"Come on in," Joshua says. He opens his door wide for Jesse, though his movement stutters halfway as he remembers the last time they did this, Jesse waiting and Joshua letting him in. He still feels badly about all of that, asking Jesse on a date only to end it abruptly, then not knowing how to properly broach the topic with Jesse until weeks later. Joshua could only apologize to Jesse and explain himself after drinking, which also feels like some variant of wrongdoing. A part of Joshua wonders if he should make it up to Jesse now, give him an apology blowjob or something. Like saying, 'Sorry I suck, let me suck you off again. Don't be mad at me.'

Joshua breathes deeply, trying to dispel that train of thought. He walks over to his kitchen counter and holds up a plastic tray of raw tuna, twelve slices arranged in neat rows. There's a 20% off sticker in the upper right-hand corner of the tray. "I, um, got sashimi from Hmart if you haven't eaten yet. After the experiment." Joshua also hasn't eaten yet, but seeing Jesse again and having him in his apartment makes him feel so strongly apologetic, he'd give Jesse his dinner if he thought that's what Jesse wanted. "But we can do the experiment first."

For someone clearly well-versed in doing his own thing, Jesse is surprisingly good at following someone else's lead. Joshua expressed interest, Jesse showed his interest in turn. Joshua seemingly expressed his sudden lack of interest, Jesse didn't push his interest further. He likes to ruffle feathers, but only to a point.

Joshua was honest, so Jesse was honest. Things, as far as he knows, are settled.

Jesse notices the way Joshua tenses at the door, but doesn't raise an eyebrow until the man walks towards the kitchen, a private question mark of curiosity before Jesse follows. He doesn't look from one place in Joshua's apartment to another through the lens of his last time here, because he knows it won't do him any favors.

Unable to help himself, however, Jesse does note that the windows appear closed.

“Let's see what sort of appetite is drummed up by science,” Jesse comments easily. Joshua might not want to share his sashimi if Jesse has a seizure in his apartment.

“Right.” Joshua puts the tray back on the counter. He’d intended to ask Jesse how his day was, if he was feeling alright, but he supposes it’s just as well they get to business. Jesse doesn’t seem the type to say if he had a bad day or not, anyway. And the discounted tuna isn’t as red as it should have been were it fresh—not the best. Not something you’d offer.

Joshua clears his throat. “So you said you touched something and got a—ah—‘history vibe?’” He slides his hand into his back pocket, outlining an old keychain with his index finger. “Is that right?”

It's only for a fraction of a second, but the throat clear pulls Jesse's attention again, sharp as he notes the next hint of tension. He's tempted to ask if Joshua is cool, but holds off to collect more data first.

“Specific information kind of clicked in my head. History stuff.” Jesse gravitates towards the counter, leaning against it opposite Joshua. “Also, blood-curdling screams. But that was secondary.”

Joshua doesn’t even try to temper his expression—horrified—as he stares at Jesse. “The blood-curdling screams were secondary,” he repeats. Jesse can’t possibly be as relaxed with that experience as he seems, Joshua thinks, but Jesse looks as cool as ever. “And you were fine when it happened? No pain? Nosebleeds? Nothing?”

“Sequentially.”

A smile tugs lazily at one corner of his mouth, lopsided amusement that seems wildly inappropriate given the topic. But Joshua is expressive in such a clear, honest manner. Jesse appreciates that. In a completely neutral, friendly manner. He does not smile at the thought of blood-curdling screams. Generally.

“At the time. It felt like the scream was ripping its way out of me, literally, a very jagged razor sensation. Zero out of ten.” Then he shrugs. “But I pulled my hand away, and that stopped all of it. Pain and all. No nosebleeds. No headaches.”

Joshua grimaces when Jesse says ‘pain.’ “I mean, it kind of sounds like you did have some sort of—” he pauses to shrug helplessly, “—bad medical event. But if it was something else, not a seizure—”

He takes the keychain out of his pocket, holding it out to Jesse on his palm. It’s old and worn, a leather fob with a plastic-coated picture of the coat of arms of Bern in the middle, though the red and yellow colors are sun-faded and the heraldic bear is cartoonish and smiling, not fierce. Airport junk, something that would only appeal to a child. Joshua was a child when he won the grand prize at Bern, flying alone, dancing Petipa’s Le Talisman on stage alone, ordering hamburgers and chicken tenders in halting German at American restaurants alone. They're happy memories, his time in Bern, because they were made before Joshua was old enough to understand he would contend with all his future victories the same way: alone.

