Unsung Requiem by C.L. Stone

Dolce

(Sweet)

Sang

That evening, I fell onto the chilled surface of the waterbed. There was a way to warm it, but I didn’t look to change the setting. I might have to get re-used to sleeping in a bed by myself. It was odd how quickly I had gotten used to someone, usually Nathan, sleeping next to me in the bed. Without one of them, I experienced a sort of loneliness that seemed so strange.

A small collection of boxes cluttered Nathan’s living room. We were going to make it look like donations to take somewhere to anyone looking in. The boxes contained what we thought might be important. Clothes. Anything sentimental.

However, Nathan had a lot of stuff. And identifying importance and boxing took time. There was some debate whether to take general household items like cooking pans and cleaning supplies, but Nathan suggested eventually to leave everything that wasn’t his personally. “We don’t want him coming to ask where things are all the time.”

I’d fallen asleep on the couch right at sunset and Nathan shooed me out. I hadn’t taken any coffee, but I was already done. My brain was still sorting stuff as I was getting myself into bed.

I woke again only when the door to Mr. Griffin’s bedroom opened. Victor poked his head in. I hadn’t heard him return.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said quietly.

He came in, closed the door, and padded over to the bed. “Can I join you?”

Technically, I was sleeping in this room because Nathan thought if Mr. Buble was going to pop in, we probably should play this how Kota suggested, until we learned a schedule. But I suspected this late, Mr. Buble was at home or heading in that direction.

In the dark, I could barely see the outline of his face. Instead of answering him, I moved over on the bed, although the ripple of me moving in the water had the bed rolling just a little.

Victor fell in next to me and as he did, there was a slight bubble that formed in the middle. It threatened to roll us both off the sides of the bed.

He opened his arm up. “If we get in the middle together, that makes the bubble go to the sides.”

We rolled into each other, and my knee knocked up against his thigh.

“Oof,” Victor said, shifting a bit.

“Sorry.”

The bubble shifted until it was like the bed was trying to push us together.

He readjusted by doing a thing where his leg hooked over my knees. I had my arms crossed over my chest but we were pressing into each other.

“How’d you know how to fix the bubble?” I asked

“Luke and I figured it out one day sleeping in the bed like this,” Victor said. He paused. “Well not exactly like this.”

I giggled at the thought.

“How was your day?” he asked.

“I’m sleepy after yesterday,” I said, and then closed my lips when I realized everything he had been through, the night he’d been through on his own, leaving his parents. “How are you?”

He was quiet for a minute. I couldn’t see his eyes. Had the usual spark of fire returned at all? It was too dark to tell.

“I thought I’d feel better about this,” he said quietly.

“Yeah,” I said. There wasn’t much more to say. I knew what he meant. Leaving wasn’t easy. Being afraid they’ll come after you. Maybe a bit of fear of the unknown. It was all there, under the surface. Always making you second-guess decisions.

Silence fell between us. Part of me waited, with anticipation, for him to mention anything about last night, if he meant what he said, if he remembered at all.

“Are we ready to move?” he asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t think of anything else to bring along. Did we find somewhere to go?”

“We looked at some places,” he said.

Again silence, and as it was dark and I couldn’t even tell if he was looking at me, I closed my eyes. Maybe he was tired enough to just sleep.

There was a slight movement, and his lips pressed to my forehead, remaining there. His breath warmed my skin and sent a light fluttery feeling to my heart.

“Where do you want to live?” his soft lips traced at my forehead as he whispered.

“I don’t know,” I said quietly.

“Mr. Buble suggested somewhere downtown, close to the Academy hospital.”

“That’s not a bad idea.”

He pulled his head back a bit, and I opened my eyes. I still couldn’t see very well but he kept close. “I feel weird about the idea of running into my parents.”

Oh. Living so close, it was highly likely they would. “It’s weird to think I might have to go back and make absolutely sure I’m not leaving anything important. I’ll have to see my sister. Maybe my mother… stepmother…” Despite what happened, it was still hard to think of her as not my real mother. And every time I remembered, it was like it’d happened to someone else.

The shape of his mouth moved, frowning. “My mom’s really mad. My dad would probably make a scene. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about it, but I really don’t want to bump into them. I never want to see them again.”

Maybe for him it was different. Even while I didn’t like the idea of disturbing my sister or my stepmother, I still understood I couldn’t ignore them forever. It felt wrong to do so, too. Even Kota let me know on occasion he was looking after them to make sure bills were paid on time and they were at least comfortable.

I pressed a hand over his heart. “Is there a way to approach them first? Clear a bit of air? Won’t we live here for a while?”

He didn’t answer. Maybe he wasn’t sure how to make this work. It could be he could never make things right with his parents. Mine didn’t really want me, they wanted to hide me. His parents wanted to own him, control his life, and when they couldn’t control him, they tossed him out.

I was worried I’d said the wrong thing, that he was angry at them and didn’t want to try to get along. Maybe it was too soon. Should I stop talking about it?

Except as he held me, his fingers gently found their way to my rib cage at my back. He felt them, like he would keys at the piano, and then, gently, he tapped out some unheard melody, a slow methodic song only he was imagining and I felt through his movements.

His world might be changing, but he was still Victor. He was music and kindness and a strong desire to make things better. No matter what, it was still him. I wanted to believe that, at least.

