Chapter Twenty-Two
Not that River would admit it, but the days after making up with Erik left him sore. In body, definitely—Erik had enthusiastically encouraged River to test his limits. And he had. River had been in relationships before, but never one that could come back from a fight like that. River couldn’t stand the end of things. Ever since Brigid, River had made it a policy to leave before he could be left. Of course, that was often precipitated by things going to shit after an unsuccessful attempt to triage unsalvageable wounds.
Erik was different. Erik wasn’t a choice, because a week without him had flayed River like nothing he’d experienced before. The aftermath of that week, even coalescing into one night, was more than River ever had from a lover. He’d felt sexy and been fucked; he’d never been ashamed, and while hookups and first times were always somewhat awkward, he didn’t have an ounce of shyness in bed.
But he’d never, ever been so seen. They’d touched every inch of each other. Erik’s taste still lingered. His scent, too, and the haunting ache he pulled from River’s bones, through his skin.
River wasn’t art, but what they did together could have been.
And now, face down in Cheyenne’s chair, the steady thrum of Erik’s touch in his muscles and the aching bruise healing in his chest were held close and tight.
“You sure you don’t want to see this part?” Cheyenne peeled back the transfer paper.
“No.” River turned and rested his cheek on the padded vinyl.
River smiled, read the words over and over
River took a breath.
“You ready?” Cheyenne had one hand flat on the small of his back.
“Yeah, I think I am.”
River closed his eyes at the familiar bite of the needle, sighed into the burning vibrations. This was pain he could handle. Necessary pain. River might not have been art, but he needed it. Not just as creation, but embodiment.He wasn’t delicate or museum-bound—he’d resist being archived to the last breath. By the same token, though, River wasn’t ephemeral moments and quicksilver change, either, and he didn’t intend to be those for Erik anymore. Maybe what River needed to become was living art, and not just for Erik, but for himself, too.
“You’ve been quiet,” Cheyenne said. She was working over his right shoulder blade. “Need a break?”
“No, not yet.”
“What about your man? Do you need a break there?”
River grunted as she passed over thinly protected bone. “You gonna give me therapy or art?”
“How about a two for one?”
“I don’t need therapy.” River bit his lip when she chuckled.
“Tell me about him, then. A moody River is substantially less fun than other versions. What’s with his tattoos?”
River thought his way around the truth, to a simpler explanation. “He’s a fighter. He gets them if he wins.”
They poison everything they touch.
The Svara haunted River on nights when his bed was empty and he couldn’t sleep. He thought he’d understood its edges when he’d told Erik he hadn’t been poisoned. But Erik’s voice breaking around Shakespeare under the press of River’s fingers on a deep bruise had given him more to think about.
Maybe now River would understand. Maybe Erik would, too, about their willingness to hurt and the limits to how they were willing to hurt each other. The worst of it all was that River had put the Svara on Erik’s skin. River had helped him tell a poisonous story he refused to believe.
What might Erik ask for next? What story was he telling with his body?
“What’s it like?” River asked. “To make something for someone that they know nothing about? To do this blind?”
“It’s…” Cheyenne paused. He wanted to ask her to keep going, to keep him under that wash of nagging pain, where everything became slow and viscous. “It’s powerful and frightening.”
“Have you done it before?”
“A few times,” Cheyenne said. She’d turned the music off when they’d closed for the night, and when she rolled away to get more ink, the squeaking wheel on her chair amplified the emptiness of the room.
“Hey,” River said. “Would you mind putting the music back on?”
“Of course.” Cheyenne stripped off her gloves. She moved quietly now, having slipped out of her shoes. They lay half under her workstation, cherry-red patent peep-toe heels with bows shaped like skulls on the back. He wanted to paint them. Maybe hazy, or like brittle, beautiful spun glass.
The low throb of their usual music flipped on. River knew she wasn’t deterred from her questions. He just couldn’t answer while that exposed, stripped half-naked in a brightly lit cave, with the most no-nonsense woman he knew at his back.
“You haven’t distracted me enough,” Cheyenne said, straddling the chair. Black gloves went on like butter—every move was efficient. River strove for that, for economy of movement, for alignment in environment. With Cheyenne, it was effortless. River thought of Erik, of his hand under his thigh in the tub. Of how his voice broke around River’s name when he almost slipped into the water, then broke again on a gasping laugh. River wondered about Erik and thought, Maybe effort isn’t so bad.
“Well, it’s been over a month and he’s still here,” River said.
“Yes. Plans for Valentine’s?”
