Book II – Chapter 33: Drive

Posted On October 28, 2020

Ferris’ dreams had been mostly sounds. A heartbeat pounded like a knocker on a door. There was the crunch of snow, the sound of glass—a wine bottle, tumbling onto a sidewalk. His own voice. “You’re drunk.”

He woke with an ache in his chest. It took a moment to put together the blurry hotel room. Right. They were at the hotel. The door knocker thumping in Ferris’ head still hadn’t stopped. A glance to the left told him that Demos wasn’t in the bed. A glance right, followed by a hand patting over the nightstand, told him that his glasses weren’t there either. This was bad. Both of those things were supposed to be there.

“Morning,” came a voice from across the room. Ferris couldn’t recognize the fuzzy shape. But even with his pounding head, even with just one word, he knew that stupid voice.

“Demos—“ Ferris started. It was more of a croak, the final words of a man on his deathbed. “Have you seen my glasses?”

The other half of the bed sunk, just slightly. The blur that was probably Demos had joined him. It looked very much like that blur was playing with something in his hands—maybe a pair of glasses.

“No,” Demos said. Ferris watched with little amusement as Demos tried them on, cringed, then tore them off his face. Served him right. His figure leaned in, ever so gently sliding the plastic arms over Ferris’ ears. Demos’ face came into focus with a snap; there was a weary smile on it. Also, the glasses were completely crooked.

Ferris pushed himself upright, fussing with the frames until they sat correctly over his nose. He made an effort to rub the ache from his temples, which didn’t work in the slightest.

He looked up. “Something smells good.”

“I brought you a coffee.” Demos gestured toward the dresser. “There’s a bakery down the street.”

Sure enough, Demos was fully dressed. There was a to go cup on the dresser beside some kind of pastry wrapped in paper. This was strange. Demos was usually the last person awake in any given group of people. He was also the one that would demand someone else bring him his caffè e cornetto. A pack of cigarettes. This was all wrong.

Maybe Demos was trying to make up for something.

With much more effort than it should have taken, Ferris pushed himself from the bed. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, lifting the paper cup to take a sip. Still hot. And fuck, it was good. The sound was still there—the thump. Thump. Last night. That hadn’t been a dream, had it? The ache in his chest intensified.

“Thanks.” Ferris kept his eyes on the plastic lid of the cup. “Do you—remember what happened last night?”

Shit. Why did he ask that? Why had those words left his mouth? Demos was still making that same, tired smile. “No. Did I do something stupid?”

Of course. That was the answer Ferris had expected. Demos had been so drunk he didn’t even remember what he’d done. That was for the best. It would have made for an uncomfortable conversation. After all, Ferris had—

“No—” Ferris’ eyes were still down, afraid to look up. “I did.”

There, propped on the armchair, he saw it. His violin case. Ferris had forgotten about it when he’d stormed out of the wedding reception. Demos must have picked that up, too. Last night had been such a mess. It had been—

“You’re not hungover?” Ferris asked.

Demos gave a light laugh. “Am I supposed to be? How drunk was I?”

“Drunk enough to—“ Ferris stopped. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore. The pain in his chest had sharpened to a point. He was exhausted, inside and out. Forgetting took more energy than he’d expected. “Uh— we should check out. I’ll ask them to pull the car around.”

Why did it still hurt?

Demos’ smile fell. “You didn’t want to spend the day here? I thought we were going to—“

“I’m not—feeling up to it,” Ferris said. “I’m sorry.”

“You sure? There’s supposed to be a snowstorm today.”

Spending the day here—watching Demos’ face light up in a store or settle into deep thought when trying a new dish from a new restaurant. The way he’d tug on his sleeve. The way his laugh sounded in the cold air. Having to go back. Back to the park.

There was no way. Ferris couldn’t bear a second of it—not today.

“Yeah,” Ferris said. “I’m sure.”

#

They were only halfway home when the blizzard hit in full strength. It had started as a light flurry twenty minutes prior. It had grown and grown until all Ferris could see was the color white. The Alfa Romeo was struggling now, tires pressing on through inches of snow. The highway was empty; no one else had been stupid enough to try driving through an ice storm. The lines on the road were gone.

