Lou Sylvre's Blog - Posts Tagged "cancer"

They had driven to Seattle from the Olympic Peninsula that morning before the birds were awake—or so Luki had complained. Even after years of Sonny’s influence, he hadn’t become a morning person, had no desire to do so, knew he never would.

They had taken Luki’s ice-blue Mercedes, aged by now, but still in good shape, because it helped Luki maintain the chilly facade that used to be his trademark when he was a full-time working detective. Now he only detected occasionally and ran his Security business mostly en absentia. Usually he could still call up the chill factor when needed, but this morning it had been elusive at best.

They stood in the bow of the ferry while they crossed the Puget Sound, then drove south over the familiar stretch from Edmonds and arrived at the cancer center in Seattle twenty-five minutes before Luki’s appointment time. It took twenty of those minutes for Sonny to convince Luki to go in—mostly using a technique Luki had come to think of as meaningful silence. Sonny was very good at it.

Now, in the car again after leaving the doctor’s office in discord ... utter discord, Luki felt the significance of Sonny’s silence aimed at him like a drawn and loaded bow. It felt ugly, but he couldn’t give Sonny what he wanted. Not yet. In an effort to ignore the facts, he asked, “Are you hungry, Sonny?”

“No, I’m not hungry! I’m flabbergasted that you didn’t answer that doctor. I’m too upset to be thinking about food.”

“Well, Sonny, I’m fucking hungry!” It felt kind of good to lash out, but that wasn’t enough to quell his own fear, his own anger, or his guilt for not acknowledging that Sonny felt those things, too. He looked around, taking in the lay of the land to figure out where they were in relation to the places in Seattle that he knew. “Let’s go to the Metro. It’s right around the corner.”

A mostly gay club, The Metro served classy beer and good food—ordinary things like hamburgers and steaks, but quality that justified the upscale prices. Still early in the day, the dim interior was sparsely populated, which was part of the appeal for Luki at that moment. Luki was recognized as soon as he walked in. As did everyone but a select few in his life, the staff at the Metro referred to him by his last name.

“Mr. Vasquez,” the bearded man at the door said. “We haven’t seen you for a while.”

He didn’t say a word to Sonny. This happened regularly, at the Metro, and though it didn’t bother Sonny at all, it ruffled Luki’s feathers. Seriously. Every time in the last six years that he’d been to the Metro, Sonny had been with him. They knew his name, knew he and Luki were married, that they lived together, loved together. And anyone with their eyelids halfway past their pupils could see that Luki and Sonny needed each other like clouds need sun—to exist. He supposed Sonny was probably right when he said it was because he blended, purposely, into the background, but Luki didn’t care about that.

Although he’d never been the kind of person to use his martial skills if not necessary for survival, his or someone else’s, at that moment in the Metro’s entryway, it was only to spare Sonny from mortification that he resisted the temptation to split the cheeky man’s lip.

All that aside, the Metro was as good a place as any, and if by some miracle he and Sonny stopped their mostly silent fight and wanted to touch, no one would get ugly about it.

They ordered burgers and fries—or rather
Luki did, because Sonny sat in silence ... meaningful silence, except for slamming down his silverware and glaring loudly. That should have at least got him noticed by the waiter, a man young enough for Luki to think of him as a boy and swishy enough for Luki to think Sonny was watching his ass. Which was completely stupid, but it gave Luki another reason to seethe.

Their food came, and brown bottles of Full Sail Amber Ale, which Luki had ordered, when Sonny refused to speak, because it was Sonny’s favorite. But Sonny didn’t eat or drink, and after two bites and the foam Luki couldn’t either. His stomach felt like there was a hot stone in it, growing with Sonny’s every movement and look.

Suddenly—or so it seemed—he could take no more. “Fuck, Sonny! Fuck!” His outburst turned every eye in the place toward him. Except Sonny’s. Defeated but only a little quieter, he said, “Stop, please. Of course I’m going to do the fucking treatment. I just wanted an hour, just a little time to pretend it wasn’t happening. Why couldn’t you let me have that?”