Carnival -- Chapter 5 is up!

As Zachary left his trailer and headed further up the train, ignoring Weston sitting in the shade, he caught sight of another person he tried very hard to ignore.

Hanging out of the open door of the largest trailer in the train, the violet one with double doors and a fold out stage built right into the side, was Shiloh. He was a smoking a cigarette, a silky black and brown skirt-like thing belted around his waist. His bare feet clung to the stair he was standing on, his claw tipped toes digging into the wood. He saw Zachary, and his pale green eyes narrowed a little. Zachary tried not to look at him, tried to hunch his shoulders and just hurry by.

The young man’s tail flicked behind him, showing his agitation. Zachary risked a glance. He shouldn’t have. Shiloh’s ears laid flat against his head and he hisses through his teeth. Zachary looked away, his face red. He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, so when he ran face first into Freya, he nearly fell over. The woman grabbed him by the arms to steady him, and laughed.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” the woman asked, raising her perfectly painted on eyebrows, her southern drawl so thick it took a minute for Zachary to understand what she’d said.

“Shiloh.” Zachary muttered, and threw a glance over his shoulder. The half human, half fox hybrid standing on the stairs had turned his back was talking to someone in the trailer. Zachary could only see him in profile; the snubbed upturn of his nose, the small jut of his chin, the height of his cheekbones below his almond shaped eyes, the long ginger colored lashes.

“That boy’ll hate you ‘till you dead.” Freya told him matter-of-factly, and patted his shoulder. “No point tryin’ to change what’s what.” She brushed past him, her considerable bottom swinging, and headed for the violet trailer. Zachary watched her go for a moment, but when Shiloh turned to greet her, he got out of the area in a hurry.

He hadn’t gone farther than two trailers when another hybrid stopped him. Rahda seemed to think they were similar enough to consider herself a friend of his; he thought this was very strange. They had very little in common; aside from being scaly, that is. She smiled at him, her silvery hair in a braided cable over one shoulder.

“Zachary, would you give me a hand with something?” she asked, and took his hand in hers and started pulling before he could respond. He followed her into the trailer she kept; this one wasn’t a living trailer but a cargo trailer. Inside the walls were lined with solid steel, and the only thing in long, high ceiling trailer was a wooden crate full of scrap metal. She walked to the back of the trailer and pointed up at the ceiling. “The hinge is broken.” She told him. “I could reach, but in my other form my fingers are too big.” She glanced at him. “You’re tall enough.”

He nodded and accepted the tools from her, going up on tiptoe to work at the hinge. He could’ve just told her to find something to stand on, but he didn’t. Rahda was always coming up with inane things for him to do around her empty trailer; she was lonely. Her mate had died the previous year, and she found comfort in Zachary’s presence. Her interest was no sexual in any way, when her kind mated, it mated for life. Still, she saw kinship in him; aside from Moira, who would have nothing to do with Rahda, Zachary was the only other scaly thing in the carnival.

Not that she was scaly at the moment, of course; she looked almost exactly like a human. Her hair was an unnatural silvery white, and her eyes were similarly silver, her pupils nova shaped. Other than that, though, she looked like a middle aged woman, a little on the muscular side, but otherwise normal.

In truth, Rahda, whose real named was Rahdassiakathu, was almost a five hundred years old, which roughly translated to her mid thirties in human years. Her mate, Skeinalliousys, or just Skein, had only been a quarter of the way through his second century, but the males of her kind rarely lived even that long. In her true form, Rahda was almost thirty five feet long, although a solid half of her length was her tail, which was long, sinuous, and ended in a huge scorpion’s stinger. Her wings were wide and webbed, like a bat’s wings, and she had two slender, back swept horns growing from above her eye ridges. Her snout was short and wide, like a crocodile’s. She had thick, muscular back legs, but her front legs were smaller and more delicate, although they still dwarfed a human’s hands by almost times threes. In this country, people called her dragon, and she was a monster. In her home country, they’d called her wyrm, and she was a demi-god. But her home country and been turned to rubble and ash before her first half century had even passed. She didn’t talk about it much.

