Talker's Graduation

you’re up for it.”
    Brian smiled and put his two good hands on either side of
    Tate’s chest, pushing them between the loose T-shirt and palming
    Tate’s skin. It used to be that Tate could feel that touch defining
    every one of his ribs, but not anymore.
    “I’m up to it,” he murmured, pulling the T-shirt up and kissing
    the tight muscle of Tate’s stomach. “But I’m up to something else
    first.”
    Tate groaned and lifted his arms, letting Brian pull off his sleep
    shirt altogether. He didn’t care about the chill of morning or the way
    his skin puckered. Brian would keep him warm. He hadn’t always
    trusted in their bodies together in the light, but he did now.

    “YOU didn‟t have to cook,” Tate said, coming home from his shift at
    Gatsby‟s and looking guiltily at the mac and cheese still on the
    stove. He was running late—he didn‟t like to do that. Every time he
    looked at the clock and saw that it was late, he flashed to those two
    weeks he‟d lived in the apartment while Brian had been in the
    hospital and shuddered. He hated being alone, and he didn‟t want
    Brian being alone, and now Brian was housebound without him. It‟s
    true, Brian could make his way down the stairs and across the
    street, but Tate was unused to thinking of Brian as vulnerable and
    the thought scared him. He didn‟t like to be late. He wasn‟t fond of
    walking outside under the streetlights (and he never did it alone)
    but he was even less fond of the idea of Brian there without him.
    So coming home for the third night in a row to find the
    apartment spotless and dinner on the table was sort of a revelation,
    really. He hadn‟t shopped, so Brian must have negotiated the stairs
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    and then come back up with a bag full of groceries. Neither of them
    had money—how had Brian paid?
    “I like to cook for you,” Brian said from his laptop, looking up
    and smiling. Nearly four months after the attack, most of the bruises
    had faded, but his eyes were still haunted by pain and
    sleeplessness. Not right now, though. When Tate walked through
    the door, they lightened, grew less weary, and warmed.
    Tate walked over to him and nestled his chin in the curve of
    Brian‟s neck. God, Brian was warm, and it was bitterly cold outside.
    “Whatcha doin‟?”
    Brian looked at him and smiled bitterly. “Selling my
    schoolbooks.”
    “ What?”
    “Just my old ones. You can get money for them on
    amazon.com—it‟s how I got groceries today. We didn‟t sell them at
    the end of the semester because….” He trailed off. Neither of them
    needed him to finish that sentence.
    “But Brian—you‟re going to need those, right? I mean, I
    remember you telling me that one of them was like a three-part
    book for a three-part class.”
    Brian grimaced. “I haven‟t sold that one yet,” he said quietly.
    “But….” He bit his lip. “Talker, you‟re skinny as hell. I know you‟re
    hungry—I sleep with you, remember? I hear your stomach growl.
    You just… you don‟t eat. It‟s bad enough I‟m stuck here for another
    month—can I not watch you getting so thin, all worried about me?”
    Tate swallowed and stood up deliberately, going to get himself
    a bowl of mac and cheese. A part of him darted off into outer space
    for a minute, like a fish in a gray-matter bowl, but he herded that
    part back. Doc Sutherland had urged him to try to keep all his fish
    in the brain-pond when he could—he missed less that way. But it
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    was hard, so hard, when he didn‟t want to talk about things. It was
    so much easier to send that fish to outer space, rocking out to the
    new track by Rise Against, than it was to burden Brian—who was
    still healing—with what was really on his mind.
    But Brian was healing for Talker‟s sins. Brian had been beaten
    up for protecting Tate when he couldn‟t protect himself. Every time
    he thought about it, he got nauseated, and every time he saw how
    hard it was for Brian to move, to recover, he thought about it.
    Working with the clay was good—in fact, it was great. Brian
    had been able to pick up the weights and had been assiduous
    about working his shoulder, but even better than that; a part of him
    neither of them had known he had was suddenly taken, enraptured,
    consumed, with the idea of taking the clay, forming it, shaping it to
    his specifications and making it come alive. He made picture
    frames and flower vases