of the people who could have been dead but possibly not, were holding weapons of all kinds: scimitars, machetes, axes, hatchets, spears, pitchforks, scythes, even a shovel or two. Jesus was laughing maniacally, like the village idiot after inhaling mucilage.

“Any last thoughts?” Joseph asked God.

God shrugged. “I created this earth in six days. I made snakes, gerbils, llamas, geoducks, echidnas, howler monkeys, and Humans. Then I flooded the shit out of it, and fucked your wife. I’d say I’ve lived a pretty full life.”

“God, damn it!”

“Cute. But I already did, pretty much.” God’s tentacles parted to show a vivid black and pink mouth that was more like an open wound than anything else. “Didn’t you know? All your kind are fucked. This whole experiment wouldn’t have been entertaining if you weren’t.” He sighed, his tentacles belling out like a woman’s skirt. “Let’s fuck shit up.”

“It’s about time.” Joseph charged the closest zombie to him, swinging his axe so quickly it made a whistling noise as it sliced the air. It didn’t last long, as it landed with a meaty thunk in the head of the zombie. He’d cleaved his skull in half like a melon, and he went down like a stalk of wheat. Was that a mixed metaphor? Joseph wondered, but realized now was not the time for thinking about such things.

God grabbed about six with his tentacles at once, wrapping the appendages around their throats, and tightening until their heads popped off like blood bloated ticks. “Thou art pissing me off!” God roared, tossing the bodies aside like so much garbage. He began cutting through the group like he was parting the Red Sea, leaving Joseph only to deal with the stragglers, which suited him fine. He was able to steal a scythe from a zombie whose arm he had hacked off, and he was able to chop them down easier, in greater quantities.

“Have you learned nothing?” God grumbled, tossing people - living and dead alike - like they were in his way. “It’s better to give than to receive,” he said, before making a man’s genitals explode, blood splattering his friends and turning his dirty white robe splotchy red. He ripped the limbs off a couple of zombies, and started juggling them with two of his back tentacles while clubbing others with his front tentacles. “Do unto others, but don’t you dare do unto me,” he said, before tearing someone in half.

“You sure like fucking around, don’t you?” Joseph snapped, cleaving a zombie in half down the middle with the scythe.

“It’s a hoot,” God replied. “Mine eyes have seen the gory,” he said, and a man’s eyeballs exploded, leaving two smoking, bloody craters in his face.

Jesus was now standing on the base of the statue depicting him, and shouted, “Let there be light!” It looked like the sky split, a gash appearing in the sky, and high intensity white light started shining down directly on God. Joseph could feel the startling heat even though he was nowhere near the narrow shaft of light, and the bodies around God burst into flames, burning away to a pile of ash in almost no time. God looked to be kneeling, starting to wilt under the hellish heat.

Jesus was still laughing. “Whose your Messiah now?!”

The ground was starting to blacken, and Joseph could smell something not unlike burned swine. Damn, he was hungry.

A zombie grabbed his right arm, and when he turned to strike it, another grabbed his left arm. Son of a bitch. They held him steady, but did nothing … yet. But they would. Jesus was saving him for something. It wouldn’t be good.

God disappeared in a puff of smoke, and Jesus cheered. “Woohoo! Happy birthday to me!” The slit in the sky sealed up, and Jesus looked over at him with his dead, glassy eyes, a deranged grin plastered on his face. “So, step-dad, why’d you team up with the big squid? Hasn’t he emasculated you enough?”

The key to living for a few spare seconds was to keep him talking. “Why did you do that to the Three Wise Men? What did they ever do to you?”

Jesus waved his hand dismissively. “They pissed me off, acting all “holier-than-thou”. Why the fuck are they so “wise” anyways? They seemed like a bunch of dumbasses to me. There’s a low threshold for wise these days, isn’t there?”

There was a huge BOOM, like the world was splitting in half, the sound making the air itself tremble. Jesus looked up and Joseph followed his gaze, to see a hole forming in the sky. It was a perfect oval of blue light, and a wavering image of God formed, like a mirage in the desert. God impaled Jesus with a glowing eyed stare. “You came into this world to spread peace … but you’ve tortured, you’ve maimed, and you fucked me over. And now you’re gonna learn … when you fuck with God, God fucks you back!”

The heads of all of Jesus’s followers, zombie and alive alike, exploded in sequence, one after another, a bloody fireworks display that spread blood and brain matter all over the burned ground. Joseph felt some splash on his face, warm and sticky, and made a noise of disgust as he jerked his arms away from the falling corpses.

