Written by Screwthedaisies for Scaramouche for the 2011 xmas_rocks exchange
| This story is a work of fiction and therefore completely untrue. No harm or libel is meant or implied about any of the individuals named within this work and it was written without their involvement or permission. No profit is being made. |
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"What do you mean, it doesn't look familiar?" A rising mix of incredulity and irritation burbled at the back of Rachel's throat, something like a cocktail of Smirnoff and old socks. He didn't glance over at Baz in the passenger seat; he just kept driving up the road, hunched forward like a vulture, his nose jutting over the steering wheel. He blinked quickly, as if it would clear his vision of the swirling snow in the headlights. "You said you knew where this place was." The heater, blowing hot and fierce against the windshield, melted mutant snowflakes as soon as they hit the glass. With a scrape, the wipers swept up and dragged what was left of them away. "You said you'd been there before, a bunch of fucking times." The heater also blew tendrils of hair in and out of his face, which wasn't helping. "I have been out here a bunch of fucking times," Baz said. "It just wasn't ever in a fucking blizzard, all right? Every fucking landmark looks like Frosty the fucking Snowman right now. Chill out, man. We'll find it." "Or they'll find us. Weeks from now. When the snow thaws. Two frozen corpses in a piece of shit car in the middle of Motherfucking Nowhere, New Jersey." Through his death grip on the steering wheel, he felt the car sputter. Not for the first time. He kept quiet about it, desperately hoping that the 'vette--Chevette, unfortunately, at least for the time being--would hold itself together long enough to get out here, pick up a dime bag, and get them back to the apartment. He retightened his grip on the wheel. "Okay, wait, this is starting to look right." Baz shoved his hair back so he could press his forehead against the passenger window. "Yeah, I remember that shitpile there. Okay. There should be a left turn up ahead." "How far ahead?" "Let me see. It should be right....now. There. Turn there!" Rachel nudged the wheel, and time slowed to a crawl. The 'vette drifted sideways, all slow-mo like. Baz braced his hands on the dashboard. The view through the windshield floated disconcertingly left to right instead of coming at them the way it was supposed to. Rachel's foot tapped between the gas and brake pedals, trying to work out just what you were supposed to do in this situation. Somehow, some way--grimacing and quiet all the while--he got them moving forward again. More miraculously, they were facing the direction they needed to go. "Fuuuuuuuuck," Baz let out with a grin. He dropped his back against the seat. "Nice work." The feel under the tires had changed, from snow on pavement to snow on gravel. A gust of wind swept a cloud of whiteness around them for a moment, then the black night reappeared in their headlights. Rachel, babying the car up an incline, felt that uncertain little shudder through the steering wheel again. Shit. "Is it me or is the car acting funny?" Baz asked. Shit. "Probably a loose belt. You think they plow all the way out here?" "Stuart has a plow on the front his truck, if I remember correctly. He can probably clear a way back to the main road." Baz half turned to glance out the back window. "If we get in and out, though, we'll probably be okay. It's only, what, two, three inches yet?" It was funny how the snow falling and the darkness around them isolated them inside the car. They were together in this small space, all on their own. Cut off. The rest of the world, aside from whirling snow and the thick, dark tree trunks watching them warily from just off the road, might not even be out there at all. "His place should be the end of this road." "I really fucking hope so." Rachel's armpits were drenched. The car only had two temperatures: heat on full, or freeze your fucking ass off. He could go for some freeze your fucking ass off, but he was afraid the windshield would ice over if he tried. A stand of snow-flocked trees suddenly came into the headlights' beam. A banking of snow-covered rocks. Rachel tapped the brakes lightly, once, twice, silently praying that the car would ease to a stop before kissing the stone wall. And it did. It continued to rumble quietly for a second, hiccupped twice, then fell silent. "Shit." Beside him, Baz called out, "Yes!" To Rachel this seemed a confusingly inappropriate response to the car dying at a dead end. "Shit yeah," Baz was saying, practically climbing Rachel's lap to tap his index finger hard against the driver's side window. The car's heater had done a job on him, too; he brought with him a sharp odor that flared Rachel's nostrils. "This is the place," Baz said. "Look--see the lights?" To Rachel's left, through the trees and falling snow, about 100 yards up an incline, there were indeed lights twinkling. Baz's hair brushed coolly against his cheek. He was so close. And then Baz was backing off, pushing the passenger door open behind him--"This is the place. We fucking found it, in a motherfucking blizzard!"