Amy Lane

“„Like‟ is a mild sort of word for what Con and I have,” Collin replied, leaning forward to touch noses with the big doofus. Constantine half-closed his eyes and twitched his whiskers back. “I‟d go with the deeply twisted interpersonal relationship that a hero has for his nemesis, sort of a Batman/Joker thing, if the Joker suddenly started going down on Batman like a porn-star on Viagra.”Jeff looked at him in alarm. “Jesus, Sparky, stop touching my cat!”

“...she often had a temper that made a PMS-ing harpy going into nicotine withdrawal look like a chubby fuzzy bunny that burped daisies and shot rainbows out its ass.”

“How’re the cats?” he asked, smiling a little. He did miss Angel Marie. Hell, he missed them all.“Feral,” Benny sniffed. “And horny. Every time one of us walks in, they all start humping our shoes.”“They’re fixed,” Shane mumbled, but the conversation was oddly reassuring. It sounded normal, and like home.“Tell that to the big fuzzy brown one….”“Orlando Bloom?”“Yeah, whatever. Last time I was there that damned animal violated my knitting.”Shane lost a battle with a laugh and then whined because it hurt his ribs. “Violated?”[...]“Let’s just say that wool is no longer virgin,” she quipped dryly, and Shane’s chest shook.”

“This time, he fumbled for Collin's hand in the elevator. He still felt like a thief, there was no denying it, but sometimes thieves stole things because they needed them to live.”

“I'm still not a god," he said apologetically. Crick stood behind him and pulled his shoulders back against that wide, strong chest. "Better than a god," Crick murmured. "You're the reason to have faith.”

“Okay," Crick said, rolling his eyes. "I give. Which part of my body is more interesting than my ass?"Deacon rewarded his obtuseness with a smack to the head. "Your heart, you fuckin' moron...”

“Ah, gods, hope. Our savior and our tormentor, the price and ferry pass for the dreams that carry us to the future.”

“Oh gods... oh gods... I had hurt him... so many times, I had hurt him. By trying to hurt myself, I had hurt him. By trying to push him away, I had hurt him. Every time I opened my mouth and belittled myself with my "turns of rough poetry", I had sliced his heart as fine as my wrists. I did not know why he loved me as he did. I might never know. But as I stood there and held him, my back nagging at me and my leg screaming in protest, I realized that the least I could do was welcome his love with an open heart. And part of doing that was loving myself enough to want to live.”

“Malcolm chuckled wickedly. "You, my American friend, are like a hidden landmine of sex appeal. I'm going to have to look out for you.""Too late." Owen raised his face to the unfamiliar smells, breezes, sounds of the city, enjoying them even more now that he knew something of it and it had become personal to him. "I've already exploded. You're caught."He tilted his head back and laughed, inviting Malcolm to share the joke, but Malcolm was unusually quiet.....”

“That night Tommy kissed him and eased his way into Chase’s body so gently that when Chase came, his vision washed in white, not red, and it did for him what sex with Tommy always did for him: set him free and let him fly.”

“God. No wonder it was so easy. He’s been bleeding since he was a baby. He just never told anyone. How do you even know it hurts after all that time?” Because you loved me, and I knew what it meant to feel.”

“....and his head and shoulders were on the bed next to the boy who had captured his heart like cupped hands would capture a butterfly, and had never, ever clutched him too tight and never let him go.”

“People hurt each other all the time just by being. What matters is that when you hurt someone, you do what you can to make it right.”

“Jeff Beachum, Sergeant of Snark, Wielder of Witticism, Dominator of the Double Entendre, completely ran out of things to say.”

“They made love until Chris had to leave for the airport, without sleeping at all. After Chris had left, wearing wrinkled jeans and Xander’s sweat and seed on his skin, Xander flopped back onto the bed and looked miserably at the clock.”

“For Christ's sake, Ian, he was stealing your cash! I hope you at least wore a raincoat, you feel me?Ian blinked. Why would I want a raincoat, Joel? I was having sex.Joel put his face in his hands, closed his eyes tight, and prayed that when he looked up and opened then Ian would be kidding.He wasn't”

“Because it’s you and basketball, Christian. Only one of you can break my heart.”

