CONTAINS CONTENT:
A brief proposal to another man, sensual themes.
{{Unedited}}
Austin dove into an ocean of open windows on his computer, attempting to entertain his demons. Each one turned to ash in his mouth, and crashed on his desolate mind like waves on the shore. He didn’t understand; his demons didn’t want him anymore or maybe…
“I don’t want this anymore,” he whispered into the stillness of the night, cracking the silence like a firework. “It’s empty…” It had always been empty, but now that he had tasted real love, this addiction felt cold, hollow, and tasted like death. The kind where he was on a slab and no one mourned him. Tundra had died alone; his worst fear. Marielle had been there, but Marielle hadn’t been with him. She hadn’t loved him, and she killed him.
No hooker or stripper, or one night stand stood over his grave in black with flowers and a heavy veil. No child shouted for “daddy” or sobbed his name when they were scared at night. No woman called for him or needed his arms wrapped around her in the darkness
There was merely a tomb, and a cold, hard headstone. “Here lies Austin Michael Rancor.” Birthdate, death date; no accolades. He wasn’t survived by anyone; he lived and died. No one cared, and if he didn’t work certain things out, that grave wasn’t Tundra’s, it was his.
Sighing, Austin ran his fingers through his hair and whispered Marielle’s name into the darkness as if the thing passing through his lips would cause her to materialize and exist with him in the harsh light of his computer monitor.
Turning, he looked at his bed; they’d been together there, in the darkness not more than ten days ago; wrapped around each other in perfect bliss. He’d never been able to sleep holding a woman before, not even Erin. A soft smile crept over his mouth as he thought, this is another never. His smile melted. I can’t tell her, though. She’s happy. She told me so.
He’d cried enough in the last few months; in fact more than he’d probably ever cried in his entire life. This was yet another confirmation to him that he was desperately in love.
“Marielle,” he breathed again. It tasted so… so good in his mouth. He kept trying to think of the best, most delectable, most satisfying thing he’d ever eaten and every time his mind fell upon something it didn’t compare to the flavor of her name as it rolled around his thoughts, and made its way to his lips.
He started writing again.
I desperately want you
to coat my tongue.
So when the words
pass through my lips
they are filtered by you.
So when I lay down at night
you’re the last thing I breathe.
So when I wake in the morning
you’re the first thing I taste.
So the very thing that I speak,
breathe, taste, swallow is you.
He continued to look at these writings, songs, and poems in an odd kind of morbid awe… knowing what Tundra had done and comparing it to something like this prose, he felt his insides twist.
Was he – as Han had said – just having thoughts? If Marielle died- he stopped for a moment. He didn’t even want to consider her death or think about it, or how it would happen. When Vincent had gone to other worlds that he’d found Austin standing over her grave at the cemetery more than once. It was a mental image that Austin couldn’t bear right now; the very thought began to call tears to his blue eyes, but if she died would he spiral and try to possess anyone and anything that even resembled Marielle to the point of Tundr-… He had to stop thinking about it or he’d be in hell again.
Looking the poem over, he shook his head. No, this was an erotic poem meant to express his desire for her. It wasn’t literal and just the other night he’d walked out of a strip club for the first time that he could remember and hadn’t been back. He wasn’t going to go back, ever. “I’m not Tundra…” he whispered laying down and twisting his ring around his finger repeatedly. Marielle’s good boy… “I’m not Tundra.” He felt his chest deflate and tears come as he remembered Kirra dying in his arms. “I’m not Tundra.”
His phone rang and he narrowed his eyes at it; it was a number that he didn’t recognize. Who would be calling him now? Granted, it was hardly ten o’clock, but after the events of the evening he felt like it was three in the morning.
For a moment, he wondered if it were Marielle, and this thought led him to answering. “Hello?”
“Austin?” A familiar voice.
“Vincent?” he narrowed his eyes curiously.
“Yes. Well… Chamber.”
Austin nodded; he realized that it wasn’t Marielle’s Vincent. “What- uh… why are you calling?”
Chamber sighed long and hard into the phone. “I need a friend.”
“Oh? Y- uh… Yeah, sure,” he replied, quickly checking the time again. It was nine forty-seven. “Do you want to meet somewhere?”
