43
Paul practically tore the door off the hinges as he raced downstairs, the rest of us hot on his heels.
We rushed into the gym to find Cliff kneeling with Brian's head resting in his lap.
"I don't know what happened. We were talking and he just fell over," he said, eyes wide and frightened.
Paul staggered and Jim grabbed his arm.
I dropped to the floor and Cliff moved away. I reached out and touched Brian's forehead, then snatching my hand back. Pain shot up my arm. I tried again, but the fiery chaos of his spirit kept me out. I looked at Paul, unable to keep my fear completely hidden.
"It's started, but he's...stalled. Something's stopping it. I...I think it's Joe," I said.
"Who's Joe?" asked Mike.
"Later," snapped Jim.
"Paul, your bond to him is stronger than mine. He won't let me in. You have to convince him," I said urgently.
"What are you talking about? I can't...," he stammered and I could feel his panic rising.
I felt something rising within me to answer it.
"Paul Phillip Galliano!" came a long lost voice from Grandpapa's mouth. His eyes, turning an emerald green, bored into mine. "Your cub needs you, laddie. He's tearing himself apart because he thinks that's what you want. Well, is it?"
"N...No."
"Don't tell me. Tell him," he said, turning those ache inducing eyes to Brian's face.
Brian was curled in the fetal position, arms clenched across his chest. His breath was coming in shallow, ragged gasps. The sound of his teeth grinding together was the only noise he was making. Tears flowed from his clenched eyes.
"What the fuck!" Mike exclaimed.
"Brian's a soul keeper," I said absently, watching Paul closely.
"He caught the soul of his lover as he died," Jim said putting his hand on Mike's shoulder.
I looked at him in surprise.
"What?" he said with a quick grin. "You think you're the only one who talks with him? I think he believes that in order to let him be Paul's, he has to give Brian up."
"Joe's a part of him now, though," I said, meeting his eyes. "To extricate him now could destroy Brian."
Cliff grabbed his papa's arm and the three of them stood, barely knowing this tortured man, yet each touched by him.
With a sob, I fell to the floor.
"Brian!" I cried, taking his head in my hands.
I experienced a sense of vertigo and blinking, I was suddenly somewhere else.
With a start, I recognized it as the bedroom in his house in town. The furniture had been shoved aside, making room for a hospital bed. In the bed laid a painfully thin, fragile looking man. I could barely recognize him from the painting that sat upstairs. His breath came in rasping, watery gasps. His face was drawn and haggard, his eyes, wide with pain and fear.
Brian sat next to the bed, face tight and he trembled, trying to contain himself. Tears ran unchecked down his face.
"I love you, Joe," he whispered. "But don't hang on for me. I'll be all right. Just let go."
He brought the frail hand he held to his lips.
The light in Joe's eyes slowly faded, the gurgling breaths stilled, the slender hand went slack in his grasp.
It was silent for a moment, then he wailed. The scene flickered and reset, beginning anew, to play over and over again.
A figure I hadn't noticed stood slightly ahead of me. It turned to look at me and I recognized him.
"J...Joe?" I stammered.
He smiled sadly at me.
"I'm sorry, Paul," he said softly. "I tried to separate myself from him and I think I messed up."
I noticed a spiderweb of cracks running through the scene.
"He won't let me go. He's got you now. He doesn't need me any more. Maybe if you tell him, he'll listen," he said, eyes anguished.
"What about what you want?" I asked him quietly.
"It doesn't matter what I want." he said with a sob. "I just want him to be happy."
"But it does matter. To him."
"Here is his weakest point," Joe said, avoiding my eyes. "Unless he can get passed this, he will break."
As I watched the webbing spread ever further.
"Please?" he begged. "Keep him safe."
"And what will happen to you?"
"I don't know. Maybe I will go where I should have been all along. It doesn't really matter."
Here was a man, though gone already, willing to sacrifice himself for the man he loved. How could I be any less of a man.