“You’re my friend,” Chris whispered back, and his other hand came up so he could rub Xander’s lower lip with his thumb. “That makes you beautiful.”

“Jeremy laughed. "Well, there was food, a gift, and you spent your time shopping. I'd say it was a date!"Aiden squinted at Jeremy. "That's all we did last Saturday! he said, a little bit of surprise in his voice. "I thought you weren't gay!"Jeremy widened his eyes big enough to look shocked. "Well, I didn't know you were!""God, what a dumbass!" Aiden shook his head. "Jesus, how can you give advice on two guys dating if you don't even know what two guys do if they're not on a date.”

“Listen to me. I will spill my insides for you once only. We were three—I am the green, thegrowing, the day. I loved the moon, the silver night, and he loved the sunshine, fierce and hot, and sheloved me because the sun must love the day. And the sun and I stood in a valley of stone and faceddeath, because we wanted to spare the night, who had suffered a thousand deaths already, and we didn'twant him to bleed any more. But he would not allow it. He swooped from the sky and clenched deathin both hands, and we wore his blood like skin.”

“I thought your boyfriend died?" Nicky asked, and it was actually a good question, and I was somad that I wasn't even embarrassed to answer him."We were three," I choked out. "I had a night lover and a day lover,” I said, and it felt likepoetry, just to say it there in public in the middle of the quad, under the foggy sun. "And they lovedeach other like night loves the day. And then the night lover died, and the day lover and I were naked inthe sunshine, with only ourselves for cover.”

“Green smiled at me, all that compassion in his eyes, and he cupped my face in his hands, asthough it were delicate, and precious. "You must never leave me,” he said solemnly. "You may take asmany lovers as you want, but you must promise to always be here to make me feel like I can do all thatneeds to be done.”

“You nervous about doing this on camera?”Chance tilted his head a little, considering. “Well, yeah, of course. You don’t know what you look like when you come—for all I know, I’m hella ugly or something. But at the same time....” He trailed off and shuddered, and his eyes got half-lidded. One hand went unconsciously to his stomach, then slid up to his nipples, which were still pointy and puckered. “It’s sort of cool. It’s making my stomach all jumpy, and....” His other hand slid down under the waistband of his shorts, as he made obvious kneading motions on his groin.“It’s turning you on?”“Mmmm....”“Take the shorts off, Chance, and show us.”

“James fought the temptation to repeat “traditional chromosomal energy signature,” just because it was such an awesome example of erudition gone weird, and thought hard to answer her question.”

“Sometimes the small dreams were all a person needed to live.”

“He just cleaned the bathroom.”“So?”“I’ve been sending samples into the lab when I got bored. They are as of yet unidentified. It never occurred to me to clean the damned thing."Whiskey sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know, I know, I know—you don’t want to get blood all over it now that it’s clean.”

“Turns out that sometimes, faith and a sense of humor really can be all you need.”

“Sex was lovely. Sex was sublime. Sex was flesh and cock and suck and fuck and come. This night sex was starlight. Sex was oxygen. Sex was us, and we were beautiful, beautiful and perfect in each other's arms.”

“Now about this turtle. I think I’m gonna name it Oliver.”“Why’s that?”“Because he’s leaving little turtle poop ‘Oliver’ his terrarium.”

“Every heartbeat screams your name”

“You didn't know that... that my whole world stopped when I first saw you smile.”

“...if I was going to play this game and love it, it had to love me back.”

“I was terrified of my weakness, of my sharp tongue, ofmy every flaw. I was terrified that this moment, my chance tolive in happiness for however short a time we may have had,would be ruined because I was simply not carved out of thesame wood as happiness, and that my grain was too twistedto ever take its form.”

“Anyone who says things like "Happy Ever After" as though that end to a love story is a given, is cooking up a right stinking cauldron of shite and trying to serve it as soup.”

