Irregulars Holiday Codas - JASON'S SIDECAR by Ginn Hale

Jason’s Sidecar

Ginn Hale



 

 

Jason frowned at himself in the mirror, yanking the uncomfortable noose of his tie in an attempt to get the thing straight. Somehow every adjustment he made only worsened the situation. Also it suddenly struck him that instead of recreating the stylishly ruffled look his hairdresser had managed with a single drop of gel, Jason had transformed the mop of his thick brown hair into something suggesting a bird’s nest in the aftermath of a hurricane.
 

And for that matter, did his black shoes really go with the russet suit he’d chosen?
 

His cat, Princess sauntered over, swiping her long red body across his pant legs and depositing a fine coat of shed hair before bounding up to her regular bird-watching perch on his widow sill. Jason wasn’t certain if she was having fun at his expense or was just trying to be encouraging in her own way. Meeting her approving gaze he decided to believe the latter.
 

“Thanks,” Jason told her. “It does add a dash of color and domesticity to the look.”
 

He heard Henry’s soft laughter from behind him.
  

Then he caught sight of Henry’s reflection in the mirror and felt his hand clench harder on his already mangled tie. He’d always found Henry striking, but washed, shaved and dressed in a sharp suit he looked like another man altogether—like one of those polished, assured heroes from a spy film—tall, tan and rugged in a way that made Jason’s mouth go dry.
 

How could he go from a scruffy Philip Marlowe to a blond James Bond in twenty minutes?
 

“Are you trying to strangle yourself to get out of this?” Henry asked as he met his gaze in the mirror. “Because we could save your life and just cancel—”
 

“No. I want to go.” Jason assured him. And he did, but there was just so much uncertainty in meeting these people who he wanted so badly to like him. “I just can’t get this tie—”
 

“Well, the first step would be to stop choking yourself with it. Here, let me.” Henry pulled the length of gold silk from Jason’s hands.
 

“Windsor or Pratt?” Henry asked and for a moment Jason thought he was speaking in another language, but then he remembered all those diagrams he’d been studying online.
 

“I was trying for a full Windsor.”
 

“The knot of kings, huh?” With the nonchalance of decades of practice Henry effortlessly retied the Windsor knot and then straightened the collar of Jason’s shirt. There was something so comforting about meeting Henry’s eyes—seeing the affection in his gaze—and feeling his large, sure hands brushing so gently over the tender skin of his throat and then briefly caressing the short hair at the back of his neck.
 

“Nervous?” Henry asked.
 

“Yeah,” Jason admitted at last. “A little.”
 

“Look, you know that you don’t have to introduce me to them.” Henry said. “I’m not going to be offended if you go solo—”
 

“No, that’s exactly what I don’t want,” Jason said quickly. “The last thing I need is to be all alone with them. I barely know most of their names. The only one I’ve ever met in person is Bubbie Tillie, and that was one of the most awkward conversations I’ve ever had.”
 

Jason had been so excited, after months and months of searching to at last locate one of his father’s a living relatives. At the time he hadn’t thought that there might have been a reason his grandmother hadn’t been involved in his childhood. Nor had he considered how having him standing in front of her might remind her of how badly she and her son had parted ways and how brutally he’d been murdered ten years later.
 

Still she’d been kind enough to invite him to join the family’s Hanukah gathering. And when he’d risen from her kitchen table, and thanked her for the tea, she’d stood as well and then hesitantly reached out and hugged him to her frail body. Jason had returned her embrace gingerly as if she were a fragile piece of bone china, rather than a living person. 
 

Even now, he experienced a twinge of guilt, remembering his thoughts. Because he knew he was comparing her unfairly to an ideal grandmother—some woman who probably never existed outside of commercials for cookie dough and schmaltzy holiday films but who had come to represent his only knowledge of what extended family meant.
 

Or maybe he was thinking of Gunther’s mother, Mrs. Heartman, who, despite her terrifying appearance had clasped him to her bony breast like a beloved teddy bear and almost spun him off his feet when she’d welcomed him and Henry to their Summer Solstice celebration.
 

“Henry’s said so much about you,” Mrs. Heartman had told him and then laughed, the blood red slits of her eyes crinkling into crescents. “Your really gave those Sidhe royalists a well needed kick in the teeth, didn’t you?”
 

After that it had been easy to mingle and joke with the odd and alien beings who attended the gathering. Gunther and Keith had flown back from DC for the occasion and Jason spent some time chatting with Gunther’s tattooed, surly lover. Jason found him charming in the way he spoke so off handedly of Gunther, while watching his back like a love-struck teenager. Jason almost thought he could see little white hearts puffing off of the man and drifting after Gunther, but then he’d realized it was just steam rising from the vegetable grill that the Keith worked over.
 

  After the night of barbeque, fireworks and many cups of goblin cider had ended, Mr. and Mrs. Heartman had told Jason that he was welcome in their home. Bleary and tired as he’d been, he’d felt so thankful for their acceptance that it embarrassed him.
 

When he’d met his biological mother for the first time she’d looked at him with the perfect calm of beautifully carved marble and informed him that she would have devoured him at birth if she’d had her way. His biological father had murdered and tortured countless men and women in his quest to capture and gut Jason. He’d died trying. No love lost there.
 

But Bubbie Tillie’s estranged son—Levi—had raised Jason and showered him with the wit and affection that he’d needed to survive later foster homes and psychiatric hospitals.
 

Jason didn’t know if he was just deluding himself, but it felt important to him to reach out to his father’s relations, to try to find what he could of a family. At least that had been his thought when he’d hired the detective who had eventually tracked the Shamir clan down in Los Angeles. But now the reality of this gathering began to terrify him. They didn’t know him—they probably didn’t want to know him. Fear of rejection welled up in Jason, feeling as inescapable as the sorcerous Stone of Fal, buried in his bones.
 

 They’re going to hate me.
 

Henry studied him, his blue eyes shining like gas flames.
 

“You’re gonna be fine,” Henry said. Jason couldn’t quite meet his gaze. “And I won’t be offended if you want this just to be you and your family—”
 

“No! I can’t—I really want you there with me.” 
   

“Sure but aren’t the new relations going to find it a little…queer?” Henry raised his blond brows.
 