"I'm sorry, Joe," I whispered, hearing my words echo faintly. "But it does matter. To me, too."
I turned to the scene.
"Brian!" I cried. "Joe is still with you! I am more than willing to share your heart with him. He's a part of you. Don't throw that away! Brian! Can you hear me?"
The scene had frozen mid-wail. It started again and I could swear I saw a spark of something jump from the still form to the grieving one. The cracks began to recede.
"You really mean it, don't you? Thank you," Joe said, stepping toward me. I felt a phantom pressure against my lips.
"I'll have to tell Grandpapa he was right," I told him softly. "I do wish I could have met you before. You would have made a good bear."
He smiled brightly, and I could see why Brian loved him.
He turned and touch the surface as the last of the crack faded. He vanished and the surface glowed and rippled. Suddenly a wave of intense joy washed over me and I fell back.
He was suddenly back in my awareness, but stronger and fuller than before. Images flicked through my mind. A ride at an amusement park. Joe crying out in fear and Brian reaching out to grasp his hand. The two of them relaxing in a hammock. The sensation as Joe slid down on Brian's shaft, the look of bliss on his face as he bottomed out.
"I hope that someday, you will be able to remember how lucky you were to have him, rather than how you lost him," Paul whispered and I glanced at him. Tears touched his cheeks, but a broad grin split his face.
"Good job, son," I said, pride swelling my chest. I was much more optimistic about this than I had been.
He looked up, blinking dazedly and I nodded toward Brian.
His body had unclenched and he was breathing deeply and regularly. A smile touched his lips as he continued remembering the good times.
"Whatever you did, helped him," I grinned, then felt the manic joy rising from the supine cub. "Whoop! Brace yourself. He's starting."
"Starting what?" Mike said, then his eyes widened as he felt it, too.
They all did.
"What the fuck was that?" Mike breathed, awestruck.
"That was Brian," Jim and I said simultaneously. I looked at him and realized he had felt it before as well.
"It was Brian," Paul said softly. "That's what I feel when I love him."
"I said his spirit was something else," I said, grinning wildly. "Through the change, he is opening himself to the wider family."
"You mean?" he said.
"His spirit is growing, reaching out to all our kind. How far he'll reach depends on his strength, but I'm betting weres worldwide will feel him."
"Just so long as you come back to me," he whispered, looking down at his cub.
44
It hurt so bad. It felt like I was being pulled apart, bit by bit. All I could think about was that night.
I was sitting at Joe's side. He was thin. Horribly thin. Every gurgling breath cost him more than I could believe. Those loving eyes held nothing but pain and fear.
They had left us alone, giving us some time together. There was so little left to us.
His mouth worked soundlessly and I gripped his hand in mine.
"Joe," I whispered, my throat closing. "I love you so much, but don't hold on for me. I'll be alright," I lied.
He looked at me one last time and the light in his eyes faded.
I let out a wail and the others rushed in, trying to comfort me and failing miserably.
Over and over, the scene played out in my mind, that knife in my heart digging a bit deeper with every replay.
Suddenly a familiar voice rang through the darkness.
"Brian!" it cried. "Joe is still with you! I am more than willing to share your heart with him. He's a part of you. Don't throw that away! Brian! Can you hear me?"
Abruptly I felt the tension snap. I took a deep breath. Something had happened, but I wasn't sure what. But I suddenly felt...whole. Like I hadn't felt in a long time.
I remembered the time Joe and I had gone to Six Flags with his family. We went on the ride where the floor drops out while you're spun around. It was the first time I had ever heard him swear. I used to kid him about it, later, but then, I had struggled to reach my hand out to his.
The time when I'd finished helping him with the yard work and we were laying in the hammock, gently swinging, our bodies pressed together.
And they look that would cross his face as he'd try to get my cock head through his sphincter, then the look of bliss as the rest of my shaft would slide up his ass.