Jesus screamed with rage, lifting the statue of himself and lobbing it at God, but by the time it reached him God had already disappeared. He started looking around, screaming, “Coward! Come out and face me!”

Joseph was totally ignored, which was fine with him. He started searching for his scythe, which got buried in all the gore and headless bodies, but wasn’t sure where it was. He really didn’t want to have to feel blindly among the guts.

Kicking among the sloshing guts, he eventually hit wood, and figured it was the scythe handle. But picking it up, he saw it was a bloody cross, possibly used to mark the gravesite of one of the dead who rose up to try and kill them. The base had been filed to a point, probably so it would stick in the ground.

Jesus had his back turned to him, as he was looking at the remaining huts bursting into flame, and he saw God hovering just outside of Jesus’s peripheral vision. He looked at him and nodded, so Joseph got a good grip on the bloody piece of wood, ran forward several squelching steps, and tossed the crucifix like a spear. Midair, it turned into silver, the wood solidifying into gleaming metal, the point becoming longer and sharper.

Jesus turned around in time for the crucifix to punch through his sternum and the tip to explode out his back in a misty spray of blood. He stood staring wide eyed at him, as God said, “You go boom now.” The cross exploded, vaporizing Jesus in a blood red cloud of blood and bone shards.

“Jesus motherfucking wept,” Joseph spat, wiping blood off his face.

“Well, that could have went better,” God said, walking on air towards him.

Joseph glared at him before gesturing at the dismembered bodies and two inch pond of blood he was standing in. “He’s slaughtered entire villages. You think?”

“There’s no need for sarcasm,” he replied haughtily. He then whistled sharply, and out of nowhere, two camels appeared. “Come on, let’s ride.”

Joseph continued to glare at him, even as he grabbed the camel’s saddle and hauled himself up. “I loathe you.”

“You love me and you know it,” God grinned unsettlingly with his open wound of a mouth. He pretended to mount the second camel, but seemed to still be hovering, sitting on a cushion of air.

As the camels started out across the ground, towards less bloody earth, God started to make this weird noise. “Wee-oo, wee-oo -”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Making a siren noise. Believe me, in two thousand years, it’ll make sense,” he said cryptically, and started doing it again. “Wee-oo, wee-ooo …”

Joseph wondered if Siva was taking applications for followers.

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The End

(more…)

19 - Everybody Is

In retrospect, Roan realized Stovak being so desperate to contact him was a warning sign.

Eli’s death pretty much split the Church of the Divine Transformation down the middle. Eli didn’t leave a clear successor, so two people ended up duking it out (mostly figuratively) to take over leadership: his current girlfriend, Heather Dow (who Roan hoped wasn’t a psychopathic killer), who wanted to continue Eli’s style of leadership, and a guy named David Harvey, who was some kind of under priest (or whatever the fuck they called them in Divine Transformation, and he really didn’t care), and wanted to be more “aggressive”, whatever that meant. (Were they going to infect people against their will?) This caused a schism between followers already distraught over Eli’s death, and this lead to fist fights and minor acts of vandalism. Eli’s funeral became a riot between conflicted Church members and anti-cat protesters, where twelve people were injured and ten were arrested. It topped the local news for days and days, and a couple of times he was contacted by reporters who wanted him to either comment on Eli, or tell them about how he died in his parking lot. He said “no comment” every time and pointed them towards the lawyer he did work for, Dennis Caldera, who either gave them an official no, or simply had his secretary keep them on hold until they hung up. It turned out to be a good time to sneak out of town with Dylan. Somehow the fucking thing became national news, reviving the debate on whether the church was dangerous (from religious types and public health officials alike).

Because there were people actively seeking his comment on shit he didn’t care about, he and Dylan drove out to the coast and stayed at a hotel there. It wasn’t very expensive, but that was a good thing, as they didn’t leave their room too often. Hell, Roan could count on his hand how many times he got out of bed. They had lots of sex and quite a bit of room service too, so they didn’t have to bother to go out. He didn’t exactly spill his guts to Dylan, but he opened up enough to him that Dylan actually suggested that seeing a therapist about his depression might be a good thing. Roan didn’t mention that he had seen counselors twice in his life, once as a teenager and then once as a cop, and all he’d learned was he could break anyone’s depression scale, and guys who wore sweaters and talked so slowly it sounded like they’d overdosed on valium bugged the shit out of him.

