Ross woke up before his companion, who still hadn’t told him his name. He couldn’t be surprised he woke up first. The other guy had been through the wringer. There was the carbon monoxide, the accident, and whatever was going on with all that stiffness. The poor guy was still new in town, which meant he probably shouldn’t have been on the roads anyway. What was done was done. Hopefully Mr. Mysterio would plan better next time and wouldn’t lose his job over it.
Porthos looked up and let his ears go back. The dog clearly had a pretty strong bond with Mysterio, whoever he was. He wasn’t letting anyone else get close. “You’re okay, buddy,” he said, holding his hands out. “I’m not going to hurt your human, okay? I’m going to stay right here until he wakes up.”
Mysterio opened one eye. “You get he’s a dog, right?” he croaked, in a voice so much like Ash’s cranky morning voice Ross almost cried. “I mean he’s a good dog, but his English is only kind of so-so.”
Porthos stuck his nose under Mysterio’s arm, and Mysterio rolled over onto his back with a grimace. The guy was way too young to be moving around like he was arthritic, so what else could be wrong with him? “I suppose you speak canine, then?” Ross asked with a little chuckle. He’d met people who made stranger claims. “I met one guy who said he couldn’t train his Havanese until he established his dominance over it. The thing was positively feral.”
Mysterio chuckled, giving a grin that made Ross’ insides melt. “No, no, that’s not it at all. It’s—really? He couldn’t train a dog until he ‘established his dominance?’” The guy hoisted himself into a sitting position and raised his eyebrows in shock. “That’s a new one on me, man. I don’t think I’ve ever heard something so ridiculous. Did he read that in some self-help book or something?”
“I didn’t ask. I just wrote the ticket. The thing was trying to bite me through the rear window the whole time. Like a little piece of popcorn with teeth.” Ross chuckled at the memory.
“I’ll bet. No, I brought Porthos back from my last assignment in Syria.” A shadow fell over Mysterio’s face for a second. “It took a little bit of doing, but I managed it. He stayed with me the whole time. I saved him, and he wound up saving me. I guess it worked out, hey big guy?” He scratched behind his dog’s ears, adoringly.
“Were you a soldier?” Ross leaned forward a little.
“No. War correspondent with one of the big networks.” Mysterio looked up from his dog, and again, he looked enough like Ash in that moment to make Ross’ heart hurt. “We don’t get guns, I’m afraid. Just cameras.”
“Doesn’t that make you better off? Like, safer?” Ross licked his lips. The press was supposed to be safe, right?
“Not even a little bit.” Mysterio flattened his lips for a second. Then he struggled painfully to his feet. “So. What are the odds that the previous residents left any food around here?” He shuffled off toward the kitchen. Porthos followed. It was hard to say whether the shaggy dog followed out of loyalty or hopes of breakfast, but he followed.
Ross watched him go. What was it about this guy that got under his skin so badly? Was it the position of vulnerability in which Ross had found him? The resemblance to Ash, the guy who’d all but torn his heart out and taken it with him back in college? Christ, he couldn’t walk past a closet without remembering Ash. The guy had been everything Ross could have wanted in a guy, except his lack of acceptance.
What was Ash doing now? Part of Ross hoped he was thriving and doing something he loved, skiing out west or something like that. Maybe he’d made the Olympic team, wouldn’t that be nice? Another, pettier part of Ross hoped he was miserable. Ross would have done anything for him, if only Ash had been willing to come out.
Ross, apparently, hadn’t been worth coming out for. And sure, on the surface Ross could understand his arguments. Cultural issues, professional issues, we want different things, blah blah blah. When Ross heard those arguments from other people, from friends or from guys who were new to his life, his advice was always the same. Come out in your own time, when you’re ready. You’re the only person who can make that decision for you. No one else gets to decide what’s safe or what’s right for you. Ross, on the other hand, never dated anyone who wasn’t a hundred percent open about his sexuality again.
Apparently, he had to learn his lessons the hard way, but he could be taught.
Mysterio limped back into the main room and fed Porthos. Ross cleared his throat. “I can’t help but notice you came back empty handed.”