“I’ll come get you.”
***
Vincent opened the door quietly, not wanting to disturb Marielle should she be asleep, and Vincent figured that she was. Austin was slung over his shoulder, wincing in a drunken stupor. “I shouldn’t have told you all of that,” Austin growled through gritted teeth.
Vincent cut his gaze to the side of Austin’s pallid face, “you needed somewhere to put it,” was what he had said in reply.
“It’s so hard,” Austin sighed as Vincent walked him to his living room.
Vincent dragged Austin to the couch and half dropped, half helped him onto his back; where the other man groaned and put a wrist across his eyes, squinting in the dark. There was little light in the room, but even it seemed too much with the drunken pounding of Austin’s head.
Vincent noted his actions, and went to the light just beyond the dining room table, flicking it off. For a moment, he could see down the hallway and into the bedroom, where there was a lump under some white sheets… Marielle. All that he wanted for just a breath of time was to sneak to her, slip in behind her, and pray that she didn’t rouse enough to realize that he wasn’t Austin. It was fleeting, and hardly a fully formed thought, but for just a beat it had been there. He turned back to Austin who groaned again.
Vincent made his way to the kitchen, found a glass, filled it with tepid water from the tap and brought it to Austin, urging him to sit up.
He sluggishly complied and Vincent helped him to drink some of the water.
“I don’t want to leave you here… can you lay on your stomach?”
“I’m not gonna puke, Vincent,” Austin growled, repositioning himself again, this time pulling one of the many throw pillows against his chest and squeezing it like it was a lover… or… a stuffed animal? Vincent cocked his head at him, for a moment, Austin’s adult face had fallen away in the dim light. The moonlight came through the trees outside the house in broken pillars, and swept across Austin’s fair complexion, and his face glowed like a small boy’s as he stared out toward the window. Vincent pushed his glasses back up his nose as he observed Austin’s adam’s apple move up and down his neck as Austin’s eyes grew hollow, almost terrified. He was remembering something. “D- do you love me, Vincent?”
Vincent narrowed his eyes at the other man, but Austin wasn’t looking at him. “Of course, I do, brother.”
Then he turned to Vincent, letting the pillow drop away from him. The night had already been full of odd confessions, and memories from Austin, and Vincent sensed another coming up. Just as he was about to excuse himself for the night, Austin spoke again, “Did you know that my mother used to tell me that I was s- so beautiful that everyone – woman and man – would want me?” Vincent could see Austin’s eyes glitter, and start to fill with tears. Vincent looked down, and away, unsure of how to respond to that.
Austin let out a chuckle that was ironic at first, then full of torment. Then, after a moment where he lost sense of his emotions, his face morphed into something that was truly broken. He seemed to realize that the mask had slipped almost instantly, though, and forced the chuckle to be pleasant again. Although now, there was nothing pleasant left in it. He paused and licked his lips. “You’ve been good to me tonight… why?” Vincent didn’t answer. He never knew how to tell Austin that he cared about him- loved him, even, but his real reasons for helping were always for Marielle. Austin’s eyes darted down to Vincent’s hand and he sprung up, and grabbed Vincent’s wrist, “Do you want me, Vincent?”
“Sleep it off, brother,” Vincent ordered through clenched teeth, throwing Austin’s hand back at him.
Austin turned sluggishly on his side, half obeying what Vincent had said earlier in case he vomited.
Vincent’s eyes darted around the room; one last glance back at the bedroom. His mind, and his loins longing to take him there as Austin softly snored.
For a moment, he imagined. Austin was out cold, now. What would Marielle do if he slipped in behind her? He closed his eyes and savored the idea- “your husband is passed out on the couch, love…” he kissed her bare shoulder, “and I thought I’d keep you company while he sleeps off his drunken indecency.” He imagined his hands gliding up her bare left leg under the blankets with a dreamy exhale. For just a moment, he dreamt of her hands finding him in the dark and surrendering to what he knew were her desires as well. She was far too pure for the drunken jerkoff on the couch and watching Austin earlier that night as he carried on, flirted with, danced with, and grinded against another woman made Vincent’s blood boil.