“No... I mean, I don’t think so. Bubbie Tillie said that it would be fine if I brought along a friend.” Jason scowled at himself in the mirror. “Do you mind?”
 

“Always happy to oblige,” Henry replied and they both knew that he was humoring Jason.
 

“Thank you,” Jason told him. “I really wouldn’t have asked except that you always seem to know how to be yourself and still talk to normal people. And I… I really don’t.”
 

“Okay, okay I’ll be your conversational wingman. But honestly, Jason, you’ll do fine. You’re smart, good looking, and rich, who wouldn’t want you for a relation?”
 

“My birth parents come springing to mind, just off the bat—”
 

Henry grabbed him and shut him up with a hard, insistent kiss. The earthy taste and rough feel of him made Jason’s mouth almost water from wanting more of him. He invaded and invited Jason’s excited responses with confidence. Jason ran his hands over Henry’s solid body instinctively searching for the heat of his naked skin.  He found the buckle of Henry’s belt.
 

But then Henry pulled back, looking flushed and breathless.
 

 “You’re not going anywhere tonight, if we keep this up.” Henry’s right hand still rested on Jason’s hip.
 

“You started it.”
 

“Yeah well…” Henry ran his scarred hand through his blonde hair disheveling a few very gold strands and then gave Jason a crooked smile. “It was supposed to be reassuring. Calm you down a little.”
 

“Seriously?” Jason laughed at the idea of that hot, demanding kiss calming anyone down.
 

Henry shrugged and Jason understood. He’d been willing to distract Jason, even take the blame for keeping him in bed the entire evening if that was what Jason really needed. And he might just need it—but not until after he’d faced what faint hope he had with the remains of his father’s family.
  

Jason drew in a deep breath building a calming blue melody in his mind—the chill of ice and mint filled his lungs while a lattice of cerulean blue dew formed a radiant halo over his head—then he released both spell and breath to wash the tension and arousal from his flesh.
 

“Wow, minty fresh.” Henry gave a short laugh. “I guess that means we’re off to eat latkes, then.”
 

Jason nodded, snatched up his coat, then at the last minute decided to wear his glasses as well. The evening was already going to be awkward, the last thing he needed was to get caught gawking at some gape-faced vampire or shimmering fairy that happened to be strolling past Bubbie Tillie’s wide windows.
 

##
 

 What Jason hadn’t counted on was that the unearthly creature he needed to stop staring at would be at the dinner party, crouching on the cream carpet wearing only a rhinestone-studded collar and leash. The scrawny brownie sported a little crest of curling pink hair on the top of his head as well as matching nail polish on his fingers and toes.  Though by studying the creature directly through the enchanted lenses of his glasses Jason was able to see what everyone else in the room saw—a snaggletoothed, knee-high mutt that looked like a cross between a Chinese-crested Chihuahua and a battered brown shoe. It had been recently taken to a groomer—thus the dyed pink hair and painted nails. Even from across the room, and disguised by some spell Jason could see that the thing looked miserable.
 

According to Bubbie Tillie, the creature had been abandoned to the care of Jason’s pretty thirty-something cousin, Sarah, after its previous owner had died Jason had heard the story earlier but hadn’t really registered it amid the flurry of introductions to his aunt, uncles, their wives, his five cousins, their spouses and dates as well as a herd of nieces and nephews— every one of whom looked more comfortable in their upwardly-mobile ensembles than Jason felt with this designer tie around his neck.
 

They gathered in the spacious, ivory, gold and beige living room, while a maid prepared the dining room for their meal. An elegantly dressed brunette in her fifties, poured drinks and from her amused expression and eclectic offerings Jason guessed that she was bartending for the challenge of it more than anything else.
 

The Shamir clan made for a large and intimidating crowd, counting no less than four doctors—two of them surgeons—three lawyers, two nurses, an architect, a professor of theology and a psychiatrist among them. The men, all of them shorter than Jason and most older, affected hard, white smiles as they circled Jason and shook his hand with mechanically firm grips.
 

Stealing a glance over his shoulder, Jason noted the touch of amusement in Henry’s expression as he, too, received their polished, professional greetings. Though most of them faltered slightly when they noted his missing finger. Jason overheard one of the lawyers inquire about the injury. Henry informed him gravely that he’d lost the digit in an egg-rolling accident.
 

Most of the women air kissed Jason’s cheeks, enveloping him in the alien scents of cosmetics and floral perfumes, and then exclaimed at how delighted they were that he’d gotten in touch with Bubbie Tillie after all this time. But it wasn’t delight that Jason read in their beautifully made-up faces; it was suspicion. He could see them searching his angular Sihde features and bronze skin for any resemblance of their own pale, soft, human heritage and finding none.
 

And he supposed they had every right to distrust a young man who appeared seemingly from nowhere, claiming to be a long-lost relation. In the month since he’d contacted Bubbie Tillie he had no doubt that several of her children had hired detectives of their own to have him and his claims investigated.
 

He wondered if they’d flipped through pictures of him with his arms wrapped around Henry, attempting to steal sly kisses. Did they already know he studied music at Berkeley or that he often strolled the park in the company of a vivid red cat? Undoubtedly they’d uncovered records of his years bouncing between foster homes and psychiatric hospitals. With that many medical specialists in one family they would have the resources and connections to obtain his files, he had no doubt. Half of them probably thought he was crazy.
 

Or maybe worse.
 

 Tillie Shamir was not a poor woman, and playing a long lost grandson wasn’t unheard of as a con game.
 

It was with those thoughts rolling through his mind, as well as a feeling of sudden nostalgia as he took in the large menorah waiting on a console table next to the window, that Jason caught his cousin Sarah’s explanation for the plastic dog kennel that she lugged into the house.
 

“I couldn’t leave him alone. Last night I came home and he’d nearly chewed through the back door.” Sarah slid the kennel between to beige armchairs. “I have no idea what I’m going to do with him.”
 

“Just take it to the pound.” That response came from the eldest uncle, Dr. David Shamir, just before he turned to ask Henry if he attended Berkley along with Jason.
 

“Doubt they’d admit me,” Henry had responded with a grin and then added. “I work for NATO—mostly in the field but I’m on holiday right now.”
 

