Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

brANDON

Casey stands in my kitchen, getting the HIV self-test ready. He ran down to his car to grab it, and I thought for a moment he wouldn’t come back. I wouldn’t have blamed him, I’ve been a bit of a mess since he arrived, and if he’d have taken the chance to escape, I would have understood entirely.

But he didn’t.

He came back to prove to me that he is right about his health and that I can stop worrying about infecting him, which I can appreciate. Standing in my kitchen, he gives me a smile, then pricks his finger like he’s done this a hundred times before, a bubble of red blood forming on the pad. I watch in awe as he conducts what looks like a complete science experiment, putting blood in one of the three bottles in the kit, then squeezing the contents onto the small test disc. He picks up bottle number two, shaking it before adding it to the disc as my heart sits in my throat.

“How fast will you know?”

“It’s super quick,” he offers, adding bottle three to the disc after giving it a good shake. “Should know the moment I finish adding this bottle.”

“It doesn’t need to sit?”

“Nope, not this one anyway. Some may need a moment or two before they report results, but look,” he says, picking up the test disc and giving it a good, long look. He holds the test disc out to me, and I take it from him, staring at the single dot on the circle.

“Positive?” I ask, my heart slamming in my chest and my hands shaking.

“Negative, Brandon. That’s a negative result.”

“Oh, thank fuck.” Negative. HIV negative. I clutch the disc, reaching for the paper that came in the box to double check. Just to be sure that our one night of fun didn’t leave him sick. Not that I don’t trust his words, but because I need to read it myself to know with absolute certainty that he is safe from the monsters that now live inside my blood and body.

“See? We were safe, Brandon. We were so safe together that night.” I don’t respond, focusing instead on reading those words on the paper in front of me, comparing the printed list of outcomes with the actual results on the disc. Casey gently takes both away from me and places them on the kitchen counter, and as my eyes meet his, he smiles. He raises his hands to my cheeks, his cool palms meeting my burning skin and soothing some of the anxiety away with his touch. I heave a relieved sigh, sinking a bit where I stand as he smooths his thumbs over my cheekbones. I don’t know why he is holding me like this, but I don’t want to move away from his hands. “We were safe, Bran. Trust me.”

“Okay,” I whisper, as his hands smooth the edges of the worry lingering in the back of my mind. I like that he’s called me Bran as nobody has done before. It’s familiar and intimate in a way that soothes me, though I hardly know this person in front of me. He tilts my head down gently and places his lips to my forehead in a move that has me both rattled inside and full of a sudden sense of loneliness.

I am alone in this now.

Me and my diagnosis. As it should be, if I’m being honest, yet knowing he is negative and I am not, feels like a lead weight inside me. I had wrapped myself in the idea that if he was okay, then I was okay as well, but that isn’t what’s coming out of me right now. I’m fucking tired, that much I know, but there’s something else hidden inside there that feels lonely and scared.

Maybe I’m not as okay as I thought I’d be.

“Are you hungry?” Casey asks, pulling back and looking into my eyes like he can somehow see that I am not okay.

“I don’t know. Not really.” I haven’t eaten since breakfast, but I don’t feel like I want to. “I don’t know what I am right now.”

“Sharks,” Casey whispers back. “Sharks, bears and feral prairie dogs. There are worse things.”

“Worse than HIV?”

He pauses for a moment before smiling gently, softly running his fingers over my cheekbones. “That’s up to you, Brandon. Medication is the first step if you don’t want it to become worse than the rest of the things that could come eat your face off.”

I snort a small laugh in spite of myself. “A prairie dog won’t eat my face off.”

“You don’t know that for sure. A feral one might.” He grins at me for a moment, and I am caught in his gaze. His blue eyes, eyes I have seen filled with lust and want and need, scan my face, and I catch the way his top teeth bite down on his lower lip for a few seconds. He is every bit as beautiful to me tonight as he was the first night I spotted him, his body moving on the dancefloor like he had no cares, and the world was there for him to simply enjoy.

He can have that again, now that he isn’t tainted by my broken blood, and I am overwhelmed by every bit of joy and fear that has lived inside me since the moment he showed up at my door. I’m shaking and nervous, a baby bird in his calm hands, but Casey simply smiles at me like he understands even though he can’t possibly.

