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It'd been days since the 'encounter'. The way time rolled by since had half convinced me that the entire night was a dream I awoke too soon from.
We never talked about what happened, about how his body inched closer and closer to mine as the hours ticked down to 12am. Or about how I woke up shivering from the hollow absence in my bed. For such a cold man, I had never felt warmer.
Guests after that night came and went, some taken by FEMA enforcers, others ushered in after they asked to stay. The most peculiar ones left wordlessly between each day, perhaps in a final protest of human will against the unforgiving reign of the apocalypse. Those who faithfully stayed were the tall man, and of course, Coat guy.
Each night was defined by a sharp pang of anxiety, fearing the moment that I push open the heavy doors to the living room to find Coat guy's spot on my couch empty.
Fortunately, tonight was like the rest. I entered the living room with anticipation and fear knotted in my gut, only for it to dissipate the instant my eyes fell on the curled up figure. He was crouched in his usual position, head bowed and tucked between his knees, delicate hands threaded through his hair.
There was a new indicator they'd shown on TV the day before, something about a camera that could reveal auras. I assumed it was another pile of inconclusive bullshit, much like all the other signs they'd been pushing, but I bought the camera anyway. It was a small and retro thing, like my Dad's old polaroid camera, and I gripped it tightly as I walked into the room.
Scanning the scene in front of me, I deliberated on who to try it on today. The tall guy, I was almost fully certain that he was human, so there was no point in that. Same went for the disfigured fireman. I bit my lip as my gaze settled on Coat guy.
As human as our encounter had been, as undeniably real his body had felt against mine, the truth remained that I had avoided testing Coat guy these past few days. Most of all, as much as he hid in the throbbing blindspot of my adoration, there was no one left to test but him.
I held my breath as I approached him. Even with the sound of boot laden footsteps approaching, he failed to look up at me. Up close, I could see how his fingers shifted and folded between strands of his hair, like his entire body was contorting in agony. With my treacherous mind, I couldn't help but imagine those fingers as my own, raking over his scalp instead.
"Hey," I said. His fingers unfurled as his head began to lift. "I... I need to test you."
Just as his body unfurled, it folded again. His mouth twisted into a tight frown, probably bracing for another intrusive demand.
"Not like that," I blurted out, suddenly desperate to erase the anguish blooming on his face, "Nothing like the other night," I clarified as heat creeped up my cheeks at mention of the memory.
He looked back at me with a mix of relief and.. Disappointment? Could it be?
I shook my head, "I just need to take a photograph of you," whipping out the camera in front his face, "It takes a photo of your aura or something.. I dunno, I don't really know how it works."
I met his eyes again. The shock of being caught off-guard had faded, leaving a cool and distant mask that froze over his face. My brain itched, a restless thought was bouncing at the back of my mind, one that urged me to be the one who peels his mask off again.
"W-What does a photograph prove?" He said, voicing out what had been on both our minds. I didn't make a move to disagree as he continued, "Just s-seems s-strange.."
I rocked on the balls of my feet, urging him up from the couch. He rose, slowly, like the weight of his double jackets had previously chained him to the couch. He continued to voice his reluctance, "I-It's not like I have a choice anyway."
Again, he had a way of making me feel ashamed. It wasn't as though I didn't know how to deal with difficult guests, or visitors. Some had cussed me out, overturning tables and smashing my own furniture when I asked them to leave or oblige by demands they didn't take to. The worst had even threatened violence. But I could deal with them. With a gun.
I was more than reluctant to reach for my old shotgun when it came to Coat guy. I feared tarnishing the only good memory that seemed to come out of the apocalypse.
It felt like forever before we walked to the centre of the living room, where he stopped, standing motionlessly, waiting. I took a few steps back and raised the camera, lining it up with his form until his figure took full occupancy of the composition. Through the gritty, skewed peephole, he softened into something my mind could hold.
Click.
The sound was too loud in the quiet room, as the following flash blinded my eyes for a second. I blinked it away hurriedly as the photograph slid out from the camera. I held my breath as the initial polaroid black gave way to the full image. My fingers pinched the photograph harder.
He'd crossed his arms and looked away, almost abashed. The photograph preserved his posture, but rid his body, his face, even the background of all detail. In place was a vibrant, sweeping blue that washed his figure from head to toe. The soft, pale blue haloed around his head and shoulders, before caving inwards into a rich navy around his chest.