It turned out to be the doctor’s wife, Ellen, who enjoyed concocting cocktails.  She handed Henry something called a vesper and bestowed a sidecar upon Jason. He cradled his glass in his palm, too nervous to trust himself to drink. All around him pieces of conversation rose and fell. Investments advice, entertainment commentary, gripes and punch lines, washed over Jason, disjointed from their meaning and filling the air like the bright colors of birdcalls.
 

Two of Jason’s young nieces careened past the long ivory couch, the skirts of their pastel dresses trailing them like tracers, while a slightly older nephew played at chasing them. Jason preformed a series of dance steps to avoid both the girls and their giggling pursuer. He made his way between clots of his unfamiliar relatives to reach Bubbie Tillie.
 

She smiled a little warily—and he realized that she’d grown more uncertain of him since they’d last spoken. He presented her with the box of chocolates he’d spent the last three weeks securing. She glanced down at the gold box, with its frill of thick ribbon and the flowery foil tag designating the dark chocolate selection as pareve. She looked back up at Jason questioningly.
 

“These are my favorite, but how did you know?”
 

“I remembered dad buying them for my mom once and saying that you loved them,” Jason told her though he regretted it almost immediately. Bubbie Tillie’s smile dimmed with sorrow the moment he mentioned his father. From across the room he noticed his youngest aunt, the psychiatrist, scowl at him.
 

“Well, thank you,” Bubbie Tillie told him but then she turned away and set the box of chocolates on an end table beside one of her many decorative vases. A gaggle of her granddaughters bounced to her side asking if they could light the menorah this year and if there would be latkes at dinner and if her cook had made a special dessert for them. Bubbie Tillie instantly brightened as she took in the circle of noisy little girls. She said something that inspired gleeful cries from them but Jason didn’t catch her words.
 

His cousin Sarah’s exasperated conversation with her sister and their uncle David swelled through the room.
 

“I was in shock,” Sarah pushed a lock of her curly brown hair back from her round face. “What was I going to do?  There she was standing on my doorstep telling me that her mother had just been shot by a burglar and asking me if I could watch the dog for the night. Of course I said I would.”
 

“But it’s been three weeks now, right?” her sister commented—Jason thought her name was Abby. “And nobody’s come for it.”
 

Sarah shook her head, “I went over but the old woman’s house is completely empty. No sign of her daughter or anyone anywhere.” 
       

  “So take the mutt to the pound,” Uncle David repeated. He accepted another drink from his wife.
 

“But it bites,” Sarah objected. “And it’s ugly and really, really old. They’ll just put it down.”
 

“That might be for the best,” Uncle David replied.
 

“Not if the owners come back and ask for it. What would I tell them?”
 

Jason’s vague interest in the conversation fell away as he noticed Henry beckoning to him. He crossed through the amiable chaos of myriad adult conversations and rambunctious children.
 

“You look…” Henry trailed off with a frown. “Are you okay?”
 

“Yeah. I’m fine. I was just thinking of the last time I celebrated.”
 

“With your dad?” Henry asked.
 

Jason gazed at the menorah waiting there on the table and nodded. It was so much more ornate and elegant than the funky clay one that his father and he had made together, when Jason had been six. Jason’s mother had laughed at it but then agreed with Jason that what it really needed was blue glitter and a few dinosaur stickers.
 

The people gathered here would probably have been offended at the sight of the thing, but it had given Jason such joy and he’d always felt incredibly proud when he’d seen it shining in the window of their rundown apartment.
 

Horrifyingly Jason felt his chest tighten at the memory. He closed his eyes against their sudden sting. It wasn’t like him to get so choked up.
 

“Damn it, Jason—” Henry muttered under his breath.
 

Jason glanced back to him to see Henry’s troubled expression.
 

“I’m okay, really. It’s just, you know…” He forced a smile but couldn’t maintain it.
 

“Sure you are,” Henry replied quietly. He took the untouched drink from Jason’s hand and set it aside on a decorative table. “Orphans and family holidays mix about as nicely as bleach and ammonia.”
 

“What?” Jason glanced up in time to catch the concern in Henry’s expression.
 

“Tear gas,” Henry replied. “ Seriously. Do you need me to get you out of here?”
 

“No. I really am alright.” Just having the offer, strangely made Jason feel a little better. “But maybe you could put your arm around me.”
 

“With pleasure.” Henry caught Jason’s shoulder and pulled him closer.
 

Jason had suspected that many members of the family had been watching him surreptitiously. The wide variety of startled expressions that appeared all across the room as he leaned into Henry only confirmed as much.
 

Somehow remembering that crooked, homemade menorah and the joy it had brought him, freed Jason from caring so very much about the opinions of these strangers. He didn’t hate them—in fact he felt a genuine warmth for Bubbie Tillie and he suspected that if he got to know Sarah he might like her as well—but they were strangers and he wasn’t about to give their values more importance than his own happiness.
 

“So are you two—” Abby began, but just at that moment the dog burst free of its kennel. It dashed frantically around the room barking, while Sarah and several other family members attempted to catch it. The youngest children squealed or laughed as the small creature shot past. At last Sarah grasped hold of the dog’s trailing leash and animal came to a lurching halt.
 

It had been at that moment then, as Jason looked over the rims of his glasses that he caught sight of the gasping creature’s true form and realized that a naked brownie, with long drooping ears and fingers like spider legs, crouched on the carpet before them all. The polish coloring his fingernails and toenails looked weird against the knotted tough mahogany of his hands and feet. His pink hair hung in strings over his snouty face and obscured one gleaming black eye. 
 

“He keeps getting out of his kennel somehow.” Sarah gripped the pink leash so tightly that Jason could see her knuckles turning white.
 

“Where did you say you got him again?” Jason asked, and Henry gave him a quizzical look. Jason knew better than to simply blurt out the truth, not only would the Shamirs think that he needed to be shipped back to St.Mary’s for another round of electroshock therapy, but the Secrecy Act strictly forbid such revelations to the common public. He could get them all in trouble.
 

So, meeting Henry’s gaze meaningfully he simply said, “He is not a dog… from a breed I’ve ever seen before.”
 

Casually, Henry glanced down at his watch and Jason noted a flickering green number lighting up the point of the minute hand. Henry’s attention shifted immediately to the brownie. Jason wondered if he was silently trying to crack through the spell disguising the creature.
 