As Zachary worked and the trailer began to move, Rahda sat down beside the box of scrap metal and fished through it, selecting a long, narrow stripped of half rusted iron, probably from one of the rides. She bit into it, her teeth shearing through the metal like a sharp knife through butter. “You looked upset, when I first ran into you.” She said through a mouthful of the metal as she chewed. “Is something wrong?”

“Saw Shiloh.” He muttered under his breath, knowing she would hear him.

Rahda sighed. “You two are still fighting? It’s been almost a year.”

“Do you really think it matters how long it’s been?” Zachary asked her, glancing over his shoulder. “He’s… hurt.” The word seemed strange in correlation with Shiloh.

“Well, after what happened, I suppose I would be too.” She said softly, and although her voice contained no hint of accusation or judgment, he felt a wave of guilt spread through him. “Have you tried to speak to him?”

“And get my face clawed off? No thank you.” Zachary sighed. “It should’ve never happened in the first place. Everyone knows that.”

“You can’t tell the heart not to love, Zach.” Rahda reminded him. “You know that. Shiloh-“

“-should move on.”

Rahda tossed what was left of the iron into the box again and got to her feet. “He’s young. Everything’s life or death with the young.”

“Don’t remind me of how young he is, I feel disgusting just thinking about it.” Zachary snapped at her.

“In human years he isn’t young. He’s matured.”

“That doesn’t change how long he’s been alive.”

“I sometimes forget how much of your humanity you’ve held on to.” She said, smiling a little. “It’s your brother that’s made you keep it. It’s almost sweet.”

“I’m a mutant, Rahda, not another race, like you. My parents were humans. And Huxley is a human.”

“How is he?”

Zachary sighed. “I don’t know.” He admitted. “He sleeps. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. His eyes move constantly, so I know he dreams, but…” a piece of splintered metal had been jamming the hinge, he realized. He worked at it, trying to wiggle it free. “I’m worried for him.”

“He’ll be okay.” She assured him. “Huxley’s strong.” She studied him from behind for a moment, watching the snakes slither along his arms and the space of skin she could see from his shirt pulling up as he lifted his arms above his head. The snakes were beautiful, and she loved to watch them. “Now, about Shiloh…”

“I don’t want to talk about Shiloh.”

“Then don’t, just listen.” Zachary made a sighing, growling sound, but said nothing. “You should talk to him. I’m sure if you just explain the situation, explain why things went the way they did, things will be better than they are.”

Zachary turned and looked at her as though she’d gone insane. “You expect me to put myself in a situation where Shiloh and I are alone? You know what would happen, don’t you?”

“Three things would happen.” She held up one finger. “You’d talk about like civilized people and come to an understanding.” She added another finger. “You’d beat the living hell out each other.” She added a third. “Or you’d fuck like… well…” she laughed. “I can’t say rabbits, can I?”

He hissed at her, and she raised an eyebrow, acknowledging his threat. “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Which one?” she asked, smiling.

“All of them. I won’t put myself in that situation.”

“Then you’d better watch your back.” Rahda told him seriously. “People have been talking about putting you in that situation, one way or the other.”

“What, locking him and me in a trailer together?” she nodded, and he gaped. “What the hell for?”

“Half of us believe you two are being silly and ignoring what there is between you.” He opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off. “The other half think Shiloh deserves to cut you up a little.”

“For what?” he shouted. “Reacting to a pheromone?”

“No. For acting as though Shiloh had a choice about producing said pheromone.” She eyed him critically. “The boy was in heat, Zachary. You acted like he seduced you on purpose.”

“Did you catch that word you used?” he asked her. “Boy? That’s why I ran. He was a boy. I molested a fucking kid.”

