The Lovers

Okay, this is actually the sixth of a set of 22 linked stories, and the other 21 will probably appear given time. Rom is dead, Jake is telling this story after the fact at his Wake. The poem is the Ballad of Reading Gaol, by Oscar Wilde

The first thing Jake hears every morning are the screams. Deep, guttural screams – a man being tortured to death. Or being brought back to life. He used to run, try to save him. Now he just rolls over in his bed and goes back to sleep.

The second sound differs, depending on the morning. Sometimes, it’s a quiet whimper, so measily and pathetic that if he didn’t know it was coming next, he wouldn’t be able to hear it. A soft kitten’s whimper. Somehow, it manages to be louder than the screams – more worrying. The whimpers always make Jake’s heart pound faster – almost enough to allow him to leave the confines of his overly large room that he inevitably ends up pacing, his feet pounding a rhythm to match his heartbeat, until the time for decision is finally gone.

Some mornings, some increasingly rare mornings, it’s laughter. Never true, joyful laughter – that comes later, if it’s lucky enough to come at all. No, this is the mad laughter of the slavering, caged beast looking out at his walking, idiotically grinning meals, who think they are somehow protected by a few scraps of wire, the maniacal laughter of the Reaper before his scythe cuts through your skin. Jake can sleep easier through this – he is locked up, and by much more than a few scraps of metal. Besides, it will go away eventually. It always does. He can’t lose himself forever, as much as he’d wish to. That’s the problem with the whimpering, the reason it makes his heart pound – it can last for years. In a way, it has. But the lunatic’s joy will go away soon enough, and he always feels slightly sad when it does. It was joy, of a sort.

The third sound makes Jake leave his bed and put the kettle on. Tears, but not the choked back tears of one mourning for the loss of a preferred pet – full, crying, strangled and strangling tears of one mourning for the loss of all humanity, and perhaps a little bit more than that. He pads silently downstairs in his black pants, to the kitchen. He gestures, and the kettle is full of water – he’d prefer to fill it himself, but he can’t risk any noise. The sobs fills the house, dripping from the ceiling into the boiling pot and into his hair, flooding the floor. These are unrestrained, unforgiving sobs. The sobs of a victim. Jake always wonders who he’s condemning. Who he’s crying for. The answer to both always seems to be – himself.

Once the kettle begins to hum, so does he. The tune changes from dayd to day, depending. Today’s tune is light, almost cheery, with the slightest eerie undertone. Slowly, it becomes more and more eerie, with a cheery undertone. A graveyard in the morning – humming at a murdered enemy’s funeral. Jake smiles, humming along as he prepares the tea, letting the tea leaves drop into the pot as he hunts for sugar. He moved it; of course he did. Green tea, he decides. He could do with some healing. He knows this tune well enough, knows the mood he’ll be in today. A bit of a maniac underneath it all; a melancholy maniac, perhaps. Or no – the tune picks up slightly, and Jake smiles. Perhaps a touch of happiness, today. The Fool, today.

What a surprise.

When it’s finally silent, Jake knows it’s time to go up. The silence is strange, almost suffocating, after the cacophony of sound, and for a few moments every morning, he wonders – Did he die? Did it all finally destroy him? Did he finally decide that he didn’t want to wait for the coming torture? What funeral home should I go to? Did he have a will? – but quickly, the thoughts leave. No Nightshade, not just yet, and without poison there can be no death. Without an heir, there can be no will. It’s the Fool this morning, so Jake dresses, pulling a white t-shirt over his head and jeans up. They’ll be leaving after breakfast, if he knows the pattern, and he does. He places the hummer’s trenchcoat on the coatstand, placing his sneakers carefully beside it, and then, finally, goes upstairs, a silver breakfast tray in his hands.

Rom shoots him a grin as he walks in. He looked disheveled, half-dead, as always, but it is early enough in the morning, and he is still himself enough that one of his eyes is green. The other one is gold, as it usually is – gypsy blood, after all. Rom yawns and stretches as if he’s only just woken up, but they both know that isn’t true – the faintest trail of blood is sliding its way down Rom’s chest, and Jake inwardly winces. Rom catches his gaze and just smiles again, a twinkle in his gold eye, but there is the slightest sadness about the mouth.