“No one knows what breed it is but it belonged to Sarahs’s old witch of a neighbor,” Abby announced. “She died and her daughter just left the thing with Sarah. What was their name again? Puce or something like that?”
 

“She wasn’t a witch. She was just cranky,” Sarah replied. “And her name was duPuce.”
 

“DuPuce…” Henry repeated then he looked to Sarah. “Mara duPuce?”
 

“Yeah…” Sarah blinked at Henry like he’d preformed a magic trick. “You know her?”
 

Henry nodded, but he appeared none too happy. Jason knew better than to ask why. More than likely this related to NIAD, which meant the woman—if she was a woman—had likely broken some law.
 

 “Well, great,” Uncle David snapped. “Maybe you two can take the mutt off Sarah’s hands. In the mean time can we please get him back in that crate.”
 

Uncle David’s wife took the empty glass from his hand. 
 

“I’m allergic.” She sounded almost apologetic. 
 

The brownie sighed heavily and, with an expression of profound melancholy, let flow a stream of bright yellow urine against the leg of Bubbie Tillie’s filigreed end table. 
 

“Oh for god’s sake!” Uncle David shouted, suddenly red-faced.
 

One of the younger boys laughed only to be swatted by his sister. Two of the girls howled in excited revulsion.
 

“Oh no! I am so sorry!” Sarah turned to Bubbie Tillie, pale with mortification. Bubbie Tillie simply shrugged.
 

“After five children, I promise you I’ve seen worse,” Bubbie Tillie assured her. “The maid will get it anyway.”
 

 Sarah beamed at her grandmother. But then the leash slipped from Sarah’s hand as the brownie made a break for the dining room doorway. It dodged between the family members, tearing across the carpet on its elongated fingers as much as its spindly legs. A cacophony of shouts came from the children but none of them carried over the boom of Henry’s voice.
 

“Stanley Longfinger!” Henry roared.
 

The brownie stopped suddenly and spun around to look at Henry… As did everyone else in the room.
 

“Stanley,” Henry said more softly and he knelt down onto one knee. “It’s Henry, remember? Come here and let me get you back home.”
 

The brownie stood motionless for a moment then with a weirdly distorted yip he raced to Henry, pressing himself up against his leg.
 

“You really do know him?” Sarah said.
 

“Yeah, well it’s a long, weird story,” Henry replied. “But Stanley’s real family have been looking for him for a while now.”
 

A silence fell over the room. For the first time Jason thought he could clearly hear Bubbie Tillie’s maid setting the places at the table in the dining room. None of the other Shamirs seemed to know quite what to do.  Henry crouched down and removed the leash from the collar, hanging around the brownie’s neck.
 

“You mean he didn’t belong to Mrs. duPuce?” Sarah asked at last.
 

“No,” Henry replied. “He was abducted along with some twenty others.”
 

“Really?” Abby asked.
 

Henry nodded.
 

“Okay, so you have to tell us…” Sarah rolled her hand.
 

Henry sighed and seemed to take measure of the people gathered around him then he glanced to Jason and smiled just a little.
 

 “A couple weeks ago duPuce got wind that the law was onto her. She and her partners ditched everything they could and made tracks for the border.” Very gently Henry patted the brownie’s bony shoulder.
 

“How do you know all this?” Uncle David demanded.
 

“Work. Mrs. duPuce has links to an international crime organization.”
 

“Of dognappers ?” Sarah asked.
 

“ Human traffickers. The Cruella stuff was just duPuce’s hobby,” Henry replied. “Anyway I can’t go into it in detail; a lot’s still under investigation.”
 

Again that confused silence filled the room. Jason had to suppress a laugh. These were definitely not people who lived among the surreal and strange.
 

 He could see that Uncle David wanted to object to Henry’s story, while Sarah and Abby obviously preferred to believe it to be in some way true. Degrees of excitement and skepticism showed on the faces of the adults and children alike. Though Bubbie Tillie seemed to be looking at the dog itself and Jason could see the gentleness and compassion in her expression. Then she glanced to Jason and their eyes met. She smiled at him and for the first time he recognized his father’s tender expression in her face. 
 

“Well, if you’ll all excuse me a minute,” Henry said. “I really ought to call this in and see if I can’t get Stanley back where he belongs. His family’s been pretty torn up since he went missing.”
 

Henry fished a sleek black NIAD phone from his pocket but then paused to assess Jason.

 

“I’ll be quick,” Henry assured him and Jason knew that he could have made an excuse and it he wished slipped away with Henry. But he realized that he wanted to see that big menorah all lit up and to share a dinner with these strangers, whom he might one day call his family.
 

“ I know. I’m good here,” Jason assured him.
 

Then with Stanley the brownie following on his heels Henry slipped outside into the balmy L.A. afternoon.
 

The moment the door fell closed behind him, Abby spun on Jason.
 

“Is he for real—”
 

“Are you and he dating?” Sarah demanded over her sister’s question.
 

“Yes,” Jason replied to both of them.
 

“That is so cool!” Sarah exclaimed and Abby too looked thrilled, though Jason wasn’t entirely sure if it was because they now had a gay cousin or because their gay cousin was dating some kind of animal-rescuing, secret agent.
 

“It does have its moments,” Jason responded.
 

He picked up his glass and finally tried the sidecar. It tasted of brandy and oranges.  He’d expected something much more dry and bitter, but now found this surprisingly sweet and warming.

 

Irregulars Holiday Codas - LOVE IN THE TUNDRA by Astrid Amara

Kirkenes, Norway got zero daylight hours in December, and only a smidgen of dawn between nine in the morning and one o’clock in the afternoon. So Silas August fully expected the walk to the cabin he rented with Deven Shaw to be in utter darkness. What he hadn’t planned on was a snow storm presenting whiteout conditions and making each step cold and cumbersome.

As he trudged through knee-deep drifts and pulled his scarf tighter around his wind-burned face, he could hear Deven’s voice in his head: “What did you expect from a winter vacation in the Arctic Circle?”

But Silas had picked Kirkenes over other tourist destinations in the Laplands because he’d read its location on the coastline leant it a more temperate climate.

Temperate was clearly relative.