“Yeah. Those cabinets are clean as a whistle. Not so much as a hint of mice or anything.” Mysterio lowered himself to the ground. “Not that we’re to the point where eating mice is on the table, but still. I definitely think they’re planning to sell this place. I’ll chip in toward the cost of getting a maid or something. It’s the least I can do.”
“I think the state might be willing to cover it. We’re not exactly wrecking the joint, and it is an emergency situation.” Ross ran a hand through his dark hair. He’d love a shower. He loved what gel did for his hair, but he didn’t love the feel after sleeping on the ground all night. “I can’t believe it’s still snowing.”
“I know, right?” Mysterio let out a little laugh. “It already feels like we’ve been here for days, but I know it’s only been a few hours.”
Ross snorted. “You’ve probably been in situations that make this one look like child’s play, seriously. I mean you were in Syria. Bombs have got to be worse than snow.”
“True.” Mysterio closed his eyes and leaned his head against the garish, outdated wallpaper. “But at least you knew, then, that there would be an end. Either they’d run out of ordinance, in which case you could run, or they’d bomb you into pieces, in which case you wouldn’t care anymore. Either way, you wouldn’t be stuck sitting and waiting.”
Ross grimaced. “That’s awfully bleak.”
Mysterio gave him an unimpressed look. “So is snow, Ross.” He dragged a steno pad out of his duffel. “At least it’s good to write down.”
It took Ross a second. “Right, for the story. You spoke about it with your editor last night.” He paused. “How did you know my first name?” “It’s not on my uniform anywhere.”
Mysterio rubbed his temples. “You still have no clue who I am, do you?”
Ross set his jaw. “You look a bit like someone I used to know. And that’s…not easy, if I’m being honest. But that doesn’t mean I know you. Believe it or not, I know you don’t all look alike.”
Mysterio snorted. “Well, that’s something at least. Out of all the things I’ve called you over the years, racist was never one of them.” He held his dog a little closer and kept his eyes closed. Then, he opened them and scribbled in his notebook.
Ross watched him write. It couldn’t be Ash. There was no possible way this guy was Ash. “That guy—the one I’m thinking of—he was right handed. You’re writing with your left.”
“I’m still not using my right side so well. I don’t know if you’ve noticed.” Mysterio smirked, but didn’t look up from his work. His phone rang, and he answered it right away. “Hey, John. Yeah, I’m still holed up here. We’ve got water, no food. Yeah, I’ve got food for Porthos for a week, but we’re not dipping into that.” He frowned, heavy eyebrows knitting together as he looked at the ground. “For one thing, because it’s dog food, John, not people food. It’s a different standard of quality when you’re feeding someone whose system has evolved to eat garbage and, er, waste.”
Ross made a face. He hadn’t given much thought to just how gross dogs could be.
“For another thing, Porthos is my responsibility. I wouldn’t be alive today if he hadn’t tackled me out of the way of that blast, so no. I am not going to go stealing his food. I owe him a hell of a lot more than a handful of kibble. I am not going to allow this state trooper to go stealing his kibble. I will dig my way out to the road if I have to.” Mysterio paused to listen. “I’m aware of the consequences.” He paused again, and then he chuckled. “Sorry. I get defensive of Porthos. I had to fight pretty damn hard to get him here, you know? All right, I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”
“Your editor.” Ross licked his lips. Mysterio couldn’t actually be Ash. He was too tall, too built. Ash would never have given up skiing. Ash probably wouldn’t have come back to Boston, either. Then again, it sounded like this guy had been through a lot in the past few years.
“Yeah. Producer, I guess. It’s broadcast, so he wears a lot of hats.” Mysterio put his pen down. “Any word from your side about how much longer we’re going to be stuck here?”
Ross jumped. He hadn’t thought to check in with his bosses. He sent a quick text to his supervisor, who told him they wouldn’t be able to dig him out until tomorrow. “The storm is going to keep blowing this crap at us for most of the rest of the day,” he told his companion. “We’ve got that to deal with, and then we’ve got the joy and wonder of waiting for them to dig us out and deal with the downed tree.”