It drew my eyes further inward, and inward into his figure until it hit the center. Right in the middle, somewhere where his stomach should be, was a huge spot of black. Like someone had taken a dollop of ink and splattered it on his abdomen and left it pooling there.
Even in 2D, it felt bottomless, an infinite hollow, like looking into the night sky. I was mesmerised. My eyes tried pulling away, but the blues and whites always lead me back to the black darkness. Back to him.
An inappropriate amount of time must have passed before Coat guy coughed lightly. When I forced myself to look up, I found him watching me expectantly.
His short eyebrows were pinched, "D-Did you see something? Sh-Show me.."
I handed over the photograph, although parting with it left me with a hollow sadness. I wanted to memorise his aura, somehow absorb the beautiful black ink into my mind. My thoughts faded away once he saw it and an odd look of recognition shadowed his face.
He muttered, almost inaudible, "Oh." It was as if the image held some horrible truth of himself that he didn't want me to see. My mind raced to unearth what that could mean, why this same image, so magnetic to me, seized his very being. He was transfixed much like I had been, except his shoulders were taught and his arm stretched far from his chest, like he wanted as much distance from the photograph as possible.
At once, I felt a swooping fear, an urgent need to erase whatever dread that begun to shadow his face. Seeing him in this state made my heart ache in ways I couldn't comprehend. "The photograph looks really nice," I cooed softly.
He looked up at me like I'd startled him, his already round eyes becoming rounder. It took a few seconds before he registered what I'd said, before something vulnerable flickered through his eyes.
That small spark was enough to fuel the tiny solider of courage in me as I went even further. My voice lowered as I whispered in a tone audible enough for him to hear me, but low enough that the other guests wouldn't hear it, "It's you. You look really nice."
I wasn't lying, either. A coherent part of my brain what wasn't transfixed on the way his eyes shone, needed him to understand how magnetic, how beautiful his very aura was to me. Somber, cold and sweeping, sure, that I'd come to expect. But the intense, black pull into himself was a surprise that somehow made heat pool around my core.
I held my breath as I awaited his response, for him to pull away or to ignore me. Suddenly, the weight of what had happened that night hung over us, lacing the conversation with an atmosphere much thicker than it ought to be.
His eyes glimmered before he spoke again, "C-Can I keep the photo? No ones ever t-taken one of me before." The corners of his mouth twitched up almost forming a smile before he looked directly at me, "Feels n-nice. Th-Thank you."
Any last bit of common sense flew out the window once those words registered in my head. The animal in me wanted to hear him say 'thank you' again and again, in his meek and stammering voice, except perhaps pitched a little higher, a little breathier, and in the context of my bedroom instead. In that moment, the world transformed around me and I saw him under my dim night-light again, with the back of his head against my chest.
My heart hammered in my mouth as I spoke, "You can keep it, if you promise to let me take another someday."
I expected him to laugh it off, or perhaps give me his usual unyielding stare. Maybe then I could count this entire encounter as another pleasent memory to tuck away at the back of my mind.
Instead, his eyes bored into mine, as if trying to read my thoughts as he began, "W-Would you want me to take yours?"
My legs wobbled as I almost fainted there and then, Fuck, was he flirting back at me? Robbed of words, I simply nodded my head.
He stowed away his own photograph carefully in one of his many jacket pockets. He held out his hand as I passed the camera to him, our fingers brushing in an electrifying shock that coursed through my entire body.
He held it up to his face, and now on the other side of the camera, I understood why he had looked so abashed as to turn away. The attention was scrutinising, more than the distant looks he usually gave me. With the camera obscuring his face, he softened again into something else my mind could hold. For a second, I could imagine we weren't surviving day to day, shut in our homes waiting for the world to end. I could imagine myself standing somewhere outside, in the forgiving sun of the past, perhaps amongst the trees, waiting for my picture to be taken by my.. friend.
Before he could press the shutter button, a thought rose up and slipped free from my mouth, "My room," I said quickly, "I think my room has nicer lighting."
He lowered the camera. My cheeks were fully aflame. There wasn't any doubt now as to what my intentions were. Not when my living room was the brightest place in the house, not when my bedroom probably had the worst lighting imaginable. Him and I knew that.
Anything to get him in your bedroom, my traitorous mind chimed.
Coat guy, my bedroom, that night, my head throbbed as the thoughts echoed in repetition, as I stood there dumbly awaiting his answer.
"S-Sure."
The walk to my bedroom passed like a blur. What registered first was the relief of being free from the others. The burned man's insecent coughing, the relentless turning of pages as the tall guy read. All of it fell away the moment I pushed my bedroom door open. Finally, we were alone.
