The image before his eyes looked remarkably familiar...the face that he had been seeing for years, features that moved in a peculiar tandem with his thoughts, a mouth that sounded off to the involuntary stimulus of neurons igniting. It was a thing that was known — yet apart from him. No doubt Dr. Yves would tell him that it was normal to feel this way. No doubt this shit happened to everyone once in a while; sooner or later everyone took a glance at themselves and felt that disconnect between the I in his head and the it in the glass.

Or they could just forget about checking with the mirror altogether. Casey couldn't actually recall the first time he had noticed that everything around him seemed to have been drained of authenticity. Once in a while he tried to dredge up a memory of that moment, as though that would somehow sort him out; he thought that he had been very young, probably a kid. Whenever it had started, he figured that it was like noticing something that was true and scary and once his eyes learned to apprehend that truth, they could never unlearn it. They could just forget to see it for a while.

Okay, then maybe it wasn't the experience itself so much as it was the frequency of it, and the abnormal was merely the normal taken to extremes. Suffering from existential doubt once a month or less could only mean that you were a participant in the human condition. On a regular basis...okay, perhaps that made you unusually neurotic. But suppose that every time you peered in a mirror you wound up in a state of panic — it was not good news for your viability as a functioning human being.

If he had been in a movie or a music video, this would be the moment where he smashed the mirror and bled artistically on his parents' cream-coloured floor. Hearing that terrible sound, his lanky, action-oriented boyfriend would break the door down and find his disturbed lover bleeding — not fatally, but in a volume sufficient to be poetic. The boyfriend would then fell to the floor and cradle his lover, crying loudly but attractively, pouring words of regret and adoration.

But Casey wanted to believe that his reality was a bit less melodramatic — marginally, at least.

As he watched, his features stretched and reformed into a toothy imitation of a smile then immediately flattened, returning to their previous contours. "I'm here," he whispered, watching his mouth make those shapes. "I'm here...I'm..."

I'm standing in the bathroom working myself into a dither when I just came in here to take a piss.

He averted his eyes from the mirror and washed his hands with the brown sugar and vanilla hand soap that his mother currently preferred — yes, the olfactory nerves worked, and the soap smelled good. He dried his hands on red and green festive towels that were thick and soft. He could feel that too, and why wonder about it, why think that the messages he processed in his brain were no real proof —

"Oh, just fucking stop it," he told himself.

He returned to his room — not his old bedroom, Zeke would be sleeping there tonight now that Aunt Clarissa and Gram were gone — but the extra room that he was sharing with Sasha, the one where he and the iron had once gotten to be on very close terms. He'd certainly felt that; it was a bright, biting memory etched out of a mash of sensations and moments from late August. It was kind of funny, but touching too, how his dad had been in such a big hurry to remove the ironing board when he and Sasha first arrived, like his dad didn't want him to be traumatized by the presence of the iron or that pile of wrinkled clothing that was fated to become its next string of victims.

Or maybe he was just concerned that Casey might burn himself again; that was much more likely. Both of Casey's parents had been attentive to the point of smothering during this visit. They had even asked Casey's permission before they went to the Day After Christmas Open House at the Johnsons' just down the street, the same party that they had attended every single year since time immemorial. He'd been very careful not to sound too eager when he told them it was okay. It was nice that they wanted to spend time with him this holiday and he wouldn't mind their company at all if they weren't radiating that constant, fitful worry. He already had Sasha drowning him in solicitude and the cumulative effect of all that concern — plus the contributions of his aunt and his grandmother over the past few days — was to put Casey in a not-so- constructive frame of mind. He occasionally wondered, half-seriously, if he should do something to give their anxiety a really solid rationale.

With his parents out of the house and nothing on his social agenda, Casey wondered if this might be the ideal time to delve into that collection of Orson Welles' films — except that right now Sasha and Zeke were in the rec room and they were very likely debating The Casey Situation under the camouflage of the Emeril Holiday Marathon, or whatever was on...Casey could hear the television chattering in the basement, not loud enough that he could make out the program but well enough to be sure that it was doing a fine job of obscuring his friends' voices.

They must have started their discussion while Casey was out with his parents earlier, accompanying Aunt Clarissa and Gram to their train; when the Connors returned, Sasha and Zeke had made a brief, furtive appearance in the front hallway and then quickly subsided once again to the basement. If and when they required Casey's participation, he expected they'd come looking for him.

So he might as well catch up on some journalling. He'd promised Yves that he'd continue it while he was away, and he'd like to think that he was capable of keeping at least one promise.

The spiral bound, red-covered journal — his second now, the first one had been filled in early December — was on the floor next to his side of the bed, slipped halfway beneath. Casey draped himself across the bed, hanging briefly over the side to retrieve it, then rolled up into a cross-legged position. He opened it at random and, as often happened, was lured into re-reading his previous entries for a few minutes.

December 20th

Zeke didn't phone last night. Sasha's making like it's probably nothing but something has to be wrong, Zeke always phones and I can tell Sasha's lying. Oh, I can just hear Yves now. "You don't know what Zeke is thinking so there's no point in assuming the worst, you're making your own stress. And even if it turned out to be what you fear, you would live through it. It may seem impossible but you can do it, you won't die from being alone or being afraid, your heart will keep beating, you'll keep breathing and you WILL be fine."

Fuck you fuck you fuck you. FUCK. YOU. Just suppose for a second that it's possible to die from being alone, that it could hurt so much that your heart actually stops. Just consider it, how about. Yeah, I know what someone like Zeke would say. He would say no one dies from being alone unless they will it to happen. He'd be right, I guess. I remember when Roy told me it was over, it seemed like I couldn't breathe, like I really was dying but the truth is my organs kept doing their job as usual. The thing that a person fears most can happen and the machine just keeps pumping away, doesn't it? It's total betrayal.

There has to be a reason that I'm not freaking out right now, and I'm pretty sure it's pharmaceutical. Sasha asked me yesterday if the Klonopin was helping me, and now I know it's doing something. It feels strange, like I'm more clear and more fuzzy at the same time. I've actually had whole minutes here and there without thinking about how everyone might be an alien but then when I remember, I'm more certain than ever. I feel quite sure that someone is going to grab me but instead of running away my body just stays still. I don't know if this is a good thing. I still think the same thoughts. Everyone still might be one of them and Zeke is still going to leave me but I'm not so READY for it as I was before. Thank you, medical science, for helping me to meet my fate without all that embarrassing bitching and moaning.

Of course, Klonopin doesn't count if someone actually does touch me. That's a whole other thing.

Due to some interruption that Casey no longer remembered, the entry stopped there. He paused to listen to house noises for a second and having determined that all was exactly as it had been a minute ago — parents partying, Zeke and Sasha deliberating in the basement — he turned the page to December 21st.

Zeke arrives today. I hope. He told me he was celebrating the other night but I don't think so. I think he's still hurt and upset and that's why he was getting shitfaced. If we could just fuck again it would be better. When we do, he'll remember one reason why he's with me, and he won't look at me that way he was doing, like he expects something and he's mad because he can't have it. I know he wants me, he just wants to punish me more. At least I only have to put up with it until January 3rd although maybe he could be convinced to . And to think that for the first two weeks it was almost easy. I can't say this to Zeke or Sasha, evereverever, but there were a bunch of times during those weeks that Zeke touched me accidentally or just hugged me and I wanted to punch him and run away. I'll never let them know that because it doesn't matter, that was just me being angry over nothing. Of course, if he actually said he wanted to fuck, I would have torn off my clothes and assumed the position.

That was all for December twenty-first, and he'd missed December twenty- second altogether. It had seemed that after Zeke arrived, he had much less free time — which was ridiculous since they'd done little but hang around the house eating and watching TV, but upon a casual survey the past several days seemed thoroughly action-packed. After all, they were filled up with Zeke being here, Zeke being with him, Zeke looking at him, him looking at Zeke...oh, and his aunt and grandmother had arrived around that time too.

He turned to the last thing he had written, back on the 23rd of December.

I feel so empty all the time. I need it so much, ever since he got off that train it just gets worse every day. The crazies are getting the better of me. Whenever he looks at me I feel hot all over and I go a little insane, thinking about what he might want from me and how to be whatever he wants and how to make it okay for him to have it. Except Sasha is AROUND absolutely all the time and I can't disappoint him. Not when he gives me so much, not when he and Jerry have just broken up because of me. Sasha said it isn't my fault. Yeah, right.

I know Zeke would say this is something I should talk to Yves about. Fuck you. Well, I did tell her that Zeke and I are having a little break from sex and she seemed happy with that. It didn't seem necessary to tell her any more than that and she didn't ask. I think she's trying to figure out what to do with me right now. We had four sessions after the Big One and we've never really gotten around to talking more about the aliens, not yet. The session after Zeke's party I felt so depressed I could barely talk but she kind of forced me to tell her what happened. So I told her how I totally ruined his birthday, how Zeke found out that I told her about the aliens. She couldn't do much with me and to tell the truth I can't remember much else from that session. Yves has said that the reason I felt so low that day was partly because of all the sedatives in my system, and I did feel a little more awake the next day.

She also said she didn't know what to do about my alien story, that she had to "think about what it meant". That doesn't sound good. It may turn out that Zeke is completely right and I shouldn't have told her. He usually is right, but I just don't know what else I could do if I wanted to keep going to see her.

Shit, I just realized something. I DO want to keep seeing her. I want to tell her things, and there's something very soothing to me about the way she talks, so calm and uninvolved. I don't know when this happened. I don't think Zeke would like it.

So at the next session after that I was back to my old, panicky self. I went on and on about Zeke and Winona and how he must hate me and how terrible I am, how I was dreading being separated from him and terrified about L. A. All we did from then right up until I left for home was damage control, but she told me that when I get back from L. A. we have to sit down and work out some goals and a plan for me. We took up one whole session making that stupid list. And it is a stupid list because even though it's all true, it's also just dead wrong.

I can't stop thinking that it's happening again, just like with Roy only this time it will be worse. Zeke probably spent that whole time while we were apart thinking about how peaceful it was not having me around. Right, he acted happy to see me but he's so angry. And I'm NOT mind-reading here, it's pretty obvious that he's still pissed. And why would he be angry about that, Yves? Let's see, I disobeyed him, I ignored his advice and I hurt his feelings. I'll bet he's remembering about how it was before I was in his life, how things were so much more tidy and manageable.

Zeke would say I'm irrational, that my thinking is all messed up by Roy. He would say I need to talk to Yves about "how I am about sex" instead of aliens. Okay, so I know maybe some of the things that happened make me act a bit crazy sometimes but I know some things in me have changed and can't be changed back. I admit that I used to be a more logical person. Not at Zeke's level of course, but not quite so insane either. I don't think I'll ever remember how to think that way again. Maybe I'll learn to go around without being afraid, go to school, do everyday things but I don't think I'll ever be "my old self", whatever that was. I'll always have this THING inside me and to tell the truth I don't think I want to lose it. Being able to see and feel something different, sometimes it feels like the only thing I've got going for me. So what if I'm afraid of being touched and I can't stand being around most people. It doesn't matter because I only want to be around Zeke and Sasha. And my family, I guess, and a few friends. And I would like to go to school.

Zeke and Sasha will never get that. They would say that's no way to live and I need to confess to all the terrible things that Roy did so I can get over them. But what if the most terrible thing might just also be the best thing that ever happened to me? Like I remember once when Gabe was holding my arm up behind my back and he had me down on the ground and it was hurting so much I was afraid I would break my arm if I moved, and he was saying all these things to me, calling me a shitstain and cocksucking sissy but I suddenly had this moment where I felt so, so sorry for him. Because I understood him but he'll never, never understand me. So from the outside it looked like something bad was happening but I had this moment of realization and it was beautiful.

Casey rubbed his neck, pondering what he had written. He had been in quite a philosophical mood three days ago — and he had to wonder what Yves would do with it if he told her that story. Or what if he told her about one of those times when Roy was holding his arms so hard and biting his neck while he fucked him and he had been begging Roy not to stop because it felt so good. In fact, the only thing that had hurt was having to come back to the so-called "real" world where stuff like that had to be judged. And, of course, it had hurt that Roy left soon after and Casey remained sore and bruised and helpless with his own incompleteness, knowing very well what the world at large would think of him and unable to change anything.

Now he had fallen to sitting absolutely still, with his journal in his lap and his pen in hand. He was staring at the wall, at the same brass-framed triptych that had hung in this room as long as Casey could remember; it matched the maroon and black theme of the curtains and bedspread. He didn't know what the medium was — his mother had probably bought it at K-Mart and it wasn't a watercolour or a print or a photo but the image depicted a pseudo-oriental landscape. The wall itself was a bland colour that probably had some overwrought name like "sand water" or "oatmeal dream". Basically, it was beige.

Blinking several times, Casey put his pen to work, watching the lines take shape through a film of hot moisture.

December 26th, he scrawled. He wiped his eyes and tried to Reflect on the Positive — that was his assignment from Dr. Yves, his tribute to Stuart Smalley as it were. Every day, he was supposed to start by writing down all the things that had happened that were positive, or at least neutral. And he could engage in that exercise, sure, just as he was capable of acting happy at Christmas. The secret to lying, after all, was simply to temporarily convince himself that the lies were true. No one had more practice at that than he did.

What a fucking show I put on yesterday. If they gave Oscars for faking Christmas spirit, I'd have a dozen already. Not that everything was terrible, far from it. Being around everyone all day made it easy. I didn't have to say much, just join in whatever was going on. I could forget everything for a while because — well, I had to. It was the least I could do for everyone.

And I'm still playing along, or at least I tried to until this afternoon when we took Aunt Clarissa and Gram to the train. Aunt Clarissa was sad that they couldn't stay longer, she said, but she had to get back to Santa Fe for work. She told me she wished we had more time to talk. I don't know about talking, but it was good to see her again. It was kind of neat to do yoga too, it's not easy but it seemed a lot more relaxing than relaxation therapy. I remember when I was little and she still lived in

The pen was on the fritz. Casey shook it and tried scribbling a shape in the upper corner of the page. There was some improvement but the ink still didn't flow in any way that gave satisfaction.

Herrington. She was around a lot then and I thought she was IT. I don't remember much else, except that she always wore that really bright lipstick and I used to believe that her lips were naturally that color! It was nice to see Gram too, although I've never really felt like I know her that well. She lived here until Grampa died and then she went to live with Aunt Clarissa. I remember thinking that she was very stern and scary when she came to visit. I don't think she approves of me much. When I kissed Zeke in front of her she made that disgusted sound. I guess it's a bit much for her to take but I have to say, I don't much care what she thinks.

Here's some actual good news, Yves. Sasha and Jerry are back together. I heard Sasha talking on the phone to him yesterday morning. Everyone heard him, actually, but Sasha didn't seem to care. I'm very relieved of course, which is totally selfish of me because it has to do more with me not feeling guilty than Sasha being happy. Although I do want him to be happy. Of course, wanting him to be happy didn't stop me from breaking the rules, it just required me to do it when he wasn't looking. I don't think he has any idea, probably because he's so good and honest and always wants to believe the best about me. He assumes I'm much less of a slut than I actually am even though he should know better after I told him about

Casey's hand stilled. Some things were too shameful to be put on paper.

It wasn't like he hadn't tried to be the Casey that Sasha wanted; he had been good for entire weeks...well, except for when he and Zeke got overwhelmed when they were saying goodbye that day...and that other time when they were reunited in the train station...and the looks that he would give Zeke when Sasha wasn't watching, or at work....okay, he was a miserable, conniving little shit. Maybe he had done nothing overt, nothing that Sasha could have caught him at, but he had gloated inwardly every time Zeke seemed close to caving. Incredible that Sasha seemed to feel that Zeke wasn't trustworthy; Zeke was the strong one, as always.

Casey resumed writing, his hand shaking so much this time that his script degenerated quickly into near illegibility.

Yves, you said above all to be honest with myself when I write in here, and so here it is: I'm a hopeless slut. I need men, any men. I manipulate and twist things around to get what I need, I lie, I whine, I try to get under Zeke's skin, and I'm not even sure that I love him. I'm nothing, and the only thing that stops me from knowing that is to disappear for while, which is why I have to go begging and manipulating and whining to those men. You will say I'm exaggerating and distorting but

Christmas Eve I

I tried to

I almost broke Zeke.

It was no revelation to Casey that Zeke was severely discontented. Casey had seen it and felt the brunt of it long before he and Sasha left Seattle, but it seemed like Zeke got off the train in Herrington with an edge that had been honed deadly and sharp; every day he seemed more bitter. By Christmas Eve, it was obvious that he was ready to do something outrageous. With every disapproving expression of Sasha's, Zeke's hands became a little more intimate, a little more daring. Casey was sure that he could have Zeke that night if he wanted — he knew Zeke the rebel, Zeke the bad boy who liked to play at being a criminal. He knew that Zeke, in his heart, still wanted nothing more than to stick it to the establishment.

Sasha had weapons of his own, though; without even speaking he let everyone know of his misery at having to be what Zeke was rebelling against. If Zeke fucked Casey then Sasha would feel that he had failed, and he would promptly blame himself, Zeke and Roy, in that order — anyone but Casey.

So it was that Casey found himself standing in his parents' front hall at the conclusion of their Christmas Eve, backpedalling from everything he'd implied earlier at Stokely's. For those few hours he had luxuriated in Zeke's touch and basked in the greedy stare that came with it. He expected Zeke to be angry by his about-face once they were home, but he was jolted all the same by the glare that came his way. It was need and anguish, it was rage and resentment and it might even have been hate. It was a ferocious split second before Zeke stalked out the front door for a cigarette and it left Casey quaking.

As he got into bed with Sasha, Casey was trembling and anticipating a cuddle as some slight compensation for what he had just sacrificed — but the rum and eggnog put Sasha down almost immediately. Instead of offering comfort, Sasha collapsed, mumbling something about how...Zeke misses you, kitten...

Meanwhile, Casey and sleep were not getting along. There were images that had gotten purchase in his head, clawing away at any pretense of repose — of Zeke downstairs, Zeke alone and separate and blaming Casey, Zeke typecast in the role of the villain when he really wasn't like that. Zeke misses you, kitten... Like that was supposed to help. Zeke missed him... then Zeke should have him and he didn't know what everyone was trying to protect him from anyway. It was like they all expected him to only ever feel wretched, like joyful oblivion was off the menu. It wasn't fair and he sincerely couldn't remember why it should be that way so finally, near the middle of the night, he carefully removed himself from the bed and crept downstairs to the living room.

Days ago, Casey recalled, he had conceived a warm, fuzzy feeling whenever he was in this room, especially at night with the walls cast in the glow and shimmer of the lights glinting off multi-coloured decorations. This room was Christmas, transported straight from childhood. He'd been enchanted by it — but now there was only one thing in it with the power to enthrall him.

He padded over to the couch and knelt down beside Zeke, who appeared to be deep in sleep. He looked upon Zeke for what could easily have been an hour, submerged himself in the familiar, strong features. Every once in a while he would get down close and take a long, voluptuous sniff. He could easily wallow in the fragrance of Zeke, the sweet spiciness that was a whole greater than the sum — not just the combination of aftershave/shampoo/soap/deodorant, but something simpler and still more exotic. From time to time as he knelt there, Casey would almost convince himself that he was bold enough to lick Zeke's skin.

Casey's dark presence must have permeated Zeke's sleep, for his eyes popped open suddenly. "Casey!" he gasped. He lurched upright, propping himself on one elbow, blinking hard. "What's...wrong — ?"

"Nothing," Casey murmured.

Zeke remained braced on his elbow, gazing up at Casey. He rubbed his eyes once. "Something," he corrected softly.

Casey swayed slightly on his knees.

A tiny frown formed in the corners of Zeke's eyes. "What?" he whispered.

Gravity accomplished its work; Casey listed towards Zeke. His body collapsed inwards, sinking down and into Zeke's chest. His mouth sought blindly for some flesh to adhere to and made contact with Zeke's jaw.

His arms were clamped by a pair of iron bands — they would cleave him and pull them apart and his mind screamed no — but they did not, rather they brought him closer still, claiming him, crushing him against Zeke's body at an awkward angle...so he worshipped his way around the jut of the chin towards something even better, a tremulous and receptive opening. Finding it, he tried to implode his entire self and deliver it there. That place was slick and a little sour but still delicious, seeking to envelope him, grinding into his even as he sought it in return.

But now something wrenched it away from his mouth, moving him back with an inexorable pressure, tearing a whimper from his throat. When his eyes cleared he was several inches away, staring at Zeke's hands on his arms. They were holding him steady, waiting for him to catch his balance — but he didn't want his fucking balance. He would be unbalanced and content if he had any say in anything at all.

Zeke edged his body upright against the back of the couch while he rotated his legs, removing himself further from Casey. "Fuck," he whispered, gasping.

Casey had let his hands fall open at his sides, helplessly brushing the tops of his thighs. "You can," he mumbled, barely able to get the words past the feeling in his chest. "You can..." tear me open erase me consume me "...you can..."

Zeke shook his head as his chest heaved and he wiped at his mouth, erasing Casey. "What...What are we doing?"

It was a baffling question, but Casey figured that he could state the obvious if that was what Zeke wanted. "Kissing," he answered, and honed in on Zeke's lips once more.

A hand on his chest absolutely interfered. "Yeah," Zeke said slowly. "I get that."

Apparently, Zeke had more ways of saying no than anyone Casey had ever met. He abandoned his advance, knowing finality when he heard it. He didn't quite know what he was going to say or do in response — until he heard himself laugh.

"You think this is funny?" Zeke asked.

"Oh, yeah," Casey returned, with a slight giggle.

"Well...I don't."

"C'mon, Zeke...first I push you away, then you push me...every time I'm ready, you're not, and every time you're ready..." He shook his head, unable to press the hysterical grin off his face. "It's funny."

"Or you could say lucky," Zeke suggested, but he didn't sound like he believed it.

Casey's mirth departed as abruptly as it had arrived. "Lucky for you, maybe."

"Casey — just don't, all right? No outbursts, no arguments."

"But why won't you — why not?"

Zeke slid sideways, presumably to make room for Casey on the couch. Resting his elbows on his knees and his forehead in his hand, he produced a smothered groan. "You know why not. We made a promise."

"You promised. I had no choice but to go along."

"And you've been very good about it. It's a good thing you pulled back earlier tonight because I was having a bad moment...I couldn't have stopped myself."

Feeling the sting of missed opportunity, Casey rose stiffly from his knees and perched himself on the couch next to Zeke. "I know," he said.

Zeke lifted his head and pierced Casey with a look.

"I'm sorry about that," Casey fumbled. "I didn't mean to — to — "

"Yank my chain?" Zeke said mildly, but there was nothing at all mild in him. He finished Casey off with his bitter stare, then saved him from having to muster a reply by answering himself. "I suppose you're entitled — and backing off was the right thing to do."

"I — I just — "

"Case...forget it, okay?"

"I couldn't — not — "

"I said forget it."

"— not with Sasha there."

"And since when do you do everything Sasha wants?" Zeke demanded, catching Casey entirely by surprise.

"I — I don't."

"It kinda seems that way to me."

Casey faltered, "I don't want to disappoint him."

"Huh."

"It's just...Sasha and Jerry broke up."

Zeke didn't appear terribly sympathetic. "Did they?" he said only, tilting his head and considering Casey.

"Yeah...Sasha's trying really hard to act like he doesn't mind and be merry for Christmas but he's not..." not happy, and it's my fault.

Zeke pronounced, "If you do something — or don't do something — do it for your own sake, not because you want to make Sasha happy."

As though Casey were a free agent who made all his own decisions, as though Zeke weren't continually making decisions for him. Still, Casey would make what he could of the statement. "Okay, then," he said. "Then I want to fuck...right here, right now."

"Casey," Zeke said. "That is not what I meant at all."

"No one's watching. No one has to know."

"I would."

"But I'm better now," Casey pleaded. "All the bruises are gone and it's been more than three weeks..."

"Case...you have no idea how much I want to buy into that."

He lightly fingered the drawstring waist of Zeke's pajama pants. "Then...why can't we...Sasha's asleep..."

Zeke captured his hand, put it gently aside. "C'mon, Case. This isn't what you want...you're just looking for an escape right now. You'd be sorry by tomorrow."

"No, I wouldn't. I really wouldn't."

Zeke chuckled bitterly. "Okay, you wouldn't...but I guess I would."

Casey wrapped his arms around himself and spat, "So it was okay when you decided you wanted it but now that I'm asking you have to say no so you can be in control. You always have to have everything your way."

Zeke heaved a sigh that seemed nothing to do with anything like tolerance. "You're right, I guess."

Remorse wasn't immediate, but when it came it was just a small part of the whole, of a feeling so absolute and rotten, so completely awful that Casey could barely move. His insides were running with black tar and he croaked, "I'm sorry, Zeke...I'm so..." He couldn't even finish saying it. So sorry, his mind whispered. Sorry for everything I am, everything I've done.

His head was down now but he felt Zeke shift beside him and heard the annoyance in his reply. "Stop apologizing. You've said that over and over, it's enough. I don't want to hear it — " In mid-sentence, something changed. Zeke coughed and went quiet. Casey glanced up and saw that Zeke seemed to be staring at him with a keenness that should have been reserved for peering through his microscope. "But there's something I'd like to ask," Zeke finished.

"What...?" Casey said, his gut beginning to churn.

"I need to get something cleared up...I should have before because it's been bothering me and making me act like a bastard and that's not very fair to you. I should get it off my chest and be done with it." In direct contradiction to these words of judicious intent, however, Zeke's eyes were getting hard and hot. Accusing.

"Wh-what is it?"

"Do you remember way back in September that day you snuck out to get a coffee from Zorba's...I saw you talking to this guy there...he's black, has a sort of Caribbean-sounding accent?"

For an instant, terror froze every cell in Casey's body — then, adrenaline rose and swamped him, providing him with the capacity to respond. He nodded, composing a frown that — he hoped — resembled vague curiosity.

"Have you run into him since then?"