By the time they got back from their lazy weekends, things had gotten worse. The good news was the whole ex-Chief child molester scandal got buried by all the Church trouble, but the bad news was the cops had their hands - and cat cages - full with all the Church drama. Then a cat “activist” named Craig Lombardi was killed in what was dubbed a “cat bashing”, and part of the city seemed to explode. There was rioting and protests for two days, like the WTO spontaneously had a summit, and some asshole called in the National Guard - well, what was left of them; the ones who weren’t humping a pack and getting shot in Iraq and Afghanistan - but they did no good at all, and were called back before they killed someone. Chief Matthews asked him to come back as an “honorary police officer” to try and manage some kind of détente with the cat people (oh, how he cringed at that nickname), but it took Dylan guilting him in his own Buddhist way to make him do it. It was weird, but it was a brief stint, which he could handle. In fact, during one crowd control situation that was rapidly getting out of hand, Roan lost his temper and roared at them. Not yelled at them like a Human, but let out a straight from the diaphragm angry lion roar that ripped the shit out of his throat. It was actually funny how quickly a block full of arguing people suddenly fell silent - totally dead silent - staring at him in varying degrees of shock. Who knew such a sound could come out of a Human? He wasn’t able to speak much above a growl since he’d damaged his throat, but luckily he had all their attention after that, and when he told them to knock this shit off before he got really mad, even his fellow cops seemed to become totally obedient. Nobody wanted him to turn into a lion it seemed. He’d heard a rumor that a cop resigned after the incident because he was so freaked out by it, but Roan chalked that up to either urban legend or some puss looking for an excuse to bail out.

In the meantime, Eli’s will was read, and while he wasn’t there, he was sorry he missed it. Apparently it turned into a minor riot of its own, as Eli left some disparaging comments towards his own family, cutting them out entirely, and Stovak used the occasion to notify his brother Charles and his lawyer Stockport that he had filed a lawsuit against them on behalf of Eli’s estate for all the embezzlement. (Roan had FedExed him the papers Eli had left behind). Things apparently degraded from there.

Roan figured Eli left him something in his will only to keep fucking with him even after he was dead, and that sentiment seemed proven when Stovak told him Eli had left him his computer. Why the fuck would he leave him his computer? To rub in the fact that he had a much newer, better model?

But Roan realized that Eli was using him again, recalling his taunting of him as the “last honest man”. There were files about each and every member of the Church. Did he expect him to keep an eye on them? Use the information to smack some of them down? No matter what he intended, he now had all the dirt he could ever want on the members of the Church of the Divine Transformation. What was he going to do with it? He still wasn’t sure. Purely for safety reasons, he pulled out the hard drive and put it in a safety deposit box at his credit union, replacing the hard drive in Eli’s stack with a fresh new one. It looked like Eli’s computer, right down to the “Cat Power” sticker on it, but anyone who tries to boot it up was in for a major disappointment. He told no one he’d done this, not even Dylan. Roan figured that once things calmed down and word got around about who had Eli’s computer and what may be on it, it could be a very dangerous thing to own. Eli probably laughed when he put it in his will, knowing the shit that would come down when Roan ended up with it in his lap. Bastard.

The truth was - and it surprised him a bit - was he was concerned about one person at the Church, enough that he looked her up and visited her. Rainbow had moved in with her Aunt temporarily, since she was bothered by all the conflict, and he dropped in one day just to see how she was doing. He didn’t know why he felt kind of bad for her, except she was a very harmless soul. And as misguided as she was to believe in all of this shit, she actually meant well. Maybe that was the hardest thing about all of this. The backbone of this church - of all churches, perhaps - were the well-intentioned yet totally misguided. They didn’t want to hurt you or anybody else, but they were quite sure that their way was the only way.

He talked to her while she knitted, the clack of the needles filling a screened in porch looking over an overgrown backyard that seemed dominated by wild blackberry bushes and towering pines. She’d given him a glass of tea so sweet and minty he wondered if he was drinking sugared mouthwash. The air smelled of dust and housecats, and she talked very kindly of Eli, which seemed like a different person than the one he knew. He still felt bad for her. He actually imagined that she felt bad for him.

