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“Hey, P, can I ask you something?”
Clint was lounging, buzzing with the special kind of warmth only alcohol could grant, across Present’s couch. The kids and Kimberly were away for the weekend, staying over at Kimberly’s mother’s place, a well-deserved treat that allowed for Present and Clint ample time for themselves. It was a kind of arrangement, given the circumstances, and Clint had jumped at the chance to bring booze he could actually drink for once. Present, himself, was several beers in, and the air bubbled with giddy levity. Distantly, Clint wondered if this was at all what it would have felt like to go out drinking together, both alive.
Present nodded, taking a sip from his emptying bottle, and Clint stifled a laugh.
“If Kim knows about all this – about the ghost shit, and me, and you, and all that – why did you stick with– with–” he stopped when Present wheezed, the question anticipated, but powered onwards. “Why do you still have three last names? Does Kim call you Roberto?”
Present was nodding, gasping for breath like a drowning man, and Clint felt the laughter come easily to him. Before this, before Present, Clint could not remember laughing like this – like his lungs were filled with honey and his chest was open, swallowing the joy of this moment with thoughtless greed.
“I couldn’t think of anything better,” Present laughed, and Clint’s cheeks ached.
He handed Present another beer, wiping his face with his sleeve. “Two hundred years of afterlife, your job was to study humans, and the best name you can come up with for yourself is, like, if someone was throwing darts at a board with their eyes closed.”
Their laughter rang through the house, bouncing off picture frames and art scribbled with crayons. Clint was unfamiliar with a house like this, but he knew Present was, too. Family, the concept, the unconditional ideology of the word, was not something either of them had experience with. Over the years, its warmth creeped into even Clint’s icy joints, and something akin to comfort began to greet him at the door with each visit.
Now, with the house empty save for their own voices, it felt supernatural and liminal.
Taking a gulp of wine, Clint grinned. Everything here, he knew, was sacred. It was all beautiful. And how lucky was he, to take part in such a thing?
And then, because he wanted to, he said this out loud. Present grinned back.
“That’s largely thanks to you, Clint,” he said, a softness lilting his voice.
Clint shrugged. “You would’ve done it without me.”
“Maybe,” Present said, chuckling and regarding Clint with a watchful eye.
The look was too sober for the night, and Clint bit his tongue not to squirm. That was a skill Present had, it seemed – the ability to make Clint squirm.
“All of this,” Clint said, gesturing his glass around them, the small living room adorned with collaged paper and the irrefutable evidence of life well lived, “is you and Kimberly. I don’t think I’d make it to this, not given a thousand chances.”
Clint said it like it was a fact to be taken for granted, a statement without need for explanation, but Present frowned at him. Clint blinked back.
“What do you mean?” Present asked, wary. “I know you didn’t want a life like this, stable and kids and all, but what do you mean ‘make it’?”
Clint let out a short scoff, smiling, allowing the alcohol to blur the edges of this pain he had involuntarily tripped backwards into. “I just mean I’m not the commitment type, you know? I mean, could you really picture me where you are? Four years in and sitting pretty?”
“Well, you’ve committed yourself to your job, haven’t you–?”
“Please, that’s easy,” Clint dismissed with another mouthful of red.
Present shifted forward in his chair, Clint’s gaze fixed firmly on the photographs on the sideboard. Clint missed the laughter.
“What about Past? Didn’t you say you guys were seeing each other?” He asked, pressing, encouraging.
Clint shrugged. “It’s nothing serious, we enjoy each other and we fool around, but, I mean, a year down the line something’ll screw it up and we’ll call it off. It always does.”
Present opened his mouth, but Clint sat up straight suddenly, a hand raised. “I’m not saying that’s a terrible thing,” Clint amended, and Present pressed his lips together tightly. “It’s just the way of things, the way of my world. I’ve accepted that. You’re right – I do have my job, and that’s all I really need.”