He sighed and drew me into him. “I just want to be near you. I don’t really care where we live. I’d live in a box if we had to.”

“I don’t think Kota would let us live in a box,” I said.

He chuckled softly. He kissed my forehead, lingered again, and whispered, “I would. With you.”

My hand was still over his heart, and very softly, I gripped, pressing the cotton of the shirt to his chest, as if holding to his beating heart would somehow calm mine.

His lips remained and eventually drew down, until he was kissing my cheek, and then my lips.

I returned the kiss, with a partially open mouth and I loosely moved an arm around his neck.

The leg he’d hooked around my knees drew me in tighter. The hand at my back, the one playing a melody, it intensified, and then swapped from tapping to rubbing at my rib cage.

My fingers massaged the back of his neck, until I felt the silver band, the heart shield he wore around his neck, a gift from his mother. Despite what he’d said about being afraid to see them again, he still wore it. I hadn’t noticed it under the shirt.

He broke the kiss when he noticed me feeling the chain. He released me with one hand to fish the Celtic heart shield out from under his shirt. “I don’t know why I hang on to this.” He gripped it, like he was going to rip it off his neck.

I didn’t want him to throw it away if he liked it. I placed a hand on his, over the shield, and he paused.

“Why did you always wear it?” I asked.

He blinked, unsure. “She didn’t want me to get involved in any relationship where some girl would want their money. Gold diggers…” He made a half snort, half chuckle. “Although it’s kind of backwards when she would have wanted me to marry into someone else’s money. It’s kind of messed up.”

“But is that why you wore it?” I asked.

He paused, and slowly released the heart shield and captured my hand that had been over his, holding it. “No. I wore it because I wanted to remind myself.”

“Of what?”

“That I wanted someone who wanted me. The real me.”

“Victor…” I said quietly.

He didn’t answer me. Instead, he leaned in and kissed me. Harder than I anticipated.

My arms slowly went around him as I responded. And with the way the waterbed shifted, it pressed our bodies tightly together. Perhaps a little too snugly, as it was harder to shift around.

His kisses trailed, until he nuzzled a little at my lower jaw. He didn’t move from there for a while, and then gently returned to my mouth to kiss more.

I had a moment where I thought of the others, where we were romantically, and how different they were. Victor was ever so gentle, slow, and… seemed to be like me, a little shy about getting close, unsure. I thought of Gabriel, where I learned about massaging his scalp, or North’s biting. Victor seemed to enjoy massaging me. I wondered if that’s something he enjoyed. He was the one that surprised me by going to the spa for massages in the past.

I shifted my arms more, pinched in on one via the bed, and at first just tried placing my hand that could move onto his back.

From there, I froze. I wasn’t really sure what to do. Until I just used my fingertips and gently slid them along his spine.

He kissed me, but not any harder than before.

I tried again, doing what he did by finding his ribs and tracing one.

Suddenly his hand shifted until he could hook my arm and bring it around, away from his body, and he just held it.

He stopped kissing me so he could open up my hand and kiss the palm.

Did I do it wrong? I wasn’t so sure. I froze a bit, worried. Maybe there were wrong things to do, too.

“Roll over on your stomach?” he suggested to me, and he got halfway up.

I sort of did, though the bed more or less shifted me in that position as he moved.

He straddled me, over my hips, and his lean fingers drifted over my back. His palms massaged my muscles, and his fingers worked around my spine. I couldn’t move, just enjoy.

It was like a light switch, as I realized me touching his back triggered him doing this for me.

As he massaged, though, he leaned over, and he kissed gently at my neck, and occasionally at my shoulders.

And occasionally lower along my back, following my spine.

A tingling sensation spurred in me. Enjoyment. Delight. He could mold me with his fingers and get me to relax in a moment.

He was passionate and doting.

I mumbled quietly, partially talking into the pillow. “Victor, do you want me to try to do this to you, too?” It seemed only fair.

“If you want,” he said. “But… I enjoy this. I don’t know why.” He leaned forward and whispered hotly into my ear. “Every time I touch you, I want to touch you more. And please you.”

I didn’t quite understand. I enjoyed it immensely, but did he want me to do something else?

Questions floated to my lips, but before I could ask them there was a sound, a shout of a deep, adult voice, and for a very quick moment, the fear that someone, Mr. Griffin perhaps, or even someone else, had broken into the house and would come find us, horrified me until I was too stiff to move.

Victor had just pushed away the blanket when the door to the bedroom opened and the light was flicked on. The overhead bulbs became blinding, and I was blinking through watering eyes to focus on who had entered.

There was a paused moment as Victor was sitting up in the bed, I was partially covering my eyes from the light, and a tall figure was standing just inside the door, looking in at us.

Mr. Buble.

My heart raced. It was way too obvious we had been in the bed together.

Yet he didn’t look troubled or concerned about that in particular, but there was a worry etched on his face, and he immediately barked at us. “Forget your things. We’re leaving. Now.”

He left, heading to the other bedroom, calling for Nathan and telling him the same thing.

Forget your things.

Get out.

Victor was up in an instant. He reached to me. “Come on.”

There was no hesitation. No question. No time to ask. Something had happened.

Enough to get Mr. Buble here, telling us to run.