“I told you, in human years, he’s almost in his mid twenties.”

“No, in real time, he’s fucking SIX!”

She rolled her eyes. “When was the last time you looked in a mirror and saw a change in yourself?” she asked him, and he couldn’t answer her. “Almost everyone here ages strangely. You can’t hold that against him, like that’s something he can control, anymore than he could control what happened between the two of you.”

“That’s one of my other two problems.” He said, changing the subject on her. “What happened, it was a chemical reaction. He was in heat, like you said, and that fucking smell…” his eyes dilated just at the memory. He shook his head. “And suddenly he was in love?”

“He’d always been in love.” She told him gently. “That boy was crushing on you before he could walk.” She studied him. “What’s your third problem?”

“What?” he frowned.

“You said one problem was his age, another was the love thing. What was the third?”

Zachary looked at her flatly. “He’s a whore.”

She cringed at the word. “You know none of them like to be called that.”

He snorted. “Calling him by any other word wouldn’t change what he is, and you know it. The kid spreads his legs and opens his mouth for money.”

“And you judge him for that?” she stood up. “We all do degrading things for money. It is our life. Nothing that he does is any different than what any of the others do. We’re all whores, Zachary, just in different ways.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Your brother is a whore, he just peddles his mind instead of his flesh. Don’t be so fucking judgmental.”

“Don’t you talk about Huxley that way.” He snarled.

She laughed at him. “Please. I enjoy your company, Zachary, I really do, but sometimes you are incredibly narrowed minded. It’s a wonder you’ve survived so long being so stupid.” She smirked. “Then again, clutching to Erik’s apron strings for most of your life has seriously sheltered you.”

He shoved past her, knowing that if he stayed longer, he would get into a fight with her. It would be a quick fight, and he would be hurt badly. She was not some with which to fuck. He kicked the door open and stepped out onto the connector between the trailer and the truck pulling it. She slammed the door behind him, and he balanced his way over to bed the of the truck and climbed in. The worker driving it glanced back and gave him a thumbs up, and he returned the gesture before laying down beside the piles of boxes.

He thought of Shiloh, of their one night together, and it made him both horribly ashamed and painfully aroused. He closed his eyes and tried not to think at all.
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When Weston found Huxley, he was exhausted and terrified. Whatever it was that was loose in Huxley’s mind, whatever had driven him into his hiding place, it was hunting him. When Weston had come into the maze, it had caught his scent.

He found Huxley huddled in the empty base of a stone fountain depicting a stern, plain faced woman with her arms outstretched. There was a viper biting into her throat and a hole in her forehead. Huxley screamed when he saw Weston, and the sound was worse than anything Weston had ever heard before.

Huxley had tried to run, and Weston had tackled him. “It’s me!” he’d shouted, and Huxley had finally realized who he was. He’d burst into a hysterically sobbing and threw his arms around Weston’s neck. The move startled Weston badly, but he returned the hug anyway, knowing it was what Huxley needed.

“I thought-“ Huxley made a strange hiccupping sound. “I thought you were one of them.” He said through his tears. “They change shape. They look like the people I know, but they hurt me.” Weston saw now the long gashes along Huxley’s face, the burns, the whip marks covering the rest of him. What little was clothed in tattered black shorts was probably just a ruined as the rest of his skin.

“What are they?” Weston asked him, scared.

“Monsters.” Huxley whispered. “Demons.” He eyed Weston carefully. “You gave them to me.”

“I’m sorry.” Weston hugged him harder. “I’m so sorry.”

“There’s so many of them.” Huxley said softly. “I can’t get rid of them. I don’t know what to do.” He sighed and finally pulled away. “When I hid here, I thought I would be safe. But they found me. They keep coming.”

“We have to go back, Huxley.” Weston told him. “You have to wake up.”

“I don’t know how.” Weston helped Huxley to his feet. “Oh God, I miss Zachary.” He sobbed again and covered his mouth with one shaking hand. “I miss him so much. Is he okay?”

