Episode 112: Heartswap (Khale)

The undercurrent came, unexpected after such a long time apart. He felt it, and he let it sweep him away from the lab, from Drey, to the patch of grass with a freshly painted sign that said arrivals, with the disclaimer that departures are inside.

Konrad should have been there, reading the sign. His back should have been plastered to the ground. He would have looked older, but too young to be there yet. Reality was more startling than what should have been; the wave receded and Konrad wasn’t there.

It was the first time the Khale felt resolve about Edyn and Ellysn. Konrad wasn’t coming, by some grace of Maelchor or fate or  both. Aadya, the woman who had mothered their daughters, wasn’t coming. Edyn and Ellysn were their daughters.

Khale walked back, up to the large stone front doors that opened as though they were as light as feathers, and walked into the wood paneled house. He breathed in the smell of ancient books. Smells were something that has to be created, and this one stemmed from Drey’s memories of bookshops across the realms.  The smell caressed his skin with heavy tones of cedar and pepper.

Drey was Khale’s second chance at love, third if Ketsia counted. They had met when Ellysn and Edyn died, joined in ensuring the girls were loved and not left alone to encounter the scarier parts of death.

He crossed the room and climbed the short stairs to the raised space Drey was working within. Ketty, his daughter by the curse, was lounging on a chaise in the corner with a stack of books as tall as Drey. When he had left, Ketty was there with her long strawberry hair sprawled across the chair and Drey, with his soft white blonde hair and silky smooth, nearly translucent, white skin, had been beside him.

He could feel the heat radiating off of Drey.

He crossed the distance and kissed his neck. “Robots still?”

Drey’s slender fingers set down the screw driver and curved metal piece he had been working on and he turned to face Khale. His brows furrowed, just a little, while he searched Khale’s face then the realm for the answer.

“Konrad’s visit was brief,” Khale explained. He didn’t know what else to say, except that Konrad had never made it but had been on his way. He had been pulled, faster than anyone whose soul was captures even.

“I thought Nell was brief. This was…” his eyes found Khales. “A blink. I’m sorry.” He felt Drey’s hand find his back, his fingers dancing lightly across the space between his wings.

Wings Drey had envisioned for them, so they could fly with the gusto of intent and not just coast against the rules that governed living realms.

“Having you here is enough to compensate,” Khale replied. He turned to kiss Drey, their lips melding like molten metals.

“So,” Drey said, a smile creeping across his face and the creases of his grin appearing on his mouth and cheek and eyes, “In your vocabulary, brief means instantaneous?”

A notebook appeared, open to a blank page, and a pen began dancing across it on its own. “Any other words I should be aware of?”

As he asked, brief and instantaneous appeared on the page.

Khale smiled. Part of him was disappointed Konrad hadn’t come, but standing here with Drey he knew too much had changed. Konrad should be alive, should spend many more millennia alive. Not only did he hope Konrad had changed, and know he had because of his husband and his children and accounts by Drey, but he had changed.

“One,” Khale replied. He straightened his back, once realizing he was hunched over, and he let his hand slide up Drey’s arm, “When I say I love you, I mean there is no one alive or dead I’d rather be with. That’s too wordy for everyday use.”

“That is long. We’ll have to invent something like FUBAR, just for us.” Drey kissed him again and held him even longer. First, Khale laughed. He would remember Fubar. Then, he sighed into Drey’s embrace. Yes, he was disappointed regardless of change. “Me too,” Drey added.

Drey turned away, just enough for Khale to see a glint of what should have been pure love and joy. “How are you?”

Drey scanned the table, then looked pack and ran his palm across Khale’s face. “Worried,” he admitted.

About returning to life, without Khale, he knew in an instant. Khale pulled a small smile onto his face and kissed Drey, “You should be worried. Which component is most troubling at the moment?”

“I would prefer to stay here, not to lose you.”

Khale’s arms encompassed Drey, fitting beneath his wings, and hugged him close. “We have our choice. If you are supposed to return, then you will have sufficient reason to part with this realm, and me if it comes to it. Trust yourself to be thorough when deciding, when the reason is presented,” he said. It was a speech he had been trying to perfect, but Drey needed it now. Ultimately, they had Kendall to protect them from the soul stealers. They had a protected house hidden within death realm from prying eyes and unwanted visitors. They had each other. Khale didn’t want to worry about it, but he was. He couldn’t return to being alone again, even if he had Ketty and Ketsia, Enyn and Ellysn.

“If I have to leave, if that’s what is right to do, I won’t be gone longer than I have to be,” Drey promised, his penchant for suicide leaking through the cracks of his love.

Khale wanted to tease him, for being the only dead person to want to be dead more than alive, but he kissed him instead. He needed Drey too.

“I have an idea, to make it more bearable for us.”

“That I die every day so you can visit my dreams?” Drey suggested.

Khale laughed, then massaged Drey’s back. His hands needed something to work on while he expressed the idea, one that he wouldn’t have been able to say if he hadn’t had his almost-visit from Kornad. One that meant more to him than he wanted Drey to know.

They may not always be together, but they could always have each other.

“You’re an experienced surgeon?”

“Yes?”

“Could you teach Kendall?”