“Shit,” Ferris said through his teeth. “I can’t see the road.”

Demos had cranked up the heat, cocooning himself in the knit cotton blanket they’d received as a wedding favor. Thankfully, the bride and groom had the courtesy not to put their own names on it.

“Pull over,” Demos said.

The vehicle rumbled to a stop on the shoulder of the road—at least, what Ferris hoped was the shoulder of the road. Outside, snow whipped past the windows. Ice had already begun to build along the edges of the glass. He looked over. “You want to wait this out?”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Demos said. “You can’t drive on a road that’s not there.” In spite of the heat blasting in front of his seat, he was still shivering. “Fuck, my feet are cold.”

The Alfa Romeo Spider—a tiny, vintage convertible with a cloth top. In retrospect, this was the worst possible choice of vehicle for this road trip. Demos had been right. They should have rented a car. A glance at the dashboard brought a second wave of regret. They were low on gas. Ferris had accounted for gas stations during the drive; there was one off the exit just a few miles farther. He hadn’t, however, accounted for the snowstorm.

“Fuck, I—“ Ferris dragged both hands down over his mouth. “I’m sorry. We don’t have enough gas to keep it running like this.”

“What?” Demos’ head bumped back onto the headrest. “Cazzo di merda—this is not how I wanted to die.”

Ferris’ hand lingered on the key. He took in a slow breath, then cut the engine. The heater stopped. Everything was silent save the snow pelting the surface of the car. The windshield was already half covered, casting a shadow over their seats. This was bad, but it could have been worse. The storm was only supposed to be an hour. They could survive an hour. Couldn’t they?

He could already feel the chill creeping up into his bones. His hands cupped over his face, a vain effort to warm his fingers with a few breaths. It was a challenge, peering through fogged glasses to the passenger at his right.

“You’re really going to hog that entire blanket?” Ferris said. It seemed warm—really warm. The kind of throw that looked like a knit sweater—cream-colored, plush, and thick. Demos had pulled it up over his nose, leaving only his eyes exposed to the air.

“Well—” Demos’ voice was muffled. “Crank your seat back, then.”

There wasn’t much space for the driver’s seat to move in the little two-door car. Ferris tugged the handle, letting it roll back until it stopped with a clunk. What did moving his seat have to do with—

A sound took Ferris’ attention back to his right. Demos was clambering over the emergency brake. He was—coming over. To this seat. The driver’s seat.

Oh.

Ferris felt it immediately, the wall of warmth, the instant heat of another body against his. The knit blanket draped over the two of them, trapping that heat beneath the fabric. Ferris’ back was digging into the door handle, his head bumping the window. There wasn’t enough room for both of their legs, even with Demos curled up beside the steering wheel.

“This is… so uncomfortable,” Ferris said.

It was a flat-out lie. Yes, everything was cold and hard and hurt. But Ferris couldn’t remember ever feeling more comfortable. The weight of that body on top of his, wedged in the small space by the dashboard. The softness of that pitch-black hair against the side of his face.

“Let’s call reception,” Demos mumbled into the blanket. “Have them send up some pillows with our room service.”

“Shut up.”

This was worse. Worse than spending a day in the city. Demos had never been so painfully close to him—never for this long. Ferris could feel breath on his collar. He could smell that bergamot and vetiver hair product Demos had brought along because he’d refused to use whatever the hotel provided.

And whenever the storm ended, he would pull away—and it would never happen again. This was for survival, to get through the cold in a poorly equipped Alfa Romeo on the side of the highway in a blizzard he’d been stupid enough to drive through. This didn’t mean anything. And it would be wrong of him to pretend it did.

Ferris closed his eyes against the crown of Demos’ hair. Then, he felt it. A solid shiver that ran straight up Demos’ back and through his throat into a gasp. Ferris moved instinctively, without thinking. His hand ran up that cold back, an unsuccessful attempt to rub some heat into the chill.

It was odd. By now, Demos would normally have pulled some kind of I told you so. I told you we should have stayed at the hotel. I told you there’d be a snowstorm. But he wasn’t saying it. Maybe he was too cold to speak.

“I lied,” Demos said against his chest. It looked like he was capable of speaking after all.

Ferris stilled his hand. “About what?”