The worst was that the blizzard obstructed the few landmarks of the outskirts of town, and he discovered he was on the wrong road only after walking a good quarter mile down it. His feet ached; he had blisters on both soles thanks to not properly breaking in his hiking boots before the trip. Honestly he hadn’t expected to do much walking. They’d taken a dog sled ride, driven snowmobiles to a traditional Saavi tent for Christmas dinner, and were transported to an outcropping where they could witness the most incredible display of Northern Lights he’d ever imagined.

But Deven had wanted to walk back. And while the long trek through the ice had been breathtakingly beautiful, it had ruined Silas’s feet and contributed to Deven’s cold symptoms. By the time they had reached the cabin Deven had a fever, a sore throat, and was coughing incessantly.

Romantic getaway, indeed.

But Silas really couldn’t complain, since the idea of spending Christmas in the Laplands had been his, after all.

The previous year, Deven and he had traveled to the Caribbean for the holidays. And while Silas had appreciated the opportunity to work on a tan and get in some warm ocean snorkeling and locally prepared conch, it didn’t take all of his detective skills to recognize how the constant sunlight hurt Deven’s eyes.

After the holiday they’d even seen a specialist in NIAD about the spell that altered Deven’s eyesight all those years ago. The ophthalmologist had told them Deven’s dark-adapted eyesight had been enchanted too long ago, and was so much part of his vision now he risked going blind entirely if they attempted to reverse the spell.

It was then that Silas knew their next vacation couldn’t be anywhere as relentlessly sunny as the Caribbean, or Mexico, or even Hawaii, all of Silas’s favorite destinations.

Instead, he’d started researching the darkest places on earth.

The gesture had been well-received and Silas was grateful to see his lover in such obvious high spirits. And he was surprised himself how stunning this stark, frozen landscape could be. But moments like this, trudging to a simple cabin with swollen feet and a frozen face, made him really long for a good beach palapa and a drink, preferably served in a coconut.

At last he spotted the cabin, and hurried inside. He hoped Deven was in bed resting with a hot cup of tea.

“I come bearing some suspiciously Swedish wine and ice cold arctic char, and a Norwegian coleslaw that the store owner promised does not contain ludevisk.” Silas dropped the packages on the carved wooden counter that separated the small cooking area from the main room of the cabin. Deven had created a roaring fire and had pulled the heavy comforter off the bed and laid it beside the fireplace.

Candles were lit around the cabin as well, emitting a sweet beeswax smell.

“Are you feeling better?” Silas called out as he tore off the layers of cold-weather garments.

There was even a bottle of wine already chilling in a pot full of ice. And Mozart’s Requiem Mass played from Silas’s laptop.

“You like it?”

Deven stepped from the bathroom, completely nude. While Silas liked to think this was his Christmas present, he knew that Deven spent his time naked whenever he could. The only kind of clothing he wore growing up in Aztaw had been enchanted corn husk armor, so if given the opportunity to eschew garments, he usually did.

Silas took a moment to simply admire the planes of Deven’s beautiful body. His handsomeness seemed all the more remarkable for Deven’s utter lack of self-consciousness about it. He’d learned to feel many things in the three years since returning to the human realm, but his unconventional upbringing permanently affected the awareness of his own appeal.

Deven’s muscles were less pronounced than when they first became lovers – two years of working as a consultant for the department meant Deven spent more time at a computer than chasing down demons, and he’d allowed a thin layer of flesh to cover his sinewy frame.

If anything, it added to his beauty. His long, dark limbs moved like shadows in the firelight, only the glints of old scars catching the light.

Silas took in the bouquet of flowers, the rose petals leading to the bed, the smell of beeswax melting from the candles, and choked back a laugh.

“I’m going to take one guess. You read a magazine article on romantic getaways.”

Deven’s anxious expression immediately collapsed. “Shit. I got something wrong, didn’t I?”

Silas laughed. He stepped out of his snow boots and moved closer. “Not wrong exactly. What was the name of the magazine?”

“Cosmopolitan.”

“Thought so. It’s a magazine for women.”

Deven glanced at his efforts. “Oh. So all these effects are...”

“Sort of a feminine version of a fantasy getaway, is all I’m saying. Except for the music, of course.”

Deven frowned. “It said soothing classical music would create a romantic mood.”

“They probably didn’t have a funeral mass in mind.” 

Deven looked disappointed, and Silas chastised himself for enjoying it so much. The truth was, Deven did a pretty damn adorable pout when he screwed things up, which happened less and less frequently these days. So Silas took a moment to savor it, told himself he was being a dick, then moved in to make amends.

“I love it all, Deven. Thank you.” He put his arms around Deven’s warm body and drew him in for a kiss. Deven returned the kiss, but pulled back.

“You’re freezing.”

“No shit, Sherlock. I just walked a mile in the snow.”

Deven sighed. “I should go blow out the candles and pick up the rose petals.”

“It’s the thought that counts.”

“You always say that,” Deven complained.

“I always mean it.” Silas kissed him again, and Deven responded more this time, moving closer, his hands reaching around Silas’s back and down to gently stroke Silas’s ass.

“I’m also supposed to give you a back massage with soothing oil by the fire,” Deven mumbled against Silas’s lips.

Silas continued to kiss him, mouth lifting in a smile. He pulled off his shirt. “Oh yeah? What kind of soothing oil did they recommend? Lavender? Chrysanthemum blossom?”

Deven smiled. “I couldn’t find anything in the airport gift section so I just went with our Bodyglide anal lube, since it claims to also serve as a massage oil that won’t block pores.”

“Clever.”

They kissed again. Silas ran his hands up Deven’s neck to cup his face, surreptitiously feeling for fever.

“I’m fine,” Deven insisted. “Whatever was ailing me was gone by this afternoon. Come sit by the fire with me.”

“I feel a little overdressed for the occasion, but all right.” Silas followed Deven, admiring Deven’s backside as he knelt down to sit cross-legged by the fire. Deven sat close enough to burn the average man, but growing up in the human equivalent of hell, he had an impressive tolerance for heat and discomfort.

Deven clearly wanted Silas to sit across from him, but the sight of Deven’s genitals within touching distance changed his plans. Instead Silas curled around Deven, removing his own clothes awkwardly while trying to maintain their embrace.

