Shift, Part 4
4 – Halo
Holden was a little surprised when Dylan answered the door in his boxer shorts, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Having stopped by Panic last night, he knew that Dylan hadn’t been up late working. “Is something wrong?” he wondered, looking beyond him to try and see the living room.
He shook his head, yawning, “Roan’s in the hospital. I stayed there as long as I could, but eventually I got kicked out.”
Holden stared at him. “He’s in the hospital? Did he have another aneurysm?”
“No. Oh, you don’t know.” Dylan then made a sort of scoffing noise as he said, “Right, yeah, he barely told me. Come in, I’ll explain.”
Well, it couldn’t have been a huge emergency if Dylan wasn’t freaking out about it. Holden followed him inside, noting from a purely clinical perspective that he had a nice ass and a nice back. (It was long and lean, a little dimple near the small of the back, no overt hair.) If he wanted to do the high class prostitute thing, he could probably make a mint. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the sofas as he disappeared into another room.
Holden sat, trying to decide what was Roan’s and what was Dylan’s. The only things that seemed like Dylan was the painting now hanging up over the stereo – one of those bizarre ones, of a wall with a huge hole in it that appeared to be bleeding, like a crime scene detail with only the body missing – and the Bloc Party CD currently playing softly. Roan just never struck him as a Bloc Party kind of guy.
Dylan came back wearing sweatpants and pulling on a t-shirt of a Roy Lichtenstein type woman crying and firing a machine gun, while saying “It’s not you,it’s me …” He had a feeling Roan bought that for him, or it was one of Roan’s t-shirts; he was the wacky t-shirt master around here. “Want something to drink? I’m just getting myself some green tea,” Dylan asked, crossing to the kitchen.
Green tea – oh boy! What a hedonist. But he was the Buddhist vegetarian around here. You’d think an artist/shirtless bartender at a gay nightclub would have a much wilder life, but he seemed to work hard to cultivate a lifestyle more suited to an ascetic. “No thanks, maybe later. So what’s up with Roan?”
“Doctor Rosenberg put him in a coma ahead of his transformation. She’d fairly certain it’ll keep him alive.”
“Oh.” There was a phrase you didn’t here everyday. How were you supposed to react to that? “It went okay?”
“Fine. When I was finally kicked out, he was sleeping … well, comatose. But his vitals were good, and there were no problems. He takes to drugs like a duck to water.”
Holden smirked at this, aware there was a bit of hollow anger in that last statement. “Sadly, yes. How are you doing?”
Dylan returned, curling up on the sofa across from him, legs tucked under him as he cradled the mug in his lap. It wasn’t straight green tea; there was a fruity scent to it, citrus and berry. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. “Honestly? I’m fucking pissed off.”
Now that he hadn’t expected. Dylan was such a mild guy that, in spite of being as gorgeous as he was, he was easily forgettable. In Holden’s mind, he just sort of blurred into the wallpaper. While his calm peacefulness was surely beneficial to Roan, who probably needed all the peace he could get, Dylan’s somewhat introverted nature left him an after thought to many of Roan’s friends. He was the polar opposite of the bright explosion that was Paris. That was probably deliberate. “About what?”
“About Roan and his attitude. He’s acting like he wants to die.”
“He was put into the coma, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, but only because Doctor Rosenberg didn’t give him a choice. He’s been acting like he wants to die since he found out about the aneurysm. He denies it, but … it’s just been freaky. It’s so irritating. I can’t even get properly mad at him, because I honestly believe he doesn’t know it. He’s living in denial or a Vicodin haze. One of the two.”
See, this was why Holden was so glad he didn’t do relationships. These little wars, these little deaths … was a regular fuck buddy and shared rent worth it? Didn’t seem like it. Give him solitude, a cold bottle of gin, a decent piece of internet porn, and he was good. “Is this because he went after the neo-Nazis?”
“No, but that was one of the more flashy bits.”
