Murmuration

Sean rolls his eyes. “He’ll just want to put me in some contraption that looks like one of those cheesy science fiction pictures you love so much. Where the aliens enslave mankind and make them wear a motorcycle helmet covered in wire and glitter.”

“I don’t like those,” Mike says.

Sean waits.

“Okay,” Mike says. “Maybe a little bit. But we have to see what else he can do.”

“We have the Ercaf. We can see how that goes. It takes a while. You know that.”

He does know. He just hates waiting. Mike Frazier can be patient about most things, but not about this.

And then Sean says, “Besides, if I go, then you go as well.”

“Me? For what?”

“I think he called it your insomnier.”

“Busybody,” Mike mutters. “Always talking without saying anything at all.”

Sean shrugs and bumps his knee against Mike’s, and only then does Mike realize how close they are, Sean still seated in the chair, Mike towering above him. It’s intimate, quiet, the noise of the diner a dull murmur underneath the rotating fan. He thinks that for propriety’s sake, he should take another step back, but can’t find within him the will to do so. “He worries about you,” Sean says.

“Maybe he should mind his own business,” Mike counters.

“Uh-huh. And where were you this morning?”

Mike pauses. He pauses, because he’s always told himself that he never wants to lie to Sean if he can help it, that of all the people in the world, in Amorea, Sean always deserves to know the truth.

And so he says nothing at all, and hopes it’s not lying by omission. Because he doesn’t really know where he was this morning.

“Right,” Sean says. “Probably with the mistress, then?”

Mike sputters. “There’s no…. I can’t—I would never do that to—”

Sean laughs, that raspy chuckle of his crawling along Mike’s skin. Mike loves the sound of his voice, could listen to it for ages. It reminds him of the jazz records he sometimes plays, the horns and the bass husky and just sliding out of the black spinning discs, scratchy and warm. He can see Sean like that, like some kind of hepcat, a long, filtered cigarette between his lips, the smoke curling up around his face, snapping his fingers along with Dizzy Gillespie as he wails on his trumpet.

And he loves it even more now, because it’s saved him from further embarrassment, the horror probably evident on his face that there could ever be anyone else. The thought alone is enough to make him anxious.

And Sean is joking, dragging him along just a little bit, but he can’t have him thinking there’s even the tiniest bit of truth to that. He can’t have that. He won’t have that.

So Mike says, as earnestly as he can, “There won’t ever be anyone else like that.”

And Sean stops laughing, his eyes widening just ever so much as he stares up at Mike, and Mike refuses to avert his eyes, refuses to look away, because he’s learned in those pulp detective books with the dime-store covers that that’s how liars work, that they have little tells. They look away. He can’t have Sean thinking he’s lying. He’s not. Never about this.

He thinks he sees Sean’s breath hitch just the tiniest bit before he smiles that smile only for Mike. “I know,” he says. “I know that, Mike. I’m just messing with you.”

“Okay,” Mike says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

But Sean knows. He always does. He says, “You want to walk me home, big guy?” and of course Mike says yes and yes and yes.

THEY MAKE it out of the diner okay, and even though there are fewer people, they still get those knowing looks, those looks that say We know how you two are, you can’t hide from us. Oscar waves from the kitchen, a short dismissive thing, barely tearing his scowl away from Walter, who can’t quite stop from rolling his eyes at whatever invaluable life lesson Oscar’s imparting upon him.

They’re out the door and into the summer twilight without much fuss. The sky above is pastel and fire, the air cooling the barest amount. There are people lining up at the theater, waiting to pay their forty-one cents for a ticket away from Amorea for a couple of hours. There are people lounging in the park on checkered blankets, wicker baskets open between them.

It’s a normal evening here in Amorea, and except for Sean’s migraine, everything feels just fine.

Mike’s feeling a bit brave after his display in the office and crooks his elbow out toward Sean. Sean looks down at it, then back up at Mike, amusement clear on his face. Mike blushes, but that’s par for the course these days. Sean hums a little under his breath and slides his hand around Mike’s arm. Mike holds his elbow close to his body, Sean’s hand trapped against him. They do this sometimes. But it’s always been Sean who latched on first. Mike feels something loosen in his chest.

They start walking together, Sean pressed up close beside him. The top of his head comes up to Mike’s chin, and Mike can’t help but find it overwhelmingly endearing. He’s a big guy, and not just in the way that Sean always calls him. He’s bigger than most others in Amorea, but he never uses his size to intimidate. It’s not in him. It’s not how he is.