Breaking In and Healing Things

 📅 summer 2018

【ᴄᴡ ғᴏʀ ᴍɪɴᴏʀ ᴀʟʟᴜsɪᴏɴ ᴛᴏ ᴀʟᴄᴏʜᴏʟɪsᴍ】

The hum of a NYC summer evening drifted through the open apartment windows as white noise and humidity; warm breezes carrying both stray beetles and traffic-drone. The city’s raucous buzz could have felt oppressive or overwhelming, but to Chey—? Letting the world in through every window, there in the dog-days heat, with everyone else doing the same—? It felt like interconnectedness made audible; like reckless, candid, unintentional intimacy: Neighbor’s conversations carried from open windows two doors down; easy laughter rose from the street. 
Music was everywhere; playing from speakers or stereos both distant and directly overhead: Summer’s lack of secrecy meant Chey and Anarchy could easily hear the mournful, minor-key soundtrack playing from Seth’s apartment a floor above. Anarchy grimaced at the sound of glass clinking from the upstairs balcony as he got ready to leave for work.
“Call Aetos or ‘Thena if shit goes south up there, okay?” he said, jabbing his thumb towards the ceiling, his other hand on the doorknob. Chey glanced up and shrugged one shoulder.
“Or I’ll go up myself.” He offered Anarchy a reassuring smile that he couldn’t help but let turn into a swift hug. “It’ll be alright, don’t worry. Stay safe on your shift.”
“Okay, yeah—thanks, Chey.” Anarchy smiled back, more easily, even if apprehension still flickered in his eyes. “I’ll be home a little after 2.” He lingered in the doorway. Chey could feel the space between them.
“Okay! I’ll see you then.”

Chey felt rather listless with evening’s advance and too distracted for most of his distractions, though he met his own labrador-like moping with enough amusement to laugh at himself: Anarchy would be home; Chey didn’t need to be staring at the door until it opened. He tried to settle down into his music studies; sitting on his bed and occasionally plucking at Anarchy’s guitar, but ended up just tracing the red Ⓐ painted on its body and watching the sky outside grow dark to the mournful soundtrack still playing from the apartment above. Eventually an exceedingly heavy sigh from overhead broke him from his reverie, and he ventured from his room, concerned.

Kohao had gone out sometime before the sky turned red and gold, with a half-sincere promise to be back before midnight, and left both his bedroom door and his room’s window out to the fire escape wide open. Somehow that route felt easy, felt right, so Chey took it: Clambered out onto the fire escape in the last light of dusk and climbed the metal steps to Sethfire’s window. It, like all others in the city that day it seemed, was already slightly open. Chey pushed it up high enough to enter.
“Seth? I’m in your house,” he called out courteously as soon as his feet touched the floor.

Walking out into the hall, he saw Seth standing in the kitchen: Rumpled shirt, glass of whiskey in hand, incredulous eyes and looking more confused than Chey had ever seen him.
“Chey?”
“Yeah, sorry, just started getting worried about you,” Chey shrugged. He gestured towards Seth’s bluetooth speaker. “This music’s beautiful and all, but it’s real sad…”
Seth stared at him.
“...Autumn Music 2. Max Richter,” he said slowly; “I suppose it is...” He seemed to be at an entire loss. He looked down at the glass of whiskey in his hand, then back towards his kitchen, his glass again, up at Chey. “...Do you want a drink?” he asked, looking terribly uncomfortable.
“Probably shouldn’t,” Chey said cheerfully. “How many have you had tonight?”
Sethfire cast another tired glance back towards his kitchen, where a half-empty bottle of whiskey sat on the counter.
“...That was full,” he said.
“Ah. d’you want to talk?” Chey gestured towards the living room, and though Sethfire gave him an incredulous look, he just went with it; seemingly unwilling to make a deal of being invited to take a seat on his own couch. Chey sat cross-legged in the chair facing him, and Sethfire finally heaved a heavy sigh.
“What are you...doing, here?” he asked.
“Kiki told me to keep an ear out for you,” Chey replied. He shrugged one shoulder, still smiling, and Seth’s own lips twitched upwards at the nickname.
“‘Kiki’?”
“Oooh, don't tell him I’m spreading that nickname around, he hates it! Always has.” Chey bit his lip and his tone grew softer, warmed by nostalgia’s echo of the western sun: “…That was one of the ones I tried out before we figured out ‘Anarchy.’ Did he tell you about that? All the nicknames we went through?”
Sethfire shook his head. “I honestly know very little about your friendship with him. It's clear it runs deep. He shared that he never felt able to confide in me about it for fear I’d confirm suspicions that you were dead...Couldn’t bear the idea of hearing it.”

“‘Runs deep’…” Chey echoed. “...Yes, yes it does. You know, I’ll never forget seeing him for the first time. It’s a snapshot in my head. I remember exactly how golden the sun was, and the shade of blue of the sky...The sky in the desert is just different. Bigger, somehow. That afternoon was so, so hot. I think he’ll always be summer to me because of that.”
Sethfire stayed silent, but there was a depth of interest to his eyes; he looked distinctly knowing. Chey smiled softly, trusting Sethfire with the transparency of his tone.
“It’ll be ten years ago this August,” he murmured.
“A full decade,” Seth said. He looked to be deep in thought and tapped a finger twice against his knee, seemingly subconsciously.
“Yeah. Weird to think I was only physically with him for two years of it at the beginning. Two and a half, almost. You wouldn’t expect me to be able to look back, right? They should have been the two worst years of my life. But I had him, then.” Chey leaned forward slightly; propping his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands in front of him, looking at his laced fingers instead of directly at Sethfire. 
“...Being alone was worse than anything else could ever be.”

Chey felt Sethfire’s analytical gaze boring into him and waited, wondering if he was pushing too hard.
“Alone,” Sethfire said, without inflection but a prompt all the same.
“Yeah.” Chey raised his eyes. Seth seemed thoughtful again.
“...Weren’t you in foster homes? With other children?”
“I was. And I was even in homes where people wanted to care for me. But I was alone inside: I shut down. I self-destructed. I didn’t let anyone know me. It was lonely.”
Sethfire went quiet again, more silence that stretched on without becoming any easier to parse. Eventually he straightened his shoulders.
“It’s difficult to picture you that way,” he said. “You seem to be nothing like that, now.”
“Yeah, I’m not. It took a lot of time, though. A lot of time and a lot of trust and a lot of talking about things that hurt. I was still avoiding some of it in spring and ‘Key had to pull it out of me…” Chey let out half a laugh, his heart fluttering over thoughts of Anarchy. He cast Seth a rather confessional smile. 
“...And I think there might be more yet. Time and trust.” He sat up straighter, himself, feeling he’d said as much as he could without preaching. “Are you going to be alright tonight, Seth?”
“Yes, I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

Chey let Seth show him to the front door, opting not to leave the same way he came in. Sethfire’s expression seemed introspective and somewhat distant, but he held the door open a few moments longer than needed in their mutual bids of goodnight and, suddenly, repeated himself:
“...Thank you.”
“Of course.” Chey grinned. “Any time. Assuming you leave the window unlocked, that is.”
Sethfire allowed himself the flicker of a smile.
“...Assuming I do. Goodnight, Chey.”