Empty Vessels Page 9

  He could feel the horned boy's breathing, knew from its pace that the horned boy wasn't asleep yet either.

  He knew, too, that all he'd have to do was lean in and he could kiss him. The horned boy wouldn't refuse him. He'd made that much clear. The air between them, the breath passing back and forth, felt hot with that possibility.

  It would be easy. Even though he'd told Lucas to stay, if he initiated something, Lucas would quietly leave through the door and give him privacy.

  Keith rolled over to face the wall.

  Sleep was a long time coming.

  chapter seven

  No visions came in his sleep, just dreams. Nothing he could remember even as he woke up, except for the eroticism of them, heat and motion and hands and mouths, tangled branches and the scent of wet leaves.

  He shifted helplessly, feeling tangled in vines, pressing against the heavy warm pressure, lingering in pleasant dreams right until his mind came just awake enough to realize where he was and who was with him. Memories came flooding back as he began to understand sensations again, to realize what those branches were, what that scent was.

  Keith froze in place as he seemed to wake up more abruptly than he ever had before, limbs going numb and heavy with the shock of it. Heart pounding, he pried his eyes open.

  The horned boy lay there—the two of them had tangled around each other in sleep, an arm draped over Keith, one of Keith's legs between the horned boy's. It was too hot under the blankets, a shared body heat he wasn't used to. He was hopelessly turned on from scent and warmth and the stickiness of sweat between them and he drew slow, steadying breaths, trying not to let himself hyperventilate.

  He began, slowly, to try to pull himself back, hoping to extricate himself from the tangle of limbs without waking the horned boy and bringing his attention to himself in any way, but the horned boy's eyes opened as soon as he moved, pale and focused and already wide awake.

  Keith jerked away, rolling over to face the wall again, and drew a breath. "Uh," he said, tongue thick in his mouth as he tried to figure out what to say, how to deal with this. "I'm, uh…"

  "Good morning," the horned boy said, tone light. "Any visions?"

  There was no way he hadn't noticed. Keith leaned his forehead against the cold wall, hoping it would cool him down faster. "Uh, no. Nothing. No visions," he said. "Hopefully that's a good sign and not…"

  "Not…?"

  Not the unfamiliarity of a shared bed disrupting his subconscious focus, not the arousal taking priority.

  "Not just… me… not having a vision," he said weakly.

  "Mm." The horned boy sat up, blankets sliding off him to puddle in his lap. He pulled one knee up and looped both arms loosely around it. "What time do you have to get up?"

  "Seven-thirty…"

  That elegant antlered head turned to look at his alarm clock. "Well, your alarm's going to start to go in three minutes, so no point in sending you back to sleep. Mind getting it before it goes off? My hearing's sensitive."

  "Oh… sure." Keith rolled back to face him again, staring briefly at the soft fuzz of the horned boy's side leading down into his boxers, then fumbled behind the horned boy's back to find his clock and switch the alarm button off with blind familiarity.

  "—Good morning."

  Keith almost jumped, then felt himself go even more red than he'd thought was possible. Lucas, of course, was in the corner, watching them with blackened eyes; his mouth was a void. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this awake and had forgotten Lucas was there, even for a moment.

  "M-morning," he stammered back.

  "Good morning!" the horned boy chirped to Lucas. "You're looking somewhat vague right now. Feeling all right?"

  Lucas raised a hand in front of his face and looked at it. It looked normal to Keith, but he wondered how it looked through Lucas's current shadowed eyes.

  "I'm fine," Lucas said. "It happens to me until Keith wakes up enough to start talking to me, usually."

  Of course, he hadn't remembered Lucas was there, though. Rather than simply forgetting, he hadn't wanted to think about it. He was already embarrassed to think that the horned boy had realized how turned on he was, that the horned boy probably had been awake for whatever Keith was doing in his sleep. Had he been lucky enough to just lie there silently, or had he been moving? Making noises?

