Page 55 of Refrain
They were too alike.
Other people didn’t see it. They only saw the surface, not what lay beneath. The truth was that he and Spook were flip sides of the same bloody coin. Spook ran from sex. He ran towards it. Only sometimes the dynamics got all flipped around leading to a state of flux neither of them could handle with any sort of competence. Somehow, here and now, he had to be the voice of restraint, because while making out might satisfy an itch both of them were eager to scratch, it wouldn’t do either of them any favours long term. The repercussions of their last clash were still all too tangible. He wasn’t sure anyone really trusted either of them.
Not even Luthor.
He just understood the whys of it and was wired for consensual polyamory. Somehow, Xane had to not be too blunt or cruel about this. Damaging the trust between them was unthinkable. Pushing Spook away when he so desperately needed a friend would be unconscionable too.
Just be real, he kept telling himself. It’s not like he doesn’t get why hooking up would be bad for you both. Sure, he kissed you first, but he was also the one who broke it off.
Dammit, he wished Spook would say something. It was excruciating looking at one another, feeling a gulf being carved into the space between them. Then when he did speak, God, Xane wished he hadn’t, because that heartfelt whisper of his name drew him across the room like a fishing hook had pierced the centre of his chest and he was being reeled in.
They stood face to face. Xane clasped his hand around Spook’s cheek, though he stopped short of initiating another breathless kiss. They gazed at one another nervously instead. Each searching for something in the other that neither of them found. “It’d be a mistake,” he said, the words bitter on his tongue.
The pair of baby blues with which Spook regarded him, so brimful of desperation and hunger for love and approval almost had him taking it back. It scoured his very soul to say this to someone he knew was already walking a precipice. “Please know that it’s not because I don’t want to… I do. It’s not that I don’t want or feel anything for you, only that we made different choices. We did… we made…”
Spook’s hand formed a cuff around his raised arm. “It’s all right, Xane. I get it. You don’t owe me an explanation. I don’t need one.”
“I think I need to explain it to myself.”
“I’m not actually asking anything of you. Though for the record, I want you too, or at least part of me does. The really fucked up insane part. We’re not what either of us needs. You have Luthor and Dani, and the three of you are great together. I’m not interested in destabilising that any more than I’ve already done.”
“And you have Allegra,” he said, throat yet again choked with so much emotion he couldn’t express.
“Can we not?” Spook’s lashes fluttered against his cheek. He released his grip on Xane’s arm and turned his back.
“She’s yours whether you want her to be or not, Spook. And let’s be honest, you do want her to be.” Xane followed him to the fireside. “We need to talk. We should have done so before now, instead of hedging around things.”
“What’s there to say?”
“Too fucking much.” They couldn’t just keep channelling all this pain and madness into the music. Some of it at least needed expressing in words rather than notes. What they needed was some no-filters honesty, a bit like they’d had out in the woods, but minus the sexual tension lure of “solving” everything by getting it on.
Head bowed, Spook’s hair swished as he shook his head. “You know one of the things I always liked about you was that I didn’t have to put any of it into words for you to understand.”
“Same,” Xane agreed. That sort of understanding was the core of their bond, but it was empathic understanding, nuanced, but lacking in precision. He inched backwards and dropped into the armchair. Then held out his hands to his friend. After a moment’s resistance, Spook took them, and hunkered down on the floor before him. “Turn about,” Xane instructed him. It was always easier to talk over difficult topics when you weren’t having to look someone in the face. “Why don’t you tell me about the dreams to start with. Just how bad are they?”
“Trust you to start with the sex-related stuff.”
“Isn’t it all sex-related?”
“Guess,” Spook sighed in admission, scrubbing his scalp. He propped his back against Xane’s legs. “All right, dreams. They’re not actually nightmarish for the most part. Sure, sometimes they go places I’d rather not revisit, but that’s been the case for years. Mostly, it’s like I said, they’re just intensely lurid.”
“In that…?”
“In that they feature all the things I’d rather not…that I’d rather not think about or do…and that I wish I didn’t like.”
Xane leaned forward and kissed the top of his head. “You wouldn’t be you, if you didn’t like that stuff, and there’s nothing wrong with what you like if you’re sharing it with someone else who likes it. There’s nothing wrong with liking dirty sex, period. I like some pretty gross stuff myself.”
“Yeah, right.”
“You doubt me?”
“Like what?”
“How about all the stuff everyone’s been judging me over for years?”
“Do they judge you for it?”
“You don’t think so? All those years of me banging groupies and frankly, anyone else who was willing… two, three, four people one after another… It might have been laughed over like a joke, but no one really thought it was funny, and they sure as hell don’t accept that I liked it. To them, it’s just an illness, a mental deficiency that I need to constantly work on so I can function in the way they want me to, but addiction’s more complex than simply sliding into bad habits.”