“Tell me about it. And people don’t know he’s gay? My god, he was wearing a gun. Just pull it and tell ‘em to freeze, don’t jump on ‘em like a big flaming drama queen. Jesus.”
Dylan snickered at that, enjoying the joke. But his good humor faded fast, and he ended up looking kind of sad. “He’s never been a quitter; he’s not a man who quits easily or quietly. So why has he consciously or unconsciously decided to die?”
Paris. That was Holden’s first thought, and he knew Dylan was thinking the same thing, and didn’t want to think it. He wanted some other reason than his boyfriend still being in love with a dead man. So Holden thought of another reason to give him, which sounded very plausible. “He’s burned out. He’s been told he’s going to die most of his life, and he hasn’t yet. So fuck it. He probably feels close to invincible as it is. He’s the closest thing to a superhero I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah. And there’s Paris.”
So Dylan said it. Good for him. “Roan pretends he’s not haunted by his ghost, but clearly he is.”
“Yeah. I really can’t compete with a dead man,” Dylan admitted, and it sounded like admitting defeat, which it was. He sighed and idly stirred his tea, the spoon softly ringing off the sides of the mug. The mug had a smiling cartoon bear on it hugging a heart, with the words “I Don’t Understand Your Hostility Towards Me” encircling it. Holden knew that was Roan’s mug. Dylan made the decision to change the subject, and then he did. “So why the house call? You could have phoned.”
“Yeah, except my cell phone battery’s dead, and I just got in from Sea-Tac late last night. I’ve spent the last few days in Vegas with my pilot client.”
“Really? Did he pay you, or -”
“Oh hell yeah he paid me. He also gave me a free ticket. Get this – he told the flight staff I was his nephew.”
“He didn’t.”
“He did, and they seemed to buy it. Except for this queeny air steward who seemed to know instinctively I was a hustler and gave me the cold shoulder.”
Dylan squirmed uncomfortably, shifting on the couch and taking a sip of his tea before asking hesitantly, “ Isn’t he the one who, um – “
“Pays me to tie him up and humiliate him? Yes. He remains a curious client, but a loyal one. And I can’t say he didn’t show me a decent time, as he gave me free run of his mini-bar and room service.”
“You have a strange life.”
He said it so deadpan and mild Holden almost laughed. “Tell me about it. I did check my messages, and I discovered Fiona had called me and left me a message about Roan’s latest case. I’ve got people out looking for more info, but I had some for him anyways. I also had a gift.”
“Oh boy, did you get him a tacky souvenir?”
“More like a tacky trinket I picked up in a Las Vegas pawn shop. And no, I didn’t pawn anything; I don’t gamble. If I wanted to waste my money, I’d buy lottery tickets like everyone else. I was just doing a bit of window shopping with everyone else’s misery.” He pulled the gift out of the pocket of his jeans and put it on the coffee table.
Dylan sat forward and examined it curiously. “Oh, how ’bout that. It is very tacky.”
“And one hundred percent pewter. If that’s worth anything, and I don’t think it is.” It was a ring shaped like a lion’s head, with a mane large enough to cover the lower half of the finger.
“I’m sure he’ll love it. Which bothers me.”
“You’re not alone.”
“So what information did you have for him?”
“Hawley was no walker. Might have been trans, but not a hooker, not to anyone’s knowledge, and we would know.”
“Would you? I mean, you’re not unionized.”
“No, but there’s always a way to find out who’s working what corner. No hooker is ever alone on a street, and we use a lot of the same motels. It’s a smaller world than you’d think.”
“I’m sure. If the johns knew, they might be a little scared by it.”
“A little? A lot. For good reason.”
Dylan nodded, looking down at his mug, his attention wandering elsewhere. They were silent for a moment, and Holden felt that something was going desperately wrong here. Dylan was depressed and probably sleep deprived, but he wasn’t the type to open up to him. He knew that Dylan really didn’t like him that much, and yet he seemed to be confiding in him. Was he that lonely? Was he feeling that lost?