  But it was one thing for the horned boy to know his state—a new friend, yes, but one he certainly didn't have to live with after—and another to think of Lucas watching him sleep like that. Watching the two of them tangle closer, listening to them breathe, not leaving the room because Keith had asked him not to…

  Something unpleasant curled in his stomach, a strange combination of humiliation and longing, the urge to cry. Stress, he decided. He was already so stressed out by everything that was going to happen today, with the test, for once, the least of it. Lucas wouldn't judge him.

  But he wasn't worried about being judged. He didn't want to make Lucas feel alone, unwanted, shut out of the world of the living. He didn't want Lucas to see him like that with someone else.

  "Keith…?"

  He shook himself abruptly. At least the rush of misery had more or less taken care of his problem.

  "I'm going to shower," he said, shifting to the end of the bed to avoid displacing the horned boy. "Then I'm going to grab breakfast from the cafeteria."

  "I'll come," the horned boy said.

  Keith turned and looked at him. He didn't even know what expression was on his face, but he thought it might have been some kind of plea for mercy.

  "To breakfast," the horned boy corrected, and actually looked a little embarrassed. "Go shower. I'll get dressed while you two are out."

  Keith fled, but at least he remembered to hold the door for Lucas on the way.

  ***

  When he came out of his shower, he saw that Lucas was back to himself, eyes clear and watching him scrubbing his hair with the towel. He could also tell that Lucas wanted to talk to him in some way, expression anxious, but the bathroom was always crowded at this time of day, and Keith wouldn't be able to answer him.

  He held eye contact with Lucas for only a few moments before breaking it to lean in next to him at a sink, brushing his teeth.

  Lucas leaned down. "It's okay, you know," he said finally, softly. "I would want to, too."

  Keith opened his mouth to mutter something back, found he didn't know what to say, and just spat toothpaste out in the sink instead of saying anything at all.

  ***

  The test went about as well as could be expected under the circumstances, in that he was fairly sure he passed it. It was hard, knowing what was coming right after, to care particularly much about city-state politicians of the past. Sparta's two-king system was hypothetically something that he found very interesting, but in practice was something that paled in light of the fact he might be dying later that day. Still, the answers that he wrote down felt as if they were all more or less right, if inconsequential.

  And if they were wrong, he thought a little grimly, he might not be around to care about it.

  When he reached the end of the test, he tried to look it over to confirm his answers and found he couldn't concentrate on them anymore. His eyes just seemed to skip past blocks of short answer text, so he got up and handed it in without checking any further. He was the first one done, which probably should have worried him, but for once, he couldn't stir up any concern about that, either.

  Hands in his pockets, fiddling with a quarter he found there, he headed out.

  Lucas had been waiting just outside the room—his standard during tests and exams, to avoid distracting Keith—and he looked up with a sort of anxious relief as Keith walked out. At least, Keith thought, he wasn't the only one who was nervous.

  "So," Keith muttered, "he was going to meet us in the student union building's parking lot?"

  "Yeah, with lunch for you," Lucas said. The worry in his voice was obvious, and Keith did his best
to give him a reassuring smile. Lucas smiled back, a bit wobbly. "I think he said pizza?"

  "I can't complain about pizza," Keith said, though he wasn't sure he had much of an appetite. He got himself ready, making use of a bathroom in the History building, staring at himself in the mirror as he washed his hands. His dark eyes seemed almost sunken, bruised. He couldn't tell if it was lack of sleep, or the perception of his own fear hovering around him to his second sight. It did alter things, he thought. How he felt about things always changed how he saw them.

  Maybe that would work to his advantage today. He hoped so, anyway.

  The old clunker that the horned boy owned wasn't already in the parking lot when they got out, so they waited together in the cold. Keith's breath was showing, and he distracted himself for a little while by trying to blow smoke rings with vapor, though he was pretty sure that was physically impossible. It passed the time, and he couldn't find anything to say to Lucas anyway.

  Finally, the car rolled up, idling beside them until they got in, Keith letting Lucas into the back door before getting in himself. There was a box of pizza on the seat, and he put it on his lap, let it warm his cold knees.