“Yes.” Weston nodded. “He’s worried about you, though. He’s worried you won’t wake up.” He looked around. “Which way is out?”

“That’s the thing.” Huxley told him, wiping at his wounded face with the backs of his hands. “I’ve never seen a way out, not physically. I just… leave.” He shrugged a little. “Now I can’t. I try, but they keep me here.”

Weston tried to think, his face screwed up into a look of deep concentration. “There is a door for me.” He said quietly. “Make us a door, Huxley.”

“How? I’ve never done that. What is here has always been here. Things show up sometimes, new things. When people are close to me, pieces of them come here.” He explained about the winged man’s feather, and the boom slang he would see in the hedges sometimes. “Everyone is different. The other things…” he gestured around him. “It’s always been the same.”

“How big is this place?” Weston asked him. “How far does it go?”

“It’s everything.” Huxley said softly. “It’s forever.”

Weston sighed. “You’ve never tried to make things?” he asked. Huxley shook his head. “A difference between us then. I’ve always been able to change what’s in mine.”

“What is yours?” Huxley asked him, curious.

“A church.” He said. “A huge cathedral full of stained glass windows and statues.” He looked up at the fountain. “Your mother?”

Huxley nodded. “We killed her, my brother and I. We didn’t mean to, but…” he sighed. “Having children like us…” Weston touched him arm, trying to offer comfort when he could not understand the way comfort worked. Huxley tried to smile at him. It was a pathetic display. “Can you make things here?” he asked, changing the subject. “In my place, can you change things?”

“I didn’t try.”

“Then do it now.”

Weston took a step away and concentrated. His spread his hands wide, his head tilting back a little. Huxley watched in fascination as his eyes darkened. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the hedges, which had almost been green and black walls but nothing more, began to flower. The roses spread like blood drops, budding and blooming around them like a sped up film, and Huxley startled himself by laughing. He looked around, impressed and amazed.

Weston let out an agonized moan, his eyes snapping shut, and roses wilted and died. Huxley looked back at him, scared. “Are you okay?” he asked, grabbing Weston by the shoulders.

“It’s worse here.” He said quietly, and rubbed his forehead. “At first it wasn’t, there was no pain at all. But it was like… like an infection.” He looked at Huxley. “Whatever they are, the monsters, it’s tainted this place.”

“This place is my mind.” Huxley reminded him, and Weston nodded. “Right now, this place is separate, I’ve always kept it so. If we can get back, I can find a way to get rid of them.”

“Then let’s try to get back.” Weston ran a hand through his hair. Huxley noticed they had similar hair coloring, although where Weston’s hair was inky, his had a slight reddish undertone. Still, it was strange to see that the one person he’d met that was like him also looked like him, in a way. Weston tilted his head at the long look, and Huxley shook his head to say it was nothing.

“I’ll try to make this door.” Huxley told him. “But I’m promising nothing.”

“I thought I would learn from you.” Weston told him with a tiny smile. “But the first lesson isn’t mine.”

“Life is funny that way.” Huxley said. “Now let me try.” He closed his eyes, focusing on a door. The first thought that came to mind was his trailer door, so he went with that. Dark green paint, like pine needles, with a gold colored doorknob and hinges, and gold designs painted along the edge like trim. Zachary had painted it, swirls and snakes and zigzags. He thought about the texture of the wood, the feel of the grain under his fingers, the way the hinges squeaked when he opened it.

Beside him, Weston made a startled squawking sound and Huxley opened his eyes. The door stood in front of him, exactly as he remembered it. He looked at Weston, who was smiling widely. “Go on.” Weston told him. “Open it.”

“What if it doesn’t lead out?”

“Then we’ll figure something else out.” Weston surprised himself by holding out his hand, and Huxley surprised him again by taking it without hesitation. “After you.”

