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I did my best not to curse at the whole stupid little town, and made my way back outside into the pouring rain. I knew damn well the area didn’t get that much rain; it was bugging me that it seemed to have waited for me to arrive. It felt like some kind of damn omen, and that bugged me even more… that I would let myself think that way.
Maybe it was just that it had been raining in that same kind of steady down-pour the day Duo had disappeared. I had not been a huge fan of the rain since.
Getting the stupid electricity turned on at Duo’s place again, was not going to be as simple as demanding it. I suppose I had grown too used to being able to call on the Winner name when I really wanted to have something done immediately. But out there, in the middle of nowhere, the Winner name meant about as much as trying to claim you knew the Pillsbury dough boy. People just stared at you and went right on telling you that these things took time.
Thwarted on my first mission, I walked across the street to the general store with my collar turned up and my umbrella pulled down, scowling darkly at the puddles, since that was the only thing sharing the trek with me.
Blankets were an easy commodity and I bought several. Thick ones. After that the pickings grew slimmer and I had to fight that urge to curse again. Most of the things I was interested in were only available in electric models, though I did manage to score a small propane cook stove. I would never manage any sort of knack cooking on Duo’s damn wood stove. Later in the week, when the damn power company cooperated with me, I could come back and pick up a microwave and a coffee maker.
While I was there, I picked up several sacks of things that I knew darn well Duo had been doing without, if his budget was as tight as it seemed to be. I’d noticed the cheap, generic shampoo in the bathroom. I’d seen the thin, thread-bare towels. I’d felt the newspaper grade toilet paper.
It killed me to think of him living like that. Barely hand to mouth. Living like a damn pioneer from hundreds of years ago. He implied it was for the sake of the animals, but I’d already figured out the animals were just an excuse. He used them to fill the days. Used them to fill the emptiness. He treated them better than he treated himself.
Hid among them.
God… when I thought about how he had been that morning, it damn near killed me. He’d been so full of need, so desperate for whatever I could give him. He’d have let me do anything, just for my touch. Not that he’d made it easy; far from it. He’d fought against the pull like his life had depended on it. But once I’d bridged the gap… my God, I hadn’t thought I could satisfy him. Like he was making up for lost time. He’d let me take him again and again, until I was starting to fear hurting him. But he was just so full of this overwhelming yearning, I couldn’t have refused him anything.
Anymore than I could have denied myself, after all that time.
And if there had ever been any doubt in my mind, I was sure now… Duo had never done a damn thing with Trowa Barton. He’d been too damn fumbling… too uncertain. I was sure that had been his first time with anybody.
I’m not even going to try to deny how that made me feel.
After I retrieved my things from the signless bed and breakfast, my last stop was the diner at the edge of town and I’m not ashamed to admit that I bought more food than I knew we could eat, especially with no way to refrigerate the leftovers, but I just didn’t care. Duo needed something more than the damn cans of condensed soup he seemed to live off of. And I wasn’t exactly looking forward to scorching another pot full of the stuff myself.
I knew, by the time I headed back towards Duo’s place, that I was the talk of the town. Let them gossip. With any luck, I’d be taking Duo away from the damn place eventually anyway. Taking him home. Even if the damn animals had to come too.
Pulling into the front yard, listening to the unfamiliar crunch of gravel under the tires, I knew something wasn’t right when I saw the front door standing wide open. The two cats were sitting in the doorway, hunched down and watching the rain, but I didn’t immediately see that monster dog that had greeted me the first time like an invading enemy. It somehow made me even more nervous… the beast is very protective of Duo and his domain, I somehow didn’t doubt that he normally met all cars before they even came into the yard.
I shut the car off and got out, not even thinking to grab the umbrella. I don’t really know why it never occurred to me that Duo might be in the house… the door, I suppose. And those cats that we’d had to shut out of the bedroom because they stuck to any heat source like glue.
I moved around the car and looked across the yard, surprised to find the dogs out in the rain. Lying in the mud in a damn pile, no less. When I took a step that way, one of them stood up finally and began barking at me.
And that was when I realized one of the dogs in that pile was no dog at all, but Duo. I’ll be honest and admit that for a long cold moment, I thought the damn animals had turned on him and if I’d had my gun, I might very well have shot them all where they lay. But then it registered that the big one, the beast that damn well out-weighed Duo, was probably the only reason Duo hadn’t drowned in the mud.
I resisted the need to run to him, afraid of spooking the dogs. Afraid they’d hurt him if they all rushed to their feet at once. I approached slowly, hand out in a gesture I’d seen people use on television, and not in any way ever thought I would use myself. The black dog barked at me one more time and then retreated toward Duo, his sopping tail giving a tiny, uncertain seeming wag. I suppose, when I stopped to think about it, that my scent had to have been all over Duo. Maybe that was enough to make me a welcome presence. The blond dog lifted its head from where it had been resting on Duo’s legs and gave me a look that the black markings made seem… troubled.
When I got close enough, both of the smaller dogs retreated, standing near the fence and watching me almost curiously. Reason, the big one, the damn scary big one, didn’t move a muscle other than to turn his head to watch me.
‘Good boy,’ I told him, hoping to God he wasn’t going to attack me when I tried to touch Duo. There was a half-hearted thump of a tail that gave me some small reassurance and I moved in with one eye on the dog.
Duo was just lying there, looking for all the world like he’d just laid down to go to sleep. His head was pillowed against the big white dog, one hand curled in the fur, the other somewhere under the water and mud. He was only half dressed and was thoroughly soaked. His damn skin looked faintly blue. Had I not been able to see the movement of the dog’s hair around his nose and mouth… I might have panicked even more than I did.
What the damn monster of a dog was going to do was suddenly not nearly as important as getting Duo up out of the mud and somewhere warm.
I slipped my arms under him and was horrified at how cold he felt. I wondered how in the hell long he’d been out there, but then I lifted him, and as his hand slid free of the dog’s coat, it left a bloody trail, and I wasn’t thinking warm any more, but about medical help.
Later I would feel bad for leaving the dogs there in the rain, for leaving the house standing open. Much later.
I took him to the car and was a bit surprised that I got no trouble from the dogs. The black one had already retreated to the barn, and the other two just stood there watching me. I wrapped Duo in one of the blankets I’d just bought, throwing the food into the back of the car to make room so I could buckle him into the passenger seat. He never stirred and I had no doubt hypothermia was very likely the least of my worries.
I cursed his lack of phone, I cursed his lack of power which had kept me from charging my own cell. I cursed the town, the county, and the majority of the God-forsaken state. I took a moment to curse the rain too and then I settled into driving and telling him it was going to be all right. Not that he seemed to hear me, but it somehow helped keep the panic at bay.
I ran the car heater long past the point that I broke out in a sweat.
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