“See if anything happens when you touch this.”

Jesse hasn't dwelled too intensely on the idea of a serious medical issue. He recognizes it's an option. He recognizes it's logical. But he doesn't view the easy explanations as the most reasonable. His thinking is open, and that's that.

In part, this is a defense more than a byproduct of flexible thinking. Jesse doesn't want to end up in a hospital bed, draining away to nothing. He doesn't want to lose himself to a steady rhythm of soft, even beeps.

Joshua isn't asking about his defenses. It isn't worth mentioning that he'd rather be insane than sick. Jesse just nods like he isn't bothered by anything. Like he isn't nervous about anything at all. Like he isn't steeling himself as he reaches out for the keychain.

Jesse's hand hasn't even pulled completely away from Joshua's palm yet, but he's struck with a rush of joy. The warmth of Joshua's skin is lost as Jesse's fingers curl around the keychain, pulling back, but warmth radiates anyway, an impression that's tender and honest and young, swelling in his chest, not his hand. Uncomplicated, naive happiness. Jesse can feel it, a light quality so radically unlike the heaviness he'd felt when he touched the flask.

“When you were a kid…” he says, hesitant though he knows it isn't a question. Jesse's thumb moves along the edge of the plastic. “Alone, but not necessarily lonely.” Yet. Jesse won't say that. He won't ask. He knows Joshua is lonely. Joshua said he's given up on changing that, so why say it.

Joshua's expression changes, no longer skeptical and guarded but insistent, more intense than he'd like. Both his hands close around Jesse's to make Jesse grip the keychain tighter. Joshua isn't sure if that will do anything, if the pressure will make the memory appear clearer and those old emotions hit cleaner or not, but he'd like it to.

He'd never thought much about this childhood memory until now, never one to dwell on transitory joys. He'd dismissed it to the point it barely felt real, until it was just a nice thing that happened to him a long time ago, or maybe someone else entirely. But now that it seems Jesse felt it too, that happiness, all Joshua can think is how badly he needs Jesse to understand the whole of it, how all the chicken tenders he ordered came breaded like schnitzel, the simple pleasure of the nightlight in his hotel room, the Zytglogge stout like a giant and the Aare River so dazzingly blue, all of it like a fairytale and he a fairytale prince about to come into a great inheritance. There's no reason for it, but Joshua thinks that if Jesse knows how happy he felt back then, Jesse’s knowing will make it more real, more permanent. He wants a witness.

"Details," Joshua urges. He tells himself he has to make sure Jesse isn't pulling his leg, saying what he thinks Joshua wants to hear, but in truth, he believes Jesse already. He needs to hear more, and he needs to hear Jesse say it. "How old was I? Where was I? What did I do?"

Jesse draws a breath slowly, feeling a crease forming between his brows. The way Joshua’s hands wrap around his is so intense, drenched in need and almost oppressively warm. Not physically, but a singeing jolt, hot biting pressure. His focus pulls from the keychain for a moment because of it, because of what Jesse can parse from Joshua’s reaction. What this means, not from a feeling Jesse’s picking up, but from the other man’s response.

He doesn’t look up until Joshua speaks, his exigency given voice. Jesse’s brow knits a bit more, but he studies Joshua anyway, through the confusion, the curiosity, the tender notes of understanding. Without thinking, he moves his other hand on top of Joshua’s, applying pressure of his own. Adding to the urgency, silently supportive, before he drops his gaze back down. Pushes his focus back to that hard plastic in his palm. The worn leather. The faded picture.

“Twelve,” he says after a moment, feeling the delicacy of that age, the inexperience and possibility, recognizing it through those details more than an obvious answer, a sign. Joshua, before. Joshua, in a time when life was still broad and open and fathomless. Joshua, hopeful. His hand squeezes again. The top one, not the hand gripping Joshua’s keychain. “You were dancing. In Switzerland, dancing. It felt surreal…but you were a kid, and there was magic in all that. The dream was still a dream.” Jesse doesn’t understand the haze of it, the spiderweb film attached to the memories, but when it dawns on him, he feels as deeply sad as the memories feel happy. “It was real,” he tells Joshua. “It was yours.”

With that, Joshua pulls his hands away.