“I didn't have time to tell Bracken to care for her. I didn't have time to tell Arturo that I knew why he was hard on me, and it was okay. I didn't have time to tell Green that he was the sun and the moon and the stars. The Goddess gave me just enough time to feel her pain, to let her know I loved her. I had just long enough to say goodbye.”

“You don't love people at their best, sweetheart. You just love them because you can't help it.”

“I love you. I want to shout it sometimes. I know you worry about our letters and texts getting read--shades of WWII, haunting us still, I guess, and I'm well aware that nothing's safe on the internet. I worry too. You need to know that when I say it, when I ask you to say it, it's because my lungs feel full of dark water, and seeing it or writing it lets me breathe.”

“And now Kit’s cock—which had mostly been used for taking a leak before that moment—woke up and screamed I WANT! FEED ME ASSHOLE! And Kit had given it a good handshake until it threw up.”

“The world isn't made a better place by the unburdening of a heart.”

“And the storm was my nemesis, my goddess, my salvation”

“Oh gods, are you listening? A storm out at sea is one of your greatest creations. You should hear it praised. The sky is dark, almost as night, and the swells... they were taller than mountains.”

“Being loved can do marvelous things for a man.”

“You cannot take a person's humanity and then retain your own”

“I will love you forever,” I murmured, and he stroked the hair off of my forehead.I will hold you to that.” His face was grim and his voice was sober—hetouched my handprint of chaos as he said it, and I knew in my bones that it was a solemn vow, and not a sweet or a kind offering of love at all. Green would make me live if he had to crack the foundations of the world.”

“You’re here!” She repeated, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legsaround his hips. He’d dropped his bags as she’d ran, and now he cupped her bottom in his large hands...His heart gave a giant thump, all the way down from his chest to his stomach,and as she smiled up at him he lowered his head and devoured her mouth,smile and all. Her lips were just as warm, and just as soft as he remembered, and her mouth tasted like peaches and cinnamon and Corinne Carol-Anne and without thought he pushed her back against the hallway wall and kissed her and kissed her and kissed her as though all their time apart would disappear in that frantic mating of tongue and lips and teeth. He wanted to take her into himself, all of her, and keep her warm and safe and happy, just like this moment when sheburst with joy, just to see him.--Wounded(Green and Cory, after being apart)”

“Don’t worry, due’ane,” He murmured lowly....“Who’s Dewey Anne.” I asked him, voice gruff. He was so familiar, this Bracken, but so strange, naked next to me. I could touchhim, I realized with wonder. I could run my hands from his flank to his shoulder, and he would welcome the touch because he was mine.You are.” He whispered, and I met his eyes. “It’s elfish, the feminine nounfor ‘other equal half’. You are my other. My everything.”--Wounded(Bracken and Cory)”

“He leaned forward then and put his face in the crook of my neck, so he could smell the warmth rising from it. His nose touched my skin, just enough to make me shiver.When he spoke again, it was right next to my ear, and his voice was deep, and his breath moved the fine hairs on my ear, starting a vibration deep within my eardrum. “But that smell, right there,” He murmured, “That smell is all you. I love that smell too. I want to wear that smell on my skin and roll around in it. I want to live in that smell alone."--Wounded(Bracken to Cory)”

“Green heard her voice, murmuring,and Adrian’s, murmuring back. Something inside of him made an actualglass-cracking noise—and before he could convince himself that that it washis imagination, Blissa and three of the other nymphs danced through thehallway and into the living room.“We heard that.” Blissa said, sweetly.“Heard what?” He asked, genuinely surprised.“Heard your heart breaking.” Said Grace.”

“I blew through her like baby’s breath through a dandelion, and my soulleft its mark on hers. Forever. In one night, I’d bound her too me for as longas she lived, and I had no words to tell her.When I woke the next night, to see her there, above me, the relief radiatingfrom every line of her body, I thought it was more of a miracle than myfirst rising.”

“I looked at Adrian’s eyes, beautiful, mesmerizing. Not human. I didn’t feellonely at all. “You’ll take me places?” I asked. His answer was important, eventhough my decision was already made.“You can’t imagine where we’ll go.” He said, sincerely.”