“Good morning,” he says.

Jake just sighs and hands him the tray, pouring the tea for him.

After about ten minutes, the laughter begins. Jake is sitting on Rom’s bed, sharing his breakfast with him. Rom is playful today, lunatic. He drinks his tea far too quickly, sharing his toast with Jake. He runs downstairs as soon as Jake’s done, sliding down the banister and then simply hovering in thin air for the sole reason that he knows it disquiets Jake. Sweet, solid Jake. He grins, twirling around in the middle of Jake’s too neat kitchen, pulling Jake to him and twirling him around in a circle until he’s too dizzy and Jake is grabbing onto the kitchen for support. Jake bears all of this with a quiet patience, but the slightest smile touches his lips, and Rom grins, kissing it before running away. Jake just closes his eyes and sighs, muttering under his breath, “The Fool, The Fool, the Fool.”

Rom smiles, a wild grin on his lips, and runs outside, pausing under the still dead sky, and laughs. And whether it is a maniac’s laugh or a saint’s, Jake can never tell. He puts his jacket over Rom’s shivering shoulders. The next part, Jake says with him, for it never changes. Rom in his rags and covered in blood, or crying miserably or jumping like a maniac – it’s always the same.

“With midnight in one’s heart,

And twilight in one’s cell,

We turn the crank, or hear the rope,

Each in his separate Hell,

And the silence is more awful far

Than the sound of a brazen bell.”

Jake smiles, putting his hand on Rom’s shoulder, and Rom smiles as if he doesn’t need it.

“Good morning,” Jake finally answers.

In the evening, Jake sits in his study, Rom at his feet. Rom’s eyes are closed, a small smile on his lips. He traces his fingers over a small, leatherbound tome, humming along to music only he can hear. Jake idly runs his hand through Rom’s hair, and then recoils, feeling the clumps of blood and bone. He traces the scars across Rom’s skull, and winces. Rom just looks up at him with a small smile, and Jake remembers all the more acutely that there are too many things he doesn’t know.

He looks back at his book, but Rom stays in that position, staring at him, for the longest time. Rom closes his eyes for a moment and sighs, leaning into Jake. Jake closes his book, looking down at him. They stay in that position for a while, and Jake smiles. There are plenty of things he does know, as well. He knows not to say a word as Rom stares at him, not to wince. He knows that strange expression in Rom’s eyes.

Rom licks his lips slowly, and begins to speak. “I saw myself die,” he says, and then smiles, “On the day I was born, I saw myself die.”

Jake rubs his shoulder softly.

“I know the date,” Rom says, “I know how. I know how much it’ll hurt. And every night, when I go to sleep, I see it. Does that make me insane?”

Jake shrugs.

“I don’t think I can die. Until that day. I’ve tried.”

Jake raises an eyebrow, and Rom winces.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jake says, and pulls Rom up by the hand. He pulls him upstairs, Rom quietly padding after him, a meek child, until they reach his bedroom. He pushes Rom into his bed, tucking him in quietly. He sits on the edge of Rom’s bed, and smiles. “You told me that last night,” he says, brushing Rom’s hair out of his eyes.

“And the night before that,” Rom murmurs.

“Mmhmm,” Jake says, turning the lamp off.

“It bears repeating,” Rom murmurs, and sighs. “Am I going to be okay?”

Jake smiles softly, taking Rom’s hand and peering at his fingernails. “Whose blood is that?” he asks.

Rom snatches his hand back, and stares for a moment. “I’m not sure. It’s not mine, though.”

Jake smiles, and Rom smiles back. “Stay,” he says, “just for a bit.”

Jake nods, as he always does, and murmurs the final part of the poem.

“And all men kill the thing they love,

By all let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word,

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword!”

Rom, as always, finishes with him.