There was only one other occasion in Casey's life that he could remember thinking this quickly — a monster from outer space had been chasing him at the time. In that heightened state of consciousness he had been able to run, bearing in mind that the soles of his shoes were wet and slippery and he didn't have time to fall on his face and mentally scanning the layout of the building ahead of him, all while visualizing potential weapons and strategies that involved maximum use of the few scat pens he had left. He'd known when he entered the gym that he was going to try what he had tried. He didn't know how the idea had come to him — just that he needed it and it had arrived.

This situation felt nearly as dire, and he replied, careful to sound appropriately anxious as though he were only distressed to be challenged about something so apparently insignificant. "I — I think I've seen him on the street a few times."

"Did you talk to him?"

"Maybe...why, Zeke?"

Zeke sucked a huge breath, still watching Casey narrowly. "Because I ran into him the other day. I think he's nuts. He looks like he's living on the street and he sounds really out of it..."

The new data was non-stop and Casey couldn't process it...Thomas living on the street even though he'd been sleeping in his car before and he seemed to have enough money to survive, he had his business...but he did seem to be unwell and ogodogod what had he said to Zeke what had he told him, Zeke might just be waiting to see how far he could lie before he got caught —

Casey shoved those thoughts far from consciousness, where they couldn't distract or agitate him. He needed absolute clarity now.

"...he mentioned you, Casey. He said you've talked."

"Oh."

"Oh? Is that all you want to say?"

"No — just — I did see him in Zorba's a few times and he would say hi or something. I — I don't know what happened, why he's —

...what did he say...what else did Thomas say...

"So you had to answer him?"

...what else did he say...ogodogod tell me no don't tell me...

"He helped me before, Zeke. He was nice."

"Did you have to tell him your name?"

"He asked me so I just told him — not my last name."

"And you didn't bother to mention this to me."

Casey let his shoulders slump and his head sink. "I knew you'd be upset."

Zeke went silent for a long time, assessing Casey who could only wait to find out if he'd just lied himself into a confession or if Zeke had accepted it. Casey couldn't fathom how he was managing to sit here with his vital organs stuttering and still cooly conclude that his developing narrative didn't require him to be too casual because it was perfectly in character to become a little hysterical right now. "Zeke..." he started, not sure what he was going to add but figuring that some embellishment was needed.

"It's okay, Case. He kind of accosted me on the street and implied a bunch of things that I knew I shouldn't take seriously. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions, I should have just asked you." Zeke shrugged. "Just being a total prick again."

"You're not!"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Zeke replied with a wry smile. He twisted his body to dip his head low, where he could meet Casey's eyes. "Hey, do you think there's room for the two of us on this couch?"

"You said you don't — want — "

"If you're going to remember everything I say, at least remember it accurately. We're not going to fuck but I think we can manage sleeping together for one night without losing control." Zeke lifted his hands and, contradicting the sternness of his words, cradled Casey's face, brushing his cheeks with his thumbs. "I always want you with me."

"Oh."

"I'm wiped...and you do look like you could use some sleep, Case."

"Yeah...I just...I just need to...to piss."

Zeke snorted. "You don't need my permission or anything."

Casey nodded and bolted off the couch and up the stairs. His legs were shaking so badly that he could have just folded there in the hallway — but he needed to get into that bathroom, just in case Zeke was monitoring his footsteps and calibrating his position. He went in and shut the door, not bothering with the light. He let his legs crumble under him and sat on the floor, hugging himself into a tight, quivering shape. The analytical part of him was still functioning beyond all expectation, passing on the requisite information. It told him he had no more than five minutes to make the mental arrangements necessary to sustain his lie.

Again, absolute need drove him to get it done. Over the next few minutes everything that he had just told Zeke was transformed into the emotional truth. The crux of it was that, since Zeke had not asked him outright if there was anymore to his interactions with Thomas, he was essentially no more of a liar than he had been fifteen minutes ago. Fifteen minutes ago he'd had his equilibrium with that, and now he must have it back. He would not dwell on this conversation or he would be done for. Once he walked down those stairs, the thoughts associated with this subject would be scoured from his immediate consciousness. It was a matter of survival.

After what felt like a suitably short length of time, he got up off the floor. He flushed the toilet and ran the water as though he was carrying out his normal ablutions, then returned the living room.

It took some major contortions to make them both fit comfortably on the couch without loss of circulation; in the end he was almost lying on top of Zeke although Zeke didn't seem to mind. He claimed that he could still breathe — in fact, he was breathing a lot...and rapidly, his skin pouring heat. Casey could almost feel the blood raging beneath the surface, and he didn't fail to notice the hardness at Zeke's groin as they lay there. He knew he was supposed to ignore it, just as he was ignoring his own.

"When we're in L.A..." Casey whispered.

"Yeah..." Zeke answered warily.

Los Angeles wasn't a topic that Casey was particularly keen on. He was very keen on what he could get from Zeke while in another city thousands of miles away from Sasha, but otherwise for the past three weeks he'd been doing his best not to think about it. He'd packed extra clothing for that leg of the journey but he'd ducked the topic every time Sasha or someone else brought it up. The important thing, the thing that he kept in mind as constantly as possible, was that Zeke wanted him to come with him to his father's wedding. Zeke needed him.

"Think about it," Casey murmured, nuzzling Zeke's throat. "No Sasha, no one else around...just us." He moved his leg slightly so as to cause a bit of friction against Zeke's cock. Zeke's pulse jumped under Casey's lips; his body stiffened.

"Let's not think about that now," Zeke said, shifting just enough to put an inch of space between the strategic parts of their bodies.

"Why? You said one month and the one month will be over...on the third, right?"

"Something like that."

"What do you mean?" Casey started to lift his head, straining as Zeke's loose embrace pressed lightly on his upper shoulders. "But you said a month."

"I just think..." Zeke said. "It feels silly to do this by a calendar. The important thing is how you're feeling."

"I told you how I am," Casey sulked. "If that's the measure then we could be fucking right now."

Zeke's hand made a swirling motion on his shoulder blade, like that of a parent desperately trying to calm a fussy infant. "Case...what I want to do right now is sleep. Okay?"

"Okay," Casey muttered. He wasn't exactly comfortable with letting it go, but he also knew it was paramount that he not push Zeke to the point that he started questioning the schedule he'd imposed. One month's penance, Casey could do. He could not do more.

He traced nonsense patterns on Zeke's chest for a while, listening to Zeke's heart clamoring in his ear. To his surprise, his arousal began to lessen a bit as fatigue finally asserted itself. A sense of security and calm, not unlike what he felt at times when sleeping with Sasha, diffused his body; he managed to get a few hours of sleep. When he opened his eyes it was Christmas Day, and for the next twenty-four hours all of his thoughts were occupied by the project of having a merry time.

"Reflect on the positive, Casey," he mumbled to himself. "Reflect on the positive...reflect on the positive." It was the mantra of Dr. Helen Yves, and it so happened that it was a good way to keep his avoidance mechanism in good working order. In his opinion, avoidance was fucking underrated.

When his hand had more or less stopped shaking, he wrote, I want to change. I should be able to change. Look at my dad. If he can change, anyone can. That sounds kind of off-hand but I'm really amazed by him when I think about it. He never used to say much to me. He just didn't say much, period, but the night that we decorated the tree together, he suddenly got up and made a speech. I was terrified that he was going to tell me it was physics or nothing but that's not what it was about. He said he was sorry for what happened last year at Christmas, that he shouldn't have let it happen, it was wrong. Mom apologized too but I've never heard him say those actual words. He was all shaky like he was going to cry and I didn't know what to do but I said something about how it wasn't just him, I was the one who ran away. That's true too. They tried to call me a couple of times when I was back at school but I was always at Roy's and I didn't call them back. Anyway, they told me they loved me no matter what. It's hard to know what to say to that. "Sorry I'm gay and not very manly and that I saved you from those aliens. I'm glad you love me despite all that."

I sound all sarcastic and bitter but it was nice to hear, really. And just to make everything more surreal, Dad suddenly wanted to teach me to drive yesterday. Dad teaching me anything makes me nervous...like when he used to want us to just "throw a football around" in the backyard when I was a kid. We tried it for a while but it was always kind of disastrous and by the time I was ten I think we both gave up on it. I remember he used to yell at me for not holding the ball right and there was that time that he hit me in the chest with the ball and I started to cry. He was so disgusted. I don't want to disappoint him anymore so I was kind of jittery about the driving lesson — but it was actually fun. My dad has an adventurous side. And at least I've proven that I have SOME testosterone in my body.

Yeah, okay, it was a not too bad a day. Christmas, I mean. Zeke got me a digital camera which I haven't had a chance to really experiment with yet. I can't believe my parents got me Orson Welles movies. I didn't think they even knew he'd made movies other than Citizen Kane, if that. We played trivia and ate and just hung around all day, and it felt a little bit like time had stopped. But I was totally bagged by the end of it, I could barely keep my eyes open past nine o'clock. It was funny, I'll bet, me and Gram both snoring away in the living room. I feel a little bad that I never got a chance to spend a bit more time with her or Aunt Clarissa, but I just crashed and then they had to go today.

I'm such a fucking liar. Even to give my dad tickets for a football game or promise Sasha that we'll cook him dinner feels like a lie because I can't imagine anything after Los Angeles. I can't imagine a week from now, never mind a month. I don't want to go to Los Angeles, I don't want to go to the fucking wedding. I just want to be with Zeke.

So the problem with avoidance — and funny how he had learned this but it never stopped him from applying the same strategy time and time again — was that it never made anything better in the long run. Now that Casey could no longer duck thinking about the events that were inexorably approaching, he found that their scariness had become truly monumental. The reverberation of those four syllables... los...an...ge...les...across his mental landscape was enough to set him off. The panic was now straining in its cage, just barely leashed by Warden Klonopin.

It would probably help to make a list of the things that scared him, tackle them one by one. Well, for a start he was scared about being at LAX — if he was separated from Zeke he would surely die. He was scared of the L.A. driving too, not that he was expected to drive but what if Zeke rented a car and something happened and Casey was forced to take the wheel? It could happen. And he was scared of Zeke leaving him alone while he did wedding things, something that was perfectly inevitable. He might be attacked by an alien, or he might just think he was being attacked by an alien which was all it took for him to make a real mess of things. He would hurt someone again and embarrass and frighten Zeke, he could be dragged off to jail or to a hospital. Lately, he was having more frequent urges to lash out, and it wasn't that he wanted to hurt anyone but he just couldn't know that some kind of action wasn't a necessity. That day when he went shopping with Delilah he had almost shoved a man who stood too close to him in a checkout line, and at one point when Delilah touched his arm he had nearly shrieked out loud. If it had been an option he would have stayed in the house the entire time he was here, leaving only for walks...preferably in the middle of the night.

Sasha was right — this house is the safest place I know. I know I freaked Sasha out with that panicky bit when we first got here...because everything was just feeling so strange, I had that weird feeling like I didn't know where I was, or even my name. It's funny — our home in Seattle feels safe to me too but in my mind it's like a cave that shelters me from everything outside while I'm afraid the pressure will make the walls crumble one of these days. Maybe I just don't have what it takes to be a true big-city person — but god don't let Sasha and Zeke decide I should stay here, please. I know they've considered it, or Zeke has at least. He could be talking to Sasha right now about how to tell me that he's leaving

— which was her fault, she basically took him away by getting in the way and making him think all sorts —

Casey sucked a breath. He closed his eyes and gripped the plastic tube far too hard for writing.

No, it wasn't her...it was him. He didn't give Zeke what he needed, he couldn't and never could and then he had to act extra doubled fucked in the head and attack the — the — well, Winona. Not W-Monster and that was really him hitting her like that. He was the monster. He had hit a woman, a person who — no, it wasn't like she did nothing, but she wasn't going to actually physically harm him.

He didn't even remember hitting her. He remembered screaming and being terrified and fighting the arms that were trying to control and take him. Gradually he became aware of Sasha's voice in his ear and he argued with it and fought it a bit but he knew he had lost. He had failed.

He forced himself to compress something of this soundless discord into blue ink on a page.

I don't even remember doing it. The last thing I remember clearly was her walking by me and being sure that she was going to hurt me. I could actually feel her hands on me, it was so real. I can't think of the right words to describe what that felt like, I just knew that I couldn't bear it.

It was a haze that he couldn't entirely remember and couldn't entirely forget, a nightmare that had faded but was back now and wouldn't go away so he couldn't stand to have someone's eyes on him if he didn't know them — sometimes even if he did know them. And sometimes he wanted to bite Sasha or kick Zeke except he would be starting something he didn't have the strength to finish and he didn't want to hurt them. It was the one thing he could get his head around lately, not wanting to hurt them.

I remember what I was thinking, mostly. I remember and I still think those things but I can't say them out loud and I then sometimes I do forget, until the next time I remember. I'm so very fucked. I need to tell Dr. Yves some of this but I — no, I fucking CAN'T. She'll think that it was something that it wasn't. I didn't tell her I hit Winona, just that I was terrified and angry enough that I wanted to hurt her. Yves got that look on her face that means she's considering what she should do and in the end she told me to try and concentrate on having a holiday with my family. She asked me if I tended to get depressed around Christmas because so many people do and I just laughed. I told her no, I like Christmas. Anyway she gave me her phone number to call if I started feeling like I was going to hurt someone or myself. Zeke doesn't know about that. I think he would

A knock, accompanied by Sasha's voice: "Kitten?"

From pure reflex, Casey slammed the journal closed — even though Sasha was not in the room yet and not, to the best of Casey's knowledge, possessed of super x-ray vision. "Yeah."

"Can I come in?"

"Of course."

The door creaked slightly, introducing Sasha's face. "Your folks went to their...thing?"

"Mm hmm."

"What would you like for supper?"

"I dunno. Leftovers."

Sasha winced. "That would make sense, I guess." He remained in the doorway, as though he were bashful about entering the room, as though it were not his space just as much as Casey's. Casey compelled himself to wait and not twitch or jitter in place. "Kitten, there's something Zeke and I need to talk to you about. Can you come down to the kitchen?"

"Right now?" Casey asked, pressing his journal against his chest.

"It's the perfect time...your parents are out, the others are gone...and I'm leaving tomorrow morning, remember?"

Just another thing he was trying not to dwell on — Sasha going back to Seattle, himself and Zeke on their own — well, that part was okay, more than okay, but it was the whole business of getting on a plane for Los Angeles that Casey didn't want to think about. Or being in Los Angeles, but he had no choice if he was going to be with Zeke and be fucked on January 3rd —

Which, of course, was exactly what Sasha would be wanting to discuss right now.

"Okay," Casey answered at last.

He rolled off the bed and followed Sasha downstairs to the kitchen. Zeke was already waiting there at the table, sitting in Casey's usual chair with his hands folded and resting there. From the set of his jaw, he was ready for battle — or already at battle and this was just the next round.

"You want some tea or something, kitten?" Sasha asked.

Casey's stomach did a twisty, nauseous thing; his pulse quickened, then re- settled at a trot. Kudos for Klonopin. "No...thanks," he said, sliding into the chair that his dad usually occupied.

"Zeke?" Sasha said.

"What?"

"Do you want something?"

"Yeah," Zeke snapped. "I want to get this over with."

"All right," Sasha said mildly, joining them at the table. He didn't waste any time, jumping in with, "Kitten, it's about L.A."

Casey nodded. "You don't think it's a good idea."

Sasha blinked once, then returned gamely, "That's right. Can I tell you why?"

Zeke had tilted his chair onto its back legs. He huffed audibly while looking up at the ceiling.

"Obviously, Zeke and I have already had words about this," Sasha continued, apparently unconcerned by Zeke's display, "and Zeke disagrees with me. But I'm worried and you know I'm not going to keep my mouth shut about it."

Zeke let the chair fall forward, with a meaningful thump. "And I think...Sasha...that all you're doing right now is undermining his confidence."

Sasha's mouth fell open, depicting indignation.

"Not that you'd do it on purpose," Zeke amended. "But all the better if he stays at home with you, right? That way you won't have to let him out of your sight."

Sasha rolled his eyes. "You think if you keep bringing that up eventually I'll admit you're right?"

"I'd love to stop bringing it up," Zeke replied acidly. "If you'll just let something go for once. It's not like I'm thinking this trip will be a walk in the park, you know."

"I know you don't think that, but maybe you don't realize — "

"I realize all sorts of things, Sasha."

"But still you insist on dragging him — "

"Just — just — stop it, both of you!" Casey said. It would have been ideal if it came out as an authoritative shout but the stammer was good enough to get their attention. They gaped at him and he added in a whisper, "Please."

Resting his elbows on the table, Sasha scrubbed at his face and said, "Okay. I'm sorry, kitten. I didn't want to have a fight with anyone." He turned one of his classic, expectant faces on Zeke, who ignored it and said nothing in the way of apology.

It was up to Casey to assert himself now; he knew that. He began, "Sasha, I promised I would go. I — I want to go — and yes, I'm nervous but I do want to go — "

"All right," Sasha allowed, "but isn't it possible that the main reason you want to go is that Zeke wants you to? And not that that doesn't count for a lot, but when you consider what's going on in your life right now..."

His gentle tone shouldn't have triggered anger; none of the content was a particular surprise to Casey, and over the weeks and months Sasha had said all sorts of things that were far more intrusive and suffocating than this. Plus, it just so happened that Sasha was right — but Casey found himself seething nevertheless. "You don't think I can handle it," he accused.

"That's not what I mean, not at all."

"Yes, it is. You're worried that I shouldn't be around people — and you're right, I shouldn't, I'm a fucked up, scary thing that you shouldn't let out in public but I'm sure if Zeke keeps me locked up in our hotel room I won't do too much damage."

"Oh, kitten," Sasha sighed.

"Casey," Zeke said, his voice weary. "You know Sasha is just trying to think of what's best for you."

His unscheduled pinch-hitting for Sasha felt a lot like betrayal. It was almost like...Zeke didn't want him, Zeke didn't want him... and Casey ground out, "How about you let me tell you what's best for me."

Sasha's voice was so clotted with smarm, it should have been choking him. "Of course you decide, Casey. If I didn't respect your opinion, I wouldn't be trying to change your mind."

The logic was just novel enough to catch Casey by surprise, and he spent some time sorting through it. He supposed it made a certain amount of sense; Sasha was assuming that he could hold his own in an argument, listen to reason, weigh the pros and cons...which just went to show that Sasha was far too trusting.

"Okay," Casey said, giving him permission to continue.

"You're working harder than ever right now, kitten. I see it, Zeke sees it, we all see it and we think it's...really encouraging. You have new medication, you're doing all these things for Dr. Yves...and you know how important routine is. I just think it's better to be closer to your doctors right now....just not push it."

"So in other words I'll fuck everything up if I go."

Sasha winced slightly. "I know that you're capable of getting through this trip, Casey, but it's not going to do you any good. It may set you back."

Zeke was just sitting there being useless instead of helping but Casey did his best to ignore that and be at his most persuasive. Jittering and stammering were not going to aid his cause. "I can't change if I don't try," he said, aware that he was mining some quality bullshit. "And this is something I want to try."

This earned him a regretful look from Sasha.

"I've never seen Los Angeles," Casey added, laying it on as thick as he possibly could.

Unexpectedly, Zeke had something to offer. "Casey...you would tell me if you really didn't want to go, right? Because if you didn't...you could just tell me and it would be okay. I could cancel the trip and we all go back to Seattle tomorrow. That way everyone will be happy."

"It's not what you want," Casey whispered.

"I'll be fine. It isn't like this wedding is something of major importance in my life."

Sasha very conspicuously did not comment on that and Zeke did not expand on it, while Casey simply knew he had to be there for Zeke. Even if Zeke seemed determined not to admit it, this trip was meaningful to him; trying to re-establish ties with a parent was momentous and Casey owed it to Zeke to give him the same kind of support that he had given Casey. And if they had some sex while they were in Los Angeles...well, that was merely what they needed. Casey was quite well aware of Sasha's real reason for not wanting him to go, and surprised that Sasha hadn't put that on the table. His and Zeke's sex life was a topic that Sasha never hesitated to raise when he thought it was necessary; perhaps Sasha had recognized the futility of it in this particular instance.

After a prolonged silence Casey realized that they were both waiting for him. Casey tried to keep his chin up as he said, "I'm going with Zeke." He was pleased that his voice didn't wobble.

Sasha gripped the edge of the kitchen table with both hands. "All right," he sighed. "I guess that's that."

"Are we finished?" Casey asked, making like he didn't see Sasha's disappointment and ignoring the voice that kept screaming: There's no place like home...there's no place like home.

"I suppose," Sasha replied heavily.

Casey heard his journal beckoning. "Um...I was doing my homework."

"Go ahead, kitten. How long will you be?"

"Half an hour maybe."

"Okay, I'll warm up the leftovers around then."

Casey trudged upstairs, resisting the urge to turn around and give Sasha what he wanted, or to skip that step and stow himself in Sasha's luggage. There was just no way to make both Sasha and Zeke happy at the same time.

Slipping back into his room, Casey flopped on his stomach on the bed and yanked his journal within writing range. Flipping it open, he scrawled hurriedly, Zeke needs me to come to L.A.. That's what — The fucking pen wasn't working again; despite several good, hard shakes, the ink was coming out in fits and starts. Casey growled in frustration and just pressed harder, forcing the words out of it. — I have to remember. I can do this. I have to do this. I have to get something right.

Tossing pen and journal aside, he rolled over onto his back and put his hand over his eyes to block out the late afternoon brightness that slanted in the window. So much to not think about right now. Like the fact that he'd fucked up everything, he would fuck up Los Angeles, Zeke wouldn't forgive him and it was nothing less than he deserved —

Do not. Think. Do not.

He had other things to dwell on...how he was safe in his parents' home and it was still the holidays...not that they were all secretly conspiring — don't think don't think to leave him here and go on with their lives shut up don't think already, fuck but he wasn't with Zeke, it was over and Zeke hated —

No, you don't know that he hates you.

But I will be with him in Los Angeles. I will.

"I have to," he breathed.

With that there was another knock, announcing the next intrusion. Casey had learned the different styles of knocks of his various loved ones — so this would be Zeke coming to make sure that Casey was really prepared to step on that plane to California in two days. Casey didn't know about that, but he was prepared to keep lying if that was what it took.

A slight creaking told of Casey moving around upstairs, and Zeke pushed back his chair. "I guess your work here is done," he told Sasha as he stood up. He was surprised to find that he wasn't really angry at Sasha anymore. Okay, not too angry. The man wouldn't be his loyal, maddening self if he didn't interfere, and he wouldn't interfere if he didn't believe wholeheartedly in his cause.

"Not hardly," Sasha returned. "Where are you going?"

"Out on the porch for a smoke."

"I'll join you."

Zeke wasn't about to infer that Sasha wanted to share a cigarette; they weren't back to that exigency just yet. He scrounged for some reserve of patience he had yet to tap. "Sasha," he said tiredly. "I don't think there's anything left to say."

"Try me, sweetheart."

Zeke gave up; he went into the front hall and dug his coat out of the closet, not commenting on the fact that Sasha was right behind him. It was not a good day to be a smoker — blue-skied and clear but brutally cold. The endless grey and moderate temperatures of Seattle were holding more appeal for him all the time.

In more ways than one, actually. He didn't think Sasha would believe him if he were to say that he wished that they could all just go home tomorrow, but he did. All other things being equal, he would have enjoyed a trip to California, sure, but right now seemed like the worst possible time and it was only his promise to show up that prevented him from cancelling. His relationship with his father was simply not his highest priority, whatever Casey and Sasha might choose to believe. All Casey had to do was say the words: I can't do it, and Zeke, please don't go either , and Zeke would comply in an instant. But Casey hadn't said them, so Zeke was stuck. If he were to ask Casey to stay home it would be a disaster — and besides, he didn't want Casey to stay home, not if he wasn't there. Right now the only thing scarier than Casey with Zeke in L.A. was Casey in Seattle while Zeke was in L.A....Yves closing in on him with her straightjacket, Sasha providing all the snuggles, strange men eying Casey up and Casey perhaps eying them back, thinking that they might be able to give him what Zeke couldn't or wouldn't...

No.

He wouldn't go there. He had decided that he would not indulge in that most pathetic sort of jealous guy stuff. He had resolved not to think about Thomas anymore.

He would own up that he was desperately jealous — of Sasha. Yeah, he was jealous, he was irrational, resentful, insecure, petty, he was all of it. It wasn't even that he worried about Casey and Sasha getting it on because obviously that was nonsense. It was just that they were so close, and getting closer all the time. Every time Casey graced Sasha with the patented I-can't-wait-for-you-to-hold-me face, Zeke wanted to howl because that face that was his. And he found himself becoming deeply concerned about the sheer volume of hugs that Sasha dished out; Zeke had been on the receiving end of quite a few Sasha hugs himself, so he knew they were pretty damned addictive. Also, as far as he was concerned, Sasha called Casey "kitten" way more often than was strictly necessary. Zeke needed to take Casey away from Sasha for a while, have Casey with him, where he could see him and be near him, touch him maybe...not at the expense of Casey's recovery, of course.

So there was really no option but to have Casey with him in Los Angeles if that was what Casey wanted. Zeke would respect Casey's choice — and as Casey had very aptly demonstrated on several occasions now, he was capable of making his own decisions. They might be reckless, self-destructive, dead wrong decisions, but he made them with a certain conviction, that was for fucking sure. He could spill about the aliens to his shrink and delude himself that it was about getting better if that was what he wanted. Of course, Zeke knew perfectly well it was really about getting revenge and being in denial — but that was Casey's prerogative.

And it was done now. They'd just have to deal, and one way of dealing was for Zeke to keep Casey away from Yves as much as possible.

Sasha was stamping his feet and jamming his gloved hands in his pockets for supplemental warmth. "It's friggin' cold — and you say you aren't ready to quit smoking yet?"

The really annoying thing about this was that even though Sasha had to realize that Zeke knew it all backwards and forwards, he was going to go right ahead and beat it to death. Shrugging, Zeke retrieved the plastic ashtray that Allison had left out on the porch for him, no doubt to prevent his polluting her flower beds with ash and dead butts. Holding the ashtray in one gloved but numb-fingered hand, he attempted to smoke with the other. He made every haul count while he waited for Sasha to get to the rest of what he was going to say. Whereas some people had actual patience, Zeke had tobacco and nicotine.