Huxley took a deep breath and reached for the door handle. It was warm against his palm, but for a second it wouldn’t turn. He almost panicked, then remember that the door handle stuck sometimes, when it was very hot. He wiggled it, then tried again, and the door opened.

Weston sat up, his head feeling like it had split open, his vision so blurry that at first he had no idea where he was. He grabbed the sides of his head as it throbbed painfully, and let out a tiny moan.

He felt cool, dry hands against his forehead, and the pain subsided immediately. His vision cleared, and he was looking down at Huxley, lying in his bed, smiling softly.

“Back?” Weston asked him, and Huxley nodded. “It worked.”

“For now.” Huxley said, his voice hoarse. The wounds Weston had seen were gone, they’d never been physical damage, but when Huxley moved to sit up, he winced anyway. Just because it wasn’t there didn’t mean he couldn’t feel it. Weston had had similar experiences. Huxley looked at the snoring woman in the chair beside his bed.

“Did you do that?” Weston nodded. “I can’t do that to people.”

“I can teach you that.” Weston told him. “And you can teach me what you know.” He studied Huxley carefully. “You made the pain go away.” He touched his head to indicated what he’d meant. “How?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t even know I could do it, I just…” he shrugged, unable to finish the sentence. He was still looking around his trailer, smiling softly. “I never thought I’d be this happy to see this place.”

“What did you mean by for now?” he asked.

Huxley looked at him. “I go there when I sleep. I can’t control that.”

“But now you know how to come back.”

“Yes, but what if I can’t do it without you?” Huxley asked him. “It’s obvious that whatever you and I are, we act like amplifiers for each other. What if, when I sleep and I’m alone there, I can’t get back again?”

“Then I’ll come find you again.” Weston said simply. “We have to find out what is in you, though, and how to get rid of it.”

“You don’t know anything about them? They came from you.”

Weston shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard any of the things you said when we touché don stage that night.”

Huxley sighed. “We’ll have to figure it out.” He eyed Weston carefully, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. “You’re going to help me, aren’t you?”

Weston looked at him like he was stupid. “What kind of question is that? Of course I’m going to help you. I did it to you, for one, and two, you’re the only other person I’ve met like me. I’m not going to just walk away from that.”

Huxley smiled. “Good.” He impulsively hugged Weston again, feeling him go rigid from the contact. “You don’t like to be touched, do you?” he asked softly, and felt Weston shudder.

“No.” Weston said, but his arms went around Huxley’s waist anyway, keeping him close. “I don’t want to hurt you. If it happens again-“

“It won’t.” Huxley assured him. “I know how it happened, we can avoid it.” He pulled back slowly to look at the worried expression of Weston’s face. “Why are you so scared of me?”

“What? I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.” Huxley said, and ran his hand up Weston’s arm. The younger man flinched away from the touch. “You see?”

“It’s not you.” Weston told him. “I just don’t touch people.” He sighed. “it usually opens doors to things I don’t want to see. With you it doesn’t, because you can close that door. Other people can’t. But touching makes me nervous.”

Huxley nodded and dropped his hand. “I’m sorry. Zachary says I touch too much.” He smiled. “I guess it’s true. I’ll try not to.”

Weston’s cheeks flushed, and he couldn’t look at Huxley when he said, “Honestly, I like it when you do. I don’t know why.”

Huxley studied him, smiling. He knew that Zachary had an active sex life for a long time, and although he’d never picked one gender or the other exclusively, he’d always leaned more in favor of men than woman. Sex in general had never even been something that Huxley had bothered with at all. He could appreciate that certain people were nice to look at, like Freya’s daughters. He’d never thought a man was nice to look at, but Weston was different, in so many ways he couldn’t count them. He found himself wondering what sex would be like with Weston, and it made him feel overheated and a little dizzy at the imagery his mind produced. He looked away.

Weston cleared his throat and stood up. “We’re moving.” He said. “I can’t leave.”

