If I knew what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have done it. Well, maybe.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Current Date: March 17, 2024

Character: Romeo Thompson
Race: Human
Age: 33
Current residence: Spirit Falls, Wisconsin
 

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I don’t know how I felt about it at first; there are days when I still don’t fully know how I feel. They’ve spent the winter living with us, moving in at the very beginning of December after Jesse decided to take a swim in a muddy puddle. I went on auto-pilot for a while when I got him inside, I honestly don’t remember much of that day.

For years now, I’ve been the one Cris has turned to when he needed something and while I adore him as I would a brother if I’d ever had any, I didn’t want to admit openly that it was exhausting; I was running myself ragged worrying about him every moment of every day and having Jesse and Stacey both in the house with us has changed that dynamic. It has been months at this point, and I think I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it.

The fact that they both have more medical knowledge than I ever have gotten my hands on has been a tremendous help in and of itself and Cris seems like a completely different person. We’re still careful as far as a lot of things are concerned but what he’s been eating has just been so different from what it was years ago. It baffles me but in a good way.

I still don’t like winter and I still avoid going outside unless I really need to. We had a fairly big storm just a few days ago and I spent hours—with help—shovelling the pathways everywhere. To and from the house and all of the rest.

It was my turn, on that particular day, to deal with a fall that I could have done without, and when I finally noticed the culprit, it gave me this look as though to tell me that had it known this would be the result of its actions, it wouldn’t have done it. Maybe.

But on that same note, I’m well aware that this is just me imagining things because the issue came from a mouse hole—burrow, whatever you want to call it—and I somehow stumbled into the dip where it was. The mouse stopped by me for all of a few seconds before it ran right back into that hole, probably never to be seen again. Better it stays outside than in; it can dig holes in the snow wherever it wants, so long as it stays outside, thank you.

Unlike Jesse, I didn’t land in a puddle, though I narrowly avoided the slushy hole that was just a foot or so away and if I had rolled any, I’d have ended up in there. No, I just ate a mouthful of snow and while my instincts told me to run right the hell back inside, I managed to keep myself from panicking once I was back on my feet, I got as much snow as I could out of my scarf and I finished the shovelling I had been doing.

I spared the mouse hole and didn’t just plug it back up. I don’t care for mice, but I feel as though they have the right to be alive just as much as anything or anyone else does and I feel that blocking up one of their holes wouldn’t have done any good, anyway. They’d have either dug it back out or found another exit. Again, so long as they stay out of the house, I think we’ll be just fine.

With the days getting longer, little by little, I can’t help but wonder if they’ll go back to their own houses. Cris has been loving this whole bed sharing he’s doing with Stacey, he’s a clingy sleeper and I don’t think that Stacey minds all that much. It took me a bit of time to get used to Jesse in my bed and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to share since I’d never done it before, but it’s been oddly comforting to share the bed with him.

It might not be as comfortable come summer and the heat, but if it comes to that, I know we have a hammock somewhere and I can set it up and we can figure out sleeping arrangements. It’s not as though we’re there yet and we have to figure out if they’re staying or not. I’m not about to kick them out and I know that it won’t even cross Cris’s mind, so we’ll take things one day at a time.

I’m not going to lie, life’s been nice with these two in the house and not just because there’s a sense of relief that someone else can help me keep an eye on Cris as necessary. There’s something else in there but I just don’t know what it really is yet. I’ll figure that out in time, too.

Final Word Count: 816

How dare you call yourself a hero when you can say those awful things about my cooking?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Characters: Romeo Thompson
Race: Human
Age: 31
Current residence: Spirit Falls, Wisconsin
Final Word Count: 753 words
 

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For a little while, I thought I was going to lose him and that actually terrified me more than I thought it would. Cris is a friend. I thought he was just that, though, a friend. I thought he was someone who had allowed me into his home and into his life but that it was about as far as things went. We shared a little bit about one another, but we hadn’t really opened up deeply. I think we both had too much to hide, in a way.

Though in a way, I guess I should have seen it as at least a little more. There is no physical love between us—I’m not going to lie, however, he’s gorgeous—but I did realize earlier today that I cared deeply for him. It’s more the sort of love you’d find between two close brothers than anything else, though, I’d say. As I see it, I think we both realize we’re both carrying a bit too much baggage for a bond to form between us that is more than one of family.

I’m still not really sure what happened earlier today. I mean, I guess I know a seizure when I see one, but it was just so sudden and, as far as I’ve known him, it had never happened before. I did call the one doctor still left in the community once I’d managed to settle him down again—I know that technically speaking, I didn’t do much to settle him down, it passed on its own, but I still made sure he was safe, I kept him as comfortable as I could and, once I saw his eyes open again, I called.

It was terrifying, honestly. I thought he was going to die, and I didn’t want to even imagine what any of that would be like. A life without him around, that’s more painful than a lot of things I thought I could deal with. The doc came in, checked him over to the best of his abilities, couldn’t really find anything that might have been wrong, told him to just be mindful of the usual things that could set off seizures and that was that.

