Chapter 9

Blake was not aware of much, after that. Glimpses. Indistinct scenes. Ephemeral floating ghosts, voices, hands on him. He was not sure where he was; there was a bed under him, and cool cloths, and terrible tastes upon occasion, and a deep all-encompassing ache in his bones that ebbed to a sort of muffling bronze languor, slow as molasses.

He knew Cam was there. And Ash. Both presences, one firm and authoritative, one sparrow-light and noisy, speaking to him.

He lost any sense of time, amid the ghosts.

He heard blurred conversations, once or twice. Cam's low rumble. Ash asking a question. Blake wanted to tell him to get back in bed, he'd only just woken up himself, he shouldn't be here. What if this was infectious, whatever it was? What if being here was too much for Ash's lungs?

But he couldn't talk, and focusing was difficult. He slid back into languid confused swirls of color, indistinct. It did not feel like sleep; more like dissolving.

He heard Cam swear at him, once or twice; he heard Cam's accent raw and tangled with fear, as it hadn't been before. "Come on—no, we're not doing this, not again, not you—I'll not lose you, d'you hear me, I can't—"

You're not losing me, Blake attempted to tell him. I'll be fine. I always am. I just need some sleep. Tired.

Cam swore again, brief, choked-off. "He—your Ashley—he's sleeping. He's fine. He's fine. I'm not. You—you woke me back up, you changed my life, and you can't be doing this to me, not again, it's not fair —not you, when you made me smile, one of the worst fuckin' days of my life and you were there and you made it bright, and you know you make him smile, too—you're not going to die because I won't fuckin' let you."

Blake, startled, wanted to interrupt. Was he going to die? Was that a concern? And—he'd made Cam smile? On a bad day?

He was glad, if he'd done that.

He went away again, for a bit. When he woke Ashley was there, sitting with him. Ash was talking, or crying. "He says it's—it's bad. He says he's not giving up. But I can tell—what he isn't saying—Blake, please. I'm so sorry. Please. I love you. Please try to drink some of this."

This, whatever it was, tasted bitter but sweet, honey failing to disguise a drug. That was kind of them.

"I love you." Ash's voice cracked, still weak. "I know…I know he does too. I see it, when he looks at you. When you look at him. Maybe you haven't said it yet, but you do. But I—I love you, too. I think—I thought sometimes, maybe you—the way you'd look at me, sometimes—I wanted more. I wanted you. I want you. I thought we'd have time. I thought you'd always come home to me. Because you always did. I love you. Don't leave me."

The weight of the room shifted; Cam had come back. Blake felt the heat of him, through all the drowsy molten depths.

"He's not any better." Ash must've moved, put his face in his hands; his voice came out less clear. "He won't wake up. I tried giving him more of that tea—I don't think it worked. I don't think he swallowed. I don't know what to do."

"He's a strong one, our Blake." Cam's hands were on him now: his wrist, his throat, his chest. "He cares about us. You, and maybe me, too…he won't leave us."

"He might. He wouldn't want to, but—"

"He's fighting it. 'Tis a good sign, that."

"He cares about us, you said."

"I think he does, aye."

A pause happened, a second or an eternity. Adrift in his heavy bronze pool, Blake heard Ash say softly, "He doesn't believe I love him, does he? Or you. Either of us."

No answer came right away; Blake lay unmoving and let the waves roll over him, surrounding him, washing through him. Cam's voice answered, thick with pain, "No, lad. I don't think he does."

You can't, Blake wanted to say. You don't know what that means, what you're offering. You love me like a friend, someone who makes you smile sometimes, someone who's here to help when you need it. That's all I've ever wanted. That's enough.

He lost track of them again, in the slow rocking inexorable ocean. Nothing held any pain; he was just so very worn out. Nothing left to give.

"No," someone was saying. Ashley. Closer now. A weight beside him, on the bed. "No, no—Blake, please, you can't leave me, you can't—don't you dare, don't you dare go someplace where you'll never come home—please come home to me, please, please, don't leave."

