Tarnish
by MacKenzie Barr
Disclaimer: I just wish I owned these boys, the wonderful Steve & Ghost . A few of the back stories and towns also belong to the lovely and outrageously talented Poppy Z. Brite, along with a majority of the other named characters. The only thing I get credit for is the plot.
Pre-Scriptural Note:
Dearest Readers,
While I would like to thank all of you who have read this story so far, and are reading it now, I would also like to take this time to make a notice of something I find equal parts hilarious and slightly disconcerting. While Steve's last name has been soundly disclosed as Finn, Ghost has never been directly written with a surname, or atleast, has not to the best of my knowledge. However, his grandmother was Miz Deliverance, a name that, when compared in context to a name like Miz Caitlin, can be assumed that either her first or last name was Deliverance. Is Ghost's last name Deliverance? Considering that most school seating charts, especially at the beginning of the year, are in alphabetical order, it would be logical for him to have Deliverance as a surname, as written in Lost Souls with Steve sitting behind Ghost in class. So let's presume Ghost's full, legal name is Ghost Deliverance. ... Doesn't that sound like some kind of supernatural postal service?..
--Regards, Mac
They had both let their hair grow since New Orleans, Steve's a crow's wing mess falling thick upon his shoulders, and Ghost's like summer wheat nearly half-way down his delicate back. Steve had even taken the patience to let Ghost teach him to braid, so that he could twine and untwine Ghost's cornsilk strands in sunlight or moonlight while Ghost hummed pleasantly to Steve's uncut fingernails mulling over his scalp, shaking the fine strands loose to be done over again. It had become a bit of a nervous habit of his, but neither found it to be irritating, so neither made any effort to have it stopped.
He sighed slowly as he wound three small braids from the flaxen wing over Ghost's eyes and wove those three into one large braid. During the night, Ghost had rolled and wrapped Steve in his arms. Steve wouldn't admit it, but he felt very safe and protected in the arms of the one he had fallen asleep trying to protect. Morning light poured in through the top half of the broken window and shadowed behind the black posterboard. He was debating if he wanted to go to work today, or just wait another week. Terry wouldn't mind either way, but in all truth, Steve did.
Despite the surprisingly enormous fortune Miz Deliverance had left for Ghost, who was far more than willing to share it, Steve had a distinct inclination to do things for himself. He often argued with Ghost not to buy his share of groceries, though he usually did anyway, or clothes, or gas for the T-Bird when money was tight, feeling more secure of these purchases when the money for them had been gained of his own accord, even if those accords included jimmying defenseless soda machines. In fact, Steve sometimes wished to be without Ghost, if only to prove to himself he could live on his own, but he had come soundly to terms with the fact that being on his own and being without Ghost were intirely different things, the latter far more difficult than the former.
Steve let the heavy braid fall back across Ghost's nose and brow, a loose strand of it catching between his bowed lips. Steve caught it gently and pulled it away, smiling despite himself at Ghost's warm breath into his hand. Holy blue eyes blinked slowly open and Ghost moaned and stretched, arching into Steve as he worked out the stiffness in his joints and back. Steve yawned and at length, disentangled himself from the pale knot of limbs. Ghost rolled onto his back and gave Steve a little smile, the left side of his face red from being pressed warm against Steve's shoulder. "Hey," he croaked out, voice thick as honey and just as sweet. Steve heard mountain in that voice, could catch a little drifting snatch of it sometimes, and let it settle on the bed between them. No hillbilly origins were Ghost's, but magic.
"Hey," he offered back, sliding a broad hand back through a tough mane of ebony. As a child, he had practically been scolded for such wild, rebellious, and devilishly thick hair. As he grew older, he found it fitting, or atleast, liked to think so. His hair was what he aspired to be, what he strived to personify; wild, dark, untamable. It gave a standoffish appeal, as if he had recently been in a fight and was not to be fucked around with. Ghost knew better, and though grudging to comply to its truth, so did Steve, but an image was an image and Steve Finn sure as hell enjoyed his.