Eventually the public arguing and near riots stopped, but things were at a simmer as opposed to a full boil. Things could erupt at any time and everyone knew it. The city council was considering restrictive new rules on public demonstrations, but the ACLU was standing by, ready to smack them back down. Some of the anti-cat hate groups started leaving as soon as the media started filtering out towards the next great freak show, but some had stayed behind to harass the “cat people” whenever possible, promising more disaster in the future. The leadership question wasn’t decided, and Roan actually heard from Rainbow that there was a possibility of the Church fracturing into two different groups. Didn’t the Church of England start that way? Goddamn, this was way more complicated than it had any right to be. It was a stupid cult! Who gave it that much power?

On the Zoë front, he found her, and he didn’t even need to get up from his desk. His DMV friend told him to look at a specific California newspaper section on a certain day, and internet investigation turned up a wedding announcement between Zoë Williams and a James Garcia. Some further searching uncovered that she and James were now separated, and Zoë worked in a department store in Mission Viejo, and lived with her daughter in the area. She was listed in the phone book, so it wasn’t hard to get her number, and he passed it on to Holden.

As for Holden, he was still a little shaken by developments. He told him his mother had been calling on a semi-regular basis to talk to him, but he’d never returned a single one of her phone calls. He had no idea what he’d say to her. Or his dad, but he never expected to hear from his dad again. Holden was tired of being a hustler too, and figured as soon as he got the internet venture launched with Rocky, he’d get out of it. He had no idea what he’d do then, but Roan wasn’t too concerned about him. He was a smart guy, resourceful, charming - he may have been a Fox, but he always seemed to land on his feet.

Roan was getting really used to having Dylan around, to the point where it was weird to wake up in bed without him, and Dylan had a whole dresser drawer all to himself, where he kept spare clothes. You knew it was a serious relationship when they started moving stuff into your place. Roan had also been giving him a crash course on the great Simpsons episodes on his box sets, and Dylan had come to realize he really liked the Simpsons. Which was good, because he didn’t think he could have a relationship with someone who hated or was completely indifferent to them. (Okay, he was a geek, and a grown man with cartoon box sets as the star of his DVD collection. He had accepted this, and if anyone demanded his man card because of it, they’d have to fight him for it.)

But as good as things were, he was preparing for the worst. Not with Dylan, but with life. This cat shit was unsettled, and he knew as much as he tried to avoid it, he would get swept up in it eventually. He knew that the day he went to open his office and found “Your (sic) next, kitty fag!” painted on his door in genuine housecat blood. He supposed the “next” was a reference to Eli’s death, indicating he’d be the next one to die, but Roan wouldn’t bet on that.

Both Gordo and Seb took it as a serious death threat, and wondered why Roan wasn’t all that troubled by it. He couldn’t explain it to them, but he honestly hoped anyone who wanted to take a shot at him took it and made it good, because they’d only get the one. Then his other half would come out to play, and it wouldn’t look good for the stupid dickhead who decided to take him on.

It was a bitch to be infected, and yes, he was a freak amongst the freaks, But he’d be lying if he didn’t admit - at least to himself - that it had a perk or two.

_________

The End

18 - The Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes

According to Mrs. Krause, what occurred was this: Catherine showed up on her doorstep that afternoon, seeking Dane and money in that order. She knew the drill. They had moved away from their old parish in New Hampshire because a woman Dane had an affair with was trying to blackmail them. Dane was a serial adulterer, always claiming he would change, and always not doing it. She became almost inured to the indignity of it all.

Now Catherine didn’t say she was his mistress, but she guessed, and when she claimed she needed money for an “emergency”, she assumed it was a vague attempt at extortion. She gave her the money, if only to make her go away for the meantime. She didn’t know she was an addict, one of the people in the recovery group. When Dane came home and she confronted him about it, he realized why Catherine probably wanted the money and went off to find her. According to Dane, he found her apartment door unlocked, and Holden asleep, although Zoë was up and indicated her mother was in the bathroom. That door seemed to be locked, but the more he tried it the more he realized there was just something wedged up against it. Once he shouldered it open, he found it had been Catherine slumped against the door, the tie still wrapped around her upper arm, the needle on the floor and the burnt spoon on the sink. He thought she was just really out from the heroin, but when he made to pick her up, he realized she wasn’t breathing.

He said he panicked, and called his wife, as he didn’t know what to do. She told him to call 911 as a neighbor, and then come home. Since Catherine had no family here and few friends outside the recovery group, it was a good bet the police would call them. They did.

It was decided to adopt Holden and not Zoë for the simple reason that Zoë already knew Dane, knew that he had been with her mother, and that could bring up questions they didn’t want to answer.

