ASHLAN - Bonegarden - 1 of 3

A gift for Clifford, the first person to post a comment on my journal. Dear lad, this is for you. If you, uh, don't like the notion of two men who like to kiss one another committing felonies, you...probably shouldn't read this.





You can't go home again; that is the one truism with which I have ever absolutely agreed. It's just so true, you know, so inescapably correct. You might want to. But you can't.

Unless, of course, you're breaking and entering.

It was some ungodly hour of the night, long past the time the sensible were in bed. I wanted to be there myself; exhaustion had graven lavender hollows around my eyes and damn it, nobody with blond hair could afford to go all ashy-pale with sickness. I met Trent around the back; he was dressed in skintight black, his white-blond hair hidden under a cap. He'd smudged eyebrow pencil or something all over his face.

"Ashlan," he said, rubbing his smudged nose with gloved fingers, clearly beginning a migraine "what the hell are you wearing?"

"Clothes," I responded indignantly. The jeans were black! True they somewhat hampered my range of motion, but-

"You are aware, Ashlan, that we are not going to a nightclub?" Trent asked with exaggerated patience "that we are not going to end this evening in a hookah lounge? That, since we are breaking and entering, it might behoove one not to dress -please forgive me- in the manner of a fetish prostitute? Is any of this getting through to you, Ashlan?"

It wasn't my fault. The branches of the long-dead wysteria plant covering the twelve-foot walls was blowing wildly in the wind, bisecting the moon like the shadows of a vast primaevil god. Also, he was being tiresome.

"I'm sorry," I smiled winningly "what?"

Trent studied Linguistics in college. It was always fascinating, listening to him swear in Sumerian.

"Jewelry," he said, holding out his hands "now. And I swear, Ashlan," he said, his eyes going slightly flinty "if you make a remark, one single remark, about it ruining the coordination of your attire I will plant a bullet in your brain and water it with my piss. Alright?"

I debated making a remark about him being kinky when he was annoyed; I sensed infallibly that it was not the time. I sighed, and stripped off my rings, earrings, tongue stud, bracelets, necklace, pendant, choker and pocketwatch. Trent gazed dispassionately for a moment at the three pounds of sterling silver in his hands, and said, in a small and hopeless voice "is that everything?"

I raised an eyebrow "well, not everything-" I said, and lifted the bottom of my shirt.

"Not the time, Ashlan," Trent said, clenching his eyes shut "Definately not the time."

"Spoilsport."

"Half-wit."

"Prude."

"Slut."

We shared a grin, and then Trent, with all the grace of an acrobat or an angel, scrabbled up the wrought-iron gate and flipped over the top.

Yeah. Right. Climbing. The hinges weren't galvanized, of course, and wrought iron really isn't bank vault material, so I kicked the gate down with an almighty clatter and walked through, stepping gingerly around the wreckage. Nothing short of demonic intervention gets rust stains out of seude; and damn it, these were my favorite boots.

Trent's flawless skin, what little I could see, appeared to be turning purple.

"HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF STEALTH?!" He bellowed, face inches from mine "WHAT KIND OF COVERT OPERATION INVOLVES KICKING DOWN THE DOOR?"

"An exciting one," I suggested brightly, before I shoved him back a pace "Look, Trent. We're breaking into an abandoned house, in the middle of nowhere, that's been empty for years, and one, by the way, that I technically own. So while this Spy Kids bullshit is really charming and all, I'm kind of wondering what the punch line is. Honestly."

Trent looked terribly abashed for all of a nanosecond. Then he simply looked furious again.

"I don't know. You know your brother, Ashlan? Tall fellow, kind of evil, wants you dead?"

"That's just his funny way, Trent," I demurred. Of course, my older brother Marcel wanted the entire planet dead. I was simply incidental.

"Yes. Well. Hilarious. You don't think he might have the house under surveillance? That he might have left some kind of deadly, deadly boobytraps?"

"Well yes. Obviously he's done both. But Trent, you're forgetting something."

"What is that, you incredible douchebag?"

"I'm Ashlan Motherfucking Deckard, bitch," I said, hooking my fingers into the beltloops of his pants and pulling him up against me "and ain't nobody gonna take me down."

Trent looked completely, woundingly unimpressed "You are such a tool."

From Trent, this was the language of love.

My sex-sense was tingling; it was telling me, infallibly, that it was time to kiss Trent now. So I did. At length. With astounding eloquence.

Because of quirks of ancestry, touching Trent is hard. The essence of his father surrounds him like blazing light, and since my father was more or less absolute negation made sentient, Trent's skin was almost hot enough to burn, and his eyes burned with baleful blue fire that left searing spots in my vision. His lips were a furnace.

We broke off, some seconds or hours later.

"Ashlan," he said mildly, his arms, which were strong enough to give a gorilla a fatal bear hug, twined around my waist "are you trying to bribe me into a suicide mission with makeouts?"

"Yes," I said promptly.

"Alright, awesome. Let's go be conspicuous."

<><><>

 Trent was such a worrier. There was nothing in the foyer deadlier than a trip-wire assault rifle with a motion detector that sprayed about five hundred rounds into the dessicated potted plant that Trent threw in as a test. After that, nothing but the remote mines on the staircase. Piece of cake.

He frets too much, the dear boy.