Blake wanted to tell him that it would be all right, that he himself had no plans involving travel any time soon; but breathing was difficult. Words might have to wait.

"Please." Ash was crying. That wasn't right. That shouldn't be happening. Someone needed to make that better immediately. "Please, Blake—I love you, I know I've been awful to you, I know I've asked you for so much—I wanted everything you could give me, every story, every time I asked you to tell me about your latest travel or your latest lover or the blindfolds—I knew it wasn't me, it would never be me, but I pretended. I pictured me. And you. Together in your stories, all big and brave and bright and exploring—I could imagine, when you told me, that I'd been with you. Someone you wanted, someone as astonishing as you."

But you are, Blake protested from beneath the honeyed stone weights on his chest. You are .

Maybe Cam could be there, if he himself had to go to sleep for a while. Cam was kind, and firm, and safe in a way Blake hadn't let himself examine too closely, because it felt a lot like another unfurling branch of love, like something he could want; maybe Cam could take care of Ash for him. He would like that, the two of them together.

What he wanted wouldn't matter much. It never really did. He was used to that.

In defiance of that recognition, he tried to picture Cam and Ash together, being happy. It was a good thought.

"So I kept asking. I kept asking everything—and now you've saved my life and I don't know how to even—" Ash's voice broke, frayed, splintered over emotion. "You've always given me everything, when I asked. You took care of me. You found Cam to rescue me. And now you're going to—to—I can't even say it, it's not true if I don't—you gave me this too, because of course you did, of course, and I don't know how to tell you that I love you, I don't know how to make you see it, I'm supposed to be good at languages and I can't even think —"

He gave up on talking. Sobbing. Collapsing forward, against Blake's chest. "Please stay. Please wake up. I love you. If Cam's right—if you, if you feel—that way, for me—please give me one more thing. I know it's selfish. I don't care. I'm asking. Please wake up. That's all. One last thing."

Another weight joined the bed. Cam, Blake guessed. Scooping Ash up for comfort. Good.

But Cam's low rumbling voice added, atop Ash's begging, "That's me asking too, lad. I know I don't know you as well as he does, but I've known you some, I think. Then, and then again, now. I know you're a good man. The kind of man I'd like to get to know, if you'd like. Both of you, that is. You told me once you liked orders, commands, pleasing people, aye? So this's one of that. From your doctor. You come on back and wake up, now."

Even mostly drowned under weighty amber glass, Blake felt those words. A weary worn-out firework tried to light, and fizzed, and sputtered, under his skin.

He wanted to listen. He wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe all of it.

He wanted to believe that somehow, impossibly, he could be a person a generous Scottish doctor thought might be a good man, worth knowing; he wanted to believe that Ash meant every word, that it wasn't simply pity or indulgence of a faithful friend.

He wanted to wake up and ask whether, even if it wasn't true, it could be, maybe, someday, if he earned it.

"You told me," Cam said, and his hand found Blake's hand, Blake's wrist, a grip like a cuff, "that you want me, and you want him, and you don't think we could ever want you. Told you that was nonsense, didn't I? You listen to me. And to him. You're both of ours, now. Because we both want you."

"We do," Ash whispered. "Oh, we do. Please."

Blake thought he might be dreaming all of this—it seemed the sort of dream he'd have, the sort in which happiness existed—but he was too tired to argue about it, if Ash and Cam thought it was real. He could accept that. He could trust them, here in this dream. Dream-Ash and Dream-Cam would probably like it if he did. Then they wouldn't have to sound so afraid.

He would have told them not to worry, but he couldn't manage to talk. All of him, toes to eyelids, ebbed like a tide. Going out, drawn back, a rhythm.

He could fall asleep for a bit, maybe. And then he could tell them, if they were still there, not off busy being dream-people.

With that in mind, he slid into the tide.