The two paused for a moment, watching each other, and Clint could see his words clicking together piece by piece in Present’s mind. It was the steady rumination of a man trained to consider his words carefully, and align them in just the right order to enact as much change as possible in the recipient. The wine stained his lungs and mind, and for the moment Clint could not tell whether or not he appreciated being handled like a perp again.
“That sounds terribly lonely,” Present said, then, painfully sincere.
Clint sucked in a breath. “I mean, I wouldn’t call it that, necessarily–”
But Present was looking at him with the sad eyes of a man who knew loneliness, knew it to be suffocating and isolating, and Clint could hardly stand it. His eyes flickered back to the frames, each containing a picture of a child, or a parent, or some combination of the two. In one, Clint could spot Kimberly’s parents with both of the kids, and Clint remembered that day. A Birthday, one that had included cake and spaceships and piggy-back-rides.
“I’m not alone,” Clint said, and he meant it.
Present nodded, slow. “That’s not what I’m talking about,” he said.
“Listen,” Clint started, suddenly standing. “I know you’re still getting used to the world as it is now, still dusting yourself off of residual 1800s customs, but I don’t actually need to get married to be happy. I like my job, I like visiting here, I’m– I have a good life, and I’m doing good things, so would you stop looking at me like I’m some kicked puppy? What is the problem here?”
Present stood, meeting Clint’s gaze. “Clint, if I ask you something will you answer it honestly?”
The house seemed to be holding its breath, the whole world pausing in its rotation to allow this moment to break open, gaping like a black hole, and consuming whatever it pleased. Clint felt himself falling into it, a dangerous precipice over which he could not see where he would land, but he nodded anyway.
“Yeah, of course,” he replied, voice tight.
Present held Clint’s shoulder, steady and warm.
“Are you happy?”
Clint felt like he might throw up, so he pushed out a short laugh, hollow and off-pitch. “What?”
“Are you happy?” Present repeated. “Not just now, or when you’re working, but in general. Do you consider your life with a certain amount of contentment and pleasure?”
“Can’t I be lonely and happy at the same time?” he asked, at a loss for anything better to say, and Present squeezed his shoulder.
“Here’s what I think, Clint,” Present started, and together they sat back down on the couch, knees brushing. “I think you desire something you might not be able to name, or imagine, but it’s there, and you refuse to let yourself reach out for it. I think it’s eating you alive, and you are enduring it bravely, but at some point it will become absolutely unbearable.”
Clint thumbed the rim of his glass. Present’s body emanated warmth beside him, and he could feel it seeping into his own flesh. His hand on Clint’s shoulder was firm, grounding in a way rarely experienced anymore. He felt the whole Earth tied to him through Present’s palm, and some part of him believed that he might float away if Present were ever to let him go.
“I miss gravity,” he said, sad and simple, flickering a smile. “I still haven’t gotten used to not having it, anymore.”
Present blinked slowly. “Okay,” he said, testing the waters.
Clint continued, “There’s not a lot of my previous life that’s still missing, funnily enough. I still dig up dirt on people, grab hold of their emotions, sway their opinions, it’s all pretty much the same even though the – I guess ‘motivation’ or ‘ideal outcome’ – is different. But gravity. Feeling solid. I didn’t expect it to be so…” Clint shook his head, placing down his glass on the coffee table.
“Unreal?” Present offered, and Clint finally looked back at him. “Like your existence is just a suggestion to the world, rather than a real, concrete thing?”
Clint nodded, and Present smiled. Then, Present’s grip on his shoulder tightened, and Clint felt himself pulled into Present’s arms. He allowed Present to hold him steady against his chest, and for a moment they only sat there. Slowly, as Clint felt Present’s rhythmic breaths against him, he wrapped his arms around Present’s back. He felt the warmth like a heater, his body becoming corporeal through the simple proof of Present’s touch. There were suddenly boundaries to his own physicality, a starting and stopping where he and Present pressed against each other, and Clint took a deep, slow breath as if he needed it to live. Present’s shirt smelled of car oil and wood, and Clint tightened his grip on the fabric in an effort not to bury his nose in it.