Holden was looking at him wide eyed this whole time, as if this movie was far too scary for him to watch, and Roan knew he’d ask him for confirmation on whether this was the truth or not. Roan fought down the urge to smirk. The mention of the burnt spoon almost seemed like too much detail, but when Mrs. Krause mentioned that Dane had panicked and called her, he watched Dane cringe more and more, head in his hands, staring down at the carpet. His body posture told him all he wanted to know: this man was a coward. Given the chance to fight or run, he would run every time. Monty Python’s Knights of the Round Table would be happy to have him. With the right circumstances, anyone could be a killer, but the circumstances to make Dane a killer would have to be pretty desperate indeed. He’d rather run.

Here was the reason that the Krauses were still together, in spite of everything. He may have been a serial cheater, an irresponsible man, but he was happy to cede all true control to his wife. Despite appearances, she probably kept their metaphorical ship sailing. So what she got in return for his disloyalty was control of everything else. It was a truly dysfunctional relationship, more like mother and son than husband and wife, and kind of creepy.

“Is this real?” Holden asked, his voice hushed, strangled.

Roan took a final look at the cringing, helpless, humiliated figure of Dane at the end of the couch. Sad, pathetic. “As real as we’ll probably ever get.”

Holden looked at the shrinking figure of his dad with eyes bright and hollow with shock. He was too stunned to cry or even rage. “You let Zoë go for that reason? Because she knew who you were?”

“He didn’t make that decision,” Roan told him, and glanced at Mrs. Krause. Her face was grim and still, and reminded him of those wooden carved women you saw on the prow of pirate ships in movies.

Holden followed his gaze, and when he saw who he was looking at, all the confusion on his face died in agony. “What? Mom …”

Roan shook his head. “Just let it go for now, Holden. I think we’ve all had enough revelations for today.”

Holden looked between him, his mother, and his dad, with conflicting looks of anger, disgust, disbelief, and defeat. He must have known of the dynamic between his mother and father, but perhaps he didn’t know it as well as he thought. Perhaps they worked hard to sustain an illusion, even with their son.

Holden opened his mouth to say something, but his voice died in his throat. He started shaking his head, like he was trying to dislodge a word from his windpipe. “Holden, c’mon,” Roan encouraged gently, using his reasonable cop voice. It was the thing he used the most, out of all his cop training, and that surprised him a bit. He gently grabbed Holden’s arm, and started steering him out of the living room. Holden was reluctant at first, but his will seemed to cave as he looked back at his mother, who was staring resolutely at the far wall, and his father, who was still a cringing bit of nothing at the end of the couch. There was more applause from the television as they left the house.

Roan slipped his hand in Holden’s pocket and took out his car keys, as he assumed he would be driving. Holden held it together until they got to the car, then lost it. “Goddamn it!” he shouted, pounding his fist on the hood of his car before bursting into tears. Roan had to help him into the passenger seat, then drove without saying a word, without doing anything. He had nothing to offer him. He was sorry, but Holden didn’t want sorry now.

They were halfway back to Holden’s place when he finally ran out of tears. “What the fuck does this mean?” he asked, his voice thick with phlegm and anger and sorrow.

“Your Dad’s a happy pants, and your Mom knows all about it and lets it happen. He never wants to take any responsibility, so she takes all the responsibility and he lets her do whatever she wants as long as he never has to deal with shit. He has no spine, and she has nothing but.”

“But she’s … she chose me over Zoë?”

“Because you were young enough to be a blank slate. Zoë not only knew your Dad, she knew her mother. Your mother decided she didn’t want to deal with that. Your Dad went along with it, probably because he really didn‘t care much either way.”

Holden looked at him hollowly, the thousand yard stare of someone who had just lost everything. “They knew all along. They were never gonna tell me, were they?”

“Probably not.”

Holden was quiet for a long moment. “How do you know all this?”

“Because I’ve seen too many fucked up people in my life, Holden. And it takes one to know one.” Once they stopped at a light, he asked Holden if he thought he could drive. That seemed to stun him even more, but he said he could. Roan told him he had to pick up his motorcycle, and Holden heard him without really hearing him, face blotchy from crying. He looked like a normal Human being now, not a fantasy given form, and Roan felt bad for him to be so stripped down. This may have been the very first time he had ever been so truly naked. It seemed like an awful thing.