The urgency leaves him as he exhales, his shoulders slumping, all the tension in his face thinning until he's expressionless. Hearing Jesse say that, that he'd seen or felt or just known Joshua had been happy in the uncomplicatedly happy way only the stupidest people can really be, exhausts Joshua. Although all he's done is hold Jesse's hand, he wants to sleep—for hours, dreaming of nothing. Instead, he reclaims his keychain, placing it carefully into his back pocket like before.

"So it wasn't a seizure," Joshua says quietly. He can't look at Jesse, now afraid of seeing that badly-wanted understanding in Jesse's eyes, so he looks at his discount tuna. He's left it out too long; it's started to sweat within the plastic. "And it's not a trick. When did this start for you?"

The last time this happened, Jesse was left with the violent fatigue of phantom agony. He felt like he’d been screaming for hours, shredded to bloody pieces by the sound, by worse. He felt like he was drowning in the silence of his apartment, after it was filled with such excruciating noise, and that blackhole quiet drained him down to nothing. A hollowness he’d never experienced. A void he was in no rush to experience again.

Joshua’s empty expression makes Jesse think of that. There are other details he didn’t feel he needed to share, the airport Joshua found the keychain in, the smells of nearby food vendors overwhelming his senses, the way something simple, a keychain, chicken fingers, felt comforting, in the way thoughts of home were meant to feel comforting, even if they weren’t. Joshua isn’t interested in his own happiness. It’s a complication. What Jesse knows and what Jesse has learned clash as violently as the screams he heard when he touched the flask.

He feels exhausted too. He feels a different kind of empty.

“Not until recently. With the murder flask,” he says, curling his fingers into his palm now that his hand is empty too. Jesse almost asks what he could possibly gain from tricking Joshua, why he would go to these lengths just to be a dick, but he stops himself. He doesn’t want to fight. “Getting weird feelings isn’t uncommon working with bodies. But it’s never been like this.”

The further they move from that moment of understanding, the more Joshua feels ashamed for having burdened Jesse with a part of him. Maybe he should have conducted the test with a less loaded object, he thinks, the last pair of shoes he bought when he made ballet money or the can of wet cat food he cut his finger on yesterday, now sitting at the bottom of his recycling bin. Instead, he gave Jesse a piece of his childhood, and Jesse never asked for that. Stealing a glance at Jesse, Joshua sees that Jesse looks tired, too.

“My mom would call you a holy man,” he laughs, trying to ease the tension. Without thinking, he touches the chain at his neck, twisting the cross and medallion back and forth. “Have you told anyone else? Don't want to, you know, blow up your spot.”

Jesse watches Joshua’s fingers for a moment, the chain and cross observed only in periphery. He takes a breath, then lifts his gaze and pushes into the shift. The laughter. The ease. Relaxing into comparatively uncomplicated conversation, like he doesn’t still feel like he’s been scooped out and left gaping.

“Your mom would be the first. I don’t look very holy.” He smiles, like it’s all nothing. It kind of is. “I mentioned it. It can be mentioned as needed. I don’t care.”


"You don't care," Joshua repeats. He eyes Jesse's smile, trying to determine whether it's real or not. But he can't tell—he has such a hard time reading Jesse. His own mouth is frozen in a small smile, although his has half the feeling of Jesse's, and is obviously forced.

Looking back down, he shrugs to his countertop and discounted dinner. "Okay. Then I don't care. Still, neat skill to have in your back pocket. Can use it on all kinds of things."

The full meaning of what he said hits him then, and he looks up at Jesse quickly, though not sharply. Joshua doesn't have much in his apartment, but what he does own is memory-laden. How burdensome it would be for Jesse if his 'neat skill' weighed him down with innumerate, unasked-for memories, emotions, and impressions. A keychain is one thing, but the glass cups that now sit in his kitchen cupboard are from his mother's house.

"I don't want to keep you," Joshua blurts. "Successful experiment. I, um, had nothing else planned."

A huff of laughter escapes at Joshua’s assessment. Neat skill indeed. Jesse’s well-suited. To the oddity, sure, but particularly the burden. He’s so talented at bearing things. At accepting the fallout if, for a moment, he gets to feel something.

Jesse meets Joshua’s gaze when it snaps back to him. The hollow chasm of exhaustion feels like it’ll split his chest open now, so Joshua’s dismissal is probably for the best.

“Yeah,” he says. His smile hasn’t changed, and it won’t. “I know you don’t.”

He isn’t talking about additional experiments. Additional plans. But he could be, and that’s the ease of being vague. That’s the real neat trick. Jesse pushes away from the counter, retracing his steps back to the door.

“Thanks for doing this.”