They could find the best dead surgeon themselves, but trust was important to Khale.

Drey turned to face him, his hand on Khale’s chest, above his heart. “I could.”

Warmth spread from their point of contact and Khale’s heart pounded. He smiled, and pretended he was calm. “You have no other body. It may be a consolation to trade, to take me with you.”

Drey had melted his living body. Without it, he would have to be removed from death realm by one of Death’s heirs.

“It will take some time to teach him,” Drey mused, his fingers tracing Khale’s chest. He leaned closer and their lips met again, as full of need as each before it, and each after would be. “Aside from pain, we have nothing to lose if we make a few mistakes,” Drey teased.

“And no risk of our bodies rejecting the other’s. We can’t die more.”

And once Drey was alive, he had his dragon magic, but Khale’s heart would be part of him. Khale had seen some of the lore, hidden with heirs of Death, about the importance of the death body and how it impacted the life body.

“Or scarring,” Drey pointed out.

Khale laughed; he loved how well Drey took care of himself, how much pride he had in himself. It was strong, stronger than what Drey’s insides looked like when they had met, but more balanced now.

“No one need know,” Drey said. “Only us, our gift to each other.”

“So you like the idea?”

Drey shrugged, but his body glowed red and orange beneath his skin. “Not much.”

“Me neither,” Khale replied. He turned back to the table and picked up the chunk of wheels and legs and wires. “What does this robot do?”

He heard laughing, sweet and melodic. Then he felt arms and fingers and lips pressed against his neck. “When do you want to do this?”

“You said it will take time. I thought you could begin lessons while I finish? Unless you think surgery is a skill I need.”

They could have done the operation to each other, but romance need not be messy.

“You want me to go? Without you?” Drey sighed and withdrew himself from Khale. The world cooled in his absence. “I suppose I’ll survive,” he said, sucking the heat from the room. Khale glanced to the chaise, and Ketty had long since left.

He felt bad that he hadn’t noticed, but she had three thousand years of his undivided attention, and Drey ….

He turned to face Drey, his lips pulled tight and his arms folded. Drey would get his way, but not until he saw this game through.

Drey let the heat return the room and his eyes sparkled in delight of a new idea. His voice pitched, “Though you may have better luck convincing Kendall we’re not insane.”

Khale laughed and pulled Drey against him. He kissed him, on his lips and up his jaw, down his neck and across his collarbones, then he let his lips trail across Drey’s and kissed his forehead.

In a flash, his clothes were gone, Drey’s eagerness backing them onto a bed that hadn’t been there a moment before. Khale pushed back against Drey, then removed his clothes with his mind. Their flesh mingled as they found a space that was comfortable.

“How long, precisely, is a moment,” Drey asked. He trailed kisses along Khale’s chest and shoulders.

“Long enough to enjoy you,” he replied.

These moments always surprised Khale; the spontaneity, the intensity, the desire Khale felt in return. Living at the whim of Drey’s mind was something new and something Khale wanted to emulate, to immerse in. He did. He let his body move with Drey’s, their touches caressing each other. They fit together, in a way Khale couldn’t remember ever fitting with anyone.

His mouth found Drey, and his eyes looked up to see Drey’s smile turn to a straight line and the echo of a moan move down his throat.

“You,” Drey said. “Are everything to me.”

“As you are to me,” Khale replied. He pulled himself up to kiss Drey’s lips, and let the moment take him away into the world Drey had given him.

After, some time many dozens of moments later, Khale held Drey in his arms. He loved the feel of Drey on his chest, his warmth a reminder of where his existence was. “I will miss you, every moment you’re gone,” Khale said into his hair. “But I will wait.”

He didn’t see it as the panic of Drey leaving; Drey would want to come back, and he had no qualms with Drey dying again once he was done serving life.

“If it’s avoidable, I’m not going,” Drey pointed out. He turned to look at Khale, and kissed him while he adjusted into Khale’s shoulder. “Do you know, they have no self-writing pens there?”

“Such a tragedy,” Khale replied. “I have a request.”

“Anything.”

“You read some new books. In two decades, there must be something more the realms have to offer.”

It was meant to be a distraction, something for Drey to look forward to. There was trade within the realm, for new information and literature and items.

“Nothing but drivel since the classics,” he complained.

He could feel it, the tear in Drey’s being forming from uncertainty of his own future. It was something even Khale wasn’t sure how to handle – death was supposed to be a given path.

“If I go, I’ll bring you all sorts of new things,” Drey promised.

“If,” Khale said to entertain Drey, “you go, I’ll be with you.” He put his hand on Drey’s chest. “Our knight needs a companion before we animate him.”

Drey laughed, “You’ll look after yourself? And the girls?”

It still amused Khale that they had ended up with three daughters and no sons.

“I swear to not let myself be overcome with grief. You’ll be home sooner than later. And the girls will be content.” Their family wouldn’t be whole, not until Drey was home.

“As immensely delusional as this sounds, at least I have suicide to look forward to, you here.”

Khale pulled Drey closer, “I love you, Fubar.”

He felt the rumble of laughter before he heard it, and he knew that no matter how the next stage of their deaths played out, he would have a piece of Drey too, eternally his.

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