Deven laughed as Silas ineptly attempted to pull a sock off his left foot without removing his arm from around Deven’s waist.

“Want some help with that?” Deven offered.

“All I can get, thanks.”

Deven removed Silas’s socks, then frowned at the blisters under his toes. “That looks painful.”

Silas was busy nuzzling the warm, masculine smelling skin of Deven’s neck. “Hmmm?”

“Why didn’t you tell me your feet were in such poor condition? You need a foot massage more than a back massage.”

“It’s no big deal.”

“I would have gone to the store instead of you,” Deven said.

“With a fever of a hundred? I think not.”

“I’d be fine.”

Silas snorted against Deven’s neck. “Of course you would. You will always be fine, until one day you are dead. You don’t get it, do you?”

Deven turned in his arms to stare at him. His green eyes were always beautiful to Silas, but in the firelight they seemed as mythical as the northern lights that, the previous day, swirled above them in such dramatic majesty.

“Get what?” Deven asked.

Silas swallowed. He’d thought of many ways to have this conversation, and he wasn’t sure this was the best time. But it had been nagging at him all day, as Deven forced his sick body through the motions without even once pausing for a rest.

“You don’t get how much this pisses me off,” Silas said.

Deven frowned, and made as if to speak, but Silas put his hand over Deven’s mouth.

“Shut up. I’m not done,” Silas said. “I love you. I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face. I love you at work, and I love you when I’m shooting my load, and I love you when we’re fighting, and I love you when you’re snoring into my arm pit.”

“I don’t snore—“

“Shut it. But the thing you don’t get is that I don’t get to love you, I don’t get to have you, if you are dead.”

Deven scowled. But he didn’t say anything.

Silas’s heart beat faster. He had to get it out now or never. “You take crazy chances. You dismiss aches and pains. You even ignored it when your hand caught on fire at that one bust, telling me it wasn’t anything a little ice and ibuprofen couldn’t cure. And now this – ill, in the middle of the fucking north pole, and you have a complete disregard of your own health.”

“I’m not going to die of a cold, Silas,” Deven started, but Silas shook his head.

“Not this time, but some time you will!” His voice was rising. “You take shitty care of yourself. I can’t make you improve for your own good, but I can beg you to take care of yourself for me. Don’t fucking make me imagine what my life would be like if I lost you now.” Silas glanced at the fire angrily, hating his own weakness, his own desperate need for a companion.

Because between them, it might have been Deven who was the novice when it came to life in San Francisco, sex, and being in a relationship, but it was Silas who was the more dependent, that had been obvious from the start. He hadn’t known the depths of his own bitter loneliness until Deven entered his life. Now that he had someone to share his time with, Deven was all he thought of. And the idea of losing him, like he’d lost Jake all those years ago...

No. He wouldn’t let it happen. He’d summon death gods and hunt up vampires, do whatever it took to keep Deven beside him.

“Hey.”

Silas didn’t look at Deven, still too emotional. Deven gripped him by the jaw and forced him to make eye contact.

“Look at me,” Deven demanded.

Silas looked at him. Deven appeared frustrated.

“I’m trying. I’m trying as hard as I can. And trust me – I don’t want to die any more than you don’t want me to.”

“I doubt that—“

“I’m serious.” Deven caressed Silas’s face. “I know I still make a lot of mistakes. But I’m not going anywhere.”

“Well, good, because I bought more than just char at the store.” Silas felt foolish now, but he’d already made a spectacle of himself, he might as well go all the way with it.

He hunted through his discarded trouser pockets and fished out the Sami reindeer leather and silver ring he’d purchased at the tourist trap on his way into town. It wasn’t very traditional as far as rings went, but it was simple, and dark brown, and Silas thought Deven might like it.

“I got this for you, but then realized giving you a ring might be suggestive of some other meaning,” Silas explained hurriedly, noting Deven’s blank expression. “So then I almost didn’t give it to you, and then I realized I didn’t care if it had another meaning. In fact I wanted it to have another meaning. I wanted it to mean what a man giving another man a ring should mean.”

Deven blinked at the ring, then up at Silas. “I  understood 10 percent of that.”

Silas laughed, despite himself, amazed at his own nervousness. “I guess I’m... fuck. You can put the rest of this together, can’t you?”

“I grew up in Aztaw. I know nothing of human traditions.” Deven said it convincingly, but the smirk in his expression told Silas that Deven knew exactly what the gift of a ring meant, and was torturing him.

“You bastard,” Silas said. “Here, take this goddamn ring and marry me, will you?”

“Well, when you put it that sweetly...” Deven took the ring and slipped it effortlessly on his middle finger. Then he frowned. “That’s wrong.”

“Correct hand, wrong finger,” Silas said gently. He grabbed Deven’s left hand and took the ring off and slipped it onto Deven’s ring finger. It was a little big, and would need to be adjusted, but it looked good against his dark skin.

“Your hand is trembling,” Deven said softly. Silas stared at his hand on Deven’s. Indeed it was.

“It’s negative five out there.” He swallowed. “And I just proposed, for fuck’s sake. Cut me some slack.”

Deven didn’t get emotional, or cry, or mock him, which were all the reactions Silas imagined normal men might engage in when presented with such an awkward proposal. Instead, Deven simply smiled his natural, careless grin, the kind that stole all the light from the room, the kind that banished the awful marks on his neck and the unnatural glow of his eyes and left behind a young, beautiful man, brilliant and brave and charming, and Silas felt as though the breath sucked from his lungs.

“I accept your marriage proposal,” Deven said solemnly. Then he laughed. “See? Women’s magazine or not, I knew that article wouldn’t lead me astray!”

Silas breathed out a sigh of relief, and gripped Deven to him. They simply held each other by the fire for a long moment before he said, “so that was your plan all along? With the rose petals and the beeswax?”

“Actually, no, I was just trying to seduce you into trying that sex toy you brought along, but the proposal is even better.”

Silas grinned. ”Let’s have both then. You know I’m wild about ass play. Just as long as we have enough lube left for this foot massage you’re promising me.”