“Why would you want to?” Huxley asked him, and Weston laughed a little. “Sit back down. Talk to me.”

Weston sat back down. “About what?” he asked.

“Everything.” Huxley said immediately. “Everything you are, everything you’ve seen and done and felt.”

“Why?” Weston asked him. “Why would you want to know?”

“I’ve met one other like me. Erik calls us telepaths, but I think that’s erroneous. The man I met was named Harold Swick. He was Erik’s step father. He taught me about my ability as much as he could before he died.” Huxley paused here, his head tilted a little. “The man was not close to me at all, he was a teacher, nothing more. I have never had someone close, aside from my brother. The people here, in the carnival, appreciate me and treat me well, but they cannot be my friends when I know literally everything about them.”

“You can do to me what you do to them. You can read my mind.”

“Yes, but I don’t want you, and I only could if you allowed me to. Doors, remember? You have many, and they are locked to me, unless you open them. I don’t want you to do that.”

“Why not?” Weston asked him. “Wouldn’t it be faster to let you?”

“Yes.” Huxley nodded. “But I can learn about you like normal people do. I can be normal with you. I’ve never had that before.”

Weston laughed. “I meet another of my kind, and the first thing he wants to do is pretend there’s nothing wrong with us.” He shook his head, amused.

Huxley studied him carefully. “I don’t think there is anything wrong with us, for one.” He said. “And for another, that is not the first thing I wanted to do.”

Weston looked confused by this. When Huxley cupped the back of his neck with one hand and pulled him forward, he was too startled to do anything but go along with it. This lips touched, briefly, and it was like a static shock, making Weston’s entire body jerk. He pulled away, eyes wide, and Huxley just waited. Weston leaned forward again and pressed his mouth more firmly against Huxley’s, his hands resting on Huxley’s chest. Huxley ran his fingers through the soft, soft hairs at the back of Weston’s head, his head tilting a little to get a better angle on Weston’s mouth. He timidly brushed his tongue against Weston’s lips, tasting them, and it made Weston gasp and pull away.

Huxley let him go gently, leaning back on his pillows and smiling a little. “Hmm.” He said, almost to himself. “So that’s what that feels like.”

Weston stared at him, shocked. “That was your first-“

“Yes.” Huxley nodded. “Thank you for it. It was good.”

Weston just stared at him, unable to comprehend why Huxley had done it at first, or why he himself had continued it. He’d always been taught that sexual encounters by people of the same sex were wrong, and his experience at the hands of Father Abshire had solidified that in his mind. So why had he done it? It had felt good to kiss Huxley, but more than that, scarier than that, was that it had felt right, like coming home.

He looked out the window, his mind whirling with questions he had no answers for. He watched the landscape slide by, and when Huxley took his hands and intertwined their fingers, he let him. He did know this; he’d never felt good things before, never felt affection. If that what Huxley was showing him, and he thought that it was, he was realizing that he liked it very much. The way he’d been raised might tell him it was wrong, that he would be damned, but then again, he’d always been taught that he’d been damned from his first breath anyway. So why not just enjoy it?
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A/N: I got nothing to say, other than thank you all very much for the reviews so far. I would reply to them, but I'm having one of those days where I just want to bite everyone's heads off, and I don't want to offend my readers. So I'll reply to them next chapter, mkay? But again, thank you for the support, and please keep reviewing. I'm trying to take this one a little slower, but some explanations for what's going are coming soon, and a little bit more smut is definitely on it's way. Oh, but what do you think of the wyrm, Rahda? Kind of opinionated, ain't she? She's got a right to be, she's old as dirt, hahaha. Personally, though, I like my Shiloh. He's so cute and angry. Kind of stereotypical, the hot slutty fox, but hey, if it works, right? Wait... is Shiloh a girl's name?

Guess I did have something to say after all. *grins* Anyhoodles, review please, because love helps keep the words flowing.