"Zeke." Sasha was using a hushed voice, as thought Casey might be able to hear him somehow. "I don't want you to think that I don't trust you, or that I...don't believe in him."

Zeke couldn't offer more than a non-committal grunt to that, because it sure as fuck seemed like Sasha didn't have an iota of faith in either of them — and especially not in Zeke. But then, Zeke had long since accepted that whatever went on between himself and Casey, Sasha's interpretation would always be skewed towards seeing Casey as the victim and Zeke as the victimizer.

"I'm afraid Casey's on the edge," Sasha whispered.

"Tell me something I don't know."

"Zeke...I'm serious."

"So am I. Just saying that's nothing new."

"But it's like there's this...I don't know, it's just a vibe and it only comes out once in a while but it makes me nervous. I don't remember seeing it before — and when he was sleeping with you, did he have nightmares?"

"Not really, no..."

"Well, he keeps having these...episodes. It'll be the middle of the night and it's like he's panicking but he never really wakes up. I think something's changing and I don't know if it's good or bad."

Zeke felt obliged to note, "He'd done okay with everything this month... everything since my birthday, I mean." Well, notwithstanding that little blip on Christmas Eve —

"I know," Sasha agreed. "I feel very proud...and he's made such an effort this week, for the holidays."

"Yeah," Zeke said, letting some of his scorn emerge for this stupid preoccupation with everyone being pleasant and full of smiles at Christmas, even when in reality they just wanted to tear off their skin and run around screaming. He almost added, "That was something he did for you," and at the last second he figured it was better left unsaid. It had been at some cost to Casey, Zeke was sure of that, but he was just as sure that Casey didn't regret it. It had clearly been important to him.

Sasha threw a knowing stare at him. "I'm not an idiot, Zeke. I know that nothing just goes away...as much as I'd like to think that being at home with the family makes all the difference."

"Of course it makes some difference..." Zeke saw that Sasha had angled away from him just enough that his expression couldn't be seen and he was muttering something. "What's that?" Zeke said.

"Nothing." Sasha turned back. His eyes were a bit shimmery, his nose a little reddened. Nothing that couldn't be explained away by the cold. "The big question is — now what?"

"Now, nothing," Zeke declared. He tapped cinders into his ashtray. "Casey and I have to do Los Angeles and then we'll get to 'now what'."

"We need to talk to him about...that stuff he told us."

"I think you would agree with me that he's going to be nervous enough about this trip without dumping that on him just now. It's just going to have to wait."

"It doesn't feel right."

"I know you believe that everything should always be blurted out right away..."

"Eat me, sweetheart, I do have some discretion...it's just, that was a major piece of information he shared with us."

"And I'd rather wait until we were back at home before we have that discussion."

Zeke was permitted to smoke in peace for half a minute, while Sasha shivered and stared out at the road again. A car or two passed by, emitting exhaust that was thick and white in the bitter cold. That same cold had now penetrated Zeke's coat and sweater and was well into his bones. It seemed that every year they had a week or two like this in Herrington, and Zeke didn't miss it in the slightest.

"Okay, you're right," Sasha conceded, still facing the street. "Now's not the right time...but I still have a problem with you and Casey going on this trip together."

"You don't say."

Sasha rotated and pinned him squarely with a look that demanded accountability. "Are you going to make me spell it out?"

Rolling his eyes, Zeke said, "I like to hear you spell it out, so yeah."

"What are you going to do about the sex issue?"

"You — " Zeke inhaled a bit too far and coughed into his sleeve " — you can do better than that."

"All right, then — are you planning on having sex with Casey? Are you just biding your time until you can get back down to it? Planning to ring in the new year?"

Zeke couldn't quite restrain a grin. It wasn't so much that he was amused — more that he was delighted by Sasha's absolute determination and consistency when it came to this subject. The alternative was another level of resentment, which he didn't really want to feel. "Where would I be without you?"

"Are you making fun of me?"

"Never." Zeke mashed out the remains of his cigarette. "The answer is I don't know."

"That's not acceptable."

"But it is my answer, and it happens to be the truth." Zeke confronted Sasha's fierce stare. "I know all the arguments for and against. I know why you'd much rather have Casey in Seattle with you and not with me. You don't have to say any of it."

Sasha raised his brows. "But I don't know what to say if I don't say any of it."

"Don't say a word. Just let me sort this out."

With a deep sigh, Sasha asked, "Will you do one thing for me?"

"What's that?"

"Talk to Casey, ask him if he really wouldn't rather come home with me tomorrow. He might, but he just might not want to say it with both of us there at the same time. He's protective of you, you know, he won't let anyone say anything even remotely like criticism."

Zeke was ridiculously pleased — especially given some of the words Casey had been known to use to describe Zeke when they were in private. "That's nice to know...and yes, Sasha, I was planning on talking to him." More than ready to get out of the cold and into the warm house, Zeke turned towards the door. He stopped halfway, struck with a need to say one more thing. "Sasha — regarding the sex issue. You don't need to keep getting in my face about it."

"Hmm. I have to say, at the risk of pissing you off, that it didn't look that way to me on Christmas Eve. And it sure didn't sound that way a month ago."

All sorts of pettiness leapt to mind but Zeke managed to contain it — just barely. "I know what I said a month ago...but I've had lots of time to myself, to clear my head as you say. Yeah, I came close to losing it a few times, but I think I'm doing a pretty fucking fine imitation of a eunuch and I'll thank you to keep your mouth shut."

And he stormed into the house, not slamming the door in Sasha's face although he really, really would have liked to.

Oh, yes, over the past month he'd had ample time to reflect, even with exams looming and Casey's mood filling the apartment like a black miasma. He'd remembered some important facts — such as he was the one who made the decision to let go in the first place. He was the one who had allowed himself to lose control and, as much as it might be tempting to think otherwise, he was responsible for his actions. Just as it had been his decision to start, it could be his decision to stop and he would abide by that even if it meant that he became a frustrated quasi-monk who took icy showers and whipped himself daily. Wanting felt much cleaner than having. Wanting, he could handle.

But, fuck...he wanted so fucking much. He didn't recall wanting quite like this before, or perhaps over the months that he'd been having regular sex he'd simply forgotten how it felt to walk around aching. Either way, all he knew was that he could barely concentrate on what Casey said because he was so busy watching Casey's mouth move. He was slow in catching on to Casey's moods because he was far too busy watching the play and flush of Casey's skin to actually notice what it signified. And simple little things made him crazy. Like Sasha giving Casey earrings as a joke. Like Casey's father taking him out for a driving lesson. Like Sasha getting to sleep with Casey, like...pilfered sensations of Casey's skin under his fingertips and the take-me look that Casey seemed incapable of shutting off.

There was no question that things were getting to him far more than they should. He was appalled by his overreactions and embarrassed that he couldn't restrain the compulsion to ask Casey about something that he should have been able to shrug off. Even after he'd asked and Casey had reassured him, he was still thinking and stewing and suspecting, and it absolutely demeaning that he had permitted something as irrational as jealousy to have power over him. It was fucking pathetic.

So he told himself every time he replayed the encounter with Thomas Kirton.

There was no forgetting the man from Zorba's who had struck up a conversation with Casey that day in September. Zeke remembered all too well how the man — handsome, well-dressed and professional-looking — seemed to take a more than neighbourly interest. He hadn't thought about the guy more than a few times since, but whenever he did, there had always been a flare of possessive heat in his gut; there was something in the man's expression, in the charisma he brought to bear even in the act of being polite, that left Zeke incensed.

It happened a block away from Zorba's this time, where the man was leaning back against the brick facade of the pharmacy, just minutes from their apartment. He had obviously fallen on hard times. He was wearing a fine suit that was still mostly intact but was dirty, wrinkled and ripped in the knees. Oddly, he was still wearing his tie, and the knot was perfect, which only served to make the rest of him look more scruffy. Apart from a scarf and a pair of gloves, he was lacking any outdoor wear.

Maybe Zeke was an idiot to give the guy more than a glance, but it was entirely unexpected and somewhat alarming to see this alteration in someone who had previously been so poised. Still, Zeke didn't really have the energy to dwell on the moral and social implications of pausing for more than that extra second; he had just finished his last exam, he was exhausted and on his way home to crash, and it was more than evident that this was not a well person.

Except for the whisper that arrived in that distinctive, almost genteel voice with its carefully enunciated syllables, Zeke wouldn't have broken stride as he passed by.

"I know what you treasure."

It stopped Zeke instantly — both the words and the fact that Casey was the implied subject of the remark. However, he was not fully committed to a conversation yet; he remained with his feet still pointing homeward. "What?" he asked.

There was a grin etched on the man's face. "You're Zeke, right?"

He thought about trying to bluff but it struck him as silly given past history. "You're that guy from Zorba's, that time," Zeke noted.

"Thomas," the man said, and was sounding angry. "My name is Thomas Kirton...Thomas Kirton!"

Zeke's body went on the defensive even before his head could catch up and issue an appropriate warning. There was an edgy jitter in the body opposite him, a sense of imminent explosion. "Okay, Thomas...take it easy."

"But I haven't seen Casey," the man blurted.

Shock took hold of Zeke, freezing him from the inside. "Who?" he said before he could think about his reaction. He'd already acknowledged the man, for fuck sake, but he instinctively felt that Casey should not be known by him. Call it protection or possession, he didn't care as long as Casey's existence — or his name, or his history or his relationship to Zeke — was not within the knowledge of this Thomas Kirton.

Thomas smiled at Zeke's attempt at a bluff. "There's this little treasure with funny hair, you know the one."

"I don't."

"The one you have locked in your tower."

"I...what?"

"You have treasure in your tower, someone's gonna have to rescue him." Right before Zeke, Thomas started to shake with a visible, violent passion. "You can't do that to him, you...you cannot, someone's going to bust break battle down and take him away!"

At this, Zeke couldn't maintain the charade any longer. "Thomas, I'm just going to tell you this once. Don't talk about him, don't look at him, don't even think about him."

"You think I would hurt him...He thinks I would hurt him, just as that fucking Rob Roy thinks I would hurt his cappucinos and his lattes. I don't hurt, I help. I help not hurt, not hurt...not hurt!"

"Then leave Casey alone," Zeke said quietly. He was managing, for now, to regulate his speculation as to how much of this man's blathering was fantasy or whether there was a kernel of truth to it. Thomas might never have spoken to Casey; if he had been hanging around this neighbourhood as he was apparently doing, he would have had plenty of opportunity to watch Casey coming and going, without Casey ever knowing it.

"We talk, we don't look or think. Casey-Treasure says 'Who are you are you one of them?' over and over." Thomas tilted his head, showing all of his teeth in his next smile while he bounced in place. It appeared that he had far more energy than he could keep in check. "He's really very disturbed-disturbed-perturbed you know you know like I would ever be one of them, poor treasure, so mixed up."

This was beginning to feel more and more like a nightmare. "You and Casey..."

"Oh, yeah. I see him, we talk-talk." The grin was knowing. "Some things need to be talked about, tower-man."

At that point Zeke shut down every reaction, because it was either that or start raging. "What?"

"Maybe he's your treasure but you need to let him talk you can't just look at him and run your hands through him...pretty-pretty, gotta play, gotta touch, pretty- pretty..."

"What the fuck do you mean?" Zeke ground out, while he was afraid that he knew all too fucking well what Thomas meant.

Perhaps alerted by the tone in Zeke's voice, Thomas ceased his bouncing for the moment. "It's hard not to touch sometimes, hard not to..."

Zeke snarled, "I don't know what you're talking about and I'm walking away — but you stay away from Casey and me."

He took the first step away from this mad person and was stopped by a hard, firm grip on his shoulder and a clear, intact sentence: "It's hard not to touch when he asks you."

His mind eradicated of everything but fury, Zeke spun, breaking Thomas' hold, and with a roar pushed him back into the wall of the nearby building. Thomas slammed into the brick with a nearly audible thump. Not satisfied with this, Zeke raised a clenched fist — and just barely managed to keep from using it. "You get the fuck away from me. Don't ever come back here. If I see you around Casey, I'll kill you."

Thomas had stopped smiling. "I am sorry," he said, trembling with something that incorporated both sorrow and violence. "I just wanted to help."

Zeke was beyond accepting any demonstrations of remorse. "Fuck you."

The man nodded but Zeke saw a renewal of danger in his slitted expression. It occurred to Zeke that he had just narrowly avoided getting into a real brawl on the streets of Seattle. There were no less than three people hovering nearby, standing back in the hope of not having to intervene but concerned to see the outcome. "Yes, I will fuck off now quite naturally..." The grin broke out again. "I will fuck off, will fuck off, off I fuck...fuck..." He meandered away, leaving Zeke heaving with panic. The spectators got out of his way in a hurry.

Zeke brushed off the inquiries of the well-meaning and set out for home but almost immediately lost track of where he was walking, lost track of everything but those words...It's hard not to touch...pretty pretty...hard not to touch when he asks...I see him, we talk... He stalked right past his building, barely feeling the sidewalk, not seeing anything but the dreadful, until-a-few-minutes-ago-unthinkable pictures that crowded his head...Casey on his back with that man on top of him...or on his knees...or in their bed, and from a logistical perspective, it easily could have happened, Casey had all sorts of time and Thomas Kirton was very attractive. No doubt his insanity made him just that little bit more appealing to Casey. So he had all sorts of time and opportunities to make an idiot out of Zeke, make him stupid, make him weak...It was Casey abusing himself to the point of breakdown to get revenge on Zeke, it was just more of the same where Zeke was being Mr. Restraint and Casey was fucking around. Zeke had fucking had it, he didn't want to be a part of it anymore. He was through being a chump.

Eventually he realized that the liquor store was his destination; he found himself there almost without having made a conscious decision. Going in, he picked up a forty of vodka. He had found his purpose for tonight.

Once he was home, he sat down to systematically empty the bottle. He would not call the Connor residence as he had the previous nights. Casey could chew his nails, throw a fit, fuck Sasha or Gabe or some guy off the street if he liked. Zeke was not calling.

There had been a time when he was in control. When he chose to order his mother out of the house, when he chose to fail at school, when he chose to sell drugs...or later on when he chose to finish high school, it might have seemed like he had sold out but the fact was that he had chosen everything, right up until he walked willingly into Casey's domain. Before that no one, man or woman, had gotten the drop on him because he had learned his lesson about emotions at an early age. He was clear and free of all that garbage; he was his own person. No one needed him and he needed no one.

Now he was murdering several million brain cells because some person — a mere person, an ordinary human being who just happened to be easy to look at and occasionally fun to be with although it was getting difficult to remember the last time fun had been anywhere in evidence — had lied to him.

It was his own fucking fault for fucking letting it happen. At some point he had stopped seeing Casey and started seeing something so precious that he would organize his choices around the prospect of getting a smile on that face. He had given more of himself than he'd ever given in his life; he had given Casey his opinion about what was best, he had fought with him and gotten afraid and angry and irrational over the fucking aliens because he cared so much about Casey's well-being — and then Casey just ignored him. Oh, yeah, Casey liked to act all willing and submissive but at any moment he could and would go his own way and to hell with everything that Zeke had tried to do for him until the next time he needed to be held, or he needed a fuck.

This was not the love of his life — because there was no such thing. There was no such thing as an emotion that never changed and this was not some grand, gay romance. This was him being manipulated and used, a thing that he had sworn when he was twelve years old would never happen to him again. He'd watched as his mother pulled all sorts of crap on his father and for years his father had let her get away with it. He'd known that he absolutely was not going to be that way — and eleven years later, here he was.

So okay, he would grant that he was the product of his upbringing and like anyone he could fall back into the old patterns. It was correctable, at least. The solution was obvious: He would not be with Casey anymore. They could still be friends, once his wrath had cooled a little. He would still care for Casey because they had a connection and he was just that kind of guy. But he couldn't be with him.

He would tell Casey tomorrow. No need to beat around the bush.

He passed out before he could finish the bottle and it occurred to him, when he woke up later with vomit cascading down his front, that this was probably a good thing. As it was, he had drunk enough to be well and truly fucked; he had to drag himself to the bathroom while barely controlling the heaves and drape himself over the toilet. The puking went on and on until there was nothing left in him and he was lying, drained, on the bathroom floor. He forced himself to drink two glasses of water and swallow three Tylenol before stripping to his underwear and passing out again.

The next time he woke up, he came to the understanding that it might actually be possible to die from a hangover. His stomach muscles ached from all the heaving he had done last night and his skull seemed to have shrunken so that it was squeezing the contents; if he moved, his brain would explode like a grape. Food was out of the question, of course. He lay flat on his back for hours, contemplating the ceiling, learning the various, faint striations and discolourations in the paint.

Mid-morning, the phone rang; he knew it was Casey calling in a frenzy but he just couldn't make himself move. However, he was struck by the fact that he actually wanted to speak to Casey, to just hear his voice. It was probably more due to habit than any real desire — but then, reviewing his behaviour of the previous night, he wondered if he might have overreacted a tad. Or maybe more than a tad. So what if that Thomas had implied something, it didn't have to mean what Zeke had immediately assumed it meant. Thomas Kirton was a mentally ill person who had probably seen both Zeke and Casey on the street, who had started spouting words just because Zeke was within earshot and it suited his hallucination of the moment. It had been terribly unjust, not to mention irrational of Zeke to jump to such conclusions.

He could put his overreaction down to having been extremely fatigued — but it wasn't just that. His essential epiphany was not incorrect: Being in love was making him nuts. Which was fine, he supposed, except that he could have damaged Casey severely as a direct consequence. He was no romantic who believed in the purity of love, but there was something about the prospect of harming someone out of love for them that offended his notions of consistency and common sense.

And so, for the first time he allowed himself to conceive of the impossible while in a serious and sober mind, of not being with Casey.

Solely as a concept, it had a lot going for it. There was no question that he would always be Casey's friend. He would always support him and be there for him but if they were not together he could retreat to a more sane distance that would be better for both of them. It didn't have to be permanent, and it would be so much healthier. For his own part, Zeke would like himself a lot more when he wasn't flipping out over random events such as the rantings of a homeless person, or Casey choosing to do what Casey thought was best — which he was of course completely entitled to do. Zeke could concentrate on actually helping Casey without all the complications engendered by his own emotional demands. He'd promised Casey his help and, if he was going to be successful in keeping that promise, he must no longer indulge himself in this big experiment with romance.

Not very long ago, Casey had entrusted him with a secret. Casey had been stoned on sedatives at the time but Zeke wasn't going to let that detract from the magnitude of that act of confidence. And Zeke now had an immense and terrible task ahead of him: To convince — compel, if necessary — Casey to talk about that trauma. Ideally it should happen with Dr. Yves but to accomplish this Zeke would first have to get Casey to talk about it with him. Unfortunately, there were huge obstacles in the form of Christmas, New Year's and the wedding in Los Angeles, things that inevitably deterred Zeke from making that happen. When their mutual social calendar cleared up a bit, that difficult conversation would be the first priority. It would cause major turmoil to be sure, but the essential and critical factor was that Zeke keep his head clear and his motives pure. Meanwhile, the evidence clearly showed that ever since he had fallen for Casey, his head had been anything but clear, and his motives far from pure.

So given that reasoning, they should "just be friends" from here on in.

On the other hand, a straight objective inquiry revealed that Zeke's vital statistics went ballistic at the prospect of losing Casey. If that happened, Zeke would have to work out a way to ensure that if Casey was not with him, Casey was not with anyone else either. It would be a tricky, difficult business. No doubt, if Casey survived the break-up, Yves would advise him to see other people, and chances were reasonably good that other people would want to see him. Zeke couldn't have that.

Of course, these considerations were little more than an intellectual exercise once you took into account Casey's expected reaction if he and Zeke were no longer together. In theory separation could be healthy, sure, but Casey tended to burst most of Zeke's theories.

When the phone rang a second time, Zeke made a supreme effort to get to it. He had a brief, curt conversation with Sasha, who told him that Casey had gone shopping with Delilah, of all things. He promised to call later then collapsed again, and this time he had the foresight to bring the cordless phone with him so he wouldn't have to get up again.

It was a hellish day but by six o'clock he finally was able to eat. He ordered a pizza and dragged himself to the fridge, saying a prayer of thanks to the Gods of The Hangover for having given him the prescience to stock up on orange soda and coke after Sasha left town. Once he had gulped down a gallon of sugary, cool liquid, he was ready to call the Connor residence.

It was Casey who answered; he must have been lurking around the phone, waiting to pounce. "Hello?"

And two syllables from an adored mouth had the power to rearrange Zeke's mental infrastructure. The not being with Casey premise was instantly downgraded from unlikely to impossible. Also, he'd been thinking that the next time he had Casey on the phone he was at least going to demand an explanation for the things Thomas had said, but now that he was in a position to ask, his will started to go to mush, compromised by the pleasing sound of Casey's voice.

"It's...it's me," Zeke said weakly.

"I tried to call you today...wh-why didn't you call last night?"

"Sorry, Case. I was...stupid." Yeah, that was true enough. "I decided to get drunk...to celebrate the end of term, you know, and I ended up passing out."

"Oh."

"I paid for it, though. I was in major fucking pain today."

"Oh...sorry."

"It's my own fault. I heard you went shopping with Delilah — how was that?"

"Okay."

Casey wasn't saying much, and Zeke knew it was incumbent upon him to make amends for last night's behaviour. "What else did you do today?" he asked, cringing at the sound of himself trying to make idle conversation.

"Not very much. I was freaking out all day."

"Case...it was one phone call, why let that get to you?"

"Because, you know...I just...miss you."

"You know that sometimes things are going to happen and I won't be able to call...it doesn't have to mean anything."

"I know...I'm trying...Zeke, will you call tomorrow? I know I'm just being crazy but I start thinking all these things and I can't stop — "

"Hey. It's okay. I'm not going anywhere."

As he said it, Zeke came to a humbling realization: It was quite possible that no matter what shit Casey pulled, what he did to Zeke or who he slept with, Zeke would still want to be with him.

"Kay."

"Except to Herrington, of course," Zeke mused, breaking off as the doorbell rang. "There's my pizza...I gotta go, Case."

"Okay...talk to you tomorrow."

Hanging up, Zeke scarfed the whole pizza and guzzled another gallon of soda. All the while, he pondered the probability that, despite his best efforts, he was becoming his father. Even worse — knowing it wasn't enough to stop it.

As he soaked up the exceedingly pleasant warmth of the Connor home and removed his boots and coat, Zeke wondered if it were not too late to save himself. Perhaps he was not entirely weakened, not yet. Certainly weakness could not be his main problem, not when he'd managed to survive almost an entire month without sex other than with his own hand.

One thing for sure — abstinence was a learning experience. For instance, he'd learned that he could hold grudges better than most folks. Also that he was capable of the worst kind of unreason and that it could be disguised all too easily as logic. Mainly, he'd learned that he was not immune to those flaws of human nature that afflicted other people, and he needed to be wary of himself. He had serious control issues, yes, and he was inherently capable of being just as angry, jealous and petty as any other guy. Possibly more.

For another thing, he hadn't quite realized that he had been going around resenting Casey for depriving him of his sex life; it was immensely unfair of him and he'd only realized it on Christmas Eve when he was tested and just barely passed. When Casey lead him on all night and then disappointed him, his initial response had been How dare he? And when, later on, Casey was intent on not disappointing him, there had been a few terrible seconds in which there was no consciousness of anything except what Zeke Tyler wanted. Nothing else was of the slightest relevance to him and the only reason he'd pushed Casey away, initially, was the desire to assert his authority over the situation. It had been his plan to grab him and mash him into the couch, to turn the situation around so it was entirely on his own terms. Casey had been entirely right about that.

The only thing that had stopped him from diving back into Casey at that moment was the needy sound that Casey had made. It brought back some vestige of reason, and fear too, because Zeke apprehended that he felt just as Casey sounded, and he was not supposed to be the needy one, he was supposed to be the one who had some kind of self-possession.

"I'm going to go warm up the leftovers," Sasha announced, breaking into Zeke's ruminating. Zeke glanced over at him and saw him looking afflicted at the prospect of more turkey and potato and gravy.

"What's wrong with leftovers? Turkey's better the second day anyway."

"Yeah," Sasha agreed. "But I just know I'm going to make a pig of myself again is all." Noticing that that Zeke had put a foot on the stairs, he added, "Are you going to — ?"

"Sasha," Zeke interrupted, pausing in mid-step.

"Yes?"

"Don't nag."

"Oh, but I can't help it."

"Try."

Zeke climbed the stairs and knocked on Casey's door. There was no answer so he knocked again, harder. "Case...it's me."

There was a shuffling and a rustling, and then Casey opened the door. He had never looked quite so much like a person with secrets; Zeke felt the flutter of suspicion and stomped on it. He couldn't actually be so preposterous now that he suspected Casey of having a man stashed under his bed or in his closet. What a paradox that after all this time, after all the intimacy between them, Casey still could appear as a stranger to him. This had to be a conundrum that had outfoxed many millions throughout recorded human history; it was the mistake of thinking that just because someone let you inside their body, they were known to you.

"Can I talk to you?"

Casey stepped back, not saying a word.

Zeke penetrated the room in two strides and sat on the bed, leaving Casey standing near the door.

"What?" Casey asked suddenly, in a small voice. His hands moved, wavering uneasily before settling on his upper arms. Pretending not to notice his anxiety, Zeke patted the bed beside him. Casey drifted a little closer but didn't sit.

"Just tell me, Case. Are you up for a trip to Los Angeles?"

Another thing about Casey these days was that he seemed to get angry with the greatest of ease. "I told you," he said, his face shouting hostility. "I told Sasha. I'm tired of telling everyone."

"I know, Case, and I'm sorry to keep asking. But I have to say this...You don't have to do it if you don't want to. Nothing bad will happen if you don't, I won't be mad."

Casey was rocking in place very slowly, as though he were straining to hear distant music. He said, "I want to be there for you."

"I know you do."

"It's your father, you can't tell me it doesn't mean anything."

Zeke considered saying just that — except he knew that Casey wouldn't buy it. They'd had this discussion already, months ago. "Okay, it does mean something, and having you there would mean something too. It would mean a lot — but I'll settle for doing the right thing, Casey. I just need you to tell me what that is."