Vincent sighed, and ran a hand over his hair. He understood Austin. He got it. He was in pain- a pain that he could never be rid of that stemmed from childhood and long ago. He hated the entire situation.
He focused again on Marielle. In the darkness, he could just barely make her out as she stirred, and sat up, his heartbeat picking up pace as he knew that she’d approach. She pulled her hands under her hair, causing it all to fall down her back, and wandered down the hall toward him.
Her eyes adjusted in the darkness and she looked to Vincent, then to Austin. “Did you bring him home?” she whispered.
He nodded, “Oui.”
She smiled warmly at him, “Thank you, Vincent,” she said, pausing.
He looked down at his forearm; she was grasping it. She took her hand away, and Vincent thought that she was attempting to make the motion subtle instead of jerking back. He cut his eyes to her again.
Were they both thinking the same thing? He was certain of it. ‘Let’s seize this moment, it might be all we get…’ He knew that she’d thought about it. He thought about almost nothing but.
She forced a small smile, and went to Austin, covering him with a blanket and disregarding Vincent altogether.
“You’re welcome, Mrs. Rancor,” he replied before wandering to the door, the pain of deep longing burning him.
By the door, there were a few photos on the wall. He glanced at the one nearest the stairs- the three of them, at the beach; him on the outside, looking like the proverbial third wheel, Marielle in a white bikini and big sunglasses, making a similar face to Austin’s. She was in the middle and he remembered how much the feel of her fingertips around his waist when they took that photo burned him for hours. He loved her so much.
He wanted to cut Austin off the photo.
His eyes wandered to another photo. This had also been taken at the beach. It was him next to Hazal who was the tallest and lankiest of the group and covering up his insecurities with a big black t-shirt and shorts, next to him was Cory under Hazal’s left arm, and Finola in a bucket hat with sunglasses on Cory’s left, leaning into her brother in a way that was too intimate for Vincent’s comfort. Han was there, arm around Finola’s neck, and her fingers intwined with Marielle’s who was in Austin’s arms. Vincent was the only one not looking at the camera. He couldn’t remember who had taken this photo, but his mind seemed to tell him Jamie had.
He glanced back at Marielle, desperate to ask her if she wanted to sneak back to the bedroom. Austin had stirred, but was still asleep.
No… She’s not yours… go home. Don’t look back.
But you’ve seen how she looks at you. You know she wants you.
No… she’s not yours…go…home… don’t look back.
Marielle was bent next to Austin, and she was humming a familiar tune as she rubbed her husband’s head. “Goodnight,” he whispered.
Sighing, Vincent slowly crept out.
***
Vincent sat in front of the roaring fire in Marielle’s living room as he thought about these things swirling a glass of Grey Goose in his left hand and wiping away silent tears. He’d been sitting on the sofa, thinking about the events of the night, and how out of control everything had been.
He didn’t mean to get Kirra killed. In truth, he didn’t really think it was his fault, but he still felt the pang of guilt. If he hadn’t told her to go out to talk to Austin, she’d still be alive. No one’s deaths had been in the cards, or the plans.
Now all that he could do was wait, and plan some more. He’d take Marielle away at the end of the year, after he finished what he’d accidentally started, and he’d protect her doing it. That was partly why he was on the couch at this hour after all, after seeing what Cory did to her at the party, he wasn’t going to chance anything, even though he knew that they were entirely alone. No one could use the teleporters again for a time. But the image of Marielle under Cory’s spell burned in his mind, making him restless and unsure of anything.
Sometimes… she even liked it. If I told her to.
He shuddered and watched Felix lick himself at the end of the couch.
“Are you okay?” Marielle’s voice nearly split him in half in the darkness with the orange glow. She was leaning on the door frame that led to the hall, blanket drawn up around her shoulders, staring at him.
He shook his head, and she came to his side. “I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about all of this.”
“Same,” she whispered. She lay down, and put her head in his lap.
“They’re all laughing at me, Masin. You know that, right? Valorant. They all know what I am.” She sighed and adjusted a little, staring at the fire with him. “If they knew the truth, they’d all hate me.”
“What truth? Which one?”