Deven held his hand up for examination. They both stared at the silver of his ring, catching the firelight. What had seemed like a cute idea, then a terrible idea, then a stupid one, now seemed like the best decision Silas had ever made. The ring looked like it belonged on Deven, and the idea of it symbolizing the two of them made him feel, for the first time in years, content.

“Hey, what’s a traditional proposal in Aztaw like?” Silas asked, curious.

“The male soldier kidnaps the female he’s interested in and sells her into slavery, usually forcing her to work for the House of the Lord he serves. He later buys her freedom on the assumption she’ll marry him. Then he slits his penis with a razor and bleeds it on a bone of an enemy soldier he has killed and presents this to her to wear around her neck.”

Silas winced. “Fuck. There is nothing good about that place.”

Deven shrugged. “After a wedding ceremony they make hot corn popsicles? That’s a good thing.”

Siles stared.

“Hey, it was your idea to try and find the good parts of my past, remember?” Deven complained.

“Right, right, I’m sorry.”

“So what first?” Deven asked, resting his hand on Silas’s aching foot. “Massage or sex toy?” Deven grinned. “Or a massage leading to sex toy? Or, less appealing, sex toy tapering disappointingly into a foot massage?”

Silas snorted. “Come on. After all these years you should guess what my answer would be.”

“I’ll go get the condoms then.”

Silas rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. “That’s my man!”

Deven solemnly held his hand over his heart. “For now, and for a long time to come.”

 

 

IRREGULARS ON SALE!

One day only. Starting today, December 5th at 10:00 a.m., the Irregulars anthology is on sale at Weightless Books. For twenty-four hours you can purchase the book for $1.99.

This is an exclusive arrangement with Weightless Books. We shall not see its like again. Or something like that.

Happy Holidays!

Irregulars Holiday Codas - SONG FOR A WINTER'S NIGHT by Josh Lanyon

It was a stupid argument.

Not least because it served to bring about the very thing Archer did not want. Now he was on his own for Solstice AND Christmas. And perhaps for the foreseeable future.

“You’re not an Irregular anymore,” he had protested, when Rake first brought up the subject of the Christmas party.

“I served with the Irregulars for four decades.”

“But you’re not an Irregular now.” This was an important point for Archer because he hated the Irregulars. Rake excepted. It was the only thing about Rake he didn’t like. His past with the Irregulars.

 Rake, who understood him very well, had started out trying to be patient. “I still have friends there. Good friends. I’d like to see them again.”

“Good friends like Sergeant Orly who tried to have me thrown in prison for thirty years? Can’t you see your good friends another time? Does it have to be Solstice Night?”

“It’s a party. Everyone will be in one place. That’s the point of inviting me.”

“It’s Solstice Night!”

“I know, sweeting. And I’m sorry for that. But we’ll have Réveillon and Christmas together.” Rake nibbled delicately on the upswept point of Archer’s nearest ear. He teased, “And Boxing Day and Feast of St. Stephen and New Year’s and First Footing and Three Kings Day. We’ll celebrate Chinese New Year, if you like. We’ll spend every single holiday you please together. We’ll spend them any way you choose.”

Archer pulled his head away. “None of those mean as much to me as Solstice!”

Which was quite true. Solstice was the festival that mattered to the Fae. The Solstices and the Equinoxes. And yet…and yet… He wasn’t five years old, after all. Archer had spent plenty of Solstices on his own -- and without the promise of sharing every other holiday on the calendar with someone he loved -- someone who loved him. He knew he was being unreasonable. Even --

“You’re being childish,” Rake had said.

And the conversation had gone from precariously balanced to a headlong plummet into the abyss.

“Is it childish to expect loyalty? Is it childish to expect that I would come first with my-my chosen consort?”

“It’s childish to imagine I would abandon all other alliances and obligations simply because we’re now together.”

“Alliances and obligations to people who are my enemies.”

“Enemies?” Rake had laughed.

The laughter was a grave mistake because Archer already knew he was being foolish. The laughter stung him on the quick, and he had reacted accordingly.

At one point -- the point where Archer had said, “I oppose everything Irregulars stand for. If it was up to me they’d be disbanded and destroyed!” -- Rake’s demon side had shown briefly in red eyes and very sharp incisors. He had ended the conversation, conversation being a polite word for what was now a slanging match, and gone for a walk, slamming the door to the cottage so hard Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel’s painting of the demon surrounded by green moths fell from the wall, landing face first in front of the stone fireplace.

An hour later Rake had phoned to say he was in San Francisco and that Archer should expect him back in Saint-Malo when he saw him.

Seven long and lovely months they’d had together, but now it appeared to be over.

A stupid, pointless, useless argument.

Archer was alone again, the thing he dreaded most. And not just for the holidays.

Disconsolately, he wandered through the crowded winter garden inside the Château, investigating the chalet-style stalls of the Christmas market. There were holiday delicacies to sample, handmade toys and old-fashioned ornaments to admire, choirs to listen to. The wet grass glittered, the cobblestones were dark with rain, and the fairy lights gleamed in the bare bones of the trees, like fireflies flickering through an army of skeletons. The scents of wonderful cooking mingled in the frosty air with jovial French voices and music. Much of the music was traditional Breton and French folk songs, but Archer recognized a familiar melody. “Song for a Winter’s Night,“ made popular by Sarah McLachlan during the years he’d lived in Canada. The choir sang in French, but he knew the words and they made his heart ache.

If I could know within my heart

That you were lonely too

I would be happy just to hold the hands I love

On this winter night with you

He was homesick, that was the trouble. But he not homesick for Canada. Nor any place he had lived in his much-traveled life. No, he was homesick for Rake.

Why had he said such stupid things to Rake? Why had he gone out of his way to make Rake angry? He didn’t even mean most of it. He didn’t agree with some of the aims and some of the tactics of the NATO Irregular Affairs Division, but he knew they were a necessary evil. Not even an evil, really. Nuisance? He didn’t wish any Irregulars harm. He didn’t wish anyone harm. It was just…

Just what? 

Archer walked on through the merry crowd. The Christmas market was packed this night, and so it would continue to Christmas day. He stopped to buy a bag of roasted chestnuts and drink a cup of Christmas coffee. The strong coffee hinted at cinnamon and allspice and cloves and peppercorns, reminding him of Rake’s kisses. You wouldn’t expect a demon to taste so sweet. Sweet and smoky, that the flavor of Rake’s kisses.

