Forty-Two Stairs

Chapter 1: Admitting-2

He was another three trips in, panting and wheezing like a dog left in the backseat of a sealed-up sedan, when Dennis met him on the staircase. “Did you know someone’s sitting on your couch down there?”

Owen nodded, using the break to set his ass down on the stairs and wrestle with heartbeat. “Baba. Apparently. He’s watching my stuff.”

“I’m not sure I’d trust some purple-haired freak—”

“There’s nothing left to steal, Dennis,” Owen said, exhaustion weighting the words as though the act of speech was even too much to take. “The good s**t’s been sold, the mediocre s**t’s already been carried up, and I can’t see a guy the size of a pixie walking away with my couch.”

“Pixie’s have fairy dust.” Dennis smirked and wiggled his fingers like his hand had become a five-legged insect. “Makes things fly.”

“Fairy dust,” Owen huffed and hauled himself upright, doing his best to grin at his brother but more than sure the expression failed from pure fatigue. He felt like his legs were going to give out and his chest explode. “Let’s hope so.”

Dennis rolled his eyes and Owen’s need to laugh won out over body shutdown. “What?” Owen asked with a shrug. “He’s cute.”

“He’s purple.”

“What’s wrong with purple?”

“As a shirt? Nothing. As hair…”

“I love it.”

“You would.”

Owen laughed. “Different is cool. Sexy even. But it doesn’t matter anyway. For one, I have no idea if he’s gay—”

Dennis lifted an eyebrow, and Owen grinned at the similarities the two of them always managed between their expressions. “Well, I don’t!”

Dennis only mouthed his reply, over-exaggerating each syllable with lip movement. Purple.

“That doesn’t mean shit.”

Purple was mouthed yet again.

When Owen parted his lips to try once more, Dennis cut him off with a repeat of the dramatic, silent process. Owen clicked his tongue soundly and waved him off. “Besides…” Owen nodded. “No relationships. I’m supposed to know I can stay sober before I risk someone else’s heart. Healthy me, healthy them, that kind of thing.”

“f**k that!” Dennis laughed. “Are they trying to kill you?”

“Nope.” Owen dropped a hand on his brother’s shoulder and started down the stairs. “I tried to do that to myself. Come on. It’s just the big stuff left, and Mom’s still upstairs putting everything where she thinks it needs to be. Let’s get this done so I can get her the hell out.”

The street and sidewalk seethed with heat, the afternoon sun creating an environment that would drive sane men into northern-migrating animals. Not a spot on Owen’s body was dry. Chaffing was impossible to avoid, itching had taken on new meaning, and at that point in time Owen was more than sure someone very high up was doing their deity-powered best to make him pay, pay, pay. The loveseat was a b***h to manoeuvre; the couch was a nightmare. The TV should have been easy but by that time every step was a journey into agony. It got to the point where Owen was counting each stair, and if Dennis’s face was any indication—grey lips, white skin, splotches of red—he was doing the same. So when Sebastian (his post at the furniture obviously forgotten), skipped past them for the third time, tripping up the stairs as easily as he bopped down, with rags and cleaning products for God could only know what purpose, both Owen and Dennis stopped and glared as though their eyes could launch daggers.

Sebastian simply bowed his head and continued past them. “Don’t worry. They’re only stairs.” He stopped at the landing, c****d his head, and gave Owen a sideways glance that was both angelically sweet, and mischievously flirtatious. “You’ll get used to them.”