They stopped near the parking garage where he’d left the bike, and Holden slid over into the driver’s seat as Roan got out. Holden looked at him desolately, as if he wanted to ask him to stay but knew he shouldn’t. In the end, he simply asked, “You’re gonna find Zoë for me?”

He nodded. “I’ll find her.” Roan knew he would eventually. He just didn’t know how long it would take.
Holden nodded, looking ahead grimly, unconsciously mimicking his mother.

Maybe he shouldn’t leave him alone. But Roan knew if he was in Holden’s place, he’d have rather have been left alone. Most wallowing in self-pity was best done on your own.

Once Holden drove off, he ventured into the underground garage and found his bike, which was parked where he left it. He needed to stop being so careless, though. One of these days it’d get ripped off, and he’d be sorry.

Roan sat astride his bike for a while, listening to the curious echoes voices and noises made in this low ceilinged, yellow lit place. There wasn’t a single parking garage in existence that wouldn’t have made a great setting in a horror movie. They seemed like dingy little tombs already, just ones for cars; auto graveyards, where they all gathered in mutual suicide pacts.

Okay, yeah, his mind was taking trips to some weird places right now. None of them good.

He took off, and considering the time, he headed for Panic. Mighty Mouse - the huge bouncer with the tiny voice - recognized him and waved him on, ahead of a group of guys who looked a bit too young to be here. Once he stepped into the main club, he was bludgeoned by music, Paul Oakenfold most likely, and his eyes needed to adjust to the stark contrasts of dim light and bright gel spots that painted shadows in lurid colors. It was crowded enough that he had to elbow his way up to the bar, although the closest bartender to him was Luis (real name: Rhett), the slim Hispanic guy with the perfectly tan and perfectly hairless chest. He looked barely twenty one, but was in actuality thirty. He recognized him and came over with a cheerful, “Roan! How you doin’, my man? You want Toby?”

“If possible.”

Luis whistled sharply, and yelled down at the opposite end of the bar, “Hey, Toby, switch up!”

Dylan was at the opposite end of the bar, setting some guys up with martinis. He looked down, probably curious why Luis wanted to switch ends of the bar with him, and then noticed him. Roan gave him his best beauty queen wave.

Dylan lit up upon seeing him, a grin splitting his handsome face, and Roan had no idea why, although it was sweet to see. He had no idea anyone was ever happy to see him. Well, bill collectors, but that was a different story.

Dylan came down to him and leaned over the bar as if he might kiss him, but remembered at the last moment he was at work and in front of a crowd of guys who lusted after him (and as a result, gave him big tips), and settled instead for leaning on the bar and giving him a sexy smile. “Hey there, stranger. What brings you here? Not business, I hope.”

“Nope, I just wanted to see you.”

That deepened his smile, made his dimples appear. He reached up and touched his hair. “Wow, you got it cut. I like it. It suits you.”

“Thanks.” He forgot that he’d gotten his hair cut today. Good lord, had this all been just one day? One shitty day. He’d have blamed the codeine for warping his sense of time, but it wasn’t that. He’d had too many days like this off codeine to believe that.

He watched the sly light in Dylan’s brown eyes slowly die, his smile fading in increments as he looked into his eyes. “What’s wrong?” he wondered. “What happened?”

Was he that easy to “read”? Or was it just Dylan, capable of seeing right through him? Roan wasn’t sure which explanation he liked better. “Nothing. I’ve just had a shitty day.”

Dylan just stared at him a moment, his jaw tensing as he weighed whether or not to believe him. Finally, he shouted to Luis, “I’m gonna take a break.”

Luis shook his head as he poured what seemed like a needlessly colorful Long Island ice tea. “Hurry it up. This is prime time.”

“Five minutes tops,” Dylan assured him, motioning for Roan to follow him around to the end of the bar, where he pressed a button and opened up the end of it, waiving Roan in impatiently. There was some depressed groans from the crowd, and some of them muttered such things as, “Why’s he the one?” That was a good question, and Roan would have happily answered it for him, except Dylan had already grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the employee door.

The room it led back to was little more than a tiny hallway that led to the employee bathroom and an emergency exit. It was dimly lit, and smelled very much of lemon scented cleansers and stale cigarette smoke. The music was muffled here, along with the smell and heat of the crowd; it seemed almost chilly. He could see goosebumps spreading out on Dylan’s bare chest.

Dylan took his face in his hands and brought his face close enough to his that he thought he’d kiss him, but once again he didn’t. “What happened?”