Archer’s eyes blurred, his breath catching in his throat as he realized he might never taste Rake’s kisses again. Demons weren’t famous for their steadfast affections, after all. Wasn’t this sudden decision to go see his old comrades proof that Rake was growing bored with sharing Archer’s banishment?

Archer sniffed miserably and walked on past laughing people in folk costumes performing traditional folk dances.

Very pretty and festive in the lantern light. If you liked that kind of thing.

The real festivities, for Archer at least, were outside the walls of the city. Solstice celebrations would be held up and down the coast and on the small island of Grand Bé. There would be bonfires in isolated coves and fields and the Fae would gather to drink and feast before the Procession of Light began. Archer would not attend the festivities. He was not generally welcomed by the local fée. Not because he was half-blood, but because he was an foreigner. A foreigner with an ancient Sumerian demon for a boyfriend. But even if he didn’t attend the feast and the procession, the holiday was still important to him. He had looked forward to spending his first ever Winter Solstice with Rake. It would be the first time he’d belonged to someone, that someone had belonged to him.

But in fact, what was Winter Solstice but a celebration of the shortest day of the year? And the sooner this one -- and all the rest of them without Rake -- were over, the better.

Archer stopped at another stall. It had been a busy day in the shop and he had not found time to eat. He bought galettes, a kind of buckwheat pancake, spread thickly with honey, and washed them down with two beers.

It was starting to rain again.  The crowd didn’t seem to mind, but Archer suddenly had no heart for it.

He finished his beer and left the winter garden and the Christmas market, walking back through the narrow cobbled streets. The rain was in his eyes the whole way, blurring his vision.

This was all his own fault for being insecure and jealous and possessive. Of course Rake had no patience for such nonsense. Even if it was typical faerie behavior. Well, the jealousy and possessiveness. The insecurity was all human.

 Archer reached the cottage he shared with Rake. He hoped against hope the door would swing open and Rake would be there.

But no. The door was still fastened with its protective wards, and when it opened for Archer, the rooms were dark and cold.

He stood for a moment, struggling to contain all the emotion threatening to tear out of his chest. He was not a child and faeries, despite the cute pictures and YouTube videos, did not cry.

He took off his scarf, his Burberry, and hung them by the door. No point in building a fire or fixing supper. He’d eaten enough at the Christmas market and no fire would warm him now. Instead he went upstairs, undressed, and climbed in the enormous bed he shared with Rake. The green glass beads were draped over the tall headboard post, and he slipped them free and looped them around his neck. They were cool against his hot face, glimmering mysteriously in the darkness and whispering comfortingly to him.

The beads spoke of green things, of soft moss and silky grass and sparkling jade and glittering emeralds and spicy pines and splashing water and hopping frogs and rustling leaves and celadon bowls and smiling waves…

They had done delightfully naughty things with these beads, things that made Archer blush and shiver now as the beads reminded him, reassured him that all was not lost.

 

 

When Archer woke a few hours later the room was alight from the gentle glow of dozens of floating will-o’-the-wisps. He blinked sleepily as they drifted down around him, landing on the velvet coverlet and disappearing. He sat up. He was alone but the bedroom door was open and he could see by the way the shadows moved in the hallway that the fireplace downstairs was lit.

Archer threw back the blankets and stumbled downstairs.

A small feast for two had been set out before the blazing fire. There were apple tarts and blackberries and cream, mince pie and little amber cakes that looked exactly like butter and honey cakes from his favorite bakery in Vancouver. Brown bottles of honey ale glistened in the firelight.

“I was beginning to think I would have to jump up and down on the bed to wake you up,” Rake remarked. He sat in front of the fire wearing only a pair of scarlet Paisley silk pajama bottoms. His chest gleamed like bronze in the golden light. His eyes were black and unfathomable.

Archer chuckled uncertainly and wiped the sleep from his eyes. He approached the little feast hesitantly. “I didn’t think I would see you so soon.”

“Disappointed?” Rake was smiling.

Archer shook his head.

“No? You weren’t looking forward to a nice long undisturbed night? A few days peace and quiet?”

It was such a lovely little feast -- and yes, the cakes were the very ones he used to love.

Archer’s eyes filled with tears. Through the blur he saw Rake’s strong face change, grow aghast. “Archer?”

“I thought you weren’t coming back. I thought I’d spoiled it all.”

Rake rose and scooped him up, returning to his place by the fire and cuddling Archer against his broad chest. His eyes glowed red with emotion, his incisors showed very white as he delivered little punishing love bites over Archer‘s throat and shoulders. His silken wings folded protectively, creating a little cocoon for them.

“Not coming back! I said I was coming back!”

“You said I would see you when I saw you.”

“But…then you would be seeing me, right?”

“Maybe a century from now.”

“A century! But it’s only four days till Christmas.”

Archer gave a watery chuckle and wiped his eyes. Rake’s kisses tasted of vanilla tonight. “You’ve been eating cookies.”

“Yes, I have. I brought you some. And Barry Littlechurch sent you those little cakes. He said they were your favorite.”

“You saw Barry?”

“I stopped in to say hello. He’s thinking about coming out here in the summer for a visit.”

“Is he really?”

“Yes. He misses you.”

Archer sighed and rested his head on Rake’s chest listening to the boom of his eight-chambered heart. “I miss him too. Did you have a nice time at your party?”

He felt Rake’s smile. “I did. It was nice seeing old friends. And it was nicer still coming home.”

“I’m sorry I was so bad tempered.”

Rake laughed. “It was pretty frightening.” He kissed Archer and nipped his lip.

“Ouch.” Archer touched his mouth, but there was no blood. Rake never drew blood.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t come back?”

Archer closed his eyes. “I thought you might not.”

The wings folded more closely about him with a heavy rustle. Rake bent his head closer and said softly, “But I’ll always come back. Do you know why?”

Archer opened his eyes. Rake’s eyes glowed red gold into his.

“Because I love you.” Rake teased gently, “Better than stars or water, better than voices of winds that sing, better than any man's fair daughter, or your green glass beads on that silver ring.” He wound the green beads around his fist and drew Archer’s face to his for another kiss. “Happy Solstice, sweeting.”