"It's what you want."

"No, it isn't, not necessarily."

"But Zeke — "

"No, it doesn't matter, Case — don't you get it?!" Zeke didn't even realize he was getting angry until he found himself on his feet. "What I want is not at all relevant, I think that's been clear for a while now so just tell me you can't do this and let's get on with things!"

Casey stood rooted to a spot on the carpet, eyes huge and bruised. He tightened his arms over his chest and said, "I can do it. I want to do it. I'm going with you." He blinked several times, dissipating emotion and moisture through his lashes. "I mean...please let me go with you."

So it was an impasse; Zeke had known it when arguing with Sasha earlier and this conversation was the reiteration. The only option was to concede and let things unfold while doing everything possible to sustain Casey. "Okay," Zeke said, letting his voice soften. "Yes, I want you with me. Let's go to Los Angeles..."

"Thank you," Casey gulped.

"You don't have to thank me, Case, I'm the one who should thank you. The wedding's going to be incredibly dull, I'm sure."

Casey shook his head — in denial of what, Zeke couldn't quite ascertain. Hesitating only for a second, Zeke crooked a finger and gestured for him to come closer. He opened his arms and sighed as the slight, pleasing warmth that was Casey curled in against his chest. Predictably, Casey was trembling but perhaps much less than he would have two months earlier. Zeke stroked and toyed with his hair, daring to think that maybe, just maybe, this trip wouldn't be a complete disaster.

The new medication did seem to be having a marked effect. Not only was Casey physically much healthier, he seemed not nearly as agitated about things in general. He was more talkative, he had either taken pleasure in the Christmas activities or done a really good job of pretending, and he'd even demonstrated the capacity for restraint. He couldn't be faulted for losing perspective that one time, not when Zeke had long since forgotten what perspective looked like. Most encouraging, Casey hadn't had a panic attack that Zeke knew of, not since the bad one a few weeks back. Not a real one anyway — bad dreams didn't count. And Casey hadn't assaulted anyone lately. Sasha could be overestimating the potential risk in the situation. It had been known to happen.

"So what do you want to see in Los Angeles?" Zeke asked, plying his fingers against the back of Casey's neck. "Hollywood Boulevard? The Chinese Theatre?"

"Maybe," Casey said, his voice muffled against Zeke's sweater. His fingers were clasped in it, grasping and releasing handfuls of it.

"We're going to have time to do some tourist things."

"Yeah..."

Zeke had to ask himself just what it was about Los Angeles that most disturbed Casey. He guided Casey and himself to sit on the bed with only a slight stumble, keeping Casey attached to him — ah, well, so he loved it when Casey tucked himself in as close as he could get, he loved that Casey still clung to him.

"Case."

"Mmm."

"Can you tell me what it is that makes you so nervous about this trip?"

There was no answer. If Casey's face had not been buried, Zeke would have been looking to see what it was projecting right now — probably disgust at being asked such an obvious question.

"Is it just that it's new," Zeke pressed, "or is it the size...or something in particular about L.A.?"

"Yes."

Zeke had to chuckle. "Would you say that's an exhaustive list, or is there more?"

"Yes."

"Wanna tell me?"

Casey's breath quickened slightly. "I...guess."

Zeke waited. When nothing was forthcoming, he gave Casey a bit of a jostle. "Hello? Earth to fruit loop."

"Okay, okay..." Casey parted his face from Zeke's torso. "You shouldn't make that shoulder so cozy if you want me to talk." He looked away, towards the window. "It's all that stuff and...and...I don't want to screw up again."

"You got through the dinner with my dad just fine."

"But your birthday..."

Zeke scrabbled for something honest to say that was also comforting. "That's past. Stuff happened, it's over, it's not going to happen again."

This in a tiny voice: "What if it does?"

"I don't think it will. It was almost a month ago, Casey, and since then nothing has happened."

"Because I've been here."

"Because you've been working at it — and you were only here half of the time. C'mon, Case, you telling me you feel like attacking someone else?"

"What if I said yes?" Casey whispered.

Zeke's tentative optimism died on the spot. So during this entire trip he was going to have to watch Casey constantly, keep him away from most people and run interference for him with those who couldn't be avoided...he was weary just at the thought.

"Okay," he said, as lightly as he could manage, "But the important thing is that you don't do it. I have urges to punch people all the time...and I'll bet your dad would love to punch me."

This won a tiny smile from Casey. "It's that bad attitude of yours."

"Hey...I think I've been pretty respectful on this visit."

"Yeah...you have."

"I've been saving all the attitude for Sasha," Zeke mused, and felt regretful.

"It's not funny, though," Casey said. "I'm the problem, I make you and Sasha unhappy so you argue...but it'll be so much better when we — when we can be together, just the two of us." Zeke had been oblivious to the fact that he was being seduced until this moment when Casey went for the kill with all his guns blasting, eyes shimmering, voice tremulous and needy. "Sasha won't be around after tomorrow..."

"Whoa, stop." Zeke took hold of Casey's hands and squeezed them hard in the hope of halting that flow of words. "Stop."

"But you know it will help, we don't need to wait — "

"Casey, shh." Zeke tried to pull him in and rock him, feeling like an idiot all the while. He wished he knew how Sasha could always do this with such an absence of self-consciousness. "Stop it."

"But I — "

"I know you can control yourself, Casey. You did before."

"Sasha was watching." Casey propelled himself backwards, out of Zeke's arms. Sullen and desperate at the same time, he said, "I don't know how to...not lose control."

"You just don't."

Casey shook his head, hissing, "I don't know how. And don't tell me it's just another few days because a few days is too fucking long!"

Whatever Casey had intended with this, Zeke heard a very clear, very real warning, and he suddenly knew the answer to Sasha's question of just half an hour ago. He and Casey would not be having sex in Los Angeles, nor any time soon. More to the point, Casey really should be going home with Sasha tomorrow but Zeke couldn't admit that out loud. He wanted Casey with him and only him, even if it was going to be hell.

The current of sinister energy that animated Casey from time to time had already run its course, leaving him limp and regretful. His posture devolved to an abject slump and he didn't speak another word — neither of temptation, nor anger, nor even apology. It had all been said before.

Zeke said quietly, "I have an idea. Let's not make assumptions about how things should be in Los Angeles, we'll just let it be whatever it is, all right?"

The noise that Casey made then was probably intended as a laugh, albeit rather obscured by tears. "You and Yves...sometimes I think you're the same person." Zeke wasn't sure that he liked the comparison. "I just don't want you to make it harder on yourself. You don't need to...I just want you with me."

At this, the bright, bitter quality in Casey's eyes melted into a more common species of misery. "I want to be with you too."

Acting entirely on impulse, Zeke took Casey's hand and, holding it palm up, pressed a kiss into it. "I do love you," he said. "Don't forget it."

Casey said, "I won't," but he wasn't meeting Zeke's eyes, and Zeke didn't remember ever having felt quite so unsettled, unsafe, or altogether unhappy.

December 27th. Sasha is leaving today and Zeke hates me.

Casey rested his forehead on the page and fought down the urge to fill the page with black blobs. He shivered and scrunched his body backwards a few inches under the sheets, curling around his hands. How pleasant it would be to huddle here with the blankets over his head, abiding all day in a dim, private silence. It was a plan that made a fuck of a lot of sense but unfortunately everyone else in the house was already up. They were getting ready to take Sasha to his train and they'd come looking for Casey soon enough.

Sighing, he unfurled and returned to his journal, lying open on the mattress just on the other side of his pillow. He wrote lying on his stomach, while hugging the pillow under his chin.

Okay, maybe Zeke doesn't hate me yet but things still aren't right between us. It's me, I'm the sickness. I don't blame him for wanting to keep me at a distance, I'm telling myself not to hurt him but I know I will. Once Sasha leaves there'll be nothing to stop me.

"Hey, pal."

Casey lifted his head and saw his dad standing in the doorway.

"Yeah, Dad."

"Are you dressed? We're leaving for the station soon."

"I'll be right there," Casey said, shivering in anticipation of losing the warmth of his bed; their house could be a little chilly in the mornings, especially this room. He made haste to layer on the clothing — two t-shirts, a long-sleeved shirt and a sweater, two pairs of socks, even long underwear.

Downstairs, Zeke and Sasha were sitting with his parents at the kitchen table. His mother wore the grieving face that was always associated with the last day of vacation but he thought that his dad still had a few days left. As on most mornings, Zeke was looking groggy and cranky, not like anyone who was in a mood to communicate. Sasha was having some toast and coffee, and given his drawn expression and the shadows beneath his eyes he must not have slept very well. He welcomed Casey with a wan smile. "Hi, kitten."

Casey nodded, because he was afraid that if he spoke he would say something impossible like Please don't go, don't leave me here, I want to go home with you which was ridiculous because he was supposed to go on an adventure with Zeke tomorrow and he was supposed to be happy about it. He was supposed to be ecstatic, in fact.

I will be with Zeke...I will be with Zeke...have to be...

"Are you feeling okay?" Sasha asked him.

Something about the way it was asked triggered a memory of last night when he had been struggling through a dream of dark muck and there was a voice: It's okay, Casey, it's okay, stop kitten please, you're safe. And he, Casey, had been crying at the time. He remembered hearing himself now; he had sounded inconsolable.

His face burned as he said, "I'm...oh-okay."

"How about some breakfast?" his mom asked of him.

"There's no time right now," interposed his dad before he could reply. "We have to be going. You are coming with us, right, pal?"

"Yeah." Casey glanced at Sasha and felt like crying in the daylight now, or maybe screaming.

But he didn't cry and he didn't scream. He followed the crowd to his dad's car and joined Sasha and Zeke in the back seat. It was not a satisfying arrangement for those who were long-legged but it was fine for Casey. Sandwiched between them, he was in sensory overload, accepting input from two men who felt and looked and smelled exactly as they should. Houses and street signs floated past him, along with the other little details that were so perfectly known and recognizable but were somehow hostile to him.

At the corner of Front and Bay, he admitted it to himself: He wished he was getting on this train with Sasha. He was terrified of being without Zeke, yes, but he was certain to fall apart without Sasha — and once he fell apart, Bad Stuff would be the inevitable result.

He grabbed Sasha's hand, as if that would keep him from going anywhere. Sasha squeezed back and said, "It's okay, kitten."

"Wh-where are the — the Xanax?" Casey blurted.

"Zeke has them."

"Oh."

He kept holding Sasha's hand until they were at the train station. Upon arrival, they all got out of the car and his dad went to the back to unload Sasha's three suitcases from the trunk. Sasha didn't travel light; it was just one of those qualities that was either endearing or annoying depending on who you asked.

As the luggage was hefted from the trunk, Casey reached for a suitcase but Zeke snatched it out from under him, and Sasha already had the other two. "I can carry one," Casey said.

"That's okay, kitten — "

"I'm not a fucking cripple!"

His father reared back in shock. "Casey!" his mother exclaimed from a few feet away.

Zeke and Sasha just shared a look, not bothering to disguise it, and Sasha offered Casey the smaller of the two suitcases. Casey took it without looking at anyone and moved himself and the heavy piece of luggage into the train station as quickly as he could manage. Once he was out of the cold air he felt slightly less temperamental; he turned to face Sasha and Zeke, formulating his apology. His parents were just behind them, still looking a bit shell-shocked.

"Well," said his mom, a bit too briskly. "I think we'll say good-bye here and go wait in the car."

"Oh," Sasha said. "Well, then...Thank you, Frank...Allison...It was truly a wonderful holiday and I'm very grateful."

Casey's mom and Sasha shared a hug imbued with all their usual, easy affection. "You're welcome," Casey's mom said. "You're always welcome."

Sasha actually looked humbled, something that happened only rarely. "So we'll see you in Seattle at the end of January," he said.

"Yep," Casey's dad agreed with enthusiasm, no doubt at the prospect of attending the football game. He presented a handshake that was considerably warmer than what he had once offered to Sasha.

With another round of waves and goodbyes, Casey's parents left the train station. Then, while Sasha went to the counter to buy his ticket, Zeke directed Casey in the project of rounding up a trolley for the luggage. With the trolley and luggage secured, they found a relatively discrete space against a wall, where Casey could view most of the people in the station at the same time. When Sasha returned, the three of them stood there awkwardly together for a few minutes. There was nothing left to do but to say good-bye.

Sasha turned to Zeke first. "Have a great time in L.A."

"Yeah, sure."

Eyes narrowing, Sasha said, "Take care of him."

"Thanks for the tip."

Sasha shook his head slightly. He turned to Casey and almost got as far as a hug, hesitated, then said, "Can I talk to you privately for a second, kitten?"

Zeke puffed and shifted his weight. "Haven't you said everything ten times already?"

"Maybe I feel like saying it again," Sasha returned smoothly. He steered Casey away from Zeke, taking him just out of earshot.

"Sasha," Casey mumbled right away. "Sorry to be such a hag."

"Never mind." Sasha's long fingers touched Casey's face; he flinched before he could help himself and Sasha's hand fell away. "Tell me again. You're sure you want to go on this trip."

From a few feet away, Zeke's glower was palpable, the message shouting from him: Get on that fucking train, Sasha.

Casey steeled himself and answered, "Yes, Sasha."

"All right," Sasha said. "Kitten, I'm sorry if it seems like I don't believe in you — I do, you know." He looked up at the skylight overhead, obviously lying and fighting tears himself. "I don't know what I'm so worried about...you're way tougher than me. Just, please...remember what Dr. Chakri said about...taking care of yourself...and if you want to talk to me, you call me, no matter what the time."

"Okay."

"And don't forget to do your homework — I know you'll be having far too much fun hunting down the homes of the stars, but try to remember."

"Yes, Sasha."

"And don't forget to eat."

As he was expected to, Casey scowled.

Sasha's grin looked more like a grimace. "I'll see you in a week." He tilted his head. "There's my train, they're calling..." Casey hadn't even heard the announcement. He flung himself at Sasha, holding on with all his strength. Sasha seemed to be holding onto him just as tightly — but then suddenly he pushed him back and said, "Oh, fuck it, I can't do this upbeat thing right now. Just be okay, kitten."

"I will," Casey said.

He wished that he believed it. He wished that he wasn't such a liar.

They returned to where Zeke was waiting and smoldering. Sasha leaned in and extracted a quick hug from Zeke, just wrapping his arm around Zeke's neck and squeezing once before letting go. He canted a final look Zeke's way, one that could only be considered a warning, then grabbed his trolley. "Bye, kitten. Bye, Zeke. See you in a week or so."

He walked away with a tense set to his shoulders. Stifling the mad urge to run after him, Casey watched until he turned a corner and could no longer be seen. Something touched his shoulder; he whipped around, belatedly bringing Zeke into focus. Zeke held up his hands briefly. "Ready to go?" he asked.

Casey nodded, and fell in beside him.

The next item on the morning's agenda was to drop off Casey's mom at her work. She was the office manager at a local insurance firm, and had been for the last fifteen years. Prior to that she'd been an administrative assistant at that same firm. She'd never worked anywhere else, other than selling popcorn at the Odeon Theatre when she was a teenager. Casey remembered, years ago, wondering how she could ever stand everything being exactly the same, day in and day out. He'd wondered the same about his dad, who had worked for twenty-two years selling flooring. He'd almost been contemptuous of them but he was getting his just reward for that attitude now.

Once Casey's mom had been delivered to her office the three of them were homeward bound and there was now a vast wasteland of time looming before Casey that he didn't know how to manage. With each block that passed he was more hunched and more tense in his seat. He could almost taste hysteria rising in him, ready to burst its chemical bonds, clamouring for an act of degradation. Far too soon they were back at his house, the three of them standing just within the front door and the grotesque pressure was pressing against the back of his throat. He looked over at Zeke who was standing there in the front hall looking back at him and he very nearly said something that would have driven his father screaming from the room, something like Don't let me be empty anymore, help me, fuck me now, there's nothing to stop you.

Words tumbled from his lips nonetheless, tripping out, increasing speed as they fell. "S-so what — what should we do today, Zeke?"

They could have been harmless words except that he was switched on; he heard the demand, the invitation in his voice, and he knew that Zeke heard it too. Even his father must have heard something in that tone, for he shot a troubled look at them.

Zeke licked his lips once and said, "I don't know...get packed for tomorrow, hang out. I'll go for a walk with you if you want."

"Nah..." Sasha don't be gone why did you leave why didn't you insist...you know I can't, I can't, fucking help me I can't stop "...It's too cold." Casey found his eyes travelling slowly, making a map of Zeke's body, planting themselves on Zeke's crotch while he added softly, "You can help me pack if you want, though."

"I — don't know," Zeke said, clearing his throat.

"You know how I am." Casey thought he saw a growth, a swelling outline of Zeke's cock under his clothes. Branding himself as hopeless, he let his voice degenerate to a purr. "I'm a total sl-l...slob."

"I'm sure you can manage on your own."

"Oh, no. I need your help."

Zeke was shaking his head but he couldn't seem to not stare either. "Later, Case."

"When?"

"Much later." Turning away from Casey, Zeke said to his father, "Frank, do you think we might borrow your car — ?"

Casey felt a shudder go through him, a thrill that began in this stomach and shot instantly down into his cock...oh, yes, Zeke was just concerned about what his father would think but he was going to give Casey what he needed, he had to —

"Where are you going?" Casey's dad asked.

"Just for brunch...I thought," Zeke added, raising his brows in inquiry at Casey.

For a long second, Casey couldn't think past a haze of rage — but he hadn't lasted these almost-twenty years without learning that he could wait if he had to, so he shrugged his agreement.

Zeke went on, "I'll just call around and see who wants to join us...if it's okay."

Casey's dad was still frowning but evidently couldn't think of a reason to refuse. "Okay...I guess so."

"Thanks. I'll fill the tank up."

"Oh...well, that's good." With a final, uneasy look, Casey's dad said, "I'll be in my den..."

Zeke wandered into the kitchen to find the phone; Casey trailed after him, taking a seat nearby at the dinner table. Zeke picked up the handset, then put it down and considered Casey. "I just realized...I'm not sure where we're going," he said slowly.

"The Jam," Casey said, because it was obvious.

"I wasn't sure if we should go there."

"Why wouldn't we go there?" Casey heard himself sounding irritated and didn't care. It's for you, isn't it? It's all for you...and maybe after, you'll finally be willing to do something for me. "It's your favourite and we are leaving town tomorrow."

"But what about you?"

"What about me?"

"Yeah," Zeke insisted. "What do you want?"

"Zeke, I don't care. You're the breakfast king."

Zeke's eyes suggested that he was scanning the comment for insult. "The last time we were there was not very pleasant for you."

"I hardly remember," Casey retorted. "We can go there." He dropped into his most sensual register, aware that it would needle Zeke even further. "You know you want to."

Zeke's expression tightened. "Fine, then."

It turned out that Stokely had already returned to Seattle, but Stan was still around; upon calling his house, Zeke learned that he wasn't leaving until this afternoon, and moreover, was happy to fill his last few hours in Herrington with brunch. Delilah was at work but was willing to take early lunch and meet them at eleven.

"Do you want to drive?" Zeke asked Casey as they were heading back to the car.

Casey shook his head. "No, I like it when you drive."

Zeke came to a sudden halt. Standing on the walkway in front of their house, he said without even looking at Casey, "Is this what it's going to be like?"

"What...what'll be like?"

"I know you're nervous about Los Angeles but coming on to me isn't going to make anything easier."

"I'm not coming on to you, Zeke...and I'm not nervous about Los Angeles."

"Oh, no?"

"I'm..." Casey was now standing by the passenger side door, waiting for it to be unlocked. Fuck, but it was cold, and he wanted so much to be in Seattle, in his apartment, in his bed...or at least on his way there.

"You're what?"

"Never mind. Can you unlock the door, please?"

It was peaceful in the car for several bocks. Then, when they were almost at their destination, Zeke asked, "Case...are you sure — ?"

"Yes!" Casey exploded. "Fuck, yes, I want to, and why doesn't anyone believe me when I say I want to do something?"

Zeke shot back, "Who knows, maybe it's because it usually turns out that you're only doing it for me, not because you actually do want to?"

"I want to go to L.A. and I want to go to The Jam." Casey folded his arms. "I miss the pancakes."

After a moment of charged silence, Zeke snerked.

"Is something funny?" Casey snapped.

"Yeah. You are."

"I am not."

"Tell me you didn't intend that as a joke."

"I didn't. I don't make jokes."

Zeke snorted.

Casey would have said something else, but at that moment they were turning into the parking lot of The Jam. His vision snagged on the neon marquee, the old-fashioned diner style lettering and he instantly understood something that he hadn't understood before — that there was a difference between not remembering something and making oneself not remember. He had built a thin, brittle wall around certain past events, but with the physical setting laid out before him, the record of those minutes and hours burst through his pitiful barrier in an instant. The reel started turning and he was helpless to do anything but watch.

He knew he was sitting in a car staring at those glowing letters in daylight but at the same time he was half-naked and on foot with the letters a shimmering spangle of colour in the night sky, drawing him forward. He didn't feel at all like himself but it must have been him because there were impressions of pain, from his feet, his arm, his ass, pretty much his entire body. The rest of what he felt could be categorized as pain but the actuality was an emptiness so terrible that the word "pain" barely applied. He stumbled forward, falling and walking and crawling and thinking he might find help — find Zeke — in there.

"...all right? Case?"

Vinyl dash. Bright sunshine, faces in the diner window.

"Casey?"

He had found Zeke...no, Zeke was here and now, and now was four months later.

"Yes," Casey said thickly. "Sorry, I...my h-h-head hurts a bit."

He had to make an effort still, even though the reel was still spinning, images unfolding — Sasha gone, Sasha not here, mad at him, would never forgive him — shit, he couldn't...think straight...barely think — crooked all crooked, so filthy, so empty, so many people looking at him looking looking looking but why look when they knew him — fuck, he wasn't making any sense.

"Are you getting out of the car?"

In answer, he fumbled with the latch and the door. He thought he was doing fine but when he found his feet there was a solicitous wall of Zeke before him, reaching for him. He slapped the hands away and staggered into the restaurant, just like he had done before —

— just like before, when they were waiting for him in there. The person who greeted them at the door was one of them, one of the ones from the last time wearing a blue waitress' dress, nylons, comfortable shoes...she had smiled and warbled words and tried to get closer, probably going to touch him —

Zeke's voice sounded from somewhere near Casey. "Hello, Anne."

"How you doin', honey?"

"Good."

"Still gorgeous, I see." The alien-waitress turned her eyes on Casey. "Hello," she said to him.

"Hi," he whispered.

Zeke stated, "We need a table for four, Anne."

"Sure thing."

A hand descended on Casey's arm; he shrugged but it wouldn't move, guiding him to a booth and directing him to sit. The whole time, the alien-waitress Anne was still talking and Zeke was going along with it.

"So you're just here for Christmas, I guess?"

Zeke was going to answer that too, and Casey couldn't stand to have him talking to her. He jerked his head up. "Yeah, just here for Christmas," he said loudly.

He found that Zeke and the alien-waitress were staring at him.

"J-just...til tomorrow then we're going to — to — " to fuck finally to feel that pure release again not filthy not a stupid piece of meat that let himself be taken advantage of but not taken advantage when it was him giving himself to her finally to atone to belong " — I mean to Los— Los Angeles."

"Really — ?"

"Going to see Hollywood, see where the s-stars live — "

"And the wedding," Zeke interjected, overriding Casey. He explained, "My father is getting married."

"Oh, that's nice...excuse me, I need to get moving. It's great to see you Zeke...Casey."

As Casey watched, the alien...waitress...Anne...walked away. Meanwhile, Zeke had hunched over the table and was whispering furiously to him, "What's the matter? Should we leave?"

Casey shook his head.

"We can leave, it really doesn't matter to m — "

"No."

"Casey...I don't want a scene, please."

"No scene," he muttered thickly. "Just keep them away."

There was a movement beside him; he jerked, making a start at resistance but it was only Zeke joining him on his side of the booth, hemming him in. "This was a bad idea," Zeke said.

Casey sagged away from Zeke, moving all the way into the corner against the window. "I'll be okay — " he gulped, swallowing air as fast as he could get it down. He needed to fucking getting a grip. "Just — give me a second."

"Should I stay on this side?"

"Yes...please."

Yves would probably have some advice for him right now but he couldn't think of anything except counting so while he huddled there he filled his mind with drawings of numbers... one had a certain elegance while two and three were sinuous curves, four, a series of slashes and five was just kind of schizophrenic...By the time he got to twelve, they had stopped skittering about like free radicals bouncing and were lined up, quivering and threatening to fall out of place at any second but keeping more or less in formation.

Lifting his head, he thought that he was seeing some version of reality. This was Brunch with Zeke. Brunch with Zeke at The Jam and he could do it, he could do brunch with Zeke just like he could do Los Angeles...and he could do Los Angeles for Zeke but he couldn't wait to get to Los Angeles to have what Zeke had for him...if Zeke would only give it. Zeke had to give it...give it to him hard and fast, drill him into nothing and make a still, shimmering white of everything else...but Zeke would not. Zeke would rather eat bacon and eggs.

"Okay?" Zeke said, watching him with a slight flush.

"Yeah...but you know what would make me better?"

"Don't start..."

Casey glared right at Zeke and said, just a bit louder than necessary because he was fucking tired of watching Zeke try to squirm away from him, "A hard, dripping cock — "

"Casey, just — fucking shut up, please."

The door to the diner moved, disrupting the welcome bells and announcing a new guest, who was Stan. He waved at them unnecessarily from across the diner and came directly over to them. "Hey, guys."

"Hey," Zeke said tightly.

"Had enough of Herrington yet?"

"You could say that."

Stan tossed himself into the free side of the booth. "Dude, you have no idea how happy I am to have an excuse to get out of that house. My mom's...well, she's my mom, you know? But I think if I have to stay there one more day, one of us will die."

"Oh, yeah?" Zeke said.

"From the minute I get here she's been nagging and lecturing me and asking me all these questions about Stokely. She used to hate that Stokely and me were living in sin but now she would be so happy..."