This close, he could smell the apple gum Dylan had been chewing. He must have ditched it before he showed up. He knew he had to tell him something, but he didn’t know what, so what fell out of his mouth kind of surprised him. “Eli collapsed in my parking lot today.”

Dylan’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “What?”

“He’s really sick; he’s not taking his infection well, divine or otherwise. I think it was a heart attack; Fiona and I did CPR on him until the EMTs showed up.”

“Oh god. How is he?”

“I don’t know. I’ve had my cell off, I haven’t checked my messages, and I haven’t turned on the television. Eli’s my Schrodinger’s Cat. He is both alive and dead until I answer my phone and his state is decided once and for all. I’m not really sure which state I prefer.”

He smirked crookedly. “I’ve never heard anyone use Schrodinger’s Cat in casual conversation before.”

“I don’t think I’m in a right state of mind right now.”

Dylan’s expression collapsed, and it pained him to see it. “Are you stoned?”

Roan didn’t see telling him the truth. It would only hurt him. “No. I did take some of my migraine meds, though.” It wasn’t a complete lie; codeine was generally more effective than his migraine meds.

Dylan’s eyes widened in shock and sympathy, and he cradled his face more gently, letting one hand rest on his shoulder. “What? I thought those knocked you out.”

“Generally, but I can bull my way through them if I’m stubborn.”

“Are you insane? Go home! Get some rest.”

“I don’t want to go home,” he said, and Roan was surprised to hear it. But that was why he was here, wasn’t it? He didn’t always know himself very well. “Can I go home with you tonight?”

Dylan’s expression softened. “Do you even have to ask? Of course, it’s not as nice as your place.”

“I don’t care. You’re there. I’ll live.”

Dylan kissed him softly, but when he looked at him again, Roan saw nothing but concern in his eyes. “What is it going to take to make you talk to me? You think I don’t know something’s wrong? I do, just like I know you’d rather shut down than say a word. Why won’t you talk to me?”

That was a good question. He wished he had an answer for him. “Look, I’ll make you a deal. As soon as I close this case I’m on, let’s go away for a weekend.” In Dylan’s case, a weekend was Sunday and Monday, as he worked Saturday night. “I don’t care where. We can even just check into a hotel downtown under fake names. I won’t tell anyone where I’m going, I’ll leave my cell phone at home, I’ll be totally incommunicado. Maybe then you’ll be able to pry something out of me.”

Dylan sighed, his thumb stroking his jaw. It felt nice. “There’s nothing you could say to me that would scare me away. You know that, right?”

Actually, if he was smart, he’d have run off screaming already. He bet he could tell him a lot of things that would scare him away. But he didn’t want to do that just yet. He slid his arms around him, making contact with his skin, and realized this was why he needed to be with Dylan right now. He was so vital, so alive, and not at all a part of the darkness he dealt with all the time. Roan leaned his forehead against his, just enjoying his warmth for a moment. “Yeah, I do. I’m usually not this much of a moody asshole. Thanks for putting up with me.”

“Consider yourself lucky you’re hot,” Dylan teased.

“And hung like a horse?”

“I’m not a size queen.”

“I guess this is where I say lucky me.”

“No, I think that’s my line,” Dylan replied, smiling, and then gave him a long, sweet kiss. Roan was just getting into it when Luis banged on the door, and shouted, “C’mon, Toby, get your ass out here!”

They broke off with a mutual weary sigh, Dylan running a soothing hand through his hair. “You gonna be okay?”

Roan nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

He didn’t actually know if he would be, but it seemed like the thing he should say. He worried Dylan enough as it was.

****

At first, Roan wasn’t sure where he was, even though he knew not to panic because he could smell Dylan with him, feel the warmth of him curled around his body, one of his arms draped casually over his hip. Once he opened his eyes and got a good look at the place - as well as good scent - he realized he was at Dylan’s place. His memory was a bit muzzy, but he figured that was the codeine … and oh yeah, the beer he had at the bar. Dylan wouldn’t serve him alcohol because he thought he was on meds, but when he wasn’t looking, he got Luis to slip him a beer. Probably unwise, but he felt he needed something if he was going to sit through this music. The beer made him sleepy, though, which wasn’t good.

A couple guys hit on him, tried to buy him drinks, but when one recognized him - “Hey, you’re that cat guy, aren’t you!” - he decided to go to the bookstore down the street and kill some time. He stayed until closing, picking up twenty dollars in used books and being constantly followed by the store cat, which made him feel terribly self-conscious. Even the cat recognized him as the cat guy.