--and somehow backing right out of the car, his long legs unfolding like jointed stilts. Snow swirled in. He bent down and stuck his head back inside. "You coming?" Rachel looked through the trees, up at the lights, then over at the hood of the car. "I want to take a look under the hood. Might just be a loose belt." That had happened before, sort of the same way the car had acted tonight. Kind of. In a way. He was thinking there was a flashlight in the glove box. Hopefully. "I'll be back." The door slammed closed, shaking the car. The interior light went out. Rachel watched Baz stride across the road. He hoped that a) Baz made it out of there before the roads got too bad to drive on and b) that it was, in fact, a loose belt, and he'd have the 'vette rumbling again by the time Baz got back. And then they could go back to his place and smoke up and lie around and maybe later, after Baz fell asleep, he'd jerk off looking at him, stretched out on the swayback couch. This was admittedly creepy. Yet also compelling. And most likely he'd jerk off in the bathroom, thinking about looking at Baz lying stretched out on the couch. This was all predicated on the idea that he wouldn't crash out before Baz. He popped the glove box and grabbed the flashlight. Fifteen minutes later, he was still bent under the hood, grimacing as he poked and wiggled shit and tried to find something potentially repairable. He clamped the butt end of the flashlight between his teeth so that he could brace himself and reach farther back, beyond the engine block, and just as he was leaning forward to do that was when he heard the shout, dulled and carried away by the wind but notable in the fact that it was the only sound out there, aside from the wind. He straightened, careful not to hit the back of his head on the hood, and heard another shout before his eyes picked up the source of it. And then, with the flashlight back in his hand, its meager light sweeping no farther than the edge of the road, he could make out what he was hearing: "START THE FUCKING CAR! START THE CAR, RACH! START THE FUCKING--" As his body went into auto-pilot--slam the hood shut, make his way around the fender of the car without completely falling on his ass, yank the driver's side door open--his brain processed what he'd seen: Baz's coat flapping, his hands cupped at his mouth, flashes of a bouncing moon-like face looming beyond his shoulder. He stomped on the gas and turned the key in the ignition. Spittle wet his lips and he prayed and cursed--and the car went "click click click." He watched Baz's slam his hands down on the hood, his body still going forward, skidding into the car. Ohshitohshitohshit. Clickclickclickclick. Sweat slid down his temples. He hit the steering wheel with the flashlight still clutched in his left hand and twisted the key again. "Shitshitshitshitshitmotherfucker." Baz had worked his way around the front end of the car. Rachel turned his head. "Ohshitohshitohshitohfuckinggod." A giant fucking pig-sticking butcher knife arced in the air, gripped in a giant, fleshy fist. A thick wrist disappeared up the sleeve of a dark coat which was worn by a massive, massive man with a round, stub-nosed face. He looked like a Bob's Big Boy gone pyscho. Thumpthumpthump--Rachel cranked his head away from the Big Boy and toward the passenger side, where Baz was beating on the window. Rach leaned across the seat to pull the lock, but as his fingers reached it, he realized it was already up. Thumpthumpthump. He scrabbled for the door handle. A shadow fell over the front seat. Big Boy had rounded the car, too. Baz wasn't going thumpthumpthump anymore--he'd taken off. Rachel punched the door lock with the side of his fist, hitting it wrong and sending a stab of pain up his wrist, but he'd hit it right enough to lock it, and that was all that mattered. Righting himself in the driver's seat, he grabbed hold of the key again and cranked it in the ignition. Click-click-click-click. "Shit. Shit fucking shit goddamn fucking SHIT." He pounded the steering wheel with his hands. "SHIT GODDAMN." Something slammed the glass inches from his face. His brain carefully recorded that that was how it felt to jump out of your skin. Meanwhile, he made out Baz's hand, splayed on the glass. He tried to make out Baz behind it, in the dark and swirling snow. He was holding his breath. This was the point in the horror movie where the knife would come right through Baz's chest from the back, spewing blood on the glass. This was that point. Slowly, Baz's face sank into view, peering into the window. His eyes danced. His mouth spread wide into a shit-eating grin. "You fucking asshole," Rach said. He hit the glass, inches from Baz's face. "You motherfucking asshole!" Another face joined Baz's, big like the moon and grinning from ear to ear. Rach gave them both the finger. Baz straightened and pulled open door. Crisp, cold air rushed in, and that felt good. It felt like he was getting some oxygen. His