Rob Thurman: Slashback

“Strangely enough, you are brothers most often. Sometimes cousins. Occasionally, as I told you when you were younger, friends bonded by blood and battle. As for me noticing, it started when I kept crossing paths centuries apart with a string of humans of foul and sarcastic attitude. These were the days when there was little law, rare enforcement, and a smart-ass mouth was reason enough for someone to be beaten to death, anyone would agree. That I kept running into this same nonsurvival-prone personality type began to make me somewhat suspicious. Nature should’ve weeded this strain out hundreds of years after I first encountered it for the sake of the species.”

That was harsh. I didn’t think my personality was species dooming. Not necessarily.

“That this annoying persona was invariably accompanied by another saner character who kept him from being beaten to death as he deserved, I began to think I’d gone insane. Older pucks do once you’ve lived a million or so years. Then after sharing a meal and a conversation with Buddha, the thin Indian version, that conversation we had about sex-enlightenment is very overrated-I think I’ve mentioned this story before. Ah, yes, by the constipated look on Cal’s face I have told this one. Irregardless we discussed other things as well and I knew. I was cursed”-he coughed-“ah. . blessed with eternal companions to fill the long years of an eternal life. One way or the other fate draws us together time and time again.”

When we’d first met him, or when I’d thought we’d first met him, at the car lot, Robin had seemed the most unwillingly solitary person or creature I’d known. Sex partners he had in plenty-he’d made certain we knew that in the first five minutes, but with the majority of the paien hating pucks and pucks absolutely despising each other, friends were definitely a seller’s market. He’d seized on us like a life preserver. For a moment I wondered how he could’ve been lonely if we’d been there all along and then I knew. We’d been mortal and he was not. We were seemingly eternal but present for a handful of years at a time. How many times had he seen Niko and me fall to that sword? How many times had he seen us die? How long were the stretches when we weren’t around? Tens of years, hundreds, thousands? Was he lonely or was it truer to say he was abandoned?

Now I felt guilty for dying-repeatedly-instead of feeling as if I’d fallen through the rabbit hole, which would be a far more normal reaction. Fuck. I gave him a light shove. For once, I’d try not to make everything about me. “Short, but apparently we always eventually turned back up. . like a bad penny, the kind coated with the supernatural Ebola of rotten luck.”

“True.” His smile was solemn enough to make the unspoken words etch themselves in the air as sharp as diamond-cut crystal: although sometimes it took a very long time before you did.

There was nothing to be done about it-except taking it up with Niko’s Buddha and universe-at-large and I had a feeling that wasn’t an option. That meant I did with it what I did with all problems I couldn’t solve: I ignored it and moved on. “So since we met you at the car lot. No, hell, since you showed up on our porch when we were kids , you thought. . knew who we were to you and you didn’t bother to say anything? Didn’t think we’d like to be clued in?”

“Naturally I didn’t tell you when you were children. First, you kept calling me a pervert.” He glared. I might have forgotten most of it but he hadn’t. Neither forgiven nor forgotten. “And second, it would’ve interfered with your development.”

Niko picked up the thread of conversation. “Who we’d become, who we were meant to be. A person has the same basic core of personality in each life, but there are some differences based on environment, genes, the paths we choose, things such as that.”

In this life, yeah, genes were in the driver’s seat on that one. In this life, for once, I wasn’t mortal, but I was as likely to have that short life span. More likely in fact.

“Did you know I was Auphe. . when I was a kid?” I asked abruptly. I didn’t stop with one swallow of Scotch on that question.

“No.” Goodfellow sounded. . hell, sounded as if he’d thought about this more nights than I’d care to consider and found himself guilty every time. “ No . If I had known about them, if I’d known about Sophia, if I’d known how bad it truly was, I would’ve interfered and gamisou personality development. I could see you were poor, but I didn’t see the rest. I am sorry for that. You don’t know how sorry.”

He turned his attention to his wine. “When years later, at the car lot, when we met for what you thought was the first time, you hadn’t seen all that you’ve seen now. You wouldn’t have believed me, the things that I knew. You didn’t trust me either, not then. You didn’t know me.” And the wine was gone again. He was like a camel, storing wine for the long trek across the desert. “Finally, after six years, the time seemed right. Last month I started dropping more hints than the number of hair extensions Rapunzel threw out her tower window and you didn’t catch on. Achilles, the bacchanalia when we were in Greece, the life times you’ve dragged my ass through the fire and on and on. I expected that from Cal. He’s oblivious in any life, but I was disappointed in you, Niko.”

“As there were three creatures trying to kill us then, including my own father,” he said dryly, “and Jack now, I’ve been a shade distracted. Forgive my unmindful ways.”

“Were we anyone else famous besides Achilles and Patroclus?” I asked curiously.

Goodfellow rolled his eyes upward. “The wonder of the afterlife revealed to you, your personal afterlife, mind you and that is the question you ask. How vain. If you’re good, I’ll tell you later. However, I was Robin Hood and my john was anything but little.”

On that somewhat horrifying note, Niko held up his bottle and Robin joined in, ignoring the fact his was empty. I raised mine to meet theirs and Niko said soberly, “To friends. They go and they come. The going must be difficult, but know we will always come back.”

Personally, I wasn’t a big fan of history repeating itself, but in this one case. .

I made an exception.

Cal

Nine Years Ago

It came when I was in bed for the night.

A tap at the trailer window, harmless. It could’ve been one of those giant summer beetles. They were everywhere this month. Then one more tap, soft, like the beating of a moth against the glass. They were out this summer too, some as big as your hand. They left a shimmering dust against the glass every night.

I looked up from where I’d been pounding my pillow into submission, not worried. As the years pass, you forget the things you should remember. Forget promises made. It wasn’t a moth, but it hung in the window all the same-the Grendel outlined by a bright full moon, its skin scrubbed even whiter by the lunar glow. The narrow face, the slanted red eyes, the thousand needle teeth bound by the same gleeful grin I remembered from Junior’s attic. This time it wasn’t here to only watch. It tapped again and it spoke, the voice the same too, the gargle of glass wrapped in a serpent’s complacent hiss. “Mine.”

Three years was a long time.

Nik had saved his money. He had college now and his plan for our future. The wheels were in motion and finally we were leaving Sophia. He was the happiest he’d ever been and I’d gotten to see that. That was something to be grateful for. I’d gotten to fucking see that. He would be all right eventually. I hoped. He’d miss me, more than anything-I knew that. I knew my brother. But afterward, in time, he’d have a life, a real one. Normal. That was something he wouldn’t have with me in it. No goddamn way. That’s the way it was and I’d known that long before I was eleven. Long before I was fourteen.