“Awesome.” Mysterio thumped his head on the wall. “Sorry. I appreciate the rescue. I don’t mean to sit around and whine. I’m just frustrated. The situation is…well, it’s not exactly ideal, is it? We’ve got no food, and there’s not a lot of entertainment here.”
“True.” Ross took a deep breath. “And you’ve definitely got some unresolved issues with me.”
Mysterio raised an eyebrow. Only Ash had ever been able to convey so much without opening his mouth. If Mysterio was actually him, no wonder he’d gone into broadcasting. “Are you sure you want to get into this when we’re stuck together and have no place to go when it gets ugly?”
“Why are you so sure it’s going to get ugly?” Ross stood up. He shoved his hands into his pockets. He’d kill for some toothpaste and a toothbrush, but those weren’t things he typically carried around with him. He settled for some gum, and offered some to Mysterio. Mysterio accepted, after a moment’s hesitation. “That must be a lot of anger you’re carrying around, if you think it’s going to get that bad.”
The house shook as an exceptionally bad gust of wind blew into it. Porthos jumped and yelped, and Mysterio petted him to soothe him. “I didn’t think it was,” he said after a second. “I mean I was furious, at first, but we both moved on and that was just kind of it, you know? We graduated, I got a great job with the network, and all of a sudden, I had more pressing things on my mind than some guy from college. A guy who asks unreasonable things from you, and won’t give up anything in return, is small potatoes when there’s a very different guy with a gun to your head taking exception to a story someone from your network did about his religious movement.” He smirked and huffed out a little laugh. His right hand twitched, and it didn’t seem entirely voluntary.
“I got the job back here in Boston, and I didn’t even think about you. I was just—I didn’t. It’s a big place, and I knew you were a Statie, but it’s not like you share your patrol area on Facebook or anything. Then I woke up in this old house, and the first thing I saw was your face.” His voice had gone all soft, like it used to. He’d always had this uncanny ability to make Ross melt, with his voice alone. “And all of a sudden everything came rushing back. It was like that day from junior year, all over again.”
Ross covered the lower part of his face with both hands. He didn’t know if he felt horror, or dread, or shame, or what. “Ash?”
* * * *
Ash tried not to be hurt when Ross covered his face with both hands. There was no pleasure in Ross’ expression, none at all. And why would there be? He’d dumped Ash like old garbage. He’d had his reasons, or he’d felt like he had. It wasn’t like Ash had been completely blameless in the whole breakup. Ash had wanted to be monogamous, Ross had not. Ross had demanded Ash come out. Ash wasn’t ready to do that.
But when Ross slowly lowered his hands, to reveal a snarl of anger, Ash was more than happy to push his acceptance of his own fault aside.
“You son of a bitch.” Ross took a few steps forward. “I can’t believe you would show your face in Boston again. You absolutely broke my heart, and now you come waltzing back in here like you own the place? That takes balls of solid steel.” His face was bright red, and his eyes shone in the weird ancient light.
Ash curled his lip. “Who’d have thought you could have so much emotion for one guy, huh? Do you say that every time you run into the other four guys you were dating when you were seeing me, or do you reserve that for the one who wouldn’t adjust his needs to suit your whims?” His pulse thundered in his ears, and for a second, he thought he caught the scent of gunpowder in the air. It was an illusion, of course, the past creeping back where it wasn’t wanted. Porthos would have reacted if it was anything else. It was just a memory, a shadow on his brain.
“Excuse the hell out of you?” Ross drew himself up to his full height. “I loved you!”
“Oh, sure, and half the rest of the Gay Men’s Chorus at Northeastern!” Ash threw his hands up into the air. “Come on, man, you very specifically refused to get ‘tied down.’ Let’s see if I can remember the specific quote. ‘It’s college, nothing we do can be all that serious, why limit ourselves if we don’t have to?’”
Ross gaped at him. “You said okay!”
“You’re quoting selectively. I agreed to it because it was the only way I could be with you at all.” Ash took a breath. He had to be an adult about this. “And I did accept it for a while. Then you started pressuring me to come out, even though you knew goddamn well my mom had been a nun and my uncle was a priest and there was no way in hell I could get away with that, and ever set foot in their house again.”