"And to think that some people like their mothers," Zeke said, nudging Casey. It was an invitation for him to join the conversation, to act normal and put Zeke at ease but Casey didn't feel like accepting.

"Yeah..." Stan said, with a bit of an uneasy glance at Casey. "I do, too, except when she's driving me crazy. You know she and my dad gave me money for tuition?"

"That's cool."

"Yeah, it is...but she also invited our pastor to the house one day without telling me. Next thing I know I'm stuck there for two hours while he goes on and on about how God's ways are difficult to understand, how it might seem unfair that certain kinds of lifestyles are against God's law but those rules must be there for a reason."

"Yeah," Zeke said, "and the reason is that the Bible was written by a bunch of sexist, homophobic bigots."

Stan winced. "God, Zeke, don't say that so loud."

"Why not? It's a free country, isn't it?"

The alien woman in the blue uniform was back. She had silverware and menus and she asked what they wanted to drink. Casey requested water and otherwise kept an eye on her — seeing as Zeke and Stan were distracted by the task of ordering their coffee and enjoying her superficial attempts to flatter them. It was getting harder and harder to focus, though, because a thing was happening where everything was getting further away, like Casey was falling backwards down a long tunnel, his fingers scrabbling and scraping, seeking purchase but getting none.

At a great distance from him, Delilah had just arrived. "Well, look at my three boys!" she said as she sat down, kissing Zeke and then Stan on the cheek. She air- mailed one diagonally across the table to Casey. "Where's Stokely?"

"Gone back to Seattle yesterday," Stan said. "I'm on my way in a few hours."

"And you two?" Delilah asked, directing the question at Zeke.

"We're leaving tomorrow...but for L.A.."

Casey noted that Zeke's voice, like everyone else's, was coming from a great distance, barely recognizable. He tried to follow the conversation, his brain stumbling to keep up with who was speaking and to what purpose.

"Really? I'm so envious? What's it about, a honeymoon?"

"A wedding, actually. My father's."

"Oh...so you're speaking to him, are you?"

"Shut up, I already told you that."

"I just wanted to hear you say it in real time."

"Yes, I'm speaking to him. Okay? Now let's talk about something else?"

"So where's Rachel at?"

"I don't know and I don't care — something other than my family, I meant."

"Ah." A pause, then Delilah said, "What did you get for Christmas, Case?"

Oh, that was him, Case meant him...and what did you get for Christmas was...what did it mean? He had to be able to answer, he had to prove to Zeke...

It was too late; Zeke was answering for him. "I got him a digital camera."

"Wow...Zeke, you cheeseball, I think the most extravagant thing you ever got me was gift certificates for the mall."

"I didn't dare buy you anything, you'd just return it."

"True enough...so, Case, how is the shirt? Did you like it? Does it fit okay, because I was a little concerned that I bought it too small."

Casey searched his hard drive for the shirt...oh, it was the shirt that Delilah had bought for him. For Christmas. Casey hadn't tried it on yet...but he had to say something, he would say something. He pinched his thigh as hard as he could and forced out a mumble: "'s great, thanks...Del..I'll, um...wear it...to the wedding."

"Are you folks ready to order now?"

It was her again. Casey decided his best strategy for getting through this was to just not look at anything. He put his head down and listened to Delilah ordering some coffee with skim milk and artificial sweetener, an egg-white omelette with vegetables and no cheese. Stan ordered pancakes with ham and bacon, and Zeke ordered the lumberjack special, as ever. Then it was over to Casey. "Western Omelette," he whispered, keeping his eyes on the plastic-topped table.

"Thanks, folks."

"So, Stan, how's it been staying with the folks?" Delilah asked.

"The usual. For the first twenty or so hours it's like..."

Casey made his biggest mistake then; he thought to try looking up. Stan's voice was crushed by the roar in Casey's ears as he saw a man finish speaking with the alien-Anne-person and start walking towards their booth — it was him, the man from that other time who was one of them too who asked question after question, his voice getting louder and more violent and so Casey darted into the bathroom and tried to make himself tiny, to hide even though he had it in his mind that it was all over, she had won and everyone in the world was an alien except him because she had left him for some other, more terrible fate...that stall was the whole of his world, the last thing he would ever see, until he heard Zeke's voice and took the slight chance that Zeke might still be Zeke — and now that same man was approaching, tall and bulky and menacing as before and Casey was trying to be on his feet so he could flee, or fight if the man tried to stop him.

Except there was a table impeding him and something else was on his other side. His knees hit under the table, his body pitched sideways and he caught his balance by putting his elbow in the something — somebody — next to him.

"Ow, shit!"

It sounded like someone was in pain but Casey didn't have time to assess what that meant. He kicked out and punched at once, conscious of nothing except that they were coming to get him, to take him and hurt him like before so he kept struggling to the best of his ability until he heard Zeke's voice raised in a shout: "What the fuck — ! Casey, stop it...stop it!" And he was seized and almost controlled but he got free, and left with nothing else he fell back on tried and true methods, shrinking away from arms trying to grasp him until his back met obstruction.

He found himself in the corner with Zeke gaping at him, rubbing his upper shoulder. "What the fuck?" Zeke said.

The man-alien had stopped coming towards him. He was standing about ten feet away. Seeing the direction of Casey's gaze, Zeke twisted around and saw him standing there. "Gary," he said.

"Zeke...Just wanted to say hi."

"Yeah, hi. Um...do you mind maybe...sorry, Gary, but can you back off, please?"

The Gary-alien nodded. He turned around and went away, not in any hurry about it. Casey watched him put on his coat. He watched him speak briefly to one of the other waitresses. He didn't stop watching until he had left the restaurant.

"You remember him, I guess," Zeke said.

"I — I — ‘m sorry," Casey muttered.

Zeke said nothing to that.

"I'm sorry," Casey said again, quickly...and he knew that he'd fucked up. He'd fucked up bad.

"Never mind," Zeke said, sounding not terribly sympathetic. "Do you need to get up?"

"No," Casey said, too quickly. It was the last thing he wanted; at least Zeke was between him and everything else at the moment.

It was very quiet at the table. Casey figured it was up to him to re-start the conversation but he couldn't think of a single thing to say. He had never wanted out of a place so badly.

"I bought myself a new car for Christmas," Delilah announced gaily, and Stan leapt on that topic.

"Really? Wow," Stan commented. "What kind?"

"A Sunfire. It's teal green and it came with a CD player."

"Cool," Zeke said.

The food had arrived, and even if eating was just about the last thing Casey wanted to do, he let his world be comprised of Western omelette for some time, shutting out everything else as he concentrated on cutting, putting food in his mouth, chewing, swallowing. Only the fear of the bathroom in this place kept the nausea at bay.

At some point, Zeke put a hand on his shoulder. He recoiled before he could help it, and Zeke took the hand away so quickly he might have been burned. "You...ready to go?" he asked. His tone was neutral, neither kind nor cruel.

Taking a look around the table, Casey noted more or less empty plates scattered with bacon, pancake and egg debris. There was a pile of money along with the check, and Delilah and Stan were watching him with absolute pity.

"Yeah," he whispered, nodding.

Zeke stood up and gestured with his hand, offering to assist Casey out, but Casey extricated himself from the booth without touching Zeke. He felt eyes all over him as he walked out, eager for once to feel that icy blast of winter on his skin.

The four of them shaped a huddle just outside in the parking lot. Delilah said, "I wish I didn't have to get back to work."

"You don't get a lot of vacation, huh?" Stan commented.

"Nope. Just the two days. And New Year's, of course."

Casey recalled that he still had his old photos of Delilah tucked away somewhere at his parents' house and, looking at her now, he had a momentary thought of getting that camera Zeke had bought for him and taking some new ones. He'd like to be able to see her like this again — wearing a heavy coat, scarf and hat, looking like she'd just stepped off a runway. The oblique, almost-January light was good to her.

She saw him looking, smiled a bit knowingly, then leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. He kept still for it with an effort. "Take care, Case," she said. "I probably won't see you again until next Christmas."

"You should come visit us in Seattle," Zeke observed.

"Maybe, if I can get time off." Delilah distributed more kisses, then hopped into her new, teal-green car. A basso-profundo, chunky hip-hop beat started up along with the engine, rattling the windows. Waving once, she drove off, taking the parking lot just a little bit faster than was really practical.

"Well, I'm off too," said Stan.

"Okay, see you," Zeke replied.

"Bye, Case...see you in Seattle."

And then Stan was gone also, leaving Casey to face Zeke.

Getting back in frigid car was as unpleasant as ever. Casey's dad had never sprung for an automatic car starter, so the warmth that had been achieved prior to breakfast was completely dissipated. The seats felt hard, the vinyl was icy to the touch and the engine coughed and sputtered a few times before starting. Casey knew from experience that the air that was pouring out of the vents wouldn't become heat for several minutes at least. He hunkered into his coat, keeping his hands in his pockets.

For a time, Zeke was just sitting there next to him, letting the engine warm while he deliberated over the dashboard. Then he asked with a dangerous quietness, "What happened in there?"

Casey wasn't sure what he meant by that. He would have thought it was obvious what had happened, and therefore Zeke was just being punitive in expecting him to describe it.

"I'm waiting, Casey."

Rage boiled up within Casey, a curious sort of inferno when the external senses registered nothing but cold. He spat, "I don't have to explain anything to you."

Zeke's head spun with such intended significance that Casey shivered. He tried not to flinch.

"Really?" Zeke said softly. "You don't have to explain to me why you elbowed me in the crotch and kicked me in the shins. You don't have to explain why you insisted that we go to the Jam even though you basically fell apart the second we got there."

"I didn't — " Casey started, and gave up. He couldn't see the point of spinning his usual nonsense, not when he had no explanation that Zeke would actually want to hear.

"Didn't what?"

Casey set his jaw so hard that it ached with tension.

Zeke didn't so much sigh as breathe explosively. He put the car in gear.

A few minutes later, when he turned onto Wood Street rather than Harman Drive, Casey realized that Zeke wasn't taking them home. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"Just for a drive."

"It's cold, Zeke."

"The car'll be warmer in a few minutes."

"My dad won't like it."

"I'll bring it back in one piece and with a full tank of gas. He'll deal."

Casey knew from that tone that Zeke was not going to be dissuaded — and he was perfectly aware of what Zeke was up to — as in, not wanting to go back home so he wouldn't have to be tempted by Casey. As though they weren't going to be together in a hotel room very soon, completely alone with no Sasha's and no anxious parents. Well, Zeke would run out of distractions soon enough.

Fifteen minutes later, the interior of the car was beginning to thaw slightly.

"Okay," Zeke said. "You don't have to explain anything, but I'm asking. Please."

Casey hadn't been expecting to hear his voice until they were in his parents' driveway. It took him a few seconds to catch up to the idea that Zeke was conceding something, and then he couldn't quite recall what he was supposed to explain. "Um...what did you want to know?"

"What happened in the Jam," Zeke said, using his most patient voice. "I wondered...if you remembered something or if it was...a more general sort of panic."

"It was...the usual," Casey said. It was not a very good lie, with his voice all tiny and obvious. He'd done much better.

"Do you think it would have happened if Sasha had been with us?"

There was danger there. The tone was idle, almost careless, but Casey perceived the undercurrent of pain. "I probably would have ended up kicking him instead of you," he answered.

"I'm not so sure."

"Zeke...I'm sorry I did that, it was just...when I got in there I started to remember things...I didn't think I would."

"That's what I thought," was Zeke's reply. He made a right onto Front Street.

"Aren't we...going home?"

"Not just yet."

Shortly, they were at Herrington Park, a small, city-owned stretch of picnic and parking spaces that ran along the riverbank. Zeke turned in and parked the car in a slot facing the water. He gazed out at it, not turning to Casey, not saying anything to him.

"Zeke? What are we doing here?"

Still Zeke didn't move or speak — and now dread rose up in Casey like a wall, filling every cavity, every living cell in his body. After all the Zeke Tyler silences that Casey had known, he could tell instantly that this was a different one, a deadly one. This was Zeke getting ready to say Something, and when Zeke turned to Casey it would be with the full weight of all his thinking behind it.

As before, Casey found himself articulating whatever the craziness called for, simply opening his mouth and releasing the words even while the more sane part of him knew that they would not be well-received. He muttered, "So...are we going to fuck in the back seat, then?"

There was no doubt about it; he had provoked a reaction. He saw it in Zeke's eyes and it had him trembling even harder than a moment ago — Zeke wanted him to stop, to lay off, back off, quit being this way but Zeke had no fucking clue, no idea what he was capable of, how low he could sink and if he was expected to wind down just because Zeke was scared...well, Zeke had no idea what he was dealing with.

"You can't avoid me by staying in this car all day," Casey declared.

Zeke made a sound, just a little noise.

"We are going to be sharing a hotel room, aren't we? It's going to happen...so why not now? You've always wanted to do me in a car. Now's your chance."

Zeke didn't answer, and Casey knew that he was not helping his own cause at all but he just couldn't stop. He needed Zeke. He needed and Zeke had to understand that.

"C'mon, Zeke...what's a few days one way or the other."

Zeke unbuckled his seatbelt. He stated, "Before we go anywhere tomorrow, we need to talk."

And finally, he turned in Casey's direction. Casey looked into his eyes and saw the end.

"So are we going to fuck in the back seat, then?"

There were places on Zeke's arms and shins where Casey had struck him while lashing out in his latest histrionic rage. True, Zeke had seen him that way many times but this was the worst yet — because Casey had truly seemed to want to hurt him. Those sites on his body where Casey had struck were tender and they would certainly bruise, but that hurt was temporary. The rest of what Zeke was feeling was worse, and it was going to endure for some time.

Literally from the moment that Sasha had passed from Casey's view this morning, Zeke's dream of a relatively peaceful long weekend in Los Angeles had been dying a slow death. Well, if he was honest with himself, it had pretty much been dead yesterday but he had ignored that, good soldier that he was. He'd gotten up today with a sick feeling inside and tried to ignore that too. He'd known that going to the Jam was a bad idea, but a cold little part of him wanted to see just what Casey could handle. And now he fucking knew.

"You can't avoid me by staying in this car all day."

The tone was contemptuous, more than slightly sardonic and absolutely demanding — but all Zeke really heard was fear. He knew the fear was real, knew that Casey probably felt that he couldn't help himself. He also knew that if they went to Los Angeles together, at some point or another Zeke was going to be dealing with Casey's complete and utter meltdown when he discovered that sex was not going to proceed as scheduled.

"We are going to be sharing a hotel room, aren't we? It's going to happen..so why not now? You've always wanted to do me in a car. Now's your chance. C'mon, Zeke...What's a few days one way or the other."

The body opposite Zeke was shaking visibly, and Zeke knew that whatever it seemed that Casey was begging for, he was actually making a plea for help. He couldn't blame Casey for this debacle; Casey had given him the information that he needed an entire month ago and he'd done nothing with it. That wasn't entirely his fault either, but the result was the same either way.

Casey couldn't go to Los Angeles. Sasha had been trying to tell him but he was too thickheaded to grasp it, too preoccupied with having Casey to himself finally. He had seen Casey's growing apprehension but he hadn't understood just how much Casey could withhold, or that he would be able to hang on just until Sasha was no longer around to get in the way and not one moment more. Zeke couldn't trust Casey to be honest with him about what he was feeling, what he could handle — which was nothing. Today's breakfast was the perfect demonstration, and just a taste of what was to come if Zeke didn't stop it. He felt like an idiot for not figuring it out before Sasha got on that train. It was damned inconvenient and he really should have figured out a way to handle this sooner — but this was life. It got messy, reality was inconvenient and things like jealousy, resentment, hurt — and yes, love — got in the way.

Time to clean up the mess.

He braced himself for the anarchy that was to come and told Casey, "Before we go anywhere tomorrow, we need to talk."

Casey was no idiot; he knew what was happening. His face was that of a person watching his worst fear coming true. It didn't look like he was breathing.

"Casey, there's no reason to panic now. I need to be straight with you about some things...because I want to help, you understand? That's why I'm..." Zeke hated hearing himself talk like some talk-show host or self-help guru. He was just no good at this stuff, but he could only continue and try to say it all while he could. "Okay, it's me being selfish but I want you to be better, I want you to be like — like the person you were pretending to be on Christmas Day. I'm tired of the games and the back and forth and trying to guess what's best for you — I'm tired of it, just really, fucking tired. I don't want to do it anymore, and I guess that makes me a selfish prick but obviously the unselfish approach hasn't helped you much."

Zeke stopped, looking for some sign that Casey was hearing him. He saw a void where eyes should be, a rigid body that could have been marble rather than living flesh, the posture was so still and cold.

"Are you listening, Casey?"

Suddenly, the statue breathed. It shuddered...nearly pitched over. "Don't do this."

"It isn't want you think. I don't want us to be apart, I don't want to let you go, but I've...felt so totally out of whack the last little while."

It was painful to see Casey struggling just to form words. "You — but you can't — you can't control — "

"I know I can't control everything, Casey, but I really don't like this, I don't like feeling like I could do anything and you wouldn't stop me...I can't even tell what makes sense anymore. Do you like that feeling?"

"Yes — "

"You say that, but I don't think you mean it. You tell yourself you do, but you don't." Zeke put a hand on Casey's shoulder, even now thrilling to the knowledge of fine bones and muscle beneath fabric and skin. "Spadoni told me once if we tried to live without boundaries we'd lose ourselves and I told him off at the time...but I'm afraid he was right. I don't want him to be right...because it's been good. It has, it's been amazing, but for now it has to stop."

Just when Zeke thought Casey couldn't surprise him anymore, he managed it — by shaking off Zeke's hand, pulling himself up and, with the most frail, brittle dignity, telling Zeke, "Whatever you want to say...just say it. I'm not up for any philosophy right now."

Zeke would have smiled if he thought he could get away from it. Casey was going to be okay; he knew it even if Casey refused to. "Okay, you're right. What I want to say is...the one month break is going to have to continue indefinitely. I'm sorry, Casey. This is not a punishment, it's just...what has to happen right now."

Casey's eyes closed.

"Casey? Are you hearing me?"

"Yes."

"What do you hear?"

Casey sounded dead when he spoke: "That it's over."

"No — dammit, will you just fucking listen?" Maybe Zeke was not being as patient as he should be now — but he was so tired of battling Casey's delusions. He just couldn't do that shit anymore. "We're still together, Casey. All I'm trying to say is that the one month break isn't long enough."

"How long is...long enough?"

"I don't know...until you have some boundaries, until you start being honest with me about what you want and what you don't want...until you stop being afraid of me, maybe? And I'll do whatever it takes to help you, Casey, I'll go to therapy, delve into my childhood, talk about my toilet training if I have to — "

"What good is that?" Casey asked, his voice dull. "I'm the one who's fucked up, I'm the one who wrecked it all..."

"No, you're not. I'm fucked up too, okay? I admit it, I'm a control freak and all of that. I should have been more open to how you wanted to deal with Yves. If I had been, maybe you wouldn't have felt like you had to tell her what you told her."

"I did have to tell her."

"No, you didn't but like I said before, that's your choice."

"That's what this is all about," Casey blurted. Simultaneously, he shed his stillness and began to quiver. "You're mad at me and that's why you don't want to be with me."

Zeke gave momentary thought to holding back, but any tentative sally of tolerance was quickly overrun by an army of anger. "Okay. Yes. I was pissed about that and I'm still pissed...but that is not why I'm doing this."

"I think it is."

"What you think I'm thinking and what I'm actually thinking are two different things, Casey!" Zeke noticed that Casey had shrunk back against the window and realized that he had just bellowed. Even so, he could only reduce the volume slightly. "You want to talk about who's punishing who? You think the past month has been a picnic for me? Sleeping by myself, pretty much by myself all the time while you and Sasha are all cozy together and I can't stop thinking about how you — and Sasha always Sasha — decided to spill the beans to Yves without talking to me, after everything I did to try and keep you safe! I mean — fuck, what is about you that you just won't keep your fucking mouth shut!"

Dimly, Zeke realized he had lost the thread of reason in this conversation. His lover was gaping at him, almost shattered, and all Zeke knew was that he was nowhere near done.

Casey choked, "As — as far as keeping my mouth shut...okay, why should I shut up like...you and everyone else did a fine job of that."

Zeke was careful not to flinch; this was a core issue that would have to be faced and he was not going to lose ground because of it. He ran a hand through his hair and noted, idly, that it was shaking. "Maybe you're right," he conceded, "Maybe I let you down back then, right after they came...but I didn't want to get into that right now. I wanted to ask you to stop the dares and the staring and the double meanings and the touching...I need you to stop all of it. Will you promise me?"

"What if I don't?" Casey asked, defiantly lifting his chin. His mouth trembled just slightly.

"Okay, Casey, let's get something straight — I'm not going to have sex with you. Not now, not in Los Angeles — whatever you do or say. I'm asking you to stop because it will make it more bearable for both of us, not because I'm going to give in if you don't."

Before Zeke's eyes, the inevitable was starting; the fragile poise that Casey had exhibited was giving way to a distorted version of himself that was only interested in what it could destroy. "Case," Zeke pleaded, hoping to hold it back, keep it from taking over. "Don't you understand...I feel like I've been completely out of control for months and I'm just starting to get a few things straight."

"Hmm...congratulations to you," Casey whispered. "Too bad for me."

"But this is for you. It's for both of us. I wouldn't care about being out of control if it didn't mean that I...I was hurting you."

"Fuck you."

"Casey — "

"You're hurting me now but I don't see you stopping that."

"What do you want me to do, just hop into the back seat with you?"

"That's exactly what I want."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I can't just ignore the reality — not anymore."

Casey turned his head all the way to the right. Zeke could see his jaw working and thought that he was crying. When he turned back, however, it seemed that the emotion was something else altogether. "What reality..." Casey said softly, his breath hitching with rage. His eyes were flinty and cold even though terrified. "The one you made up where everything has to be under control..."

Zeke made an attempt to touch him, resting a hand almost on his shoulder but he cried out and contorted his body wildly to get Zeke's hand off him. Zeke knew not to try again. He shifted back, leaving at least a foot of space between them.

"No," he said quietly. "I'm talking about this reality — the one where you flinch when I touch you."

"I don't — do that."

"Casey...do you see yourself at all? You're angry at me for saying I won't have sex with you and at the same time you're pushing my hand away. You keep freaking out when someone looks at you the wrong way. You know what this is about, Casey, and it's not the fucking aliens, it's the other stuff — "

"Shut up!"

"No, Casey," Zeke replied, "I can't shut up about it. That was what you said to me, right? Well, guess what...that works both ways. It's too late to shut up about it, why would you have told me, why would you have given me the key if you didn't want me to use it?"

Casey was pressing closer and closer to the door. "I don't know what you're talking about." He was shuddering now too, his body language all about confinement and panic and needing to escape. "I don't know..."

Seeing him like this, Zeke was forced to call a time-out for himself. He hadn't intended to bring this stuff up right now — but he'd just proved his own point, he'd lost control again. Now he was in a situation where it would be cruel to stop what he had started. Anything less than a full commitment to this course would be cowardly and ultimately more harmful.

"The night you hit Winona..." he resumed. "You told me and Sasha something."

"I didn't."

Zeke decided to accept that Casey might have forgotten — even if he rather suspected that it was a willful forgetting. "You don't remember what you said?"

"I didn't say anything...there's nothing...nothing to remember."

"Casey, I'm sorry, but I have to remind you now."

"No."

"I'm afraid you can't say no this time, not to me."

The expression Casey wore was one of absolute hopelessness. "If you're going to leave me," he breathed, "just do it. Don't try to fucking help me first."

"I'm not leaving you," Zeke returned. "I'm never letting you go — and I am helping you, even if it might not seem like it now. You've been badly hurt, Casey, and it shows in so many ways. It was wrong of me to try to ignore it." Except there was a little voice that said Maybe you're wrong now, maybe you were right before and wrong now...or you're wrong both times...you're just wrong whatever you do.

But he couldn't accept that. For him, there always had to be an answer. He couldn't move ahead otherwise.

While he was in the process of realizing for the second or third time that he could only continue, Casey had turned from desperation to self-destructive rage. He cried at Zeke, "You can't fix me. You say what you want and go away feeling pleased with yourself — but I'm still going to be what I am."

There were so many things that Zeke could have said to that...things that were true but not at all benevolent, things that would have served no purpose but to hurt Casey. He asked tiredly, "Which is what?" even while knowing that he wasn't going to get any useful information in reply.

Casey tilted his head and at that very moment was transformed into that creature that sometimes spoke as Casey and still frightened Zeke no matter how many times he saw it appear. "I think slut was the word you used," said the creature with a peculiar smile.

"How many times — "

"You want me to tell you about the hotel? Fine. After you found out about us...I ran to Roy. He wanted me to come back to Cincinnati with him and I was going to go — but of course I wanted him to fuck me first. And he was happy to do it — it just turned out he'd brought a friend along."

"His wife."

"If you want to call her that...She came for me."

"Because Roy wanted it."

"I wanted it. I wanted to give myself to her. She said it would be beautiful and she didn't lie. It was beautiful."

"Casey, listen to me. You weren't well. You were delirious and this woman and her ratfuck husband took advantage of you. There's nothing beautiful about that."

"Oh...you're so right, Zeke." Casey smiled, his teeth stretching to a rictus, a brutal caricature of a smile. "Because she left me and he left me too and then I was alone again...you have no idea how cold it was. I'll do anything not to feel like that again. Anything...so I guess that does make me a slut but I don't mind."

"It doesn't make you a slut, Casey, it makes you a victim!"

The cold eyes began to burn. "Don't you say that."

"It's the truth."

"Don't you...you shut up!" Casey hissed. He tried to hit Zeke, without much success. The angles were awkward and he was too upset to control his blow. Zeke was easily able to brush it off and take hold of one forearm and the other wrist.

"Tell me you consented to what happened," Zeke gritted, holding Casey's fists at a distance.

"I did...and I loved it."

"You were used and hurt and that's the whole story."

"I wanted it. I wanted it and...I didn't stop there either, I said I'd do anything and I did."

"Would you just — for once — give it up and be honest — "

"I fucked Thomas."

