evolutionary

Written: 07/19/14
Title: tonight tonight tonight
Words: 3275

Notes: My first failure of a short. Personal fireworks, and the making of them, is illegal in many areas, so I wanted to clarify if that was confusing.


It was the first time a holiday had passed with my notice. The point? I wonder. Perhaps it’s only that. Holidays, like much of society, proved itself incomprehensible, and it was easier to ignore than it was to make believe there was meaning. I forgot my own birthday regularly. It wasn’t such a surprise that the rest passed in much the same way.

However, things were changed. Had been changing. And it was Nigel who brought it up, in a deliberately nonchalant way. He slid into the kitchen where I was writing up an outline and waited until my eyes rose to his.

“Explosions.”

Perhaps it’s something to say that I’ve gotten used to this. “In town, or…?”

He looked troubled. “There are some in town, but I would rather not… Hmm. But maybe that might make it more interes--”

I should probably get him to clarify. “What kind of explosions?”

He smiled, and he meant it to be smirky and bright. It fell as anxious in my mind. “There is a holiday, Alan Kane, that celebrates explosions.”

The month was July; this I knew because I had been playing catch-up and so my classes were continuing through the summer. With that as reference, the holiday mentioned was simple. “…I think it celebrates the birth of the country, actually,” I returned dryly.

He waved me off. “I would rather celebrate explosions.” The look returned to him, anxious and trying not to be. “Do you want to?”

“…Celebrate explosions?”

He sighed heavily and finally dropped into the other seat. “Do you want to set off fireworks with me? I would understand if you don’t. I just thought that it’s something I haven’t done before.”

I found myself taken aback. Any invitation, honestly, always had this effect. I am consistently surprised by--

Mistaking my surprise for dismay, Nigel’s gaze slanted to the side. “It was stupid. Don’t worry about it.”

“I could try,” I found myself answering, without any mentality to bear it. “I’ve never done anything with fireworks either.”

“You don’t have to,” he argued. “If there’s something you would rather do--”

“There’s nothing,” I said firmly. “I want to.”

He blinked at me blandly, and I wondered at my own answer. There was nothing like an obvious want, in all honesty. I cared nothing for fireworks or the explosions that infatuated the man before me. My want, instead, was more obvious in nature. I nodded slightly, and put my pen to paper. “I’d like to experience it with you.”

There was silence before me, stretching out, and I fought the urge to look up. After a moment, Nigel’s chair pushed back and he stood. “…All right. I need to go buy a few things. I have some ingredients here, but I’m missing a few others. I’ll be back before nightfall.”

I murmured a passing safe travels and wondered at the tone in his voice. It wasn’t until the door shut that I realized--

Staring hard at the front door, I questioned the empty apartment, “--We’re making them from scratch?”

-

We were it seemed. Of course, he had bought a couple of sparklers and the small snapping kind that you threw at sidewalks. Those were too boring to waste time on making, he informed me, but still fun to do. Apparently this is what the cashier told him. The chemicals, powders, and containers bought and procured for the rest were about to be taken into our room (aka the making science room apparently), but I tended to think better of the idea.

“Outside.”

He looked up from sorting his ingredients on the floor, bemused. “What?”

I shifted my weight, a hand on my hip idly. “You are not making fireworks where we live.” Especially when they still had our deposit.

Nigel was obviously insulted at the thought that anything would go wrong. “It’s perfectly safe; I combine ingredients all the time.”

“Don’t care,” I muttered in annoyance. This shitty place was the only place we could currently afford. “Outside.”

“It’s not even dark yet--”

“Outside.”

With pissed-off mumblings, Nigel worked to his feet, attempting to grab everything at once in a shambling way that spoke of regret of even trying. You would think I told him no in general. Reaching for something that seemed relatively safe, I started to pile things in my own arms. “There’s a private arboretum about twenty minutes away. No one will be there tonight.”

Apparently that deserved commentary. “Making fireworks is oh-so-horrible, but breaking and entering onto private property isn’t.”

I smirked at him, reaching with my free hand to ruffle his hair. He stilled under my touch and I swept past it. “Yep,” I answered cheerfully. “Because one I’m sure of and one I’m not.”