“I do remember.” Demos’ fingers curled, just slightly. “I remember what happened last night.”

Ferris’ eyes opened, locked tight on the frosted windshield. That sound in his skull returned with a start. That incessant thump. Thump. “Why—why didn’t you say so?”

“I was embarrassed.”

“It’s—fine,” Ferris said. “You were drunk.”

The seat creaked. Demos pushed himself up onto his hands, forcing Ferris to meet his eyes. It was just like the reception during that song. The sound of the piano—of the strings. Ferris couldn’t look away.

Demos inhaled. “You kissed me back.”

Shit—could Demos hear it, too? It was so loud. His pulse was so, so loud. Fuck—he remembered. Fuck.

Demos’ eyes tensed around the corners. “Why did you kiss me back?”

That pain returned tenfold. Air caught in Ferris’ throat as he forgot how to draw it into his lungs, forgot how to use words to convey meaning. This whole time, this whole morning—he’d remembered. Demos had remembered everything.

“I don’t know,” was all Ferris could say. “I’m sorry.”

Wind was whipping past the windows, sending flurries and ticks of ice against the glass. The entire windshield was covered in snow, a shadow, impossible to see through.

“Are you?” Demos said. His eyes had tightened—hardened. “Are you sorry? Do you wish you could take it back—that it’d never happened?”

“I don’t know.”

There was no correct answer, nothing he could say that was safe. Nothing that wouldn’t change everything between them. That wouldn’t mean losing everything he had, everything he’d come back for. The door was ice cold against his back. He was starting to lose feeling somewhere in his boots, down in his toes. He was starting to lose feeling everywhere.

Why was Demos asking this? What did he want to hear?

Demos hadn’t removed that stare, that lock of his eyes that had entrapped every trace of Ferris’ attention. The Ghost had braced himself against the seat, against the door, hanging over Ferris, legs tucked against his, back bent at an angle it probably shouldn’t have been. He was only inches away.

“You know,” Demos said. The ice outside had nothing on those two words.

There was nowhere for Ferris to escape to. Nowhere else he could look. “I don’t—I don’t know anything anymore.” Why was his voice shaking? Why couldn’t he breathe properly? “I don’t know what I want—what I am.”

“You’re my life, Ferris.”

Those words stopped every function of Ferris’ body, his heart, his lungs. The sensation of pain from the too tight seat, from the angled joints pressing into his thigh. The shiver that had just started to build in his gut. It all stopped.

“You’re—everything,” Demos said. “Except right now, I feel like you’re missing. I feel like I’m alone.”

With that, Ferris found his voice. “You’re not alone.” He knew what it was like—to be alone. To spend three long years living in memories, living with a hole so deep that nothing could fill it.

“I’m here.” Ferris’ hands stopped shivering the moment he touched Demos’ face. His jaw was cold, just like it had been last night. He held that face with both hands, thumb brushing over his cheek. No matter where he was or who he was with, his thoughts always came back to this same face, that one smile—the one Demos never let anyone but Ferris see.

“I’m right here.” In that moment, Ferris forgot what he’d been so afraid of. All he could feel was this life in his hands—the Ghost that haunted him. The one he loved more than anything he could think of, anything that ever had or ever would exist.

Ferris leaned upward. Here he was, fighting gravity at the cliff’s edge, the thump, thump so strong it was rocking his balance. He closed his eyes and took that step.

Demos’ mouth was as soft as he remembered, yielding against his own until there was nothing between them. Warm against the cold. Tasting of that bitter espresso he’d had that morning. That cliff was gone, leaving only his body and the pull of the earth. Falling upward. His hands wanted to shake again, his throat wanted to give in to a tremor. Somehow, he held fast. But—

Demos wasn’t moving. He had frozen in place, eyes wide open—still. There was no embrace, no reaction. There was nothing. Just the patter of ice on glass and the baying wind outside.

That panic returned, cleaving through Ferris’ heart like a handaxe. He’d made a mistake, hadn’t he? One he could never take back.

“Demos. Please—“ Ferris whispered. Hands shaking, voice shaking. “Kiss me back.”