“That I did all of this inadvertently. But I still did it, and all for you.” He petted her head and combed through her hair, finishing the liquor before he leaned back against the couch and replaced his glasses on his face. They were silent for a few moments. “You’re laughing at me, too,” he sighed.
She lifted her head with a look of horror. “No,” she said.
He nodded, “You are. I saw everything tonight, Marielle. When Cory asked if you loved Austin… there was no lie in your eyes or tone.”
“You know that I love Austin. It was also what Cory wanted to hear, and you know that, too.”
He let out a long, exasperated breath. “But you love him. I want you to love me.”
“Vincent,” she sat up, focusing her eyes on him. “I do love you. I love you so much. I’m with you, not him.”
“Because you can’t be. Because he’s not ready for you,” he explained giving her a sharp expression. She turned from him like it cut her. “I want you to choose me because you want to choose me. I want you to choose me because you want me.”
“I do want you,” she explained, putting her arms around his middle and squeezing. “I choose you,” she reiterated.
He put his face into his hands for a moment understanding the weight of the situation and knowing that she would choose Austin in a heartbeat if Austin were just a bit more controlled. Knowing that Austin was becoming that person terrified him. “I can’t help but seeing what Cory did to you tonight in my mind, and it’s tearing me apart,” he admitted. “I’m so sorry.” He swallowed hard. “I should have done more-”
“You did everything that you could. And I don’t blame you. I blame him.”
“Just stay with me?” he whispered against the crackling of the fire.
“I am with you,” she whispered and the fire snapped and popped in the silence.
***
Chamber – out of the maid costume and in slacks and a t-shirt now – and Austin sat on the overpass, watching the cars go under them and disappear. The ambience sounded like it was coming through a tube as it echoed off the highway. Austin played a game with himself for a moment where he imagined that they were disappearing and not coming out the other side; and he envied them in this make-believe scenario. How nice it would be right now to just… not exist.
Two open beers sat between the men and both had hardly said a word to one another. Chamber took a swig off his.
Austin mimicked the gesture and they both put their bottles down and continued to stare into the night.
“It’s not every day that you get to go have a beer in the middle of the night with the man who captured and tortured you,” Austin said dismissively. Chamber made a responsive sound in his throat, but he said nothing. “I mean, I know we did this like… what a week ago?”
“Oui.”
“But…” he shrugged.
“The world has turned a thousand times since then.”
Austin nodded, “Yeah.”
“You’ve tasted Marielle.”
Austin closed his eyes against the oncoming and disappearing lights. “Yeah.”
“Oui… I know, mon ami. I’ve tasted her, too,” Chamber said distantly. Austin narrowed his eyes for a moment as if not understanding, then suspiciously. “No, no… I- I saved another, in another world. I couldn’t save you. But I could save her. I took her to the Chamber there, but on the way…” His voice trailed off, but Austin didn’t need him to say, we made love, he knew it. He knew they fell in love in that time.
“I forget sometimes that you’re in love with her, too.”
A small smile moved across Chamber’s thin mouth, “Oui,” he whispered, faintly; trapped in some memory that Austin couldn’t share in nor did he want to ask about. “It’s interesting how we are always both attracted to the same women, isn’t it?”
Austin took a large swallow. “Hmmm.”
“Marielle… K-Kirra,” he could barely get her name out.
“She died in my arms, after basically telling me that she loved me,” another swig, “and I turned her down.” He set the beer aside. “Then she used whatever strength that she may have had left to survive-” a tear leaked out, “to heal me.” He looked off.
Chamber reached over and gave him a hard pat on the left shoulder before squeezing it. “Yeah, Kirra. I kissed her a few times during the spike… before you were captured with Marielle.”
“Really?” Chamber nodded and wiped his chin with the inside of his elbow, he was still staring at the cars. “Yeah, we like the same women… interesting.”
“Sabine?”
Austin barked out a laugh and looked down at the cars again. “That should be obvious.”
“The resemblance to Marielle.”
Austin nodded. “But it was only for like two minutes about a month ago when I was desperate for human contact.”
Chamber turned his lips down in an attempt to stop a grin that he couldn’t. “I like her.” He whispered. “But, I’m pretty sure that she just thinks that I’m an idiot.”
“Which makes that chase infinitely more fun,” Austin said flatly like it was just fact.