Watching Ghost glide out of the bed and down the hall to the bathroom, he laid back down and thought lazily of Ghost's image, as well. Though he was as open as a book and true to his word, his small frame and gentleness often had him mistaken for weak. It may have taken near death to make Steve truly realize it, but he knew soundly now that Ghost was far, far away from weak, was stronger than Steve could ever hope to be, perhaps, and for both their sakes, he hoped Ghost would stay that way.
Steve tumbled out of the bed and padded back into his room for clean, or alteast, new clothes, carrying them into the now free bathroom and making himself presentable. Ghost was curled up on the couch watching cartoons over a dangerously full bowl of Honey Nut Cherrios by the time he had left the bathroom, and a pot of coffee was brewing its soothing aroma from the kitchen. Steve stepped behind the couch and swiftly undid the braids he had woven before going to make himself some burnt toast and a cup of mostly black coffee.
He leaned against the counter watching the empty road through the wide porch windows and thought rather plainly that Ghost would be turning twenty-four rather soon, himself a few months into twenty-five. Ghost had never been overly excited about his birthdays, but did not protest when Steve and others insisted on throwing him some form of party and supplying him with, if not presents, atleast a notable amount of alcohol. Steve had fallen into the wine-giving category for the past several years, well, since Ghost's 18th birthday, the first after his grandmother had died and therefore could not scold Steve for providing her angel with such a lewd gift, and planned to break the habit this year. Several gift ideas had swarmed through his head, but he had not made any definitive choices yet, nor did he plan to until the time became more pressing. Pushing throughts of the upcoming event to the back of his mind, he set his coffee cup down in the sink and went to join Ghost on the couch.
"Figure out what happened last night?" he asked during a commercial, the only time child-minded Ghost might actually pay attention and listen to him. Ghost shrugged a little and shook his head, setting his empty bowl onto the side table.
"Naw... but it ain't botherin' me now, anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it." Something about the way he tucked his knees to his chest and pursed his lips, not an uncommon position for him, but somehow nervous, made Steve know the event bothered him, but he took Ghost's advice and ignored it as best as the haunting image of his tear-streaked face could allow. "You think you're gonna go back to work today?" Ghost asked, picking up his bowl and carrying it into the kitchen. Steve stood, stretched, eyed his keys and the T-Bird sagging in the yard outside.
"Hell, I dunno. Maybe. Guess so. Why?" He straddled the back of one of the kitchen chairs, one of four identical relics Miz Deliverance used to claim were passed down from generations of her father's gypsy family in early Czechslovakia. Ghost washed dishes and shrugged his shoulders again.
"Thought I might go into town. House feels too full, Terry's an oversocial loud mouth. I wanna leave it nice and quiet for a while, air it out, open the windows." He smiled at his description of their friend, but hell, it was true. Both that and his feeling of the house. All those minds he had felt inside the walls upon their arrival were still tucked into the nooks and crannies. He needed to get them out, and it was going to take more than a broom. "Maybe that's what had me up last night," he wondered aloud, rinsing out Steve's mug. Steve rested his chin on his arms, folded over the back of the chair, and watched Ghost quietly. Every detail pleaded for his attention and he swept his eyes up and down the slender frame. It often amazed him that Ghost was a real, tangible, living creature, and in moments such as these he felt the urge to mentally register each and every hair into his memory in case he might shatter into a million golden particles and be gone forever.
Each curve and round slope of his body made perfect angles, from his slim hips and smooth shoulders, to his long, thin legs, hintingly revealed through oversived washpants. When he turned, the sun caught the sparce, barely visible trail of golden hair from about his collar bone down into the low-slung pants. Steve could see every sharp juncture and rivet of his bare back through the pale canvas of skin, the muscles working under a complexion like snow over stark marble stairs. His fall of silvery-gold hair swung when he moved around the kitchen, ready to make pancakes to fill their dissatisfied stomachs, thin hands like sculptures. He was walking art, the Dorian Gray of a new era if only in looks, for certainly Ghost remained forever young in his heart but never boasted, if he even noticed, his porcelain, lovely features. Steve wanted to trace each contour of his finely boned face, smooth callused palms over the plains of his elongated form. The desire was not entirely sexual, more reverant, most certainly, but made him uncomfortable nonetheless, and even more so when the tight lipped blush painting Ghost's features let him know more than a few of those thoughts had drifted through.
