wash it down
It’s sort of a habit of theirs now; it has been for quite some time. Will doesn’t really know how much time is “quite some time” exactly, but it’s gotta be at least a week, or maybe a month, or maybe a hundred years. He’s not sure. He just knows that it’s sort of a habit of theirs now.
The first time it happened, whenever that was, Will had wandered off into the kitchen after a nightmare at what was probably a time only suitable for summoning the devil and howling at the moon. The screams that had woken him up had been fresh on his tongue and he needed something, anything really, to wash them down. He needed something hot and bitter; more bitter than the taste of a nightmare and hotter than the smoldering fire in his chest, than the smoke traveling up his trachea and choking him, choking him—
He needed something that would turn his brain to mush, make him dizzy, make him feel as if his organs were Tibetan Singing Bowls that were humming along, comforting him, as they rotted away from too many washed down dreams.
What he found in the kitchen, instead, was a certain Steve Bennett. His head rested in the palm of his hand, white light from the stovetop outlined his silhouette, and his face was hidden in the shadows of an hour only suitable for summoning the devil and howling at the moon.
“Can’t sleep?” Will said because saying things is what people do, even when it felt inorganic under the cloak of the night that refused to have him, that said “no” time and time again, that banished him from her quarters, unrelenting and unforgiving of whatever awful deed Will must have committed.
And Steve hummed back because humming back is what people do.
It felt as if the hum penetrated Will’s skin, vibrated through his eardrums, as if the Tibetan Bowls were singing in his belly, soothing. Huh.
He looked at the cabinet above the stove: the one with all the rotten, bitter, and hot poison stored away behind dark wood and then looked back at Steve. Steve, with his frown hidden in the shadows, with the sky blue of his eyes veiled by his lids, with his hand clasping at his own hair, almost as if he was afraid that if he let go of it, his head would float away to the skies like a helium-filled balloon.
Perhaps, Will thought, night had exiled Steve too. Perhaps, Steve had wronged her too. Perhaps, Steve could taste his own screams on his tongue.
Will flipped the switch on the electrical tea kettle and reached for the cabinet above the sink.
“What are you making?” Steve asked.
Will looked over his shoulder and smiled a little, as much as his lips allowed him to.
He didn’t answer, just turned back around and dropped the chamomile tea bag into the mug, waiting for the kettle to switch off.
“To wash it down,” he said, placing the mug in front of Steve and sitting down across from him with his own tea held tightly in both hands, burning the tips of his fingers.
☾
The next time it happened, Will was going to the kitchen to grab a fourth (fifth?) cup of coffee. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Steve again, his back to the doorway that Will was standing in, sitting in the same stool he sat in last time, maybe a week ago, maybe a month ago, maybe a hundred years ago.
Will didn’t say anything, just walked over slowly, touching between Steve’s shoulder blades gently, feeling the heat of his skin through the thin t-shirt, lingering for a few seconds too long. The Tibetan Singing Bowls in his belly let out a familiar hum.
“Hey,” he whispered as if that was allowed. As if it was allowed for him to put his hand between Steve’s shoulder blades gently, to linger there, as if it was allowed for him to grab a mug with a monkey drawing on it, drop a peppermint tea bag into it from the cabinet above the sink and place it in front of Steve, while he waited for the water in the kettle to boil.
“Hi,” Steve whispered back, the skies in his irises unveiling, and Will thought that it must be allowed then, sometimes: the times when they were sitting at the kitchen island with the stovetop light on and with David’s herbal tea burning their fingertips, orphaned by the night, it was allowed then.
☾
The third time it happened, Will had been hoping to see Steve. This time, he wasn’t looking for the cabinet above the stove, he wasn’t looking for umpteen amounts of caffeine, he wasn’t looking for anything, really, but he walked into the kitchen anyway. He softly touched Steve’s arm anyway, flipped the tea kettle switch on anyway, and dropped two bags of raspberry tea into mugs with animal drawings on them anyway.
“You know, I don’t like herbal tea,” Steve said, holding on tightly to the mug in his hand.
“I don’t either,” Will replied and took a sip from his own.
They weren’t whispering now, but talking didn’t feel inorganic anymore, so Will thought that must be allowed too, then.
☾
The fourth time – or maybe it was fifth, or sixth, or 100th – Will noticed that when he flipped on its switch, the electrical tea kettle would light up with a cold blue light. He passed Steve his monkey mug with cinnamon orange tea and thought that the cold blue of the tea kettle was like the cold blue of Steve’s eyes.
Steve looked up at him through his eyelashes, gave him a small smile, and the smoldering fire in Will’s chest cooled down a bit.
☾
“What are they about?” Steve asked one time.
He didn’t sit in his usual spot anymore. At some point, he had switched over to sitting in the stool next to Will’s, the monkey and giraffe from their mugs staring at each other, their burned fingertips a breath away from touching.
“Falling, planes, everyone dying, suffocating. You know, the usual,” he took a sip of his lavender tea, felt the burn numb the disgusting taste of it. “Car crashes, Robert – Dad, whatever – screaming.”
Steve’s pinky intertwined with Will’s, almost as if they were making a silent pinky promise. Maybe they were.
“You?” He asked, wondering if the question was added to the list of things that were allowed now.
“Winter, mostly. The cold and freezing to death. Mekell dying, Mekell apparently not dying, Mekell looking at me like she doesn’t know who I am. Being alone,” Steve looked down at their intertwined pinkies. Where is the line, Will thought, how far until it’s not allowed anymore? “You falling,” he added.
The Tibetan Singing Bowls roared.
☾
And so it is a habit they built. They sit at the kitchen island, drink the disgusting herbal teas that neither of them likes because drinking coffee would be counterproductive to the lie they’re telling themselves, the lie that they want to sleep. Sleep is scary, it’s dangerous, sleep is a soldier that night sent to punish Will for whatever awful deed he committed. She armored it with gobs of nightmares so vicious that Will lost the courage to face it again.
“Hey,” Steve says, squeezing Will’s hand in his own, running his other through the loose curls falling over Will’s forehead, “Let’s go to bed.”
And Will looks at him and thinks that maybe if the sunlight in Steve’s heart is bright enough to illuminate his eyes into the color of a clear afternoon sky, it must be bright enough to protect Will from any armored soldier night sends his way.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Will smiles and puts down his cup of rosehip tea.