I remembered what Paul had told me when we first met. I suddenly realized how lucky I was for the time Joe and I had had together. I had a true love. Not many people could say that. And even more, I had found another. And I could feel him! He really was still with me. A manic sense of joy filled me to overflowing, spilling out. Out of the darkness emerged bright points of light. Something told me they were my...family. There were Jim, Mike, and Cliff. The one near my heart was my Paul. And that blindingly bright one, that was Grandpapa.
I could see the bonds between them, and between them and me. And I could see the bonds, like gossamer strands reaching out further into the darkness and I eagerly followed them. My awareness expanded and I would encounter clusters of lights. Some 'felt' familiar, yet many felt...odd. I can't explain why they felt that way. Names and the faces that went with them floated up in my mind. At first, I struggled under the weight of the those thoughts, then my own stubborn determination rose up and I was able to...file them away, a part of me, yet apart from me.
Further and further I quested, left in awe of the entwined tapestry of bonds spreading out before me. The further I went, the more often I would encounter larger clusters of minds. A few reacted to my touch, but most didn't seem to.
As if in the distance, I saw a bright, bright light to the...well, I assume it was north. I surged toward, lost in my exuberance. I felt something trying to pull me back, but I ignored it. I reached out to touch the light.
Pain! So many years, threatening to burn away my mind. As I struggled against the flood of memories, I felt it turn its attention to me. I heard a scream. I realized it was me.
Suddenly a voice rang through my mind.
"Sam! Let him go!"
The light released me with a sense of apology and I tumbled through the darkness.
I cautiously touched his mind and found it wide open. I had been here, many times over the last week, but this time was different. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but he seemed...whole. Maybe I had been wrong to hide my knowledge of Joe from him. When he had accepted that Paul was okay with Joe being a part of their lives, the guilt had gone away and allowed his heart to finally heal. And he could take the next step on his journey.
I touched his mind and felt him respond. I could feel him tense momentarily, then relax as he recognized me. Fortunately, all the contact I'd had with him seemed to have inured him to my touch. I was able to see what he was seeing and it made my heart sing.
Points of light shone through the darkness, connected with gossamer strands, creating intricate constellations. I followed his awareness as it spread, touching the lights, familiarizing himself with them. Names and faces flashed across his mind, some of which I knew, but strangely enough, he touched many that were completely unknown to me.
Still onward his forged. I saw Ben flash before him and was taken aback when I recognized Jay as well. Why this surprised me, considering his bloodlines, I'm not sure.
Then I felt a shift in his awareness and he surged northward. With a spurt of fear, I recognized where he was headed.
"Brian!" I cried. "Don't!"
But he had outpaced me. I could see the brightness he was headed for but couldn't stop him. I could sense his awareness brush against it and it reacted. Forcefully.
The scream that he emitted echoed through the lacy tapestry of light all the way back to where his body lay.
"What's happening," Paul cried, gripping my shoulder.
"Shit! I think he found Sam. I warned him, but he must have forgotten," I muttered.
I grabbed Brian's head between my hands. His eyes were wide open, showing neither iris or white. Instead they were solid black with flecks of light shimmering within.
"Sam!" I cried, staring into those eerie eyes. "It's Brian! Let him go!"
I felt his apology as he released the young one. I knew it wasn't his fault. I should have tried to contact him again, but everything happened so quick.
Brian slumped to the ground, eyes fluttering shut.
I sat back with a shaky breath. Paul's expression exposed his rising panic.
"I was hoping being around me would have got him prepared for when he encountered Sam. But he's a whole lotta bear."
"What the hell is happening?" Cliff asked, eyes wide open. "I don't remember anything like this when I changed."
"Brian is," I began, "...different. There hasn't been a change like this...in thousands of years."
"That's why it happened so quick?" said Mike.
"That, and other reasons as well," I said, deciding to tell them later. "If he survives this, he may take my place one day."
Paul looked at me, fright and worry warring at my choice of words.
"Enough, Paul. He'll be fine and I'm not going anywhere, but we both know anything can happen. Actually relieved I've finally found another like me. He's strong. Like me. Like you."