I get that we’re possibly low on a lot of medication and Cris is still hoarding what Sarah-Lee gave him and he’s been stretching it all out as best as he can, but that felt a little, well, anti-climatic.

Not that I should complain, right? He’s fine and well, he’s back to his usual self and he even prepared our lunch, to which I couldn’t help but playfully wrinkle my nose because I know about his eating habits—though they’ve changed—and I know about mine. He saw my reaction and laughed. He stuck his tongue at me and told me that I didn’t have any right to call myself a hero, not if I was going to complain about his cooking.

I did give him some wide, sad puppy eyes. I knew he was just teasing me, and it felt good. I hadn’t called myself a hero, but he’s murmured something to that effect when he’d become a bit more focused on his surroundings after I’d come back to him after placing the call. I also hadn’t complained about the food yet but the wrinkled nose as he prepared but it really mostly was because of the one bell pepper he’d put in there. I never can digest those easily. I don’t think it’s an intolerance, but it’s just weird.

I still eat them, but I’d been so freaked out by the whole thing earlier on that I knew my stomach was about as upset as I’d been, and I didn’t think I could stomach them at this point. It wasn’t even hard to put them aside on the plate either, it was actually really easy.

I can’t help but keep a close eye on him right now. The idea that it might happen terrifies me, especially if this is something new and there really isn’t much to treat it; other than, you know, being careful and he already is just so careful about everything. There are certain rare things he acts carefree about but most of his life is set to be fairly careful, even if he is better. I know what some of his life was like before and I can understand why he acts the way he does; I just wish I could bring more into that life for him.

I suspect you know more about magic than you’re saying you do.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Characters: Romeo Thompson
Race: Human
Age: 30
Final Word Count: 744 words
 

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I was talking with Cris a few nights ago and I’m not really sure why but I ended up bringing up one of my one-time clients. He knows how I paid for my students’ debts, I used to hide it from him but as we opened up a little more with one another, I told him that much and he told me a little more about his issues. We still don’t talk about everything but now that the world seems to be what it is, we’ve opened up some though.

Even now, so many years later, spending that particular evening with Mary, it makes me smile. She was a strange young woman who clearly had enough funds on her hands to not know what to really do with it. When she first called me, saying she had seen me at her friend’s party—and when she gave me the name, I knew exactly who she had been talking about—she said she wanted us to meet up to talk for a few hours, nothing more.

Seeing as I’d had one particular client—a sweet woman—who only hired me to keep her company in the simplest of senses, this wasn’t all that out there as far as I was concerned, and we agreed to things when I told her my hourly fee. I usually tended to work with a ‘per night’ fee, but for things like these, the hourly fee usually cost them less and it gave me a bit more me-time afterwards.

So, we met up at a small coffee shop that wasn’t too far from home because it had been a pretty long day spent learning and we talked.

The first thing she told me, in a clear, vibrant voice was that she suspected I knew more about magic than I was saying I did.

It made me pause with my cup of coffee halfway up to my lips. I miss coffee. Cris can’t have any and up until the fog settled in, I used to get some at the little diner so I didn’t bring any into the house though he told me I could have.

Mary was looking at me expectantly, I lowered the cup, and I gave her my best answer possible. What?

She started telling me that she’d watched me the other night—thankfully, she didn’t talk about what that entailed since I didn’t care for strangers to really know what I did for a living—that it was clear I was putting spells on others because there was no way people would pay for that kind of entertainment if I didn’t use spells. I think I facepalmed at that point, I had to, you know?

After that moment, the image I had of her in my mind painted her as a prude woman who likely was waiting until her wedding to have her first round of sex and possibly didn’t even hold hands with whoever she might have been dating. Mind you, that’s not a bad thing. I’m not judging the people who live—lived?—that way. They’re just a sort of different breed to me, as far as all this is concerned.

I did try to explain to her that I didn’t know anything about magic, I was just doing what I was because people wanted to watch, and some people were like that. She wanted to hear nothing of it, of course, and after about fifteen minutes, she was huffing at me, her nose turned up as though I had done her some sort of wrong, and she left. Thankfully, she hadn’t ordered a single thing as she left without paying.

When she was finally gone, I did order myself a quick burger because I had been starving but it hadn’t felt quite right to eat while she didn’t, and I crashed in bed an hour or so later because I’m totally that guy that can eat even just minutes before going to bed without any issues.

I can laugh at that situation now; it seems so weirdly out there, and Cris was shaking his head in amusement when I retold him the tale. I did learn that he’d met similar people, mostly regarding how slim—not skinny—he was and how he ate and what he ate and well, that was a mess as he told it. I’m glad he’s here with me. We both can use a friend at this point.

It’s my duty and obligation to protect you, remember?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Characters: Romeo Thompson
Race: Human
Age: 29
Final Word Count: 714 words
 

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I finished repaying all of my schooling debts back in December 2017. It was a stupidly freeing thing and, suddenly, I had enough money from work that I could put some aside and, within the span of about two very chilly months, I had enough set aside to pack myself up, keep myself afloat for about four or five months and I left. I wanted to leave this city before. Too many people who knew my face and I wanted to leave the stripping thing behind forever.