“Oui,” Chamber laughed. They both chuckled. “It doesn’t matter. She’ll be married to John soon.”
Austin nodded. “Maybe in another world.”
Chamber laughed, heartily. “I think we all see how that works out,” he said, reminding Austin of the mess that they were in.
Austin shifted his ring again, Chamber glanced down at it, but said nothing. He knew. They didn’t need to talk about it.
“Yeah, well, without this situation I wouldn’t have seen what a demon I actually am,” Austin said under his breath.
“You’ve gotten a chance to see yourself, Austin. It’s a rare blessing. Many people in this world never truly get a chance to see themselves. What you do with it is up to you.”
“What about you and Vincent?”
Chamber swallowed the last of the beer. “We will have to wait and see how that continues to shape us. I just hope that it doesn’t mean that more people at Valorant have to die in the process.”
“So you care a little?” Austin asked, suspiciously.
Chamber’s Hubris fell. “I care more than you know,” he was looking down at the beer bottle. “More than I will ever let anyone know.”
“So maybe it was you who was supposed to be with us, not Vincent.”
“No, friend. Vincent was supposed to be here. We are all painfully growing.” He set the bottle aside again. “If Vincent hadn’t come to Valorant, then you would have swooped in, gotten what you wanted, left Marielle, and…”
“And become Tundra.”
Chamber shrugged his right shoulder, pausing as he stroked his chin in thought. “Maybe… maybe not. But you wouldn’t be a better man.” Austin looked down, thoughtfully. “You are a better man than when I met you, Austin Rancor. Now, I still hate you with every fiber of my being,” he side-glanced him and swallowed. Austin smirked and looked down. “But I would have to say that at this point… you are my best friend,” Chamber said giving Austin an actual meeting of the eyes.
Austin looked like he wasn’t sure how to process that. “What about Vincent?”
Chamber shrugged a shoulder. “Vincent is me.”
“So, answer me a question… why do all of my best friends torture me?”
“As I told you, I hate your guts.” Both men laughed as Austin sipped again, tilting his head back and raising a brow at him over the bottle. “No.” Chamber said distantly as he stood, he still wasn’t looking at him. “I hate who you were before.” There was a pause as Chamber leaned over the railing and dangled his empty beer bottle over the cars looking quite a bit like a twelve-year-old boy who thought that it might be funny to drop things off the overpass on the highway. He pulled the bottle back over. “If you have always gotten what you want, Austin, then you don’t understand loss. If you’ve never been in pain, then you don’t know why you shouldn’t cause pain. If you have never been tortured, then you don’t understand why you’re not supposed to torture.”
Austin stood up beside him, wiping his hand on his backside and nodded as if suddenly some of that made sense to him.
He remembered the night that he was watching from his car as Marielle walked by it. He hated to admit it to himself but his thoughts had been dark at that moment. She’d been alone and at first, he wondered why no one was with her to protect her. Then he had thought, protect her from what? The voice that answered back was clear. Me. His following thoughts had gone something like.
I’d never do something like that to her. It’s cruel. It’d be torture.
That’s right. You know what torture is like.
He’d experienced torture outside of Chamber. He’d been captured and tortured in Africa with Larson. But being tortured by people that you weren’t attached to in any way was different than what Chamber had done. Chamber had created a bond between them that was intense, and strong. He fed him, kept him warm, tended to his wounds, gave him ointment, and water and held him when he was breaking.
What would he have done to Marielle if he’d taken her away and trapped her in their own little man-made kingdom? He would have held her when she was crying for freedom. He would have given her food and water, whatever she wanted.
Austin felt sick. “Maybe you should have captured and tortured Tundra,” he sighed looking down.
Chamber shrugged his shoulders, “you live, you learn,” he said absently, dangling the bottle over the edge again.
“You really want to toss that down there, don’t you?” Austin asked.
“Eh… I’m still a teenage boy sometimes.”
“How about… we wait til’ it’s clear, throw them in the air, and whoever shoots theirs first gets a prize?”
“What’s the prize?” Chamber asked, narrowing his eyes at Austin.
Austin shrugged, “I’ll buy the next round?”