“Oh, fuck.” River closed his eyes. Cheyenne’s laugh, the wicked, small thing it was, didn’t sting as much as it could’ve. “Do you think he expects something?”
“I don’t know him.”
River bit his lip. “Well, he’s not romantic, exactly, but…not because he’s really not.”
“Damn, is it riddle hour? I thought we were coming up on eleven. I’d already planned my midnight snack.”
“Shut up,” River said. She was on his spine now, and it was all he could do not to laugh. She pulled back so he could.
“Here’s the deal: he wants to be something he isn’t, I think. But not in a good way. It’s like he’s trying to fulfill this idea of who he is—”
“A self-fulfilling prophecy?”
Maybe. A punishing one.
“He thinks I’m the sweet one. I think he’s worried about breaking me.”
“He won’t break you, I know that. And maybe you’re not as sweet as he thinks. You’ve got sharp little teeth, even if you don’t use them enough.”
“What’s that mean?” River asked. Cheyenne knew, though. Everyone at Styx did. His mother loved to visit and dote on him, sure. But Megan also liked to hurt him when she wasn’t sober, and she wasn’t selective about witnesses.
“You worry too much about damaging others and not enough about how they scar you.” She wiped his back and rolled away. “Need a break now?”
He hummed. He could use the bathroom. She shook her hand out; her hair was coming loose. River wanted to tuck it behind her ear, like he might with Val, but it wasn’t like that and never had been with Cheyenne. Perhaps it was the well-meaning but off-the-mark advice. Maybe it was the assumption that River passively allowed people to hurt him.
Sharp little teeth. River shook his head and walked away.
…
River paused. Held his breath. When had he last hung out with Steve?
Erik rolled over. One arm snaked over River’s waist and hauled him closer. His hair was soft against River’s lips. Only the dark kept the sweet kiss he gave him secret.
It punched a smile out of him. An epithet and affection at once meant he hadn’t screwed up too bad.
…
“So, let me get this straight. In the time since we last spoke—weeks ago—you acquired an actual boyfriend, broke up with him, took him back, and now he’s cleared a drawer for you?”
“Well”—River filled his mouth and mumbled through his food—“more like told me I could use one and stick my stuff in with his.”
“Don’t get technical on me, and don’t think I don’t understand you when you talk with your mouth full.” Steve pointed a french fry at him. Its authority was severely undermined when it broke in half.
“At least it fell in the ketchup?” River said to Steve’s sigh.
“River.” Steve pushed his plate to the side and folded his hands, elbows on the table. “Are you sure this guy is good for you? Even with Brigid, when things were total shit, you didn’t ignore me.”
“I’m not ignoring you.” Guilt and acid worked in tandem on his heavy lunch. “And why do you and Val always bring her up? Is there a reason no one will ever let me live down one bad relationship?” River laid his hands flat on the table. He hated that they loved him like this, like a collection of mistakes, like he wasn’t capable or trustworthy with his own heart.
The absolute worst was the idea that he might be proving them right. Erik in his bed last night. Erik sighing deep into River’s skin as he shed something heavy, the weight of a persona he walked in every day. The Erik River knew in those moments was proof of something better than they’d had.
River couldn’t let himself think of the other parts. Erik, vicious in fight. Erik, still high in his bathroom, bleeding into his sink.
“Look, Steve. I’m sorry. I really am. You know I never want to be that friend. But I also hate that you guys measure me against every shitty thing people have done to me, or that I’ve ‘let them do.’”
“Riv, it’s not like that. That’s not what I’m doing. I’m allowed to be worried about you, especially when you start dating someone I know nothing about and then start avoiding me,” Steve said.
River kicked him lightly under the table. “I’m not purposely avoiding you. What I am doing, though”—River leaned forward—“is saying you and Val need to chill out and let me be a grown-up. Even if I wanted to come to you, I wouldn’t right now.”
River stood, his scrunched napkin unfurling on the plate where he’d tossed it.
“That’s not fair, man, don’t lump me in with Val. Come on, River, don’t leave.” Steve reached for his arm. If Steve got a hold of him, he’d feel it, the tremor, the worry of being seen and being wrong and being pulled under their well-meaning bullshit. River tucked his hand tight into his pocket.
“I’m sorry. I’ll call you. We’ll set something up. I know Erik would love to meet you.” Two truths and a lie were better than none, right?
River walked out, heedless of the ring of the bell above the door, of the rain that had rolled in on bruised clouds, of the worried lines folding into Steve’s frown.