I smiled at his look of disbelief, and we began to cart the stuff into a nearby box.

-

I still wasn’t sure why we were doing this at this point. Explosions are one thing, I assumed, but fireworks are bright and buoyant, and if Nigel wanted to view destruction, they were more décor than anything else. I was assuming there was either something that would be explained, or this was simply a random whim of a fit, but it was the former, I was certain. His reaction from the first had told me something was off.

We made it to the small arboretum by sunset, Nigel complaining about the lack of light. Despite that, he combined the ingredients by feel alone, slipping into a rare mood of explanation; watching me and explaining how the different items combined as his fingers demonstrated the fact. A flash-bang, he told me, worked nearly on the simple principle as a firework, did I want to see? I declined passively, reminding me that doing so would make our time cut shorter. He grumbled about laws and their uselessness which shifted to a complaint about other crimes going unpunished, and I wandered near to slip a hand through his hair, charmed by the obstinacy. He murmured an excuse about needing to concentrate, and I found myself, not for the first time, resisting the urge to kiss him.

Affection had passed between us like currency, and there was nothing withheld. We took what the other gave with little words of merit, and it had quickly become something that I stopped seeking to define. It was less important, the definition, when Nigel would come to me and speak of what he thought of an attribute of life. It held less meaning when he would casually curl in my lap and wonder if I would read aloud. His presence had become all I wanted, and I had given up on attributing commonplace value to it. It, instead, held something more than all the titles combined.

This had complicated, perhaps, in the last winter, when an attempt to console me from things I had lost had instead pressed us together, body and lips alike. This had repeated, in rare, selective instances, and Nigel had stopped telling me everything. It was subtle enough that another would not notice, but I had. Obviously a line had been crossed, and if I didn’t know of his remaining care, I would assume he was staying near me out of loneliness and nothing more. Nothing less.

So in response, those rare, selective instances came to a halt. I stopped instigating their existence and instead gave more undefined affection. I touched him more and much, and sat near him rather than away. The attention that I paid proved a double-edged sword: It became harder to withhold the urge to do more. But make that a discussion for another time. Need we forget the fireworks. Or explosions. One or the other.

“We’ve been out here for over two hours.”

Nigel glanced up in annoyance at my shifting form. “I would have finished all this before we came out if someone wouldn’t have stopped me.”

It was too cold for this shit. What had happened to summer? The east coast made no sense. “Why the hell are we doing this anyway? If it’s something you do every year, that’s something else, but you said you hadn’t done this before.”

He paused there, hands on the wires and powder. I had none of the confidence he had in so casually touching explosive material. “…I thought….” The rest came as a murmured tone.

I crept nearer, warily crouching down by the raw ingredients. “Huh?”

Nigel shot me an irritated glance. “I thought you might like it.”

Give me credit enough: I do think things through. As I said, it always came as a surprise, invitations, and consideration was nearly always denied. The difference was that I would never deny Nigel anything, and that I had promised, months in the past, to take him at his word. So he would do the same for me. Even as I would naturally deny the implication, I wouldn’t allow myself to do so. The discrepancy came as silence. Perhaps too much.

An edge of misery touched his voice. “I knew this was stupid.”

“--It’s not,” I argued. “I just don’t understand why…” Why what, Alan Kane? Why we were out here? Why fireworks? Why Nigel had thought of me? It came in a rush; a different query. “…Why you’ve been so closed to me.”

In lieu of surprise, Nigel’s visage shuttered shut. I found myself unsurprised. Defensive, he mentioned, “I tell you everything you ask.”

“And withhold everything I don’t.”

“I don’t remember you becoming my parole officer, darling brother.”

“Stop that,” I shot back, narrowing my eyes.

He opened his mouth as if to continue, then shut it, looking more miserable. I shifted closer on instinct, reaching to touch his arm. There was no rejection, but he stilled under my touch. “…Like this,” I said quietly. “Do you want me to stop touching you?”

Nigel stood quickly, pulling his hands out of the powder in a frustrated, expansive motion that made me rock back on my heels, watching it warily. “It’s not going to explode if you touch it!” He flicked the powder from his hands at me, and I looked at him balefully. “And I didn’t ask you to stop touching me. Why do you jump to conclusions?”