Ghost didn't push it. Knew better than to make Steve embarassed, and also knew it might result in pushing him away, but he savored the thoughts, briefly allowed himself to imagine what it might be like if Steve ever succumbed to such an urge. He knew what it felt like to have Steve hold him, to sleep wrapped around his all-elbows-and-knees body, but something in him, something that made him color as bright as a sunset, longed to taste his kiss again, to be caressed. He bit back a little laugh thinking fleatingly that Steve may actually be entirely incapable of something so gentle as a caress. Still yet, he wanted whatever came close.
- - - -
Ghost lay on the hood of the T-Bird just outside of town, straw hat pushed down over his eyes, bottle of strawberry wine tucked between his thighs, autumn filling his lungs. Steve had let him use the car for the day to run a few errands, mostly up to Miz Caitlin's for some healthy talking rather than a tonic, and now that he was done, he lay on the sun- and engine-warmed hood watching the blue sky mirror his eyes. Steve had told him to be back by five and it was about four. He would spend a while longer here before driving slowly back into town and flipping through tapes while Steve sat out the rest of his shift. Closing his eyes, he brought back Steve's thoughts from that morning, stretched what Steve imagined touching Ghost might be like as far to real as he could and wrapping it around himself for a while, the warm tingle of breeze against his skin, billowing under his button-down, seventies' print, fitted shirt (though fitted for a man a good fifty pounds heavier than slight-figured Ghost), the touch mistaken for one blissful moment as Steve's.
Downing a good, sweet swig of the wine, he recalled the kiss for as long as he could without it aching and slid off the hood, brushing himself off, tucking the bottle into the backseat, and pulling the monster of a car back around towards town to pick up Steve.
His reveries had lasted longer than expected and nearly as soon as he had pulled up in front of the Whirling Disc, Steve came out, across the sidewalk, and over the driver's side. Ghost slid over the seat and let Steve drive, turning to face him and crossing his legs Indian style. "Well? Feel good to back?"
Steve chuckled a little. "I'm a working man. A working man in a record store in a pit-stop town with too much damn weed in the back room. Hell yeah, I dont know why we ever left." Though it was not voiced, he caught a distinct me, neither from Ghost.
When they arrived home, Ghost set to work carrying in fresh groceries and making biscuits, stuffed mushrooms, and an experimental angel hair pasta, none of which went with each other, but all tasted wonderful. Steve went around closing the windows and Ghost proclaimed the house officially cleansed, fisting his hands on his hips proudly and clearing away the plates, which Steve washed while Ghost dried. It wasn't hard falling back into Missing Mile life. They had come to long for the droning normalcy of their small town out on the road, and being together always came like second nature.
Steve drank a beer or two on the couch, but ultimately went to bed early, looking sated and tired. Ghost let a small smile creep back into his lips. After everything that had happened, coming home had an underlying sorrow to it. Thinking of how they had been thrown around like rag dolls for those brief, and yet achingly drawn out, long, eons of torment, of how it had hurt both of them, especially Steve, made returning to the seed of such pain a dull ache in his heart. Steve had himself convinced the bulk of it lay back in New Orleans, but Ghost understood it to be quite the opposite. Looking at Steve now, though, he knew it had made him stronger, knew it made them stronger, and as long as it stayed that way, well, he guessed that was alright. Maybe. They had gotten through it, didn't talk about it much, but somehow it still hurt, hurt deep, like a fresh wound rather than an old scar, but there Steve was, smiling in the walls that had housed his love for Ann, that might for the rest of forever. It pulled at Ghost hard, tugged in his chest something fierce sometimes. He loved Steve, but as much as he didn't want to believe it, that just wasn't enough for him anymore.