What I hadn’t expected was that my move, in early 2018, would take me into a tiny little town not very far from where I’d grown up. That town is called Spirit Falls.

In terms of population, I think some people might be more tempted to call this place a village more than a town but I guess that it depends on the person. Once there, I managed to find myself a room in a cozy little home with a man named Cristofori.

Cris is five or six years older than I am, it’s hard to tell because he looks so young. He’s got his own issues to deal with and as I have my own, we tend to not poke and prod into each other’s personal life, it makes more sense. At least, at first, we didn’t but after a few months, we opened up to one another some.

When I left my old city behind, I had fully expected all ties to be cut as I left, I even told a few of my repeat clients—that one woman in particular who only wanted to talk to me—but clearly, some had other ideas and one of these particular people who had other ideas was a guy named Tyson.

Ty had been, at first… a nice enough guy. He seemed to genuinely care about me but it was also a little weird since it was a chance meeting, at least, that’s what I believed. We’d crossed paths while at a coffee shop in the dead of the night after I’d finished work and I’d been heading home. Thankfully, it was in the summer so my somewhat short shorts weren’t all that out of place, though they probably still made me look a bit like a whore.

We made friends of sorts, I wasn’t sure how to read him and he seemed rather intent, right from the beginning, to keep me safe. I couldn’t understand it. He claimed that it was his duty and obligation to protect me. He told me that this was what he had been born for and, well, as someone who needs his space every so often, I’m sure it can be understood that I didn’t want to be saddled with that.

So I was glad to leave that behind when I moved away but I was wrong. I didn’t leave it behind, not completely.

My first few nights in Spirit Falls were spent in a small motel room—the only motel-slash-hotel in the little place—and I got up every morning just looking forward to a new day but on the third day, I woke up to almost frantic pounding on my door and there he was, just outside that hotel door, face stern and reminding me not to run away because, yup, it was his duty and obligation to keep me safe.

From that point on, it almost became a game of cat and mouse and, fearing that somehow he was tracking my phone or something else though I had no car, I took the bus out of the city with my phone on, got out of the bus at a stop, turned off my phone and got in another bus back into Spirit Falls. After that, I managed to find my current housing situation with Cris and I kept my head low, I haven’t seen him since but, well, I have to assume he left before the fog fell because I would have seen him in all of this time.

That fog, I don’t know what to think about it. It’s been there forever, it feels like and, at times, I feel like recently, it has thinned out a bit but I think that’s just wishful thinking.

A great opportunity to get to know each other mustn’t be wasted.

Timeline/World: Always Yaoi
Characters: Romeo Thompson
Race: Human
Age: 27
Final Word Count: 526 words

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As an exotic dancer, the type who goes to people’s places instead of them coming to me, I don’t actually really get to know people, not really. I get to strip and wiggle my ass and my junk around a lot of women more than men and that’s a bit of a dismaying thing too. I’d seriously like to have more men as clients but if I ever were to manage to get a boyfriend, he might get jealous over it so I guess that in a way, it’s better that I mostly end up dealing with parties of women wanting a stripper for their friend.

I’ve done it all. Bachelorette parties, baby showers—those are always a little awkward—twenty-first birthdays, graduating from one thing or another, I’ve seen a lot of things and been to a lot of places. I’ve also had a few mishaps with people not knowing what they were expecting, supposedly, and not letting me inside. The last time that happened, I was locked outside in winter, wearing short shorts and high heels because I’d had two appointments within an hour or so of one another and I hadn’t had time to change between the two, it hadn’t been pleasant.

One recent client though, she’s been different. Sure, she hires me for parties and gathering but when I get there, there’s never anyone else and she just wants us to sit and talk. It was weird, that first time around but I’ve sort of accepted that when she calls to schedule up my time, that’s mostly all that’ll happen. She talks about how she finds it fascinating that I do this for a living, that I must be such an extrovert—let me tell you something, I’m not—and that the attention must keep my blood pumping—it does, but not in a pleasant way, no, I get anxious about a lot of things, it’s sad—and just, I don’t have to heart to tell her how wrong she is.

I know why she thinks that way, I do. A lot of the other dancers I’ve crossed paths with, the ones who do this because they just love it, they are extroverts, they get a thrill from the dance, the stripping, everything. I just want to keep on making money to pay for school, to clear my debts. I can dance, I know I have the body and the moves but being around too many people makes me anxious. It makes me sweat, it makes my heart beat at uncomfortable speeds and just, it’s everything I wish it wasn’t but it pays. Never mind the tips I get when I sway my hips just right.

A single night keeps me fed for a week but there’s more to this life than being fed for a single week. My debts are almost all paid up though, I’ll finally be able to try to find something that won’t give me ulcers and I’m looking more than a little forward to that particular chance. It’s all I want, something I can do that is right, that is healthy for me, something that I’ll enjoy.