Zeke's grip on Casey loosened; it fell away as he tried to process what he had just heard. "You...you what?"

"Fucked him."

Zeke couldn't seem to think of the right response, the one that would erase those words, make them into a nullity. He stammered like an idiot. "You — Thomas — but — "

"I lied to you before," Casey declared, almost triumphantly. His derisive smile wavered once and held steady.

"How — ? I mean — "

"The night I ran away and you found me in the fog I went with Thomas to his car." Now the dead, awful leer was starting to crumble. "H-he was — always — running into me. I knew what he wanted but you know — he really did need a little convincing — "

Casey broke off as Zeke's fist raised itself. He didn't flinch; he just stared at it, waited for it. It hovered, then fell — but not for a blow. Instead, Zeke got hold of both of Casey's arms again and wrenched him close, not caring if he broke him. Casey was like a rag doll, offering neither resistance nor participation.

"You're an amazing liar," Zeke snarled.

"I know," Casey gasped. There was a half-smile frozen on his face and tears standing in his eyes.

Zeke was not unaware of why Casey had elected to give him this information now. Casey wanted to goad and taunt him, to get him where all his insecurities and hang-ups lived — and fuck if he hadn't done a bang-up job. He was going to reap the benefits of it too, because Zeke was going to follow through with Casey's original proposal. He was going to really show him who he belonged to, he was going to drag him into the back seat and fuck him until he bled —

Fuck him until he bled.

Fuck. Fucking motherfucker.

As he pressed his fingers into Casey's upper arms and watched the pleasant spectacle of Casey's face twisting in pain, he hissed, "I'm not that easy to manipulate. You think you can just drop a little bomb like that and get me to lose control — well, you can't. I'm not going to hit you. I'm not going to fuck you and I..." His voice almost splintered. He held it together through an act of sheer will. "I'll probably even forgive you."

He released Casey from his grip...but he couldn't look at him. He stared at the river...it was a snaky, frozen little thing. He examined the nearest picnic table...a beat up and over-used item, topped with a few icy crusts. Finally, he let himself be fascinated by the Chrysler hood ornament on the car in which he was sitting. There was nothing much to be thought about that object; it was what it was, a metal-wrought symbol of nothing important.

When he eventually spoke, he was nearly calm but he sounded far from normal to his own ears. "We're going back in a few minutes," he said. "But first we're going to finish this."

"Finished," muttered Casey.

"Oh, I don't think so."

Zeke twisted to confront his...lover, boyfriend, enemy — he didn't know anymore. He saw the glistening eyes, the complexion gone sickly-damp and white, the features that shook with self-hate. And it was all still beautiful to Zeke, only he wanted nothing but to run away from it. He was not going to, though. Not yet.

"I'll forgive you, Casey. Not just yet, but eventually."

"Why?" Casey whispered. "Why would you?"

"Because I know what happened to you and I know you're acting out." Zeke knew how hard he sounded, but he didn't stop. "Fuck, Casey...you're so...so textbook, it's sad."

A tremor of confusion on the clammy face before him.

Zeke continued, "Yeah, I've done a little reading lately — seems that I had some time to kill, even with the exams. You're like a checklist, Casey...denial, shame, rage...deliberate promiscuity so you can maintain the fantasy that you consented."

"Fuck you," Casey whispered.

"Thanks, but no thanks." Zeke was ready when Casey reached for the door handle, missing pretty badly. In either case it wouldn't have mattered; Zeke seized his arm first. "You're not going anywhere." Whimpering, Casey tried to grip the handle and Zeke pulled hard on his limb. "Let go of that. I'm not finished with you."

Slowly, Casey uncurled his hand; his shoulders sagged. This was the final incarnation of Casey, the one that Zeke had yet to see today. It was Casey surrendering. Ready to let Zeke commit whatever crime he wanted.

And Zeke pitied him, but only in a distant, uninvolved way. Pity had been how Casey had gained all his power over him — and even over Sasha. Casey had had them right where he wanted them for months. Every time they pushed he fell apart right on cue and they would cave and tiptoe around, afraid to say anything in case he couldn't handle it. But the thing was, Casey wasn't handling much of anything these days, despite their best efforts at silence.

"So...let's summarize. You went to Roy looking for comfort — and yes, sex, because that's what you equate to comfort. And he was there with his wife, Janice, and he wanted you to have sex with her, or both of them together, which was it, Casey?"

No answer.

"Casey? Come on, you're not zoning here."

"Wh-what?" Casey blinked at him, doing a believable job of terrified and bewildered. Zeke's gut and head were aching but he could only press forward. He couldn't leave this undone any more than he could have begun to set a broken limb and stopped halfway through because the patient was screaming.

"I guess it's not important. Roy said you should be a family...that's what you told us. His solution to the problem I guess. And you said no..."

Casey just looked blankly at Zeke as Zeke leaned in, bracing an arm in front of him, flattening him back against the seat.

"You said no...and then?"

"He — convinced me."

"How? Did he threaten you with something? Threaten to leave you?"

Tears were pouring freely now. "Please stop...please..."

"I'll stop soon, I promise...How did he convince you — or did he? Did he just force you? I need to know, Casey."

"Didn't force...me...he took me and I thought I wouldn't have to come back...but I did, and then she was there. I was so scared...but I wanted it to stop."

"What to stop?"

Casey whispered, "Everything."

Hearing that, Zeke wanted nothing so much as to get back to somewhere that he could have privacy...maybe do a little howling. But he needed to hear Casey confess a bit more first. "So you had sex with both of them even though you didn't want to."

Casey twitched and shuddered.

"Tell me," Zeke pressed.

"'m...Zeke...gonna throw up."

He was about to call Casey's bluff by telling him to go right ahead, but taking a good look at Casey's face he had to admit that there was an undeniably greenish tinge there. He moved back, giving Casey his space. He saw Casey's jaw working and was momentarily afraid that Casey really was going to puke in his father's car but suddenly Casey had his seatbelt unbuckled — funny, thought Zeke, that Casey had been strapped in all this time — and was almost falling out his door.

Zeke shifted until he was back in the driver's seat. Facing the windshield, he put a hand over his face and rubbed his eyes while he listened to Casey choking and heaving. It went on and on until Zeke was ready to break and go help him, but it was right about then that Casey settled enough that he could drag himself back into the car and shut the door.

They sat in silence, more or less. Zeke could nevertheless see Casey's torso hitching out of the corner of his eye; he couldn't look or he would surrender to the insidious urge to give comfort. He gave Casey a minute or two to calm down, then started the car and got it in gear. "Put your seatbelt on," he said.

He waited until it was apparent that Casey was not going to comply, then reached across him and did it for him, still careful to avoid seeing him.

They drove back to the Connors' in silence. When they were sitting in the driveway Zeke turned off the engine, removed his seatbelt and said, "Casey."

He had no idea if Casey was going to hear this, but he had to try.

"Casey...what happened to you in that hotel room was bad. Maybe even illegal, I don't know but I do know that you need to deal with it. Until you do, we can't be together. We can live together in the apartment but we can't be together."

There was no response from Casey.

"I'm going to Los Angeles tomorrow and...I'd prefer that you go home to Seattle. Sasha was right, you're much better off with him right now and I...I want to go by myself." He didn't dare look for Casey's reaction to this. "When I get back...and I am coming back...we'll talk and I'll be much more compassionate than I've been today. I'm sure I'll want to apologize too, but...not right now."

He paused, listened, heard nothing.

"Let's go in before it gets too cold."

Turning just so he could catch a glimpse of Casey's profile, he was more than half-prepared to deal with a zone-out. In fact, he wouldn't have been surprised if Casey had dissociated somewhere back around Front Street. But again, Zeke was astonished. After a short interval of just a few seconds, Casey reached to unbuckle himself. He fumbled at it, his hands tripping at the task; Zeke was about to attempt to help him when he finally got it. He had more success with the door handle. Climbing out, he walked to the front door with an almost drunken, detached gait and let himself in. Zeke followed immediately behind.

That was where Casey seemed to lose momentum. Standing just behind him, Zeke waited for a whole minute and again was about to intervene when Casey initiated some motion on his own. He slipped his foot out of one boot — but then just stood that way, wearing the other one.

Zeke sighed, "Casey..."

He was unprepared when Casey turned towards him, catching him by the eyes. There was no visible emotion on his face, not the slightest bit of expression. Zeke abandoned what he was going to say, which was pretty useless anyway, and reached out to help Casey remove his gear.

At that, there was a rush of something in Casey's face, a flicker of something intense and ungovernable. Zeke expected to be struck but Casey didn't hit out, he just pushed him away — but slowly. A couple of fat tears remained after the gesture, the only evidence that he had felt something.

"That was a pretty long brunch — !"

It was Casey's father, standing in the space that divided the front hall from the kitchen.

"Yeah, service was slow," Zeke returned, and half-averted his gaze from Casey. He held out the keys. "Thanks for letting us use the car."

"No problem..." Frank Connor received the keys, frowning as he took in his son's posture. "Hey, pal, you planning on wearing that one boot to bed or something?"

Casey blinked as though his father were speaking a foreign language. "No," he intoned. He lifted the foot in question and tried shaking off the boot. It clung stubbornly to his foot. About several hard shakes he resorted to a manic kicking motion. Zeke didn't dare try to assist him lest he get booted in the head.

"Here, let me," Frank said, his eyes rounding with dismay. Risking injury, he knelt down and quickly put both hands on Casey to still him. Casey obliged him and let him complete the removal of the offending article. Dropping the boot aside, Frank straightened up with a bit of a groan and put his hands on his hips, stretching left and right a bit. Then he demanded, "What's wrong? What's going on here?"

Shrugging off his coat, Casey brushed around his father and went silently up the stairs, making no answer and no sound on the carpeted stairs. A door closed on the second floor with a crisp report, just short of a slam. Zeke would have liked to indulge in a similar performance, but he knew better than to try. He raised his brows at Frank, acquiescing to the inevitable interrogation.

Frank had picked Casey's coat up from the floor. "What's going on?" he demanded. Rather than putting the coat in the closet, he took a short-cut and hanged it on the nearby door knob. "What did you do? Why were you gone so long?"

Zeke thought about a number of possible answers and decided to go with straightforward information. "Casey's not going to Los Angeles."

A number of reactions battled for priority in Frank's face, but relief came out on top, trailed closely by annoyance. "When was this decided?"

"Just now."

"Did you have to wait until Sasha left?"

Zeke bristled even though he knew it was a fair comment. "Unfortunately, yes," he shot back, aware that he was coming off as quite absurd.

Frank folded his arms and said, "You're still going to your father's wedding."

"Yes..."

"So Casey would be flying to Seattle on his own."

Zeke started, "He'll be..." and couldn't finish it, couldn't say the word fine because it just didn't apply. In theory there was no reason why Casey shouldn't be able to do it, but in practice was another thing altogether; Zeke could walk Casey right to his departure gate and stand there with him until he had to go through it but that wouldn't be sufficient to allay worries or satisfy his own sense of responsibility. He concluded out loud, "I guess I'm going to have to fly to Seattle too, and change my flight so I can go from there to Los Angeles."

"Now just hold the fort for a second," Frank said. "I somehow don't think that it's necessary for you to do that."

"He can't travel alone," Zeke said through gritted teeth.

"I know that...but I could travel with him, or his mother could."

Zeke blinked. "You...you would?"

The look that Frank gave him was little short of disgust. "I'm his father. Everything isn't just up to you, you know."

"Oh," Zeke said. He knew how dense he sounded — but that particular message coming from this particular man was just about the last thing he would have anticipated.

They both heard a door open upstairs; then footsteps, and another door. Zeke surmised that Casey had just moved from bathroom to bedroom; Casey was predictable that way.

"I'm going to talk to my son," Frank declared, and started up the stairs.

"Be my guest," Zeke muttered wearily.

He went into the living room to sit for a few minutes. His body felt heavier than normal, sodden and lifeless. He wondered if this could be what grief felt like. It was not fucking pleasant.

His traitorous brain was already taking advantage of the opportunity to torment him, brandishing memories before his mind's eye...himself sitting next to Casey here on Christmas Day, excessively pleased by the sound of him reading Trivial Pursuit questions...sleeping with Casey on this very couch...watching Casey discover what he had received from friends and family, delighting when he made a joke about using Frank's credit card to buy him his gift...and fuck if Zeke hadn't bought it too, for that day. He always bought whatever Casey was selling.

Well, sitting here in mourning wasn't going to accomplish much. It wouldn't get him away from this place and that person any sooner — so he needed tasks, a list of items to complete. One major item, apart from the various conversations he needed to have with airlines, was to call Sasha. Except Sasha was probably in the air at this very moment. He wouldn't be in Seattle until around supper time.

It occurred to Zeke now that he had a moment to reflect that Sasha was probably going to kill him. No, first Sasha was going to ridicule him for being contrary and difficult all day yesterday and then, almost the second that Sasha left today, deciding that Casey needed to go home. But after Sasha found out what Zeke had said and done to Casey, he would kill him.

On the other hand, though...fuck Sasha and fuck Casey Connor.

The Christmas tree was still all sparkly and cute and Zeke thought with jaundiced pleasure of tearing it down, making a really nice bonfire of it. Right where he sat now, Casey had lied — and he'd lied quite skillfully but Zeke still couldn't believe that he'd been so stupid. He had known for some time that Casey was not in the habit of telling the truth, and yet all it took was a dash of eyelash-batting and a jot of nervous hand-wringing for Zeke to fall for it, like one of those burn-outs he used to con into buying his over-the-counter shit. Suppressing the cries of intuition and reason, he ate his pap and held his lover all through the night.

Zeke didn't realize Frank had come back downstairs until the man was almost standing right in front of him. Wearing a frown that was both mystified and distressed, Frank informed Zeke, "He won't talk to me."

Zeke almost said it: And this shocks you?

Frank continued, "I'll go with Casey to Seattle tomorrow. If you can find a flight for us that leaves roughly around the same time...hopefully Allison can get tomorrow free to drive us all to Cincinnati."

"That's not necessary, is it?"

"I don't like the train very much and I think...it's just as well if we go in the car."

Zeke nodded. "Thank you," he said hoarsely.

"No need to thank me."

In desperate need of a task, Zeke requested, "Can I use your computer?"

"Sure...why, though?"

"I need to book the tickets."

Clearly this was a method of organizing travel of which Frank Connor knew nothing. He nodded, still presenting that face of perplexity...and, quite evidently, he was getting ready to say something. Zeke couldn't think of a way to get out of there quickly enough to avoid it, so he decided it was best to speak up before Frank could formulate his question.

"You probably think I've done something to him," Zeke said. "You want to know what it is so you can rake me over the coals, huh?"

Frank shook his head. "I'd just like to know what's going on."

Understandable — but as far as Zeke was concerned it was not a subject for parents, and certainly not Casey's parents. "I can't really explain it."

Casey's father snorted a laugh. "That's what he said." The dregs of the smile already fading, he added, "I'd just like to get something."

Zeke didn't have anything to say. He didn't think that Frank Connor would be receptive to platitudes or expressions of pity.

He went to Frank's den and spent the next hour or so searching for flights. The computer was a bit older than Casey's and the Connors were still using dial-up, so it was a slow process. Zeke didn't mind. He took his time and was very thorough, comparing prices and potential departure times, and finally booked two tickets for a two- thirty flight the following day. The flight that was to have taken him and Casey to Los Angeles left Cincinnati at three; he didn't think he would be able to get a refund for Casey's ticket so he didn't bother to try to cancel it.

When he emerged from the den, he found that Casey's father seemed be hovering in the hall. "Done?" Frank asked.

"Yes. You and Casey have tickets for two-thirty tomorrow on Delta. No stops."

"And..." The man looked positively twitchy. "What do I owe you?"

Zeke made a point of not rolling his eyes. "Nothing."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Don't sweat it."

"Well...thank you...You'll call Sasha and ask him to meet us?"

Zeke had just noted the time on the computer monitor and knew that Sasha's plane would have landed roughly ten minutes ago, assuming no delays. "I will call him...but I don't know if he'll be able to do that, he works at night." Something told him that it was a good idea to be away from the Connor home when he called Sasha. He didn't want even the slightest chance that Casey would overhear him, or Frank or Allison for that matter. He added, "You know, I just realized I forgot to fill the gas tank on your car. I'd like to take it and get it filled up if you don't mind."

"Oh, well...sure, I guess."

The huge sedan was glacial all over again. Zeke let it run for a minute then cranked the heat up, not that there was anything like heat coming from those vents just yet. Rather than wait for it, he set out immediately for his old Starbucks and, upon arrival, went in to sit for a while. He decided on a decaf latte, figuring he wouldn't need any added barriers to sleep tonight. While sipping his latte, he had some thoughts about calling Delilah to meet him but he couldn't think of what he expected to accomplish by talking to her. He would much rather talk to Sasha — and now his watch said that it was just past four and as long as Jerry hadn't high jacked Sasha for any other activities, he should be home.

In fact, it was Jerry who answered their phone. "Hello?"

"Hi...Jerry, it's Zeke."

"Oh, hey, man, how are you? How was your Christmas?"

"Fine. Um...can I talk to Sasha, please?"

"Sure. Just a sec."

There was some obscure noise and a murmuring in the background, and then Sasha said, "Zeke?

"Yeah."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, just — okay, not nothing but just chill for a sec."

"Okay," Sasha said, but in his language that actually translated as Tell me instantly.

"I wanted to let you know that...well, Casey is coming home tomorrow."

"Casey is? What about you?"

"I'm going to Los Angeles. Casey's father is coming home with him."

"Tomorrow? When?"

"The flight will be in at four something. Delta Flight 543."

There was a pause and perhaps the faint sound of a pen scratching. "I have to work, Zeke, or I'd meet them — well, I could talk to Oliver, beg him or something."

"Sasha, they can take a cab."

"Hang on..." Sasha was having a slightly muffled conversation with Jerry. "Are you sure? But you don't have to...okay. Zeke, Jerry's going to pick them up. He's been working every night for the past two weeks and he says the floor manager promised him a night off."

"Well...okay. Tell him thanks."

"Zeke says thanks," Sasha echoed. Having negotiated more personalized transportation for his friends, Sasha immediately turned to what had to be, for him, the more salient issue. "But what made you decide this? I mean...why isn't he going all of a sudden? After all that arguing yesterday..."

Zeke's throat began to ache. He said, fighting to be casual, "Today I had a big... talk with Casey."

"I see," Sasha replied, tension carefully reined in but still present in his voice. "About?"

"I told him we had to — " Fuck if he wasn't actually quivering and this wouldn't do, not at all, because he was angry dammit, just fucking angry and he was not about to cry. "— we have to be on a break indefinitely, until he's better."

Silence.

"And I confronted him about what he told us, about Janice and Roy."

Silence.

"Hello-o-o?"

"Why the fuck did you do that, Zeke?"

"Because almost the second after you were gone he started coming on to me, Sasha. I thought he was more...I thought he could be reasonable, that he was going to amaze me with how together he can be but it turns out he's just been hanging on by the skin of his teeth. If we went to Los Angeles at some point he'd be having a complete meltdown when he found out we weren't going just pick up where we left off."

"And this is news to you?"

"Yeah, okay, I'm an idiot. I believed what I wanted to believe...I thought that something had actually changed."

"Some things have changed, Zeke."

"Not very much. We went to the Jam just before that and — "

"You went to The Jam? The Jam, Zeke? What the fuck is the matter with you?"

"I asked him if it was okay and he insisted, Sasha, he almost ripped my fucking head off when I suggested that we could go somewhere else! And then when we got there he promptly flipped out — so maybe it took me a few extra hours to figure out that I can't count on him to keep it together for me but I did figure it out eventually, okay?"

"Zeke...why are you so mad?"

The question almost undid him. He very nearly blurted out the news about Thomas — but he didn't think he could do that and manage not to cry. And there was a more terrible realization, a dreadful certainty that Sasha had known about Thomas, and if Zeke mentioned it he would have it confirmed that Sasha had been an accomplice in this as well as Casey's other lies. That was something that he couldn't bear to know, not today.

He made himself speak while forcing down bile. "Just — I'm frustrated, I guess. I want things to be different...I admit it, I felt like I couldn't let things go on the same anymore and I just started talking. I've had it, Sasha, I wanted to push the envelope so something could really change. It needed to be done."

"Maybe," Sasha breathed, "but you couldn't have waited a few days?"

"What for?"

"Well, gee, let me think...how about so I could be there too? Hell, you could have done it yesterday or this morning even, but you were the one who convinced me it wasn't the right time! It almost seems like...I wonder if you deliberately waited until I was gone."

"That is not fucking true, Sasha."

There was a pause. Zeke heard Sasha breathing deeply, containing himself.

"All right," Sasha said then. "I guess things just get blurted out sometimes."

"You've got your wish now at least, Sasha. Casey's coming home."

"And...how is he?"

It was a question that Zeke did not want to turn his mind to — but he had no choice. "I'm not sure. I did tell him several times that it's not over but of course he only hears the parts he wants to."

"Shit, Zeke."

"He should have been able to handle it, with everything he's handled already..."

"Yeah, but who knows what kind of fantasies he's been spinning to get through this month...and what about the other part, about Janice? How did he respond to that?"

Zeke steeled himself against remembering the details; he did not want to start feeling any empathy for Casey right now, if he did he would be lost. "He fought me on it but eventually he just kind of...gave up."

"Oh, fuck..."

"I did get him to basically agree that it happened. I got him to talk about it."

Sasha's breathing was coming across the lines as a lot louder than it should have been; otherwise, he was far too quiet..

"It had to be done, Sasha. It's like he's trained us both not to ask any questions...remember how he freaked on you that time? So you let it go and I let it go but this time was different. I think he wanted us to bring it up, that was why he told us in the first place."

"But you know damn well that he probably didn't remember that he had told us. He was drugged out of his tree." Sasha paused, sighed, then said, "I'm not saying I disagree with the reasons for doing it. I'm just afraid it's too much, all at once."

A shudder moved through Zeke, and as much as he did recognize doubt when it shook him, he determinedly crammed it down. Yves had told him there was a fine line between helping and enabling — and he had been enabling Casey all this time, he was sure of it. To really help, it seemed, required being willing to say things that would cause terrible pain. Everything else he had been doing, all that patient comfort and tolerance...that was no better than slapping a band-aid over an infection and ignoring it.

"I have to go," Zeke said.

"All right...be sure to keep a really close eye on him."

"Obviously."

"Okay, then. You will call us from Los Angeles?"

Zeke hesitated.

"Yeah," he whispered, not sure if it was true.

After hanging up he finished his cold latte, took the car to get it gassed up and then went back to the Connors'. By this time Allison was home, and was in the middle of cooking something that Zeke recognized, by the aroma, as carbonara α la Connor. Frank was in the kitchen with her, carrying on some sort of whispered conversation. Zeke attempted to pass by the kitchen with just a nod, hoping he might just get away with going on upstairs for some alone time—

"Zeke," Allison called to him.

No such luck.

He joined them near the stove, taking up the pose of watching Allison stir the frying bacon. It smelled delicious, too, but Zeke didn't know if he'd be able to swallow food tonight. Allison glanced up from her pan and said casually, "We were just talking to Casey."

"Uh-huh."

"He's really upset." Allison stopped stirring so she could give Zeke her full attention. "He's...like he was in July and I don't understand how..." She paused to contain emotion. "He said you broke up."

"No," Zeke snapped, wanting to pound on something. "We didn't break up. It's complicated but that's not what I said."

"Then I just...don't..." Allison shook her head. "I don't know what we can do."

He really would have liked to just leave it at that, but taking a second and a third look, he recognized two parents in complete obfuscation. They had just witnessed a Casey who had been drastically transformed from mere hours ago and they were desperate to comprehend it. To be fair, they had probably been trying all along to do that yet they were crippled by a lack of information. Their knowledge of their son was a mere fraction of Zeke's and he made a decision on the spot to offer them something — because, for once, he could empathize. It must be terrible being Casey's parents sometimes.

"I'm kind of giving away confidences here," Zeke began.

He was right. From the way that postures straightened and eyes sharpened, they would sop up even the slightest insight into their child.

"Casey's got a problem where he overreacts and misinterprets things...things having to do with his relationships...to the point that he fantasizes things that aren't true." That had to be one of the nicer ways to say that their son was sometimes on the brink of psychosis. "I did not tell him I want to break up, I told him I definitely did not want to break up but there are certain rules and restrictions on how we can be together — " He felt his face getting hot and imagined he was as red as they were getting right now.

"What's this problem called?" Frank asked.

"You know...to be honest, he doesn't actually tell me a lot of what he talks about with his shrink. I'm going by what I've seen and what Spadoni told me. Spadoni used the word 'borderline' but I don't know what Yves has said. I just know what I see." He combed his memory banks for the conversation he'd had with Dr. Spadoni months ago. "This thing...it has to do with being afraid of being alone...being abandoned."

Unintentionally, he'd struck the Connors deeply. He knew it the moment the word "abandoned" left his lips.

"How...how did he get this way?" Frank Connor asked.

Tell us this isn't our fault.

Zeke cleared his throat. "It's a combination of things, from what I understand."

"But I thought this was more to do with that Roy."

"That's definitely a part of it. I can tell you that Roy was...not very consistent with his attention and when he did pay attention to Casey, he wasn't always nice." Zeke stopped there; he felt that he'd already revealed more than he should have. "Look, I want you to know that whatever Casey tells you...I haven't ditched him or dumped him. I'm going to Los Angeles but I'm coming back." He closed his eyes for a few seconds to collect himself, finished, "I'm sorry I can't say more. I just wanted you to know that — that — he's never going to be alone as long as I have anything to say about it."

Allison sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. She said solemnly, "Thank you, Zeke, for telling us that."

"He's going to be okay, then," Frank said, not quite asking a question.

Zeke mustered an optimistic tone and replied, "He is getting better, Mr. Connor. He's unhappy with me right now but we'll get past it. That's how it goes. He gets mad, he gets depressed, then he's tired of himself and he finds some way to end it...it's two steps forward, one step back."

They both nodded, happy to hear a familiar tune.

Zeke needed to change the subject to something more innocuous. "I...take it dinner is almost done?"