  "You're out early," the horned boy said, throwing the car into reverse and almost scraping the roof with his antlers as he peered back over his shoulder.

  "I finished early," Keith agreed. "Are we eating on the way?"

  The horned boy got them back onto Ring Road, and shifted back into drive. "I was thinking of it, unless you want to stop somewhere first?"

  "No," Keith said. "I'm as ready as I will be." He opened the pizza box, letting the car flood with the greasily familiar scent.

  Half the pizza was cheeseless and vegetarian, the other half what looked to be a Greek pizza. He blinked down at it, then looked up at the horned boy. "The veggie's yours?"

  "I'm a herbivore," the horned boy said, and held out a hand. Keith awkwardly maneuvered a slice into it. "I forgot to ask what you liked, but I figured a Greek pizza after a Greek test might be nice."

  "You're kind of a nerd?" Keith said, not really meaning to upspeak at the end, but unable to avoid it, flustered.

  The horned boy laughed. "Is this a surprise?"

  Instead of answering, Keith picked up his own slice of pizza and started to chew it. Flavor flooded his mouth, and he found that, despite himself, he was starving.

  He'd finished all but one slice of his half by the time they arrived at the point they'd picked earlier with GPS, the opposite side of the forest near where the bone girl's apartment had been. It seemed that development had begun some time ago, new houses beginning to go up in an area that had largely been sparse cabins like the abandoned house they'd found, dotting the wilderness at the edge of Stonybridge. But the development had then stopped for some reason. Finances or legalese, Keith thought, or even stopping for the season, but that didn't feel right.

  Keith stepped out of the car, going to open the back door. His foot brushed a rock and his vision blurred—

  Running, running. Something was after him, something hungry. If he could get a little further, he'd reach the main road, get to his car. Wasn't worth cutting across a construction site like this, he thought blindly, not if it meant this kind of fear. Was he imagining it? Something coming from the woods, something trying to get him—

  His foot hit a rock.

  He fell, and the thing was on him.

  —Keith jerked, falling against the car door, leaning against it and breathing hard as his vision cleared. Unable to stop himself, he spun around finally, staring into the woods, waiting.

  But nothing was there.

  "Keith?" the horned boy asked. Keith drew several deep breaths and turned back to the car. Lucas was staring out at him with a concerned expression, more familiar with what had happened than the horned boy was.

  "I touched something," Keith said. "It… had a memory."

  "Bad memory?"

  Keith swallowed and tried to force a smile. "I think someone died here."

  The horned boy began to come around the car, and Keith got hold of himself enough to open the door and let Lucas out. "Who died?" Lucas asked.

  "I don't know. A trespasser. Probably one of the recent murders," Keith said. "It felt recent. He tripped on a rock and it caught him. I'm… feeling kind of bad about this being our safety point if we need to run."

  The horned boy leaned one hand on the hood, watching Keith with an uneasy expression. "Do you want me to try to drive closer?"

  It was possible to get closer to the abandoned house. There had been a dirt path, the remnants of an old road. But the debris on the path would rattle the car, and they couldn't do so quietly. Better to walk the path and save the car for if they needed the horned boy to come get them, when sound wouldn't matter.

  "No," he said. "Just… be prepared to go as soon as possible. It's still bright daylight. Even if the Terrors somehow manage to chase me now, they won't be fast… right?"

  "They shouldn't be," the horned boy said carefully.

  The phrasing didn't escape Keith, and he swallowed a nervous laugh. "All right," he said. "Well. Ready, Lucas?"

  "Ready as I will be," Lucas said. He made the motions of cracking his knuckles, although there wasn't any sound from it.

  "One more thing," the horned boy said. He stepped forward again, putting a hand on Keith's chest, and leaning in.

  Keith froze, certain for a moment that the horned boy was going to kiss him, and not sure what he should do about it. He drew a ragged, hitching breath in as the horned boy drew close, but the horned boy turned his head slightly so his cheek brushed Keith's instead.