chest was still tight, and his heart still hammered against it, but at least he was getting some air to his head. Only now did he realize how sour the inside of the car was, how rancid with panic. Goddamn that fucking asshole. "Good times," Baz said. "Good fucking times." "Fuck the both of you. Twice." Baz leaned against the inside of the door. "Come on. Let's go inside. Get something to drink, do a little of the stuff we just bought. Stuart says we can bunk out till morning, till the plows get the roads cleared." "We'll take a look at the car when it's light out, see if we can get 'er started again," Big Boy said. He stepped forward, shoving a meaty hand forward. "Stuart." Grudgingly, but not so grudgingly that he seemed completely ungrateful, Rachel accepted it, and used it to haul himself to his feet. "Rachel." As they headed up the driveway, snowflakes melting in their hair and the woods silent all around them, Baz said, "I fell on my fucking ass out there running. I think I bruised my tailbone." "Serves you right," said Rachel. By the time they made it to the porch, Rachel was swimming in sweat in his leather jacket again, but his cheeks were pricked with cold. They stamped off their sneakers and followed Stuart into a kitchen that seemed hardly large enough for Stuart but somehow managed to also contain a round wooden table, three wooden chairs, all the usual appliances, and a woman in leggings and an oversized flannel shirt who couldn't have weighed more than 90 pounds. She smiled at them as they came in, taking Stuart's windbreaker as he shrugged out of it. To Rachel, Baz said, "Denise," tipping his head toward her. "Hey," Rachel said with a little nod. "Beer?" Baz asked. "Yeah, sounds good." "Come on in the living room," Stuart said, leading the way. From somewhere a can of Michelob appeared, cold and welcome. He tipped it down his throat as he headed out of the kitchen. Sitting in an equally cramped living room, they made small talk for a bit while Denise carried an armful of pillows and blankets down to the basement for them. Baz, leaning forward on the couch beside Rachel, elbows on knees, beer dangling from his fingers, related a recent gig fiasco (stage the size of a postage stamp, turning on their gear made the neon beer signs over the bar flicker--not what the promoter had made it out to be, and they almost didn't play, but people showed up, they went on...and they got shorted on their take), which led to Stuart telling a winding, half-confused story about his cousin who had roadied for Van Halen once. Rachel had lived Baz's story, though with a few less embellishments, and he couldn't follow Stuart's, so instead, from under drowsy-lidded eyes, he worked his gaze over the planes of Baz's wrist, the veins mapping the back of his hand, the glint of light off his thumbnail as he gestured. From time to time he interrupted himself to take another pull off his beer. This wasn't the night he'd planned, but it wasn't as though he'd really thought--really, in actuality, believed--that the night would go the way he'd dreamed it up, with the whole jerking-off thing. That was just daydreaming. Reality was always...safer. Denise came back upstairs and sat with them a while, curled like a cat in an easy chair. Baz was off on another story, something about a guy tripping on acid or something. It was a funny story, and the walls shook whenever Stuart laughed. The room was over-warm, the last swallow of beer not as cold as the first. Rachel stretched out a leg and shifted his head more comfortably against the back of the couch. From this angle, he could watch Baz's back and shoulders shift as he gesticulated. Denise stifled a yawn. Rachel followed suit. As soon as Baz's story wound down, Stuart made noises about calling it a night. Denise was quick to get to her feet and offer to show them where they were bunking. Stuart filled them in on the trick of the shower taps (hot and cold were reversed), and then they followed Denise down to a basement where they had a pull-out sofa, a 13" black and white TV, and shelves of yard-sale books, old magazines and board games, all to themselves. Rach felt like he could just about sleep standing up. Denise headed back up the stairs. They both tipped their heads back and watched till she shut the door behind her. Then Baz teased a baggie out of his pocket. "Let the fun begin." One whiff of smoke on top of the beer and the heat--he really would be out on his feet. Dropping his coat on the sofa, he said, "Why didn't we do some upstairs with them?" "Them? They don't do drugs." "They just sell them?" "Sounds like good business sense to me, I guess." Rach let a few seconds pass by before saying, "Whatever." He looked around at the books piled, lopsided and spilling off each other, on the shelves. A painting of fruit hung in a plastic frame that had painted to look like gold, or maybe it was supposed to be brass. The walls were paneled in a light-colored fake wood. Ash, he wanted to say. Fake ash. Fash. "Fash," he murmured. "Sorry about earlier," Baz said, dropping into the only chair, knees