Ross rolled his eyes. “They would have come around, Ash.” He shifted his weight and crossed his arms over his chest.
Rage welled up inside of Ash, fire and bile and pain. Then he let it go. He was angry. He’d always be angry on some level, but it wasn’t Ross’ fault. “Know that for a fact, do you?” he asked, shifting position. He couldn’t make himself look Ross in the eye, so he looked at the wall.
“I don’t know any guys whose family didn’t eventually have to accept it.” Ross sucked his cheeks in for a moment. “You just didn’t love me enough to admit we were together.”
Ash let that one slide. “Well, I got my dream job in my first year out of college. I was a correspondent for NBC, right? And after my first time on TV—well, I was young, Latino, I guess some website decided I was something to write home about. The guy I was seeing at the time decided to out me. My family didn’t just ‘get over it.’ They had a memorial service for me. There’s even a tombstone in the cemetery back home in California.” Ash gave a thin little smile. “So, accept that, and remember it the next time you try to pressure someone to come out when they don’t have the financial security to do so.
“Oh, and you want to know what ISIS does to gay men? It ain’t pretty. You think I could just…not cover areas where ISIS operates, when I double majored in Arabic, specifically so I could cover those areas and those people? Fuck you, Ross.” Porthos lay his head on Ash’s leg. He scratched behind his dog’s ears, the rhythm soothing his brain just a little bit.
Ross had gone pale, and he turned his face away. “You want me to believe they never reached out again?” He scoffed, and his lip curled, but he couldn’t look Ash in the eye.
“They didn’t. The Army called, after the blast in Raqqah. They claimed the Army must have the wrong number, because my mother’s son had died years earlier. But if the Army did manage to find my family, they were sure they wouldn’t want me either.” Ash pursed his lips. He was visited by a chaplain after that, because no one else from the Army knew exactly how to tell him. He heard a lot of bad things about the Army, and maybe some of them were true, but he’d never met with anything but kindness from the soldiers of the 101st. “So maybe you can tell yourself there’s still time or some crap like that, but I’m not going to be there to listen. It’s too late.”
“I guess it is.” Ross sat down, back against the wall perpendicular to Ash’s. “Wow. I guess I just…I never would have expected that. Not from your mom and your uncle. I mean they were so proud of you!”
“Well, now they’re not.” Ash shrugged. Then he looked up. “That part’s not your fault. I don’t want you to think I blame you for it or anything. I just—it’s kind of galling to hear people, anyone, sitting there and getting all self-righteous about people coming out when it’s not something that’s safe for everyone to do. It’s just not feasible for everyone. If Tony had outed me while I was in Iraq, for example, I’d have been killed. No question. I was deep in ISIS-held territory, and there is no question I’d have been killed. And no one would have mourned. That’s the reality so many of us are living in right now.”
Ross bit his lip. “Thing are so much better though. They’re better than they used to be, and they only got better because people refused to be afraid anymore. People refused to hide. Don’t you get that?”
Ash tugged on his own hair with his good hand. What would it take for Ross to understand? “They got better for some people. For guys in eastern Massachusetts, sure. For a guy whose job involves traveling to places where American laws don’t reach, not so much. And there’s still a long way to go here, too. You can legislate penalties. You can legislate actions. Hearts and minds take longer, and not all of us have the luxury of just…forcing people to accept us. We don’t all get a gun and a badge.”
Ross lost his discomfort with Ash’s story quickly, just as Ash had expected him to. Ash had kind of wanted him to, if he was being honest. He hadn’t told Ross what had happened with his family to make him feel guilty. He’d spoken out of a desire to make him understand a one size fits all approach wasn’t going to work for everyone when it came to coming out.
“What, you think it’s easy being an out gay cop?”
“I think it’s probably easier than it was twenty years ago. Or isn’t that what you’ve just been telling me?” Ash glanced at the window. He couldn’t see anything outside. Snow had blown over every window he could see, covering it. “I don’t miss nor’easters.”