That was all it took. Ferris’ back bumped hard against the door as Demos deepened the kiss, tasting him. Ferris wasn’t sure whose pulse he was hearing anymore. Hands dug into his shoulders, that mouth chasing his own, panting visible clouds in the brief moments they parted. Glasses bumped up over his nose, over his brow. There was no room for them anymore.

The kiss deepened, closer, harder, and Ferris felt as if he had stood up too quickly—as if he had been standing in a hot shower for much too long and had grown dizzy from the heat. It didn’t matter that the car was frozen or that he couldn’t feel his feet. Every corner of his body was burning. His heart felt like it was beating for the first time in his life, that every dull thump until that moment had been a lie.

Demos pulled back, gasping puffs into the frigid air. “I love you.”

Ferris had heard that before. It had been in bars, after long nights, each word smelling like liquor. He’d always answered with a joke, with an offhanded comment. But this—there was no writing it off. There wasn’t a joke hidden in it; there wasn’t the alcohol-laden evening that led to this point. It was just the two of them, huddled in a car like the idiots they were. He was finally listening to those three words, finally believing them.

Ferris opened his eyes. “I—“

“Don’t say you know.”

“I didn’t know.” Ferris let his hand trace higher, his thumb running over the flush in Demos’ cheek. “But I wish I had.”

He waited until their eyes met again, that he was certain Demos was listening. Ferris’ chest rose and fell before he spoke. “I love you—so much.”

Demos shook—once. There was water in his gaze, welling just above his eyelids.

Ferris’ hand stopped. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m happy, you asshole.” Demos lowered his head until their foreheads met. Ferris felt a tear  hit the side of his face. There it was—that smile. Ferris couldn’t see it, but he could feel it—feel it against his palm, feel the rush of his breath as he spoke once more. “I’m happy.”

They held that moment as long as they could. Ferris didn’t care that he would probably have lingering pain in every joint he owned, that he may never feel his feet again. That the snow had piled up over a foot along the side of the car—that the storm hadn’t calmed. All he could feel was the soft breath on his face, the heat in every point their bodies touched. The arms that Demos had wrapped around his shoulders, as if he was afraid he’d slip away.

That was all there was.

“This isn’t how I imagined it.” Demos’ voice was quiet, barely audible over the blizzard outside.

“You imagined this?”

“Yeah. A lot,” Demos said. “It was sunset, and we were on a big pile of money. And we weren’t about to die.”

Ferris’ laugh was faint. “We’re not going to die,” he said. “We just have to stay warm.”

Demos seemed to take this as a cue to move closer. Their chests met flush against one another. Ferris could feel Demos’ mouth resting on his neck, strands of hair on his jaw. It took every ounce of will he had not to swallow—not to shiver at the light touch of those lips.

“Okay,” Demos said. “But if we make it, you owe me a dance.”

Ferris cringed internally. That was right. Demos had asked him to dance. And he’d replied with some mean, petty remark that had set off this entire mess. “Great,” Ferris said. “Now I hope we die.”

“You are such an asshole.”

There wasn’t really any arguing with that.

An entire half hour passed before a wave of snow splattered across the side of the car. Ferris opened his eyes, glancing out the side window just in time to see a roaring truck, a plow, tearing through the walls of snow that had covered the highway. The next thing he noticed was the incredible pain in his lower back,  provoked by whatever he called this ridiculous position in the driver’s seat.

Demos stirred against his chest. It seemed they’d both nodded off. It also seemed the snow had stopped.

“Look,” Ferris said. “The road is clear.”

Demos sat upright, rubbing his eye. “Finally.”

The car started with a low rumble. The heater instantly kicked on, blowing cold air into cold air. Right—it would take a minute to warm up again. Ferris looked over to Demos, who had a line across his cheek from Ferris’ collar. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Demos still looked half asleep as he rolled back into the passenger seat.

“Hey, uh—“ Ferris put his hands on the steering wheel, then chewed his lower lip. “I didn’t—dream that, right?”

“No.” Demos tugged the knit throw up over his chest, then glanced back over. That look in his eyes—was it new, or had Ferris just not noticed it before? Whatever it was, it stirred something in his chest. Something that had been locked away for ages but was now sitting in plain sight. In the cold, winter air. In the sun.

Demos smiled against the folds of the blanket. “You didn’t.”