The door shut behind us and the smaller man's frame collided with mine. A sudden current of electricity surged through me, and before I could question it, my hands were gripping the lapels of his coat, pulling him closer to me.
I wasn't sure what I was thinking, with his faces inches away from mine. But my hands stayed firm on his coat, signalling what I couldn't express, don't go, don't leave, stay close to me.
He stared intensely back at me, his pupils quivering with every heavy breath. Eventually, his arms found their way around my waist, the camera falling forgotten onto the floor.
The moment his hands cinched my waist, I knew what I had lacked since that night, this closeness, this certainty. I missed this, I wanted to say, I've missed you after that night.
Instead, our heads leaned closer like magnets of different poles. He smelled sweet and musky at the same time, the air between us thickening with every inch that closed between us.
Finally, our lips met. The electric tension that had been holding me together collapsed all at once as I breathed out a sigh of relief. His lips were plump and chapped, starkly cold against mine. The relief barely had time to settle before the icy shock jolted me awake again, prickling my face and sending a tremor through my body.
It seemed like the warmth of my mouth was too great a temptation for him to resist, as he hesitantly parted his lips to let me kiss him properly.
I warmed him. The jolt of icy electricity had faded into a warmth that pooled through my entire body. As we kissed, my hands, still fisted in his jacket, slid up his neck to gently cup his cheeks.
They were so soft in the palm of my hands, like mounds of snow freshly fallen.
He melted into me, his body coming to surrender and lean against my own. I stumbled back until the edge of the bed caught behind my knees, and I found myself sitting, tugging him along with me.
Our kiss deepened, as I grew more desperate, my head fully angled to lick into his mouth. Yet, I never once asked him to take off his sweater.
A thought surfaced through the haze, that this could be enough. This mysterious, delicate, blue man, melting in my hands.
Eventually, the weight of his awkward balance over me gave way, and he toppled forward until I was lying flat beneath him. His arms were braced on either side of my head, his body hovering close, his legs spread apart to rest at the sides of my waist. My hand reached out to hold his cheek once more, prompting him to relax enough so that his body was almost flush against mine.
A sound threatened to escape me the moment he lowered himself onto my hips, as a burst of vibrant colors erupted in my view, bright red coloring my face to the tip of my ears.
There was no hiding how my body had reacted to him as the hardness in my pants firmly poked against his ass. I stared up at him, wide-eyed in an aching shock.
For some reason, he seemed surprised, like he hadn't expected anyone to react to him in that way. Thankfully, before the situation in my pants worsened, before my limits of my self control to not hold him close and thrust up into him were broken, he shifted away. Gently and not unkindly, he eased himself off me and slid into the space beside me instead, much like that night before.
It took me awhile to calm down between heavy breaths and willing myself to grow softer. As I came to, I found Coat guy already lost in thought as he stared up at the ceiling above me.
A wave of relief and a protective certainty ebbed through me as I saw the look on his face. His eyebrows, unraveled, his shoulders slumped, he looked almost relaxed. The sight of his messy hair and disheveled clothing almost made my stomach stir again before he spoke.
"There is a feeling in my ch-chest. Something bright I've never felt before." He whispered, his voice clearer than it normally was, "Something other than the c-cold emptiness."
He spoke like he was professing a revelation that came only once in a lifetime. I parted my lips to ask him a question, to prompt him as to what the cold emptiness exactly was, but he continued.
"I don't think I'm human," He said, as clear and certain as he'd sounded before.
The confession punctured the air and the soft bubble around us like a thumbtack, bringing me back to reality. The Apocalypse. The sun. Visitors. Murderers.
The lines of tension returned to his face as he folded his arms in discomfort. The loss of his ease must've struck me harder than it bothered him, as though the quiet effort I'd made to pull him from his frigid demeanour was all for none.
"You know," I said quietly, "in the midst of all this, this apocalypse, you're the only thing that feels real to me. The only thing that feels human."
The words rung true to my core, even though I'd blurted them out haphazardly, driven by a sudden need to comfort the man beside me. I had turned my head as I spoke, my eyes coming to meet with his, his face already turned towards mine.
A shimmer crossed his eyes.
When he spoke, his breath brushed softly against my face, "I-I think I'm ready to share the secret. It usually ends badly, but maybe not this time. Under these clothes is, I believe the reason for my c-cold and loneliness both."
He hesitated, then added, barely above a whisper, "Look."