He leans in and places his lips to my forehead again, followed by temples, cheeks and jaw. His lips leave warmth behind them, and I quiver nervously as Casey takes a chance, pressing his lips gently to mine. I startle at the touch of them, but I don’t pull away. Instead, I kiss him back as his arms loop around my neck, gently, like my nature instead of the storm brewing inside of me. I kiss him because he feels good against me, his body meeting mine, and warmth created in the small space between us. Finally, Casey pulls back and smiles again, lips plump and inviting as he looks at me. I grow hard inside my jeans, my cock staring at the zipper that confines me as I stare into his eyes for a moment too long.

Because that is when I panic.

Eyes wide, I glance down at his perfect lips and move away from him. His hands fall from my face and his own eyes go as wide as saucers. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m sorry.”

I nod, because I know he shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have let him either when I am so filthy on the inside and can offer nothing more to him than a few chaste kisses. I take a step away, shame and guilt burning inside me as I look down at the floor. The wall. My feet. Anywhere but Casey’s perfect, handsome face.

“Not because of HIV!” he clarifies, reaching for my cheeks and turning my head upwards so my eyes meet his. “Not because of that. No. It’s just been a shit day, and I don’t want to take advantage. I got carried away because you’re hot as hell, and I’m sorry for kissing you out of the blue like that.”

I nod, slightly blushing at the admission that he still thinks I’m attractive in spite of it all. I’m also fairly relieved that he’s apologizing not out of fear that I infected him somehow, but out of worry he’d overstepped. “I didn’t mind it. I just don’t know where my head is at right now. Too many thoughts all at once, maybe. I don’t exactly know the things I can and can’t do anymore, but I know that kissing doesn’t pass it.”

“Exactly.” Casey smiles again, looking relieved that I haven’t taken any offense to his words, and lets go of my skin, gesturing towards the small hallway. “Your brain needs rest. Go nap. Or shower, maybe, if that would feel better? I’ll make you some soup.”

“You don’t have to stay, Casey.” He didn’t have to come in the first place, though I am secretly glad he did. I don’t have parents I can call who would support me through this. They still don’t understand that being gay isn’t a choice I’m making, and the news of my HIV positive test result wouldn’t go over well at all. I don’t feel much like being shouted at and called a bunch of slurs over the phone today. While I do have some friends, they aren’t exactly close enough friends to trust with this information.

“Do you want me to go?” he asks, which is an entirely different question.

“It’s kind of strange, don’t you think? I mean, we don’t know each other that well. If you have better things to do, you don’t have to hang out with me here.”

“I know you have freckles on your butt cheeks, you’re a good kisser, and I know your cock is longer than mine.” Casey shrugs, offering me a cheeky grin. “Good enough for me. We can learn the rest as we go, I think. Soup?”

I laugh, nodding. “Soup. Sure.”

“Next time, I’ll get stuff for grilled cheese sandwiches too.”

“Next time?”

Casey doesn’t respond with any other than a smile and a kiss pressed to my cheek that warms me somewhere deep inside.

Casey snores softly on my couch, his head in my lap. On the living room table, our empty bowls of soup sit along with the empty packet that once held the crackers we ate with the chicken broth. I had a shower while he cooked and then we sat down together to eat and watch a movie, though he fell asleep almost instantly after he put his spoon down. I can’t stop looking at him where he rests on my lap, glancing between his face and the true crime documentary he insisted on watching while we ate, like blood, guts and murder most foul didn’t bother him in the least.

In any other world, this could be something. I’m sure of it. If he had come by my apartment for any other reason than to be with me as I try and figure out how the hell I’m supposed to live my life now, I know whatever small threads of attraction and interest that could lie between us would be worth building onto.

We could have the world ahead, instead of the nothing I am able to offer, and it’s cruel of the universe to bring him to me now when I am at my worst. I wish I didn’t feel so unclean, uncertain of even letting him rest his head on my fabric covered thigh knowing that beneath it lies my skin, and beneath that, the taint of an illness that at one point in history took so many lives of young, beautiful gay men away forever.