“It’s not gravity.”
Clint pulled away, standing once again and straightening his sweater. It was an anxious reflex, a filling of space as Present frowned up at him, suddenly left with his arms hanging open.
“That thing that you– you so profoundly observed. It’s not gravity,” Clint explained, feeling the wine’s grip on the base of his scalp.
Funny, how alcohol created a flexibility of lines not to cross, personal boundaries that were then made only suggestions posed by the sober self, but were better left forgotten or respectfully dismissed. Funny, too, was the inserted belief that more drinking would make the good things better, and the bad things disappear completely. With this theory in mind, Clint downed the rest of his glass and quickly turned.
“I should go,” he stated, but then Present was holding his forearm, and Clint did not have the resolve within him to pull away.
“What is it?” Present asked, gentle and soothing like whatever it was, Present would give it to him, would pluck it out of the sky if need be.
Clint smiled bitterly. “I can’t say, it wouldn’t be fair.”
Present shook his head, took a step forward, opened his mouth as if to object, but then the world tumbled back down Clint’s throat and he was choking on reality once more. He tugged his arm free of Present’s grip, swallowing thickly and bringing his glass and some empty bottles to the sink.
“It wouldn’t be fair,” he said again, clearing away takeaway containers, “It’s just something I have to deal with, and that’s fine. I don’t want you to worry about it.”
“But maybe I could help,” Present offered, following him into the orange light of the kitchen.
Clint shook his head, laughing. “No, I don’t think this is something you can help with.”
“Please, just tell me,” Present pushed, stepping in the way of Clint’s attempted exit.
With the fluorescent lights beating down on him, Clint bizarrely felt like this was some kind of interrogation. He felt the reactionary rearing head of old habits.
“Leave it the fuck alone,” Clint bit. “And let me through, it’s late.”
“Ghosts don’t sleep and you know it,” Present spat back, unrelenting in his place as a human barrier.
Clint let out a frustrated groan, the itching need to shout tightening his throat. He rubbed his eyes until he saw spots. “Why are you obsessing over my shit. Why won’t you let this go?”
“Because I care about you, and I know you won’t do anything about it unless someone kicks you in the ass.” Present’s own voice was raising, and Clint felt dangerous defeat clawing at his heels.
“You really want to know that badly?” Clint asked, dripping in cynical rhetoric.
“Yes, actually, I would.”
“Yeah?”
Present was nodding, stubborn and persevering, and Clint laughed. It sounded sickly and wicked and not at all who he was supposed to be anymore.
Clint opened his arms wide in theatrical declaration. “It’s you, dipdick!”
Present’s face fell. Clint continued laughing.
“What?”
Clint felt lightheaded, almost hysterical. Present’s arms had dropped down to his sides, but it didn’t matter anymore. Clint had no need to escape anymore. He had just fallen over the precipice.
“You’re the bullshit thing you think is eating me alive,” Clint said with faux disbelief.
Present shifted, pulling at his sleeves. “Why would you say that?”
Clint thought he might explode. “You’re the one who asked.”
“Yeah, but if I’d known I wouldn’t have pushed for it,” Present shot back, regaining some vitality in his words. “I’m married!”
“I’ve noticed,” Clint stage-whispered, slicing through the tense air.
“You– how long?” Present asked, stammering, as if all the questions were piling up on themselves, tripping and tumbling over each other and falling messily on his tongue.
“Since before you took your retirement,” Clint answered quickly, his agitation losing its steam.
Present’s eyes widened, and Clint groaned. “You– you encouraged me to go after Kimberly, and you– all this time, you–?”
“Can we skip this part of the conversation?” Clint interrupted, exasperated.