Dylan sagged back on the sofa, and stared at him almost boldly, his dark brown eyes set like stone. “You love him too. What would you do if you were me?”
Holden stared back at him, but he was so flabbergasted by what he’d said it took him a moment to speak. “Uh, what? I don’t love Roan. I like the guy, but -”
“Oh please, I’ve had enough self-deception from Ro, please don’t you do it too.”
“Dylan, I don’t. I don’t want him and he doesn’t want me. He’s all yours.”
He scoffed faintly. “You’re a gay man. I don’t have to explain the difference between love and desire to you. You can want a person without loving them, but the opposite also holds true. Look, I know you’re not a threat to our relationship, so I’m not gonna go crazy ass jealous on you. I just want to know why you haven’t given up on him yet.”
Holden wasn’t sure if he should be angry, offended, or amused. All three? (And actually, he wouldn’t mind doing Roan. Yeah, it’d be pretty weird considering their relationship now, but he’d always left the invitation of doing him for free open. Well, he was a good looking guy, there was no getting around that, and Holden was always impressed by his humor, which could be incredibly sexy on a guy. And it was probably the lion pheromones or something, but he did have a mysterious kind of magnetism. You kind of wanted to follow him, let him take the lead.) “Why not get crazy ass jealous? I mean, that’s the least a guy could want.”
“Because Roan isn’t like that. He’s a nester. He grew up without a home, and now all he wants is a nice, stable home.”
“Let me guess – you minored in psychology.”
“I was trying to understand my dad,” he replied, a roundabout way of saying yes. “It didn’t work. And I’m not trying to offend you, although why you’d be offended by me saying you loved someone is a bit puzzling.”
“I’m offended because you couldn’t be more wrong. He’s a friend, that’s all. I’m not capable of much more.”
“Bullshit.” Dylan said, without rancor. His voice was as weary as his posture, as the expression on his face. “You’d kill for him. I saw that when we were trying to solve the Newberry case without him. Even Dee saw it, and he gave me the oddest look. He asked me later if I was worried about that, and I said no, because I’m not. In a strange way, I wish I was.”
Holden felt something settle cold in his gut, a twinge and a twist. This had all suddenly went somewhere he didn’t want it to go, and he wasn’t a hundred percent sure why. It almost felt like the walls were starting to close in. “I’m not explaining myself to you. I like the guy a lot, but that’s the end of it. Full stop. And if you want my opinion, you either get used to him or pack your bags now. Is he a moody son of a bitch? Hell yeah. Either he’ll snap out of this on his own or he’ll need a shock to snap him out of it, but he’s been a morose leaning bastard since I’ve known him.” Holden stood up, feeling angry, and not completely sure why. Maybe because he always hated being told how he felt about something. It seemed presumptuous, insulting, and arrogant to tell him how he felt. He hated it when his parents did it, and he had grown no fonder of it in the meantime.
Dylan looked up at him with something like surprise, eyebrows raising slightly. “Holden, I didn’t -”
“Save it. I’m not the person you should be talking to anyways. You want Roan to get over himself? Tell him. He won’t be happy, but he’s not an idiot. Spell out your terms, and if he can’t live with them, leave.”
He made a noise of disbelief, and put his mug down heavily on the coffee table. “Oh yeah, he could only be dead in a month. I should walk out on him.”
“Oh please. He’s been dying since you met him. If you stay with him out of pity he will resent the shit out of you. If you don’t like things, do something about it, or just sit down, shut up, and live with it.” He headed for the door, hoping he wasn’t storming out like a big drama queen, but … yeah, there was probably no avoiding that. Still, he had to leave, because he was so angry he was sure he’d say something they’d both regret.
Dylan said something, but he just ignored him. He hadn’t even told him he knew the name Carey Switzer; in fact, he knew Switzer very well.
And he could easily imagine him being a killer.