akimbo. "You know, with the pyscho killer thing." He laid the baggie carefully on his thigh. "You have to admit it was fucking brilliant, though." "I think I'm gonna grab a shower." Baz looked up. "I feel kind of groady." "You don't want to do this first?" He waved a rolling paper in the air. "You go ahead. I'll catch up when I get back." "Grab me another beer?" "Yep." The shower wasn't strong, but it was hot. He stepped out ten minutes later, red-skinned. He wiped steam from the mirror with his palm and peered at his face. Drowned rat. Drowned rat with a chain going from his ear to his nose. He looked all right for a drowned rat. He tried to picture Baz's face next to his, Baz was standing right behind him, looking into the mirror with him. They'd look good together. Like a secret. Steam crawled back over the glass, obscuring everything. After toweling off, he headed back downstairs with everything but his jeans tucked under his arm. Baz lay in the middle of the sofa bed, on top of the blankets and sheets, one arm splayed out, the other across his chest, a joint between his fingers. Rachel touched the bottom of a cold beer can against Baz's forehead. "Hey, thanks, man." "Anytime." He dropped his shoes and stuff in a corner. Baz lifted the joint in the air, his hand hovering, waving lazily from side to side. Rachel crawled up the bed and took it from him. He lay on his back beside Baz, closed his eyes and took a nice, slow hit. This thing about Baz, he thought as he held in his smoke and listened to Baz taking a drag beside him, this thing about Baz was all kinds of fucked up. He'd be appalled at the whole thing if he weren't so bewildered by it. It had started with the fact that, clearly, Baz wasn't like normal people. There were men, which was an entire class of people Rachel has never felt any attraction for. And then there was devastatingly beautiful-but-somehow-also-male Baz. This fact, this initial fact, should have just been "Huh. That's interesting." It should have just been that after a few weeks, Rachel would stop noticing his lips or his cheekbones or how endless his legs were. It should have and would have, had it not been for That Fucking Dream. "You still awake?" Baz asked. "Mm. Barely." He had his forearm thrown across his eyes, blocking out the light from the ceiling. Bits and pieces of That Fucking Dream were trying to flash into his brain. This was not what he needed. "Hey, I heard from that chick Shelly," Baz said. "Yeah?" "She said she wants to get together this weekend." "That's nice." They lay there in silence for a minute or so. Rachel, having vanquished That Fucking Dream to the trunk of his back brain, contemplated shucking off his jeans and slipping under the blankets so he could get some sleep. Baz said, "You want to do something this weekend?" "What, like, with you and the chick?" "Eh. I don't know if I'm all that into her." Rachel slid his arm off his face. "What do you wanna do then?" He felt Baz shrug. "I dunno. Cause trouble. Whatever." After another moment, Rachel said, "You nearly gave me a fucking coronary out there, you know." "Is that why you've been so quiet? I said I was sorry about that, man. It was just one of those things that was too good not to do." Rach scrubbed his face with his palms. "Yeah, I probably would have seen it that way, too, if it had been you trying to start the car in a fucking blizzard while trying not to piss your pants." Baz shifted onto his side, facing Rach, his cheek propped in his hand. "I'd have felt terrible--no, really, terrible--if you'd pissed your pants." "Makes me almost wish I had, just so you'd feel appropriately terrible." "All over the car seat. And it froze up. And you had to sit in it all the way home after Stuart got the car working...." He heard the flick of a lighter, the sharp, soft sound of paper catching fire. He listened to Baz pulling in a slow drag. He felt Baz's fingers brush his as Baz offered the joint over. He felt--he thought felt them linger, almost, before disappearing to rake all that thick blond hair back from his forehead. Rachel took a hit, himself, watching Baz. It was one of those weird moments. The weird moments Did Not Help. He almost felt like they were...thinking along the same lines. All one of them had to do was make a move. As he let the smoke curl out of him, Rachel touched his tongue to the corner of his mouth. He and Baz were just...watching each other. What was Baz thinking? What was he thinking? Rachel pulled his tongue back in his mouth and turned his face back toward the ceiling. Jesus Christ. That can not happen. Baz sat up. After a quick pull on the joint, he butted it out in a tin ashtray. "So, yeah, this weekend," Rachel said around a golf-ball sized lump in his throat. "This weekend, I get to be the one chasing you with a knife, right?" "Sure, if you want. So." Baz plumped his pillow. "Time to fucking get some sleep, I guess?" "Yeah." "Night." The light snapped off. Rachel's heart pounded in the pitch blackness till long after Baz's breathing deepened and evened out beside him. That one had come too close. |