IncuBUST

Overheating

There was a voice at the edge of hearing calling my name and I felt painfully cold hands pulling at my wing. Steam escaped into the air even though it was nearly eighty degrees, and I drew in a ragged breath of salty air my eyes fluttering open. Hands like blocks of ice gripped me by the arms and began dragging me across the beach. I was plunged suddenly into the freezing water. It closed briefly over my head, and I thrashed for a minute before realizing the water was only waist deep.

I stood up and wiped salt water from my eyes exclaiming, "What the hell was that for?" I looked around and saw Barapha in the water behind me tiny chunks of ice forming in the water around him.

"You were overheating, Chase," he replied, and I glanced at the steam curling off my skin as the water evaporated. He placed his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes saying, "You have to be careful with Quetz. He's like a walking space heater and you don't tolerate heat well."

"I tolerate it fine," I muttered flopping back in the water and spreading out my wings. Barapha looked down at me and said, "That's why you were nearly unconscious when I dragged you out here." I gazed up at the sky and mumbled, "I would have been fine if I had lifted my wing earlier. Forgot how well these things trap heat."

I beat the water with my wings and rocketed back several feet through the water. I laughed and Barapha smiled, removing his shirt and pitching it onto the beach. He waded after me and said, "Good news is you put Quetz to sleep."

"Why is that good news?" I asked swimming farther out until my toes no longer touched the ground. The water was only up to Barapha's waist.

"Well, if he's sleeping, he's not barfing and as I mentioned before he's a bit of a nightmare when he doesn't get his eight hours." He glanced down at the digital watch which was still set to the time in Amherst and said, "It is way past his bedtime anyway."

I smiled and floated on my back rising and falling with the breath of the sea. After a moment of silence, I asked, "How long have you been together?"

"Depends what you mean," Barapha replied sending spirals of ice drifting through the water.

"Living together," I said, and he replied, "Eleven years in June." He sank to his knees, so the water came up to his neck and laid back in the water next to me.

"Sleeping together?" I asked and he thought for a moment before saying, "A little over nine years." I looked at him and said, "You lived together before you started having sex?" Barapha nodded and replied, "I had a roommate before Quetz, but he...he died, and I was quite partial to my current apartment, so I put an ad in the paper looking for someone to split the rent. I interviewed a few people but none of them felt like the right fit. I was just on the verge of giving up when this bedraggled, half-starved thing showed up at my door with my newspaper ad smoking in his hand."

He looked at me and continued, "He had just moved to the city a few weeks before and was looking for a job and a place to live. He told me he couldn't pay first or last month's rent, but that he was really good at housework and had already gotten a few calls back for job interviews." Barapha laughed and said, "I decided to take a risk because he was cute, and I could feel the heat coming off him from ten feet away. I thought even if things didn't work out as roommates, I could probably bum a couple hits off him before he left."

"I guess things worked out," I murmured after a moment of silence. He chuckled and replied, "They almost didn't. We're very different people. He's a morning person, I'm not. He's a homebody, I'm not. He doesn't wear socks when he wears shoes which he doesn't do often but it's often enough to piss me off." I laughed and he smiled.

"Barapha," I said reaching out to touch his arm, "The way you talk about Quetz makes me think you are a little more than friends with benefits. How do you really feel about him?" I allowed a small amount of heat to leave my fingertips and sink into his skin.

Barapha sighed and murmured, "He's more than a friend...he's family and I want to spend the rest of my life with him." I looked at him and asked, "Have you told him that?" Barapha scoffed and said, "Of course not. He'd get the wrong idea."

I made a face and asked, "What do you mean?" Barapha shrugged and an ice floe rapidly formed beneath us nearly thirty feet square. He sat up and looked at me still on my back wing tips trailing in the water.

"I like the way things are right now and I don't want to ruin it by raising his expectations," he mumbled, and I gazed at him for a moment before reaching out and taking his hand in mine.

"I love you, Barapha," I said, and his face flushed in the darkness. He moved my hand so that it rested on his chest and smiled saying, "I love you too, Chase."