I stood, brushing the powder off of my clothes. “Because you stopped acting like I was your closest friend.” I looked at him evenly, adding a breath later, “The second I started touching you.”

Stopped speaking to me as if he wanted to share. Nigel stared back, something wavering in his eyes. My throat was too dry. “If that wasn’t wanted, I am really sor--”

“Don’t apologize.” He stood in a rush, turning away. “Don’t apologize to me for that.”

“Then what?” I wondered. This was a subject much ignored, and here of all fucking places was where I decided to bring it up. “Obviously that was where everything went wrong, so what should I think?!”

“…It’s wrong?” His voice was quieter than I expected. It had the distinct threat of tears. “I thought so. You aren’t happy with me anymore.”

…My head began to pound in a familiar pattern. The kind of headache that came from a lack of communication, in a horrifically miscued way. “…I thought you didn’t trust me anymore.”

Nigel glanced back at me, and the shadows could go to hell for the fact of obscuring his face. Was he crying? “I don’t trust you,” he said in a child’s tone.

I smiled thinly. “As you’ve said repeatedly. Despite showing the opposite.” I left silence in the wake of my words, waiting.

He shrugged, turning back away. He nudged a box with the toe of his boot, again bringing to mind one much younger. “Does it matter?”

I have said and will say a thousand times: Patience is nothing that I hold. But for Nigel, waiting was a method, patience a need. I slid my emotions sideways and focused on finding the things unsaid between his lines. “I don’t understand,” I gave quietly. “You need to explain it to me.”

The usual retort, petulant and put-off, why should I bother? hovered at the tip of his tongue. I could see it, even with him facing away. There was a thick moment of tension, the decision made between the truth and a comforting lie. “…I’m not what you want.”

The truth, it seemed, was nothing I would ever expect. I withheld my first response, calmed, and tried for the second. “You are everything I want.”

Nigel laughed, a beat of dissonance. “Do you really expect me to think that? Please consider your methods, Antonius.”

An abrupt denial it was not. But it caused me to hesitate all the same. Calling to history and literature wasn’t uncommon, but I would be compared to one who claimed affection and comradeship only to later abandon? It might have held to the norm of his beliefs, but it fell as something different. “…Tell me.”

He spun at this, angrily, hurt, and now I could see the tears. “You stopped,” he spat out. “You stopped wanting me.”

The meaning was obvious and I stepped forward in turn. “I stopped wanting you to think I was using you. You stopped acting comfortable with me, and I would rather have that!”

Nigel moved an arm like he didn’t know what to do with it. As if he didn’t know what reaction to hold. “I thought you were using me. But I didn’t--”

“Don’t you dare say that you didn’t mind.” I was angry without thinking, close without remembering movement, and my hands were on his arms, his shoulders, tight. “I wasn’t using you, damnit, but you acted like I was!”

“I didn’t know how to act!” And it was misery, that reply. He slumped in my hands, as if the life had fled. “How was I supposed to know….”

What it meant. The unsaid claimed itself as obvious, and I regretted--regretted fiercely--my own nonchalance. My lack of explaining. My hold to an undefined existence. For this person had suffered. Was still suffering.

I crushed him to me in a fierce act, pressing him close against me. I felt him shudder there, take in a sob against my shoulder. “…You know I’m a fucking idiot,” I muttered against him. “You know I’m really stupid.”

There was a murmur against me, an agreement or protest I wasn’t sure.

“I should have clarified,” I said in response. “I shouldn’t have taken it for granted in any way. I should have told you from the start.”

Nigel shifted against me now, uncomfortable and unwanting. I could only think of the things that was going through his idiotic brain. Resisting the impulse to roll my eyes, I pulled back instead, a hand moved to cup his chin firmly. Face to face like this, he looked worse than he had in months. Miserable, pieces of him edging broken. I still called for attention. “Hey.”

Timing seemed to punish me for my own idiocy. The harsh sound of thunder-- Ugh. No. The crashing sound of fireworks began to fill the air from the direction of the town, a rainbow vomit spread of color gracing the tree line. I looked to the sky in annoyance.