There was a sudden silence, levitating and palpable in the small kitchen. Again, Clint could see the cogs turning in Present’s mind, just behind his eyes. He could see years of interactions re-contextualizing themselves, and Clint felt the nauseating reality of this ridiculous confession surge within him. He should have kept his mouth shut.
“Why did you never tell me, before?” Present asked, sounding sadly bewildered.
Clint huffed out a breath, fingers thoughtlessly rotating his ring. “What would that have solved, exactly?”
Present clenched his fists in front of him, grounding out, “You idiot.”
Clint stared at him, clueless. “What?”
Present took a moment to gape at him, as if perplexed by Clint’s capacity for stupidity. “Did you ever think, even for a moment, that I might like to know?”
Clint floundered for a moment. “I mean– no?”
Present looked like he might throw something, and briefly Clint worried about the safety of the wine glass set on the counter. He was pacing now, and Clint found all agitation inside him replaced with his single most prominent state of confusion in his entire life.
“What is happening to you right now?” he asked, and Present turned on him like a cat.
“It’s not like people in the 1800s weren’t– God, why wouldn’t you tell me?”
Clint shrugged quickly. “I didn’t think I had to!”
And then Present paused, bit back his own tongue and seemed to reconsider something. There was an invisible shift in the air, and Clint felt it infiltrate his lungs and choke his breath.
“Is that what you were going to say, before the bus?” Present asked, dangerously simple.
Clint swallowed. “Yes,” he said, defeated. “I wasn’t going to say ‘bros,’ but I wasn’t going to say ‘friends,’ either. I don’t know what I was going to say. I think I was hoping you would fill it in for me.”
“And then I didn’t,” Present said, quietly, and Clint shrugged.
“I mean, you were so into Kimberly. She was kind and beautiful, and I knew you two would be good for each other.” Clint paused, licking his lips. “You deserved each other, and I didn’t deserve you. I didn’t think you would be interested, regardless.”
“I think, had you told me, I would’ve been very interested. If I wasn’t married now, I still would be,” Present sighed. “But I love Kimberly. I really do.”
“That’s just the way things are,” Clint offered, a wilting olive branch in this bitter war-zone.
Present took it, beautifully melancholic in the soft light, and nodded. “I guess it is.”
For a minute they only stood there, in the timeless bubble of the kitchen. Clint returned to twisting his ring, feeling it tug at his skin and wishing bitterly he could swallow up all the words that had led him here, to this terrible limbo. It was a terrible thing, he had done, and it was completely irreconcilable. Present was not moving, motionless and thinking, and Clint let him.
“I’m going to have to tell Kimberly when she gets home,” he said into the silent space between them.
Clint felt a heat in his throat, felt it creep into his eyes, and he coughed before asking, “Why?”
Present smiled at him, bittersweet. “It’s important for her to know. This isn’t just how you feel about me; it’s how I feel about you, too.”
Clint nodded, blinking hard against the crackling fire inside of him. “I’m sorry,” he said, and winced at the twisted tone of it. “I think I’ve messed up your marriage pretty bad.”
And then Present inexplicably pulled Clint into a tight hug. Clint’s arms instinctively wrapped around him, held onto his shirt like he may never get another chance, and swallowed against the realization that such a future may be possible. He felt Present’s heart beating, felt his lungs expanding, and then Present’s hand was resting against the back of his skull.
“We’ll figure it out. This isn’t the end of the world,” Present whispered, and Clint nodded.
“You and Kimberly are really good together,” Clint said, and felt Present chuckle against him, low and fleeting. “You make each other better. You’re good parents, too. I hope this doesn’t fuck any of that up.”
“It won’t,” Present said, hand rubbing along Clint’s spine. “We'll figure it out," he repeated, because what else was there to say?
Where could they go from here?
Clint let the scent of Earth and wine curl around him, easing the passage of time into a gentle hesitation, and tried not to consider what he could no longer help.