He didn’t have to stay too much longer at the bar before it closed, mainly because he stopped at a Jack In The Box on his way back and had something to eat in an attempt to wake himself up and feel less drugged. He also looked at all the people who wandered through, catching something to eat at one in the morning, and there was a kind of sad solidarity between them all. Night owls - more than a few of them wasted - drifting in a twilight world that seemed so far removed from daytime that it was like a different universe entirely. For no reason he could name, he thought of these daylight refugees as “his” people.

The rest of the night was a blur; he only barely remembered coming home with Dylan. He did know that the codeine and the beer didn’t prevent him from having sex, which he thought it might. All those downers could make you a little soft.

He laid there for a while, feeling Dylan’s breath on the back of his neck, warm underneath the blankets, eying Dylan’s small apartment as sunlight through sheer but opaque curtains started filling it with butter yellow light.

Dylan’s place was small, as you would expect the home of a bartender/starving artist to be. The bedroom was a tiny room off the living room/kitchenette, and the only other one that existed beyond the bathroom. All together, the place was the size of his living room and kitchen combined, so no wonder Dylan thought his place was huge. His furniture all looked like thrift store stuff - nothing matched - but it all seemed to work and appeared like a deliberate choice, which probably reflected Dylan’s artistic eye. Certainly the walls did, as each one was painted a different color. The bedroom was a sky blue, the living room was a warm cinnamon reddish brown, the kitchen was a bright sunshiny orange yellow, and the bathroom was a cool, minty green. He admitted his landlord hadn’t seen it, and he had no idea how she’d react when she discovered that her permission to paint his apartment had been abused in such a fashion. Roan figured the woman should thank him for making such a cramped little place look more interesting.

The need to piss eventually became overwhelming, so he slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Dylan up, and in his minty green bathroom he looked at himself in the mirror over the sink. He didn’t look hungover, which was good, as he wasn’t - but he looked like he hadn’t sleep very well or very much. According to the clock, he had; it was noon. He should have felt bad about the indulgence of sleeping in so late, except they didn’t get back here until after two in the morning. So he’d had less than eight hours sleep really. Fuck.

He found his boxers and pulled them back on, noticing that his coat had ended up upside down over the back of the couch, and his cell had fallen out and was just sitting there on the cushion. He eyed it like a viper, something that was on the verge of uncoiling and attacking him. Had he dodged this bullet long enough? Was it time to face reality?

He was lucky to have avoided it this long and he knew it. He grabbed the phone and turned it on as he padded to the kitchen to see what Dylan had that he could throw together for breakfast (okay, lunch at this hour). He felt compelled to make Dylan breakfast, even though he wasn’t a very good cook, because he knew he’d eventually break his heart. He was apologizing in advance.

His phone rang almost five seconds after he’d turned it on. He checked the screen to see who was calling, and couldn’t believe what the display said. He rubbed his eyes and checked it again. No, same thing. He answered the phone out of gnawing curiosity. “Do you ever turn on your fucking phone?” Stovak, Eli’s kiss ass lawyer, snarled the second the connection went through.

“Not if it’s you calling,” he snapped. “Why the fuck are you calling me? Are you gonna sue me ‘cause I broke some of Eli’s ribs while doing CPR?”

Stovak was quiet for a long moment, which was unusual for this sneering homophobe. When he got his voice back, he said flatly, “You really don’t know, do you?”

Roan peered into Dylan’s fridge to see what he had. Lots of fruit and Indian take out food cartons. “Know what?”

Stovak hissed a breath through his teeth. “He’s dead, McKichan. It’s been all over the local news since last night. You haven’t even turned on a fucking TV?”

So much for his Schrodinger’s Cat. Poor kitty. “I’ve been busy. So why are you calling me? I didn’t kill him. I actually tried to save his ass, although I’m not sure why.”

“I know.” Again a heavy pause, suggesting he hated having this conversation as much as he did. “Look, we may need your help. Since his death was announced … some people are totally losing their shit …”

“I know someone who runs a security company. I’ll call him for you.”

“And walk away?”

“Absolutely. I’m not affiliated with you nut jobs. I’m sorry his followers are freaking out, but that’s not my problem.”

“You stubborn -” he began, but before he could slap a slur on that he stopped himself. “Jesus, you’re a bastard. I have no idea why he put you in his will.”

Roan paused, reaching for a bottle of water. What did he just say?