A hand quietly grasped my sleeve, calling for attention. He seemed very small, when I looked back. “…Tell me.”

Tell me you’re done with me, was what he expected, I knew. Tell me you want to use me only. It was what he wanted, in a stupid, strange way. It was what he longed for; for that escape of only dependency, and nothing else. It was the one thing I couldn’t give him.

“You are what I want,” I said in turn, a murmur above the swell of exploding ions. “You are what I’ve always wanted. I’ve treasured every moment with you--every act--because you are the only thing precious in my life.”

Truth, all of it. Every iota and grain.

Nigel nudged his head down, into my neck. His fingers clung at my shirt, holding tightly. He held to me, wanted what I said--but wanted to reject it with all of his being. “It’s true,” I murmured, smoothing a hand over his back. It trembled under my touch. “I want you. I don’t want to leave you. I’m not done with you. I would never take advantage of you--”

He snorted ungainly, a muffled sound. “As if that would comfort.”

I smiled at a dark head of hair. “I want to make it clear. I was never using you, Nigel.”

Silence to that, and an echoing one. The heated air molecules thrummed from the colored explosions. I held him like that, for a good long while, petting his back and holding him to me. His face was pressed into me and I was facing away from the town. Neither of us saw the overt display that the crowds would cheer at. And yet it was fine. To me, it was perfectly fine.

Eventually Nigel shifted, rubbing a sleeve across his face. “…We should pack everything up.”

Lines and reason danced in my brain. I interjected, holding him still. “I want to see what you made.” He glanced at me cautiously, but I smiled at him, then nudged him toward the box. “You finished one at least, right? Let me see.”

Off-balance, he hesitated, then tried to gain back his rhythm, tried to string pride. “I made two by now.”

I passed him, knocking him with my hip as I did. Grinning back, I challenged, “Then show me.”

Nigel watched me for a moment, a long steady moment as if gauging the veracity of my words. Of the words that had come before. Eventually he shuffled forward, crouching down by the box. “…It’ll be loud,” he warned. “But one lasts longer than the average boom.”

Deciphering that took too much energy, and so I settled to wait. Nigel procured a lighter from nowhere, set the canister up, then lit the fuse. In a second, he had stood, pulling me backward. I stumbled toward the tree line. In front of me, he murmured in the dark, “Wait….”

For the explosion, I was assuming. I was near past my waiting. The whistle of the creation slicing through the air spread out, and I slipped my hands around his waist, pulling him back into me. He stilled, then breathed outward, deliberately settling.

The resounded crash above us nearly made me jump back. It sounded more like a bomb had went off than a firework, but when I looked upward, only color filled the sky. A shifting display of tints; it curled toward one end of the spectrum before returning to the other, and even to me, it seemed--

“It’s a different iodizing mixture,” Nigel was explaining, pleased. “If you make it thicker--” He cut off, turning a bit in my arms. “You like it.”

I wondered at his statement before I realized I was smiling without meaning to. Open, like a child. I laughed, self-conscious. “I like it.”

And Nigel smiled happily, in a way I hadn’t seen for months. I moved without thinking and regretted nothing--I reached for him, and kissed him there in the dark.

Nothing in the sky gained my attention. What was beautiful was him, and what lay between us existed as a dream of fireworks, bright and blinding if we let it. Overpowering and overwhelming and everything in-between.

It had been love, perhaps, for a very long time.

The sky had started to fade from the brightness, smoke drifting, when we parted to lean against each other. I murmured affection and Nigel returned senseless noise. I meant to speak more--

“Alan….”

I nuzzled him, enjoying the sense of him near to me like this.

“No, really, Alan--”

I straightened, looking in confusion. Nigel pointed over my shoulder.

…The trees were on fire.

“A spark must have landed in the flammable materials. This is why I wanted to do it at home….” He sighed, a suffering sound, and I whipped back to glare. Nigel grinned haphazardly. “Oops?”

I stared at him without amusement, aware of the faint sound of sirens. “Oops,” I agreed.


[13. a dream of fireworks]