  "Hiraeth," the horned boy breathed into his ear. "Call me Hiraeth."

  Keith swallowed, heart pounding so hard he could feel the flutter in his wrists, half from Hiraeth's proximity and half from it coming at a time like this, in the middle of his anxiety over so many things. "Your name?" he managed.

  "No," Hiraeth said. "Not my real name. But it's the one I use among Others." He stepped back. "Lucas, you heard it too, yes? You can both use it, if you wish."

  Lucas said, quiet, "I'll keep that in mind." Hiraeth had given it to Keith, but Lucas was there—couldn't be anywhere else—and it was clear he knew that was why he was included in this.

  In folktales, knowing something's name gave you some measure of control over it. Suddenly, Keith felt as though he understood that idea a little better. Hiraeth was still protecting some part of himself, but Keith had moved into a realm that wasn't supposed to be open to him, and Hiraeth's eyes, as he pulled back, seemed somewhat vulnerable. It would hurt him in some way to use this name among strangers, casually, even if it wasn't his real name. The choice he'd made to be called by it gave it some significance to who he was.

  "Thanks," Keith said. It didn't quite feel right, but he didn't know how else to express what he was feeling right then.

  "Go on, then," Hiraeth said. "You're wasting daylight hours."

  Keith turned to find Lucas watching them, his expression a bit odd: pleased and sad. Keith swallowed. "Ready?" he asked, and realized as the word slipped out that he'd already asked it.

  "Let's go," Lucas said, and spread his hands in a shrug, acknowledging the weirdness that had cropped up between them with Hiraeth's secret name and dismissing it.

  Keith drew a deep breath and started down the dirt road through the trees that would lead them to the old house. Beside him, Lucas fell into silent step.

  They passed several other similar old houses, apparently abandoned, as they went, and Keith watched them uneasily as they walked. He couldn't totally dismiss the possibility that more than one of these houses was a base, even if he didn't think it likely. Old houses were creepy enough by themselves, and it was hard not to feel like they were being watched.

  "The houses are freaking me out," Lucas muttered.

  Laughing softly under his breath—at least he was incredibly practiced with talking at minimal volume—Keith said, "Thought it was just me."<
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  "I don't think there's anything in them, though. Just that this whole trip's freaking me out."

  "Me too."

  Lucas tilted his hand and it brushed the back of Keith's, a cold breeze. He turned his own hand so he could take Lucas's. Impossible to hold it tightly even if he wanted to. They just rested fingers against each other, pretending.

  "It'll be over soon," Keith said. "We'll find her, get out, and…"

  And what, exactly? Whatever threat was there would still be there and hunting. Even if she were safe—to be put into something new and take however long to recreate it into a body—nobody else would be yet.

  "… and deal with the rest later," he said, weakly. "Right now, let's just focus on getting in and out and having a nice rest of our day."

  "Right," Lucas said.

  It took them a little over ten minutes of walking to find the same abandoned house as before, and Keith felt a bit relieved that they'd found a place to park that had allowed them to get this close. They ducked into the trees, examining the house.

  "Going in the front makes as much sense as anything," Keith said, after consideration. "Will you be able to unlock it?"

  "I should," Lucas said. It was clear he was a bit nervous about being the first one in, but he didn't say anything about it, just gave Keith a quick, tight smile. "And then you'll get the lights on?"

  "No, I…" Keith took a deep breath. "I should try to get the lights on first. If we can't, we shouldn't go in. I don't want to send you in there if it's dark inside."

  Lucas nodded slowly. "All right. But you'll have to touch the wall to spark anything."

  "I know," Keith said. "But if they're right at the front door, we're fucked anyway—" Suddenly waiting any longer was agonizing. Fear started to tip over into frustration. "I'm just going to do it. Come on."

  "Wait—"

  "Watching the house isn't doing anything," Keith said roughly, and Lucas fell silent, walking just two steps behind him.