"Yes," Allison said brightly. "Carbonara. Maybe you could...go up and tell him that it's almost ready?"

It was a blatant attempt to induce peace-making. Zeke conceded with a nod and went upstairs to what had been Casey's and Sasha's room. There was no one in it, and he realized that Casey must have gone without a second thought into the room that Zeke had slept in last night, into his old bedroom. It stoked Zeke's anger anew — just another demonstration of Casey's self-absorbed, all-consuming misery.

He went to that other room and knocked. Not surprisingly, there was no answer. He waited a few seconds before going in.

There was a wintry, sloped, late-afternoon sunshine in the room and a Casey-lump in the bed, its back to the door. Zeke found the computer chair that he remembered having sat in once before and wheeled it closer to the bed. He decided to wait and see if Casey wanted to stir out of his funk without prodding, but after a solid length of silence Zeke took it upon himself to start the conversation. As usual.

"Casey," he began.

"I suppose you want me to move."

"Ex-excuse me?"

"Back to the other room. I didn't think when I came up here."

"No, it's fine. You can stay here." Zeke considered the window and the grainy light entering the room through it. "I booked you and your father on a flight from Cincinnati...tomorrow at two-thirty five."

No sound from the lump on the bed.

"So you'll be home tomorrow."

Nothing.

"Casey...do you think you could grunt or something so I know that you're listening?"

"I heard you."

"Thank you. I already called Sasha to let him know you're coming home." Zeke stood up, propelled by a need to get out of this room, and the motion rolled the computer chair back a few feet. "Your mom's attempted carbonara again."

"I'm not hungry."

The tone made Zeke want to tear off the blankets and rip Casey from the bed. "Neither am I but I'm going to show up and be considerate. Do you think you can do that much?"

Yet another silence fell. Zeke had to resist the desire to do something unkind and not in the least helpful — and he jumped as a strong knock sounded on the door. A moment later Allison walked in, smiling in her tentative way. "Hi, boys."

"Hey, come on in, it's a party," Casey said in the same monotone as before.

Allison looked more uneasy than hurt. "Dinner's ready, hon."

Casey muttered something.

"What?" his mother crooned. "Did you say something, Casey?"

Still keeping his back to them, Casey lifted his head off the pillow and spoke clearly: "I don't like carbonara."

"You what?" Zeke blurted.

"Pasta carbonara...I don't like it."

"You never mentioned that before," Zeke fumed. It was actually un-fucking- believable. He wondered if Casey had ever spoken a word of truth to anyone — and he had not missed the way that Casey's mother was pursing her lips, perhaps near tears.

"It's okay, hon," she said. "I'll make something else for you."

"No, he'll eat it," Zeke growled.

"He doesn't have to eat it," Allison reprimanded, with a glare at Zeke.

Unexpectedly, Casey forced himself upright, throwing off the covers and facing the two of them. "I don't mind it, Mom, really. It's okay." In the rapidly diminishing light he was a greyish colour, his reddened eyes sparking with an unhealthy glitter. "It's more that I have to tell Sasha...it's just not my favourite."

"Oh," Allison said. "Are you sure, because I don't mind..."

"No, really, Mom...It's okay." Casey got his feet onto the floor, pushing himself upright. "I'm coming down now."

Trying to eat dinner with Casey and his parents was agony, though. Casey was an absolute non-participant, poking at his food and occasionally gifting Zeke a glimpse of some fervid, private message with a shift of his head and some minute vertical exercise with his eyelids. Meanwhile his mother fretted and his father looked crushed by disappointment. Zeke tried to make conversation, something that he knew was completely out of character for him but in this instance felt like an emotional necessity.

Towards the end, they got onto the subject of the next day's itinerary. "Casey, your mother is going to drive us all to Cincinnati tomorrow," Frank began.

Casey shrugged or nodded or made some other non-committal gesture that started Zeke's blood boiling. Everyone in the room was trying except Casey, who must have given himself a permanent Hey, look-at-me-I'm-a-mental-patient exemption.

Appearing increasingly disheartened, Frank soldiered on with, "I thought we should get on the road by seven. That way we'll have enough time for lunch and we can still check in reasonably early."

Miraculously, Casey spoke. "Okay," he agreed.

"Casey, hon...aren't you hungry at all?" his mother pleaded.

Casey glanced at Zeke yet again, and this time it seemed to be with a certain amount of shame. "Yeah," he said, and over the next half-hour succeeded in making a bit of a dent in the food on his plate.

When this ordeal was over, Casey went back to his room without a word. Zeke excused himself shortly after and went up to the room to which he had been assigned by default — which was still strewn with Casey's things. He waited until he heard Casey go to the bathroom, then went next door and retrieved his own belongings. Not wanting to be faced with the project at five in the morning, he spent some time trying to fit everything back into his luggage. He had expected it all to shrink after his hockey bag full of gifts was delivered, but somehow he had exactly the same volume of stuff. One of these new items was the CD that Casey had given him, that he hadn't yet listened to. He stared at the black, uninformative cover for a while and almost tossed it in the garbage. At the last moment he threw it in his suitcase and buried it with socks and t-shirts.

Once everything was packed and the alarm set, he read for a while and then got settled in bed even though it was still only ten o'clock. He had it in mind that once he was well hidden in the darkness, he was going to allow himself to cry — but, typically for him, once all the conditions were optimal for a discharge of tears he no longer felt like it.

Somewhere on the other side of the wall, Zeke was sleeping, weary from his labours of the day. Huddled in the single bed that he'd slept in for years, Casey was awake and still wearing all of his clothing from that day; he'd been too cold to undress and too miserable to care after that terrible time sitting at the dinner table with his parents and Zeke. Hours had passed since then, hours with him just clenched up in his bed, and he was still freakishly cold. He couldn't feel his body. All his senses knew were Zeke's words from before. They were a non-stop torrent roaring in his head: It has to stop...indefinitely...indefinitely...indefinite break...indefinite as in without end, ending without end...forever and ever without end amen...you had sex with him did he make you and then what how did it happen what did she do it wasn't beautiful, Casey, it wasn't beautiful it was two ratfucks it wasn't beautiful —

What he had been expecting...this wasn't exactly like before. Before had been awful enough; for days he had lain in his bed feeling dead as he remembered Roy's words, wondering how feeling nothing could be so painful. Now was a hurt as bright as his branding with the iron, except he would have gladly felt the iron again in lieu of this. It was relentless, and by now he should have been hyperventilating, running to Zeke to beg for a Xanax, to beg for something...or failing that he should have been disappearing before it got too bad. But there was no fog to rescue him this time. He'd even tried to induce an episode, make the fog come and take him away...but it didn't come. There was no zoning, no panic attack even though he was fucking scared beyond belief, and there was no escape.

Of course his parents were anxious to comfort him. They kept coming at him, trying to figure out a way to be useful. The first time it had been just his dad, shortly after he and Zeke arrived back from the Brunch of Doom, tentatively sticking his head in the room.

"Casey...hey, pal, you...um...okay?"

"What?" he had snapped. He had been rolled up in his blankets facing the window. His head had been splitting, his stomach roiling even though it was empty. The first thing he had done when he came upstairs earlier was to go in the bathroom and sit on the edge of the bathtub, waiting for nausea to overcome him again. After a few minutes it had become apparent that it wasn't going to happen. He had splashed some water on his face and rinsed his mouth then, before taking himself to his bed.

"I thought...maybe you could tell me what's wrong?"

"I can't."

"Why not?"

The man just hadn't gone away and Casey had retorted, hoping it would do the trick, "Because...you don't really want to know."

A stilted pause had recognized the truth of the statement. Casey expected that to be the end of it but then his father had returned, "Maybe I'm not entirely comfortable with all the details but I do want to know what's bothering you."

And Casey had very nearly said what he thought: It's too late for that, Dad. You could have asked five months ago, or five years ago, but you didn't, so excuse me if I don't have the will to help you feel better right now.

But he hadn't said it, and his father had remained determined to get the goods on Zeke.

"So what did that punk do to you?"

"Nothing."

"Don't lie, Casey. He did something."

Casey had rolled over onto his back to face his father and replied, making no effort to be anything but cryptic, "I lie, he tells the truth."

There, that had done it; his father shook his head, visibly giving up. "Well, if you feel like telling me later...anyway, I thought you should know that I'm going with you to Seattle."

It had been a shock. Casey had been expecting to hear a plea for him stay in Herrington and instead — "You don't have to," Casey had whispered.

"I'm going...end of discussion."

It turned out that Zeke and his father had a lot in common.

Later, his mother had gotten home from work and Casey heard them carrying out one of their low-voiced, parental conversations downstairs before their footsteps sounded together, climbing up together to deal with their disturbed and disturbing son.

His mom: "Casey...there must be something we can do to help."

His dad: "Just tell us what happened."

"We broke up," Casey had finally said, just to try to shut them up.

His mom sounded startled. "You broke up?"

"Not according to him. We're still together, we just aren't together..." His voice had been bleak but strangely steady; he couldn't believe the sound of himself. "He says he's not going anywhere...but he's already gone."

"And...that's it."

"Yeah, that's it."

It was quiet for a time.

"See, you don't want to hear it," Casey had said. "You don't want to know about your son being crazy — and gay, and — and falling apart because some guy — dumped him."

"Just hold on for a second." His dad had boldly sat down and put a hand on his knee. Casey tried to twitch it off but the hand was not removed. "I'm not thinking that. What I'm thinking is why is my son...why does he take certain things so hard — not that you shouldn't be sad, but why...?"

The fumbling and tripping of his father had amounted to a basic question...Why are you like this, Casey...and even though Frank Connor would never be good at this, never really comfortable talking about these matters, Casey comprehended that he had a responsibility to his father. To both of his parents. There would always be a limit to what they could know about him — and yet they did care. He knew that, and he was conscious of wanting to make it okay so that whatever happened next they'd be able to believe that they had done their best.

Casey had forced himself to sit upright, to address them with his full attention, or at least the best that he could provide at the moment. "I'm sorry, Dad...sorry, Mom."

"Sorry?" his mom had echoed.

"That you can't fix me." Someone started to speak but Casey had overridden it with, "I have two doctors who can't fix me, Sasha can't fix me and I can't even fix me...so don't think it's you, please."

There had been a long silence, and then his mom had said, "It's not about fixing, it's about not wanting to see you like this...so hurt." She had settled on the bed along with his dad, her eyes big and sad and teary. She'd been near crying as she spoke. "If you ever get to be a parent...you'll understand where we're coming from."

This was one of those rare times that Casey saw his mother in tears and was not affected by it. Regret was still the strongest emotion he could find for her — regret that she had to feel bad about him. He hadn't wanted that. No doubt they had been looking down at him, seeing him frosty-eyed and desolate and feeling like they had failed. He had been able to watch it happen — the confusion and worry in them gradually transforming into outright guilt and distress. And he'd had nothing more to offer so he had just waited for them to leave. Finally, they had.

Hours later in a darkened, quiet house, sleep came to Casey at last — but still there was no rescue. As an escape route his sleep had been compromised; he tossed and trembled, the dark filled with jumbled, confusing flashes of dream matter.

He woke a while later, sweating under the covers. The clock informed him he'd slept an inadequate number of hours and although it was still an hour before he was supposed to be awake, he'd had all that he could take of this bed. He got up and padded silently to the bathroom to have a shower.

In a bathroom that he had known all his life, the light from the fixtures above was brittle and strange, the walls too close. He wondered, not much interested in the answer, if he really was dead, if he had been haunting his life — but of course he was not, he had already eaten and digested a meal, carried on some conversation, slept. Everything carrying on, more or less. He had been betrayed yet again by his body.

"...so filthy...fucking filthy piece of shit..."

He turned on the shower as hot as he could make it without scalding himself, then got undressed. As he was doing so, he caught his image in the mirror. He looked away quickly, but not before he had a glimpse of himself. Suddenly, smashing the mirror didn't strike him as nearly so excessive as it had yesterday. It felt like a good idea. He liked the idea of the noise, the blood, the people running to see what was wrong and having to confront the fact that he wanted to hurt himself. See, he would be saying, this is how bad and crazy I can get. Make sense of it or not, I don't care.

He was standing in the middle of the bathroom naked, too cold even to shiver now. Crawling into the shower, he just stood there under the near-scalding water for a length of time, until his skin turned a deep, patchy red but not nearly deep enough to be satisfying.

That thought got him trembling and made haste to stop the water and get out. He dried himself, then went back to his room — whereupon he realized that all of his things were in the other bedroom where Zeke was, so he was forced to put back on the same clothes that he had been wearing, underwear and all. It felt far more disgusting than he would have expected. He sat on his bed, pulled up his knees and laid his head against them.

When he heard Zeke moving around he checked the time; it was six o'clock, which meant that he'd actually managed to vacate his mind for about a half an hour. He listened to Zeke going down the hall to the bathroom...then to Zeke taking a quick, five-minute shower...the water running as Zeke shaved and brushed his teeth...

Next, Zeke's soft footsteps were coming back down the hallway, and Casey cursed to himself for having been so enraptured by the sounds of Zeke that he had missed the opportunity to go collect his belongings. He got up and made his bed neatly, then stole next door, peering through the half-open door into the guest room. Wearing the new sweater that Jerry had given him for his birthday, Zeke was rummaging in one of his bags. When he turned and spotted Casey, he started loudly. "Fuck! Casey...!"

"Sorry," Casey whispered.

"What — what do you want?"

"My stuff is in here."

Zeke made a point of glancing around the room, although he had to have noticed it already. "Oh," he said. "Just give me a second and I'll be out of your way."

Not five minutes later he had vacated the room, lugging his bags down to the main floor of the house. Casey felt tears scratching at the back of his throat as he witnessed Zeke's intent, calm expression and the way his resolved, cold back descended the stairs, making it glaringly obvious how Casey was nothing more than a challenge to Zeke's trademark cool and stoicism.

Casey hurriedly shed his unclean layers for fresh ones, throwing the rest of his clothing and his other belongings in the suitcase; if he had made some sort of attempt at order he probably wouldn't have had to fight to get it closed — but fuck it. He stuffed the Orson Welles movies, the digital camera — plus his journal, discovered under the bed — into his backpack. It then occurred to him that Dr. Yves would probably want to know what he was feeling at this point. Despite the fact that it didn't fucking matter much anymore, he dug the journal back out and plunked himself down on the bed. He didn't bother with a date.

It's over.

Forcing the rest of what was within him into the shapes of recognizable words and pushing them through his fingers seemed almost impossible. He closed his eyes, gripping his pen and gathered his energies for a while before resuming.

He's going to Los Angeles. He said he didn't want me with him. He made me talk about that thing with Roy and Janice and it felt just like it was happening again. I would have said anything to stop it. I did say anything to s.

He couldn't write that. He was done. He wrote one more thing, just one word — Sasha— then tossed the journal aside.

There really was only one reason that Casey was eager to get on that flight back to Seattle — Sasha was at the other end of it. Not that Sasha could really help but he at least would hold Casey. But would he really want another person in his bed on a permanent basis, a person who wasn't his boyfriend? It was one thing to do it for a couple of weeks or even a month and another to just accept it as the norm. There was the couch but clearly the apartment wasn't intended for three separate, unattached individuals. Surely then, Zeke would expect him to move out. One didn't cohabit with an ex-boyfriend, it was just not comfortable...and since he would be moving out, it didn't make a lot of sense for him to be in Seattle. He'd talked about returning to school — the very memory of it was laughable, even if it was just one course. He would be wasting his dad's money, wasting everyone's time.

Choking on a sob, Casey hugged himself and whispered, "Can't..." God, he hated the sound of his own voice. He hated his words, the way he wrote, the stupid book...he hated his own thoughts. He hated everything except the lingering memory of disappearing, subsiding within a perfect, pure silence.

Gradually, he became aware that his parents were up, and he was grateful for that because his dad's agenda suddenly kicked in. From then on, everyone in the house was occupied with the details of getting organized and getting a quick breakfast — not that Casey was interested in eating. There was a burning weight in his stomach that foreclosed on the possibility of food, and since Zeke was ignoring him and his parents were preoccupied, for once there was no one to nag him.

There was a brief debate between Casey's parents as to which vehicle they should take, but the Jeep easily emerged victorious. All the luggage went into the back of it and then they were on the road, only a few minutes over-schedule.

Casey didn't know how to face a three hour plus drive to Cincinnati with Zeke beside him, but mercifully, his exhaustion bailed him out. Half an hour down the road, he fell asleep with his head pressed against the window frame, pillowed on his balled up scarf. It wasn't a good sleep but he clung to it, forcing consciousness back every time he heard a noise or became aware enough to appreciate the throbbing in his head or the ache in his back.

At length, the Jeep came to a full stop and he was forced to open his eyes. He saw that they were at a travel oasis with a gas station, restaurant, and convenience store, and only a few feet away from him, Zeke was engaged in a mute examination of his face.

Casey couldn't face him — and anyway, he had been specifically asked by Zeke not to stare or otherwise challenge him so he straightened and stretched, looking anywhere else, and notice then that both his parents were absent from the front seat. "What's going on?" he asked, hoping to be told that they were only minutes away from Cincinnati.

"Your mom's making a pit stop...your dad's getting some coffee." Zeke seemed to have no intention of breaking focus and Casey's skin got hot. He felt like he was being ground down in his seat. His parents would return and find nothing left of him but a little bit of dust. Zeke added, "He didn't know if you wanted anything."

Upon reflection, Casey realized he was both thirsty and hungry. He escaped from Zeke's fixed stare, scurrying across the icy parking lot to the store. Taking a bit of a roundabout route to avoid the several strangers inside, he located his father at the coffee dispenser. "Hi, pal," his dad said. "You were right out of it there."

"Mmm." Casey hunted around for a clock. "Um...how far...?"

"How long 'til we get there?" his dad said with a bit of a grin.

Casey produced what he assumed to be a facsimile of a smile.

"About an hour," his dad supplied. "Do you want something? You didn't have any breakfast."

Already exhausted by this conversation, Casey nodded and picked out a plastic-wrapped pastry of some kind. Since he didn't feel optimistic about the tea options in a truck stop, he also chose a small milk. He joined his father at the cash register, and that was when he noticed that he didn't have the usual skin-crawling, nerve-jangling jumpiness that he had come to expect when standing at a counter with people behind him. He realized that he didn't much care if everyone in the store was an alien, as long as they didn't actually try to touch him, and why would they? They were too busy looking at chocolate covered potato chips, licorice and twinkies, and he was nothing that they would want.

Disinterested, he stood there as his father paid for their purchases, then joined him to head back to their vehicle. As he crossed under the canopy where the gas pumps were lined up, staring down at the gasoline-pocked cement, a hand abruptly clapped down on his shoulder.

"Christ..."

It was his father's hand, and he had just about walked in front of another vehicle; his father's grip held him in place despite his involuntary reaction, while the truck in question, which had been moving quite slowly in that enclosed area, ground to a halt.

"Pay attention to where you're going, Casey." His dad instructed him to walk forward with a push from that same hand.

Casey's mom was waiting on the passenger side of the Jeep. Slipping into the driver's seat, Casey's dad delivered a coffee to her. As his dad eased out of the parking lot, Casey started to pick apart his stale pastry, eating it in chunks while making every effort not to turn his eyes in Zeke's direction. He stared out the window, letting it seem that he was fascinated by the countryside. A few more minutes down the road, they encountered a long stretch of highway repair and the hour to the airport became almost two — a fact which would certainly vindicate his father's neuroses. If nothing else, the delay provided for lush conversation between his mom and dad, which alleviated the painful silence in the Jeep. Zeke even commented a few times.

Once they reached the Greater Cincinnati area it was after eleven; Casey's dad insisted on going directly to the airport and eating lunch around that area. They wound up going to the same deli that Sasha, Casey and his father had eaten at when he flew in a couple of weeks ago.

During that lunch Casey came to be grateful for his father's presence; Frank Connor maintained a constant stream of criticism about everything — the food, the people he saw, the buildings, the frequent thunder of planes passing overhead. His father, Casey realized, did not like cities — and the positive upshot of that dislike was that Casey never once had to speak, nor was Zeke required to speak to him.

Parking at the airport took longer than it should have too, but finally they had checked their bags and entered the concourse full of shops and restaurants that would ultimately take them to their respective departure gates. With just over two hours before his flight left, Casey suddenly had the gift of time, and he didn't want it.

"So," his mom said. "Now that we have two hours to kill..." and she tossed a glare at his dad... "Maybe we can just sit down and relax with a coffee...or tea, whatever."

"It's too damned expensive here," Casey's father complained.

"Yeah, it is," his mother agreed. "But we're here now and I want a coffee."

His father's brows drew together, gathering for debate.

"Um," Zeke said. "I think maybe...I'll just go wait at my gate. I didn't sleep much last night and I'm...I'd probably be poor company anyway."

"Well," Casey's mom replied and looked flustered. "Okay, I guess..."

"I'd like to talk to Casey for a second though."

"Oh...right."

"Before I do..." Zeke rummaged in his carry-on and retrieved the bottle of Xanax with its four, tiny white jewels. He handed it to Casey's dad. "These are Casey's...but only give him one if he needs it...and you should give them to Sasha when you get to Seattle."

"Oh," Casey's dad said, sounding moderately panicked. He began examining the bottle minutely, perhaps looking for clues as to its use. "'Take one as needed for panic or anxiety.' How do I know...?"

"You'll know," Zeke said only. He shifted his weight and addressed Casey's mom. "Thank you for having me for the holidays."

"You're welcome, Zeke," Casey's mom said. She dithered a little bit, then stretched up to give him a peck on the cheek. "Anytime."

"Yeah," Casey's dad chimed in.

Zeke glanced over at him with some surprise, and was ambushed by Frank Connor making his best attempt at a good-bye hug. It was just about the most painful thing that Casey had ever seen — a cursory embrace, postures on both sides suggesting how one might clasp a cactus to their breast, and a couple of manly backslaps.

When it was over Casey's parents made their retreat and Casey was left alone with Zeke, standing in the middle of the airport food court with a Krispy Kreme on one side and a McDonald's on the other. Casey's sole objective in this conversation was to remain on his feet and not crumple, to have his eyes open more often than closed, and to not succumb to the urge to start keening...to not have Zeke any more disgusted with him than he already was.

"I'm sorry," Zeke said, gazing over the top of Casey's head, "but I can't sit and listen to the world according to Frank for two more hours."

Casey thought he might have nodded — or maybe he shrugged, he couldn't really tell because he couldn't feel his body.

"I'm really...impressed..." Zeke faltered, then cleared his throat and went on. "...by how well you're handling things, Casey."

I am not here, Casey told himself. I do not exist.

"I'm not saying it isn't hard, but you've been acting...pretty together. I think you're going to be okay."

I do not exist...I do not I do not...

"Casey...I need to know that you're hearing me now. I am going to be back home in a week, and I'm sure that by then I'll be able to sit down with you and...and figure out where to go next. Right now this is all I can offer...understand?"

This isn't me. I am not here.

"Casey, I can't get on that plane unless I know that you've heard me...and I am going to get on that plane, so just tell me...tell me what you heard."

"You're going to be home in a week," Casey mumbled.

"Yes."

"And you won't be as mad."

Zeke hesitated. "Yes," he said.

Despite his earlier aspirations towards a minimum display of dignity, Casey's eyes had long since been on Zeke's shoes. "And you won't...hate me."

"Casey..." His chin was tipped up suddenly by one of Zeke's fingers. "I'll never hate you." The touch closed around his face as Zeke found Casey's eyes, his fingers almost seeking to caress — but then dropping his hands, Zeke hefted his carry-on and choked, "I've got to go."

He turned and moved away at a steady pace, neither walking nor running, but definitely moving at a resolute clip.

I do not exist...I do not I do not...I am not here...

Zeke's back was receding in Casey's vision. It was almost gone, obscured by other shapes blocking and passing in front of it.

I am not...here...

Zeke was gone.

"I'm not here," Casey whispered.

That was just another lie, though. He was here. He wasn't disappearing, he was here — with a body quivering as though it had just been struck, emptiness spreading to every corner of him while treacherous drugs coursed through his veins making it so that he could feel every fucking second of it.

Finally, Casey could see the end of The Travel Day That Would Not Die — and he was so very ready for it. All he could think, all he could handle was wanting to be home, wanting Sasha. He was no longer up for anything that didn't fulfill those wants or otherwise relate to them.

His head ached and his eyes burned with fatigue as he and his father passed through their arrival gate in Seattle; he saw Jerry standing about twenty feet away, eyes searching the stream of people exiting the plane. Jerry caught sight of Casey and waved, smiling. "I thought..." Casey muttered. He glanced over at his dad, knowing that it was very likely none of Frank Connor's doing that Sasha was not there but still needing someone to blame.

He had not been easy on his father during the past four hours. In the airport he had sat brooding while his parents had tried desperately to keep their game faces from slipping off and he had wished they would just give it up and let him own his despondent self. They hadn't, and they hadn't let him go anywhere alone either. His father had even followed him to the washrooms at one point, enduring the necessary embarrassment with surprising aplomb. Casey had been permitted five minutes of solitude before his father demanded his reappearance and he forced himself to move, to unlatch the door. It wasn't that he had been particularly afraid of the aliens outside that stall; the world was full of aliens, after all, and he had crammed himself on that toilet seat with his head against his knees so he could recreate the void for just a little while. He didn't think it had worked but it was still a lot more tranquil there than it was on the other side of those metal walls. But all too soon he had been summoned and it was more of the painful conversation with his parents until finally it had been time for them to go through security.

"You know I would come with you too if I could," Casey's mother had said just before they parted.

"I know."

"There's just no other way to manage it..."

"It's okay," he'd assured her.

"Well...take care of yourself, hon." She had kissed him on the forehead and hugged him, sniffling a little. "I'll see you in a month."

"Yeah."

Her smile had wavered slightly. She toyed with his hair. "I love you."

"Love you too, Mom."

Finally, she had let him go and turned to Casey's father. "Frank...make sure you call."

"Of course."

There had been that awkward pause that told Casey his parents were about to show affection to each other in public. He had averted his eyes as they kissed.