“Better than sandstorms.” Ross folded himself up into something like a fetal position.
“Sandstorms end eventually. But you also don’t get too many of them in Syria. Yemen, yes. They suck.” Ash made a face. “Keeping your equipment safe is hard to do.”
“I’ll bet. It’s probably harder for the actual soldiers.” Ross squirmed. He wrapped his arms around his knees.
“No doubt.” Ash let himself go limp. He didn’t have the energy to fight about this stuff. He was too old. They both should be too old at this point. It was all water under the bridge, and none of it mattered anymore. Ash wasn’t going to convince Ross he’d been right, and Ross was never going to convince Ash he should have come out back in college. Rehashing it would just frustrate them both and make this stay more miserable than it had to be. “So. State trooper, hm?”
“Yup.” Ross lifted his chin, almost daring Ash to say something negative about his chosen profession. “I’ll be patrolling these highways until the day I retire.”
“You must really enjoy it. Good for you.” Ash reached for his bag again. He’d weaned himself off the opioids as soon as he could, because they were addictive as hell and he couldn’t afford to get hooked, but ibuprofen was a poor substitute.
“Hey—it’s a living. Wait—really?” Ross narrowed his eyes as Ash counted out tablets into his hand.
“Really.” Ash huffed out a laugh. “I don’t wish you any harm, Ross. It killed me when you left, but your reasons were valid for you and I accepted them. I still do.”
“But you’re still mad.” Ross blinked, like Ash had just been speaking Arabic.
“Yeah. Like I said, it hurt. I wasn’t ever enough for you, and it hurt. But whatever, you know? I can’t obsess about that when I’ve had my dream job. I’ve survived so much more than so many people will ever even see, and I’m starting a whole new chapter in my life.” Ash dry-swallowed his painkillers and hoped they’d at least take the edge off.
“You would have been.” Ross turned away again. He seemed to like talking to the wall.
“Huh?” Ash struggled to his feet. “Don’t mind me, I’ll go into the other room. I’ve got some exercises to do so I don’t stiffen up too bad.
“You would have been enough.” Ross rose gracefully. Ash tried hard not to be jealous. Those days were most likely long behind him. He tried harder not to get turned on, because those days were most likely long behind him too, and they were longest behind him with Ross. “If you’d been out, if you’d been willing to be public about who you are, about us, I’d have split up with those other guys in a heartbeat.”
Ash had lived through having his insides partially rearranged by a percussive blast wave. He recognized the feeling again. This time, all he could do was laugh. There was no humor to his laugh, but he couldn’t hold it in either. What was he supposed to do here? Jump for joy? “That’s cute. That’s real cute.”
Ross stepped forward, hands out like he was dealing with a wounded animal. Maybe he was worried about Porthos biting him, who knew? “You okay there, Ash?”
“No. But I’m not losing my grip or anything. I just can’t help but think it’s hilarious that you’re trying to put it all on me for not having been willing to risk everything to come out, when I’d have probably been more willing to take the risk if you had been more interested in me and less insistent on an ‘open relationship.’” Ash was laughing so hard he found tears leaking from his eyes, and even Porthos was giving him a funny look now. “That’s rich, I’ve got to say.”
“I don’t know about rich,” Ross said, drawing back. “Ironic, maybe. Convenient, for sure. I mean why wouldn’t you say something, back when this was all relevant?”
Ash picked his head up. The laughter died inside of him. It usually did these days. “Are you kidding me? You don’t think that’s a little weird? Holding coming out over your head like that, like there weren’t a thousand other issues? Besides, color me weird, but I wanted you to choose monogamy for me, not because I’d finally jumped through the right hoop. Because I was enough for you. I never was.”
“You were. You always were. You just didn’t have faith.” Ross shook his head and turned away.
“You’re right. I didn’t have faith that a guy who’d already refused to commit was going to change his mind after already saying no.” Ash headed into the kitchen. “I sure as hell wasn’t going to risk everything, school and my career and everything, for a guy who had me in a damn rotation.” Porthos followed him into the other room. Ross did not.
Ash tried to convince himself that was exactly what he wanted.