I swallow hard as I glance at the unfilled prescriptions on the coffee table. I’ll get that sorted out tomorrow morning and get started on healing up what is breaking to pieces inside of me as quickly as possible. The men that came before me diagnosed with HIV didn’t have the ability to access anything like the medicine that exists now, and I know without it, I will die.

Casey rolls over in his sleep, his face turned upwards to me now. His hair cascades over my lap, mussed and golden in the glow of the TV across the way. He wrinkles his nose for a moment, before his plump lower lip opens the tiniest bit to release his nearly silent snores. From a distance, his jawbone looks as smooth as the rest of his skin, but I can see traces of faint blonde stubble illuminated in the darkness by the scant light emanating across the way from where we sit. He’d have a soft beard, I know, if he can grow one at all. I reach down and brush the back of my knuckles against the angle of Casey’s cheek for some reason I can’t put into words other than knowing that I can’t resist touching his skin. I stroke his cheeks for a moment, listening to him sigh happily in his sleep. This could have been something, I’m sure, but that potential is gone now, and that stings like salt in a wound. As I pull my hand away from his skin, his eyes pop open and he offers a sleepy smile.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, yawning. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

“It’s okay.”

He sits up, stretching his arms over his head, and I am hit again with that sudden, strange loneliness that came across me before. As he turns on the couch to face me, I have to look away so he doesn’t see anything hidden inside my eyes because I don’t know how to put it to words and will fail if I try.

“You okay?” he asks, resting his hand on my thigh.

“Yeah. Sorry. Just tired, I think. It’s been a long day.”

“Sure has.” Casey squeezes my thigh but doesn’t take his hand away. “You have nice legs.”

“Thanks?”

I meet his eyes, and he laughs, giving my thigh another squeeze. “They make good pillows. I noticed it the first night I was here. Thick thighs save lives, Brandon.”

“I played rugby in high school,” I offer. “Almost went to provincials.”

“Why didn’t you go? Didn’t make it?”

I shake my head. “I made it but had nobody willing to sign the permission slips. It’s all right. It doesn’t matter much anymore. There are worse things, I suppose.”

“No parents?” Casey asks with another yawn.

“Oh, I have parents. They just caught me in my bedroom with a friend the night before the paperwork was due to be turned in. Getting a view of your only son on his knees with a dick in his mouth doesn’t exactly equal letting said son travel out of town to play a sport.”

Casey frowns. “But if you made the provincial team, you had to have been good at it. Taking away a possible future career for the crime of sucking a dick doesn’t seem fair.”

I shrug, because I had the same thoughts when my father tore up the permission slips that would have allowed me to travel to Edmonton to play as part of the team. It’s so far in my past though, it hardly matters anymore. Not when the present moment and uncertain future feels far worse than something as simple as not playing rugby on the provincial high school team. “It is what it is.”

Casey’s face scrunches, but he doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he stands and stretches, his arms up in the air as he grumbles softly under his breath. When he’s done, I stand as well, anticipating that he is about to make his leave.

“I have class first thing tomorrow morning, or I would stay,” he says, like it’s an apology for needing to go and a goodbye all at once.

“It’s all right,” I respond, with a half-baked smile. “I should get to bed anyway. Gotta get my prescriptions tomorrow and read whatever is in that info packet they gave me.”

Casey nods, then heads for the front door of the apartment. I trail in his wake slowly, yawning into the stillness of the space around me. I wasn’t tired before I stood up, but now I feel as if I weigh a thousand pounds and my legs are made of concrete. Casey slips into his running shoes, then stands for a moment, looking at me as I look right back at him. He turns, and I think he’s going to open the door, but then he moves to face me again, stepping closer to me than he was before.

“Trust me?” he says, curling his hand around my cheek and brushing my cheekbones with his thumb.

“With what?” I ask, heart tripping over itself behind my ribcage and nerves crackling down my spine.

Casey leans in slowly, my face still cupped in his hand, stubble brushing his soft fingertips. He gives me time to move away, and while I probably should, I don’t.

I let him kiss me, savoring the taste of his lips against mine and wishing this was a start instead of an end.

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