"See you in a few days," his father had said to her by way of farewell.

On the plane, Casey had sat with his face to the window and more or less ignored him even though the flight had been a bit bumpy and more than a few times he heard his dad emit an anxious grunt or attempt to engage him in conversation. Casey would reply with a few monotone syllables, if at all.

"Did you say something?" his father prodded him now.

"Where's Sasha?"

"Sasha's working...didn't Zeke tell you?"

"No," Casey said and left it that. He should have known; Sasha had to make a living, after all. Casey headed in Jerry's direction, ignoring the people on either side of him and trusting that his father would follow without demanding too much explanation.

"Hi, Casey!" Jerry greeted him as they got within range. "Welcome back."

"Thanks," Casey said, making no attempt to sound like he meant it.

Jerry's smile faltered at his tone; his eyes travelled to Casey's companion. "Hi, you must be Mr. Connor?"

"Frank." Casey's father stuck out his hand. It occurred to Casey that Jerry and his father would probably hit it off; they were both fairly guy-like, and he needed them to bond because he didn't have the fortitude to play host to any degree.

"Good to meet you, I'm Jerry. Um...let's get your bags so we can get home, okay?"

"Sounds great to me," Casey's father said.

None of them did much talking while waiting for their luggage and getting it out to the car. As exhausted as Casey was, he did notice that his father seemed fairly weary too; there was a heavy beard shadow, and another darkness beneath his eyes. He had all his attention on that opening in the wall where the luggage tumbled through, and the moment that he spotted his, he waded through the crowd for it.

Casey's bags showed up not a minute later, and he did not resist when Jerry wordlessly went to retrieve them. He let Jerry carry his suitcases for him, feeling that it was enough of an accomplishment to walk the endless miles to where the Mustang was parked. It was the most welcoming thing Casey had seen all day; he slumped into the secure, friendly backseat of Zeke's car and tried not to pitch over unconscious.

"So, Jerry," Casey's father said when they were minutes away from the airport...still an eternity away from home. "You're a friend of Sasha's?"

Jerry cleared his throat. "Very good friend."

"I see. And, um...what do you do?"

"I'm a waiter — at Sojourn?"

"Oh, right...so that's where you met."

There had been a time when Casey would have been astounded by this comment from his father. Now he felt nothing but a mild flutter of interest. Casey massaged his eyes, including the bridge of his nose and his forehead and, glancing up, saw Jerry watching him in the rearview mirror. He shifted to the other side of the car where he wouldn't be so visible. The sun was just going down, and he pleaded for it to go down faster, to drape him in shadow.

"I heard the news," Jerry announced suddenly.

"Huh?" Casey echoed.

"You and Zeke...cooking dinner for us."

"Oh...right."

"Any thoughts on what the menu will be?"

"Um...what?"

"What are you and Zeke going to cook?"

"I don't know," Casey said harshly.

"Hey, no rush. You know me, I just love talking food. Actually, we had a really good dinner last night — I'm afraid I haven't put the dishes away yet, sorry."

It seemed to Casey that Jerry was a lot more of a chatterbox than he remembered — but he supposed someone had to pick up the conversational slack, if they cared about such things. He rubbed his eyes again and said, "‘s okay."

"Hey, Sasha told me he got you an interesting cookbook."

As of this moment, Casey couldn't bring himself to respond, even to be polite. He stared out his window and imagined that he was mute...or maybe deaf and mute, like the girl in Children of a Lesser God. He would live inside an ocean of silence and no one would dare tell him it was wrong.

"Sorry," he heard from his father.

And he heard Jerry expel a long breath. "It's okay...We'll be there soon."

Indeed, within fifteen minutes they had pulled into the alleyway parking behind the apartment. Not waiting for the others, Casey collected himself and his luggage and headed for the stairs. By the time the others got up there, Casey had the door unlocked and they shuffled in behind him.

The apartment had a particular, older-building smell that he hadn't quite noticed before. Above that scent there was the aroma of Sasha's cooking...garlic and pork, overlaid with chocolate. The clean dishes were piled neatly on the rack and overflowing slightly onto the counter. Jerry said, in behind Casey, "Sorry about the dishes man. It was just a little welcome back dinner."

"Doesn't matter," Casey said. He kicked off his boots, placed them neatly in the boot-tray and hung up his coat, just the way Sasha would want; Casey's father more or less followed suit. Jerry had been wearing only running shoes and a light jacket; he shed them quickly and went into the kitchen, where he began putting the dishes away.

"So, um," Jerry said, keeping his eyes determinedly on his task, "Sasha asked me to hang out here until he gets home."

Casey nodded.

"Hope you don't mind."

"If I did, would it make a difference?"

Jerry shot him an injured look.

"Sorry, " Casey apologized. "I'm just tired. I don't actually mind. I'm going to go unpack, okay?"

"Sure...feel free to ignore me."

Casey had every intention of doing just that. He dragged his suitcase to his room and unloaded all of the clothes into the closet, starting a new laundry pile. He was going to remove his various toiletries and his pills from his suitcase when he just lost interest; he flopped wrongways across the bed instead and closed his eyes.

He had been thinking to just rest for a moment, so he was seriously disoriented when he started up in the dark, jolted from a heavy sleep to the sight of a Sasha-shaped silhouette backlit in his doorway.

"Oops," Sasha whispered. "I woke you."

"Doesn't matter." Casey felt like he could have slept a year and still not be rested. He pulled himself upright, squinting at Sasha's form and trying to get untangled from his afghan; someone had covered him while he was unconscious. He couldn't think of a way to say please make it better, but fortunately, he didn't have to. Sasha simply came forward and, sitting down on the bed, drew Casey into a gentle embrace. He was redolent with the scents of his work, his routine; finding it comforting, Casey closed his eyes against Sasha's shoulder and inhaled...garlic, onion, grease...Sasha.

"I'm going to take a quick shower," Sasha said, "and then I'll sleep here."

"What about Jerry?" mumbled Casey.

"He's in my bed — and just in case you were wondering, your dad is on the couch."

Casey had no absolutely no warning when he felt tears break and fall from his eyes. He croaked, "I was rude."

"I'm sure they'll forgive you."

"I don't know," he sniffled.

"Poor kitten," Sasha crooned. Casey felt a cool hand against the hot skin of his forehead. "Do you want to tell me about it now?"

Casey shook his head.

"All right. Tomorrow is probably better." Sasha began to move like he was trying to detach himself. "I'll just..."

"Don't go," Casey whispered, and marvelled at the way that he no longer had any inkling of what was going to come out of his mouth or his hands or his head from one instant to the next. He hadn't known that he was going to beg and clutch at Sasha's tunic with both hands anymore than he had known he was going to start snivelling a minute ago.

"I have to, kitten...I stink. I promise it won't be more than ten minutes. Why don't you get out of those clothes?"

It was pathetic, a fully grown human clinging to another person the way he did. He released Sasha and followed instructions, stripping down and putting on fresh clothes; he recalled, before Christmas, that Sasha had been threatening to buy him some actual pajamas. It seemed an eternity ago.

As promised, Sasha was absent only for the absolute minimum, reappearing in the bedroom dewy and fully fragrant, with damp hair. Once dressed in his own sleepwear, Sasha got into bed and let Casey press up close, the two of them twining together with a complete absence of sexual intent.

"Are you going to sleep now?" Sasha asked, stroking his hair.

"Yes," Casey said, and hoped that it was true.

But oblivion just wouldn't come to him. Because it wasn't punishment enough that he had lost all those more wakeful forms of oblivion that had always been his forte — now he couldn't even fucking sleep. He lay there listening to Sasha's sleep noises until he couldn't bear to hear them anymore and withdrew from Sasha's arms, and the bed.

The living room wasn't an option with his father sleeping in there and the roof was too cold, so he went to the only unoccupied room. Switching on the bathroom light, he stood for several seconds, trying to decide what he wanted to do. For once, he didn't want a shower; he wasn't up to getting undressed, and then getting wet, and getting dry, and getting dressed again. He didn't want to use the toilet. Moreover, he didn't particularly want to stand, nor did he want to sit. He didn't want to think. Or breathe.

God, he didn't want to do this anymore. He was sick to death of himself...just like Zeke was sick to death of him. Sasha, Jerry and his father might not be fed up with him just yet, but they would be very soon. Without Zeke he was an empty, unfillable void.

Unless he found someone else to supply what he needed. Thomas was still at large on the streets of Seattle, not to mention any number of anonymous male creatures out there who might be persuaded to help him...all he had to do was go out and find them and put aside any considerations of safety, of other people's feelings or judgments about him. He would have to accept that everyone he knew would look at him with anger or revulsion. Sasha would brand himself a failure initially but would no doubt eventually join Zeke in an attitude of pure disgust. They would finally acknowledge their mistake in having believed they could help him to be something better. Something worth something. Something...real.

It wasn't a conscious decision to open the medicine cabinet; he just found himself doing it, averting his eyes first to ensure that he didn't see himself in the mirror.

He had been expecting to see his pill bottles — but he had forgotten that he'd left them in his bedroom, still zippered inside his suitcase. In any case, he wasn't sure what would happen if he took all the Paxil and all the Klonopin. It would undoubtedly make him very ill, but there was no guarantee of success. The Klonopin didn't pack the same punch as Xanax and there was no possibility that he had enough of them anyway; he was currently two thirds of the way through a three week prescription. The plan had been for him to see Dr. Chakri next week and evaluate how he was doing with it — and, he appreciated with some rancour, the plan had also been designed to ensure that he didn't have very many pills in his possession. He still had two months worth of Paxil but he didn't know what effect it would have and he only had four Xanax, which he would have to somehow pry away from his father if he wanted to use them. The only other drugs in the medicine cabinet were the almost empty bottle of Tylenol and the box of Theraflu packets.

Then there were the sharp objects. The refill cartridges for Sasha's razor had blades in them, not that he had any notion of how to get the blades out of their plastic sheathes. He supposed that if he was really determined, he could figure it out — but it was far more of a challenge than he really wanted. In fact, this whole business was more challenging than he had thought. He remembered joking once about jumping off his roof, but it was only a two storey building. Chances were good that he'd live, so if he wanted to go that way he'd have to find another building. That struck him as logistically complicated at the moment, along with most other options.

Of course, there was always the mirror itself. All he had to do was submit to his clichιd MTV fantasy...smash that diabolical pane of glass that he so hated and sharp, deadly objects would fall from the sky.

It was then that he noticed how he was shaking so hard that his knees were about to give out. If he really wanted to die, he could...but the problem was, he didn't want to die. He didn't particularly like to bleed, he didn't like pain, and he was afraid.

There was a muttering outside the bathroom door — a conference was being held, and any moment someone was going to override his privacy and open that door, which he had not thought to lock. Hurriedly, he closed the medicine cabinet, catching a terrible glimpse of his face. Cringing from it, he opened the bathroom door to find Sasha, Jerry and his father huddled outside. "I like to be alone when I shit," he said flatly. He walked past them and went into his bedroom.

Sasha murmured something behind him that sounded like he was sending the others back to their respective beds, and followed Casey. Casey was already in bed, pulling up the covers when Sasha closed the door to the room and quietly said, "Do you want to talk now, kitten?"

"No," Casey replied and turned onto his side, tugging the blankets all the way up to his neck.

There was an audible sigh. "In the morning then." The mattress dipped behind Casey.

He made further attempts to sleep. He would lay absolutely still in one position until he knew that he would scream, and then he would shift as unobtrusively as he could into a new position and do the same thing until the next time movement became imperative. It was after the tenth or fifteenth bit of this choreography that Sasha's voice said with weary patience, "Casey."

Casey flopped onto his back. "Sorry."

"It's okay...anything I can do to help?"

Casey thought about it a second. "Will you fuck me?" he asked.

There was a pause while Casey waited for Sasha to throw him out of the bed, and then Sasha replied, "I guess I could do that. Get up on your knees."

He did as he was told, leaning forward onto his elbows, shivering in anticipation.

"Open up for me, baby." A scalding weight lined up along his back as the hard length sank all the way inside him and Sasha kissed the back of his neck and breathed in his ear, licking and nipping at it. "Ah...yes, baby...yes...that's it...that's it...there'll never be anyone like you."

Casey whimpered and buried his face in the bed, hanging on as Sasha's thrusts rocked him forward...hard again...and again.

"Say it to me...say it, baby..."

"I don't say no."

The voice was harsh, hot in his ear: "Again."

"I don't...s-say no..."

"That's right." Now suddenly the cock inside him seemed to be changing, growing thicker and hotter, penetrating further inside him every time, coating his insides with scum. "Remember what I told you?" Sasha grunted. "You remember?"

"Yuh — yes."

"I'll never let you go...but now there's someone else who wants to be a part of this. It's what we need, baby...family...do you want to be a part of our family?"

"Yes," he whimpered.

"Good," Sasha said. "You're ready."

A soft tentacle touched his mouth and he fought to pull away, to scream. He couldn't move. He was pinned by a multitude of limbs and no matter how he struggled he couldn't make a sound. He sank and sank, in terror that he would never surface. His chest burned and his heart exploded, his body flailing as he drowned...it's over, all over...can't get out, can't...it's over...

"It's over," Sasha whispered. "Open your eyes."

Casey heard a sound — like a sob, a sad little whimper.

"C'mon, kitten, you're okay...you're okay, you're awake."

He peeled open eyes that were crusted and stinging with salt, saw that he was not drowning, not sinking into the dark.

"Hey," Sasha said softly. "There you are."

Yeah, there he was, with two fistfuls of Sasha's silk pajamas, but nothing left of him, no will or voice or energy to fight. He was in Sasha's arms — the arms of a Sasha who was nothing like Roy, or an alien, just warm and demanding nothing — but it didn't matter because he had been sent back again. Rejected again, and he buried himself against Sasha, choking on the dregs of recent terror.

"Sasha..."

"Yeah, I'm here...maybe you should tell me about those dreams, huh?"

Casey mangled his handful of silk some more and shook his head.

"What are you going to do, Casey? You can't go on this way."

"Xanax," he whispered, knowing it was a longshot because he didn't feel anxious or scared or anything but dead inside.

"Oh, kitten...I don't think so." There was a gentle rocking motion. "Just try to sleep a bit...for me, please?"

"No..."

"But you're at your limit, you need to sleep."

"No," Casey whimpered. Even limp, lifeless and barely able to keep his eyes open, Casey was determined that he would never sleep again.

"Shh...you're not alone, it's okay...you can sleep, I won't let you dream."

Casey resolved to pretend for Sasha's sake — but before he knew it exhaustion had dragged him down and made a fact of the lie.

When he woke up, the next day was already well underway. Light was illuminating all the familiar corners of his room...his computer, his incomplete efforts with his suitcase...but the colour of it was wrong. The dimensions seemed distorted, the walls uneven and too close. Casey kept the covers over his head so he wouldn't have to see too much of it. He was glad that Zeke wasn't here to see how he was now reduced to laying in bed and shaking. He wanted to summon the will to rise from his bed but he couldn't; the horror of the dream was still with him, between his legs, against his lips. It wasn't going away.

Time crawled by, measured by the specific shades of white and off-white in the sheets he was staring at. Once in a while he would hear voices outside his makeshift shelter. Mostly Sasha's voice.

"Casey...are you getting up...? Not just yet, huh...okay, I guess you could use the sleep."

"C'mon, kitten, let's not do this. You promised to tell me what happened, remember?"

"Casey, did you take your pills today?"

"Kitten? It's lunch time, you know."

"I've got some toast and tea here for you...do you want it?"

Finally, because it was the easiest way to get back to his solitude, Casey excavated himself; he sat up and ate the toast, then lay back down immediately.

At some point, there was a conference out in the hallway, or perhaps in Sasha's room, that didn't quite fall out of earshot.

"I don't know if I should go..."

"Sasha...you need to go to work."

"Thank you for that, Jerry, but I can figure things out."

"But you already missed so much...and his dad is here."

A short pause.

"No disrespect, Frank, but I need to feel comfortable with leaving Casey, even if he isn't alone. After all, you're only going to be here for a few days. No offence."

"But he's my son. I can take care of him."

"Sasha, listen..."

"Jerry. Lay off."

"You can't let your life come to a crashing halt."

"Jerry, we've had this discussion."

"And you said — "

"I know what I said." A silence, then, "Fuck. I don't know what to do..."

"I said I can handle it."

Another pause, a lengthier one.

Okay...but only if you promise that you'll phone if anything happens..."

Casey closed his gritty eyes, just to rest them — only to jerk them open with a start. He had drifted into sleep and that couldn't happen again. Unfurling the blankets, he looked over at the clock. From the time, he knew that Sasha had probably gone to work, and Jerry too.

He didn't think he had made much of a noise, but almost immediately his father inserted himself in the room, wearing a tentative face. "You were asleep," he informed Casey.

"Is Sasha gone?"

"Yes," his father replied, wincing. The question bothered him in some way and Casey knew that he should be able to remember how and why but there was just a blank where that knowledge should be. "So what's it going to take to get you out of this bed?"

Casey thought about that. He was stiff from lying here all day. His mouth felt putrid, while his body seemed to be crusted with filth. He should really get up and shower — if only he'd had the energy for it.

Sounding hopeful, his father said, "We went to the grocery store and picked up a few things. I could make you a sandwich."

"Not really hungry."

"Well, how about I make you a sandwich anyway, pal?"

"Dunno," Casey mumbled.

His father folded his arms. "Here's the deal, Casey. I'm just going to give your mother a quick call and let her know how things are going. I expect you to join me in the kitchen in a few minutes."

Casey understood that his father was not going to accept anything but full capitulation, so he nodded.

His father looked ridiculously pleased. "All right. See you in a minute."

Once his father was gone, Casey wrenched himself into a sitting position, then swung his legs onto the floor. They felt heavy, like he was wearing twenty pound shoes. There was a lightness in his head, a buzzing around his ears. He supposed it would help if he ate something. If nothing else, it would make his father feel better.

Unexpectedly, he thought of his journal. There weren't a lot of words in him, but there were some things that had to be recorded. Moving slowly, he got up and found it still in his backpack. Sitting down once more on his bed, he wrote with some difficulty; even his hands seemed weak right now.

Zeke is in L. A.

Zeke left me.

Trying not to hear Dad talking to Mom, giving her the report. Will try to be a good boy and eat my supper. Wish I could say I've been a good son.

"Casey!" came the holler.

Placing the journal on the bed, Casey emerged from his room for the first time that day and joined his father in the kitchen. There was something wrong with that scenario — because it should be Zeke, Zeke should be the one here trying to entice Casey with sandwiches, it should be Zeke —

"I though we could plug in one of those movies of yours — " His father broke off, looking at him with a pained expression. "What's the matter?"

"With what?"

"You're upset."

Casey was honestly puzzled. "Why?"

"You've been crying."

"Oh. I didn't know." Casey found himself blinking harder, faster...he couldn't keep up with the liquid that kept filling his eyes.

His father put a hand on his shoulder. "Casey."

"Huh?" he sniffed.

"I know I'm just your father and I don't get a lot of things...but tell me what I can do to help."

"Nothing."

The reaction in his father's face was startling; Casey hadn't thought his father could be this hurt by anything that he said. "I — I see," his father replied. He coughed, struggling to contain emotion. "Well...let's just try to relax and watch a flick, okay?"

"I just — need the bathroom first."

"Sure, pal." His father headed to the living room while Casey went to the bathroom, locking the door this time.

The mirror was still there, waiting for him; this time, he made himself look. There was a face there — whatever that meant. It was pieces of flesh wired together with electrical-chemical reactions and nothing beyond that.

In his life, he'd had careful, systematic instruction on this one point: He would never be anything unless he gave away everything. And he'd learned his lesson well. He'd obeyed orders and taken blows of all kinds, he'd ignored things when they hurt or burned inside him, he'd even laid himself down and let the enemy have him, he'd given his last scrap of self — only to find himself alone in the end. Now his body hurt all over, he was so cold and so frightened and this time there was not something wonderful at the core of it all. There would be no atonement, no belonging, no quiet, mindless dissolution no matter how much he wanted it now.

He collapsed into a huddle on the bathroom floor and whimpered.

He could sneak out of the house, find a man to fuck him — except that he couldn't stand to be touched. He could find a thousand people to fuck him and shut him down and that stupid, ugly flesh would still show in the mirror. It made no sense that he should be nothing and still have to see that face. The flesh should just stop, and obviously the only way was if he stopped it himself.

"Casey? Are you okay?"

He should disappear once and for all, then — but he didn't want to die. He didn't, he didn't...he was that much of a coward, and a hypocrite too. Always talking about disappearing but somehow dying was too scary...and he didn't want to leave Sasha or his parents. Or even — especially — Zeke, who had left him already. They would hate him forever if he left them that way and he couldn't endure that.

"Casey?! Answer me!" His father's fist sounded against the cheap wooden door.

So he was trapped.

"Casey, if you don't open this door in ten seconds, I'm taking it down!"

There was a flicker of an idea, something about not letting his father do this. He should get up, he should shout...except he couldn't move. "Don't," he whispered. "Leave me alone."

"All right, I'm coming in!" his father shouted.

The first noise of his father's foot making contact made Casey shudder and jump. There was a curse, and then the thudding resumed...again...and again...with the next, there was the added sound of wood splitting. Another, and the door jamb shattered. The catch gave way and a large male person poured into the bathroom.

"Casey!" His father fell on the floor next to him and began searching for signs of injury, feeling him up with an invasiveness that would have been illegal under any other circumstances. "Are you hurt — is there blood — nothing here — " His father was babbling, turning Casey's arms palm-side up, examining them. "Nothing. You're okay — you're not hurt."

"Not hurt," Casey mumbled.

"What were you thinking?" his father thundered. "Why do you do this?"

It was probably a mistake to try and respond to that. Casey had no answer other than to let his hands fell open, gesturing helplessly to his father who was kneeling beside him. His father looked at his open palms like he thought the answer might be written there, then up at Casey. And then he snatched Casey up into his hold, grappling with their respective arms and legs, holding him awkwardly. Casey was aware that his father was squeezing him hard and tight and even though a part of his brain couldn't accept that, he was quite willing to break down into sobs, and he even used a word that he hadn't used in more than ten years. "Sorry, Daddy...I didn't want to...didn't want to, I'm sorry..."

"Casey..."

"It hurts."

"I know...it's okay..."

"It hurts...I just...want it to stop."

"It's gonna be okay."

Casey didn't believe that it could ever possibly be okay — but he didn't mind hearing it from his father, especially when his father was on the bathroom floor with him. Only when his eyes were burning from the salt and there was no part of his sinus system that wasn't congested, only then was he able to stop his sobbing.

Vaguely he noted that he was sort of half-sitting, half-kneeling while his father still had his arms wrapped around him. He tried to move, afraid that his father was finding this situation intolerable — but the arms around him tightened. "Just stay put," his dad said.

Casey stayed put. It was quiet in the bathroom, save for his sniffles and shuddery, breathy noises.

However, it was inevitable his dad started to squirm and shift; Casey knew that his back was probably hurting him and moved out of his hold. This time his dad did let him go, but he helped Casey onto his feet, emitting a few grunts of discomfort as they struggled upright. He removed his hands from Casey finally with what appeared to be reluctance.

"Now what?" he asked Casey. "Should we call Sasha?"

Casey shook his head. It was appealing, it was really fucking dear to his heart as far as ideas went — but so what if he called and Sasha rushed home to comfort him? Yeah, Sasha was a genius at providing comfort, but obviously, comfort wasn't the answer. Casey had just sobbed himself to exhaustion in his father's arms and he was no less sick, no less despondent and trapped than he had been half an hour ago. The only thing different was that he was even more afraid.

Another answer moved into his mind with unanticipated clarity.

"Need to...call Yves," Casey said.

"Yves?" his father echoed, blinking.

"My shrink...gotta call her."

"What do you think she'll do?"

"I don't know but...I need to, Dad. I — I'm scared, I might — I was thinking about — I'm scared of what I might do."

His father looked just a little bit frantic. He rubbed his chin and scowled, obviously trying to process this, but said straightforwardly enough, "I don't want to see you in some hospital ward, Casey."

"Maybe I should be."

"No," his father blurted. "No, I don't accept that. Maybe you shouldn't call her if she's going to do that. That's not for you, Casey."

"But — "

"That's not for you," his father insisted, his voice constricted.

"But I don't know what else to do," Casey whispered.

"If you would just — explain it to me, let me try — "

"No."

His father blinked, startled and — Casey now understood — hurt at the suggestion that no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he genuinely wanted to, he couldn't make anything better for his son.

"I mean...I just...need to call her, Dad."

"Well, then I guess..." his father hemmed. "Where's the phone?"

"Don't know...need the...the number she gave me." He had written it down somewhere, he was just having trouble accessing that memory at the moment. "...let me look...just..."

In his room, he didn't immediately begin his search for the number; rather, he just spun in circles for a bit, stumbling around the small space while his mind tried to come up with the equation that would confirm the truth of the solution. Sasha might agree with him but Zeke would be mad, Zeke would not like this, he would try to talk him out of it and he might very well be right, Casey might be about to sell himself once and for all to the psychiatrists. He knew that Zeke would try to stop him...so there was no equation, there was no way to make it all add up. It was just him making a decision, and this wasn't up to Zeke anyway.

He now recalled that he had written the number down on a page in his journal, which was still lying open on the bed. He snatched it up and flipped back, page after page after page, dreading that it wasn't there after all, that it was lost.

"Here we go," said his father, entering the room and taking up a position near Casey, clenching the phone against his chest with both hands.

Casey turned some more pages — and there it was at last, dashed across the top of a page that was filled with two week-old reflections. He extended his hand to take the phone.

His father withheld it, though. "Casey...Can you trust her?"

"Yeah."

After the fact, he noticed that his reply had come off more like a question than an answer. Still, his father must have heard something of sincerity in it. "All right," Frank Connor sighed, and relinquished the phone.

Casey's body trembled so much that he found it advisable to sit down on the bed. Shuddering through what was meant to be a simple, calming breath — in and out, in and out, you can do this — he punched his psychiatrist's home number with unsteady fingers, almost missing the buttons a few times but getting it right despite himself.

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