Chamber bent the top of his right ear in his direction with his fingers, “I’m sorry… was that the sound of you already admitting that I’m better than you?”
Austin raised an eyebrow at him. “Want to find out?”
Both drew their hands with their bottles back, winding up and both put their gaze back on the cars passing under them.
“You could get fired for this,” Chamber chuckled.
Austin shrugged, “You gonna tell ‘em?”
They waited until there was a large enough gap in the traffic before counting to three, flinging the bottles into the air, drawing their tattoo guns, aiming, and firing. Both bottles bust at the same time and rained down on the highway in a spray of brown and gold. They’d been pretty obliterated, so there was no danger to the drivers below. It was difficult to say who won.
“Oooh! Hooo! I win again!” Chamber jeered. Austin raised an eyebrow at him like he was nuts. “Clearly me,” Chamber jeered.
Austin guffawed. He shook his head, “I’ll give it to you. But I’d kill you if we had to go hand to hand.”
“Maybe you could teach me a thing or two, eh?”
Austin shrugged. “If you want.”
“So you buy me another beer? Was that the wager?”
Austin cocked his head, drawing his gun back into his arm. “How about next week? Same time. Friday night.”
Chamber drew his weapon back into his arm as well. “I’ll agree to this.”
A moment of silence passed between them. Austin’s breath misted on the cold air. Both stood with their hands in their pockets as they faced one another. “Why did you want me to come out here in the first place?”
“I needed a friend,” Chamber replied plainly. “I liked her, too,” he explained, referring to Kirra.
Austin looked down and back to the cars. The night wind dragged his hair across his forehead and his face. “Yeah, well, if she’d liked you back then she’d still be alive right now. I’m the problem, Vincent, can’t you see that?”
Chamber shook his head and pushed his glasses back up his nose. “No, mon ami… You’re not. Sometimes things just happen. Sometimes God doesn’t step in. I should know. I kill people for a living,” he reminded.
“It’s interesting to me,” Austin said distantly. He was still looking out over the highway. “Vincent was ex-military in his dimension. You’re not here.”
“There are always differences,” Chamber said thoughtfully as he leaned back over the railing and stroked his chin. “I think it would do good for you to remember that, Austin. There are always differences. I am not exactly Vincent, and he is not exactly me. We’re the same person, but we have different pasts. What you experience and how you experience it changes you,” he briefly side-glanced Austin. “You still have the final say about everything. You’re still in control, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t be shaped by what happens to you.”
“So…” Austin leaned over the railing next to him, “you don’t think that I’ll become Tundra?”
“I don’t think you ever were going to. In truth.” He paused, watching a red car that resembled a race car. “You started out as a better man. You were never as far gone as your counterpart,” he explained. Then he turned, leaning his elbows on the railing, and looking Austin in the face. “He was unhinged. I never knew him, but Vincent told me a lot.” He opened his hand while speaking as if gesturing to an invisible man. “Tundra probably slept with everyone at Valorant that would let him close, and intentionally, I might add.” He went distant, silent. “It drove him mad. His need to cling to his addictions, his need to possess Marielle. He never understood himself; never admitted how in pain he was and how much he needed help. He never realized how much he leaned on his obsessions in order to just make it through the day.”
“So, I’m supposed to figure out how to get through a day without those things, myself.”
Chamber pointed at him as if he was onto something. “Perhaps.” There was a pause, “and perhaps you also need to realize that doing so won’t necessarily get you what you want in the end. We don’t do things because we get prizes, Austin. We do them because…” his voice trailed off as if he was considering this himself. “Well, because they’re the right thing to do. For us, and for everyone who cares for us.”
A long silence came over both men that was accompanied by the hollow sound of the wind and the cars driving beneath them.
Austin swallowed and put his hair behind his ears with both hands. “I want to get better,” he whispered.
Chamber nodded, “I support you in this.”
Chamber leaned forward and extended his hand. Austin took it, and then similarly to how Austin had landed his forehead onto Chamber’s shoulder when he was in his captivity, Austin gave Chamber a hug. The kind that didn’t say anything weird, but was deeper than a fist bump, or a testosterone infused back-thump.
Chamber hugged him back. “You’re going to be okay, mon ami… new chapter.”