The Smell of Rain

It started with a bar, but that didn't surprise Keith for all the important points in his life began--and ended--with a bar. He'd lost his virginity in the bathroom of a bar to a thirty-six year old German who worked in the Embassy, back when he was fourteen and idealistic and a bright-eyed kid who'd just run away from home for the very first time. He'd spent a wonderful three weeks with the German official, playing at tour guide out in the provinces. And then they'd come back to the capital and one of his father's look outs spotted him and they corned him in the same bar where he'd gotten his first fuck and took him back to his father. He'd run away again a few months later, but they kept catching him and sending him back and paid no attention to him--not until he found out about heroin and shot up for the first time in a corner booth. That was when his father had enough of him and he'd been shipped off to military school where they beat the rebellion out of him. Now he only got wasted on special occasions--his birthday and Christmas and St. Patrick's day.

So it started with a bar and a martini and his birthday and some fake IDs and...Lance. Who was drinking with him, even though they weren't really friends, just lab partners in chemistry where Lance kept making eyes at Sven and Keith tried not to think about how easy it would be to use the chemicals to get high and escape this hell hole and avoid looking at the painfully pretty boy who stood next to him and made his skin tingle with arousal. He'd never asked Lance how he came to be at the school--not everyone there was as messed up as he was. In truth, he'd rarely talked to Lance, rarely talked to anyone except for Sven who'd seen the tattoo and knew the truth and was courteous enough not to push. So it was a surprise to find Lance sitting next to him as he silently cursed the day he'd come into this world and tried to drink himself into early liver failure.

It came as even more of a surprise to wake up the next morning in a bed that wasn't his, cleaned and muzzy and warm beneath a down comforter that was tucked up to his chin and almost naked except for a pair of clean boxers that weren't his. There was an arm against his stomach and brown hair mingled with his and an angel's face with long, beautiful lashes snoring away behind him.

That was when it hit him--when he saw those long lashes and that perfect face. God did he love Lance.

Except nothing had happened, which made him both glad and sad at once and he wasn't sure if he should cry because he hadn't been fucked by Lance or happy because he was sure that he wouldn't have remembered it if he had been fucked.

It was that morning that Keith found out that Lance's hair smelled like rain when wet. And that it was a good thing to have Lance as a friend. Even if Lance was just using him to get closer to Sven. And that hurt a little bit, but not enough for Keith to stop getting drunk four days out of the year just so Lance could take him home and put him to bed and he could wake up to the smell of Lance and rain the next morning.

Except now it was five years later and his birthday and Keith was at a bar drinking some weird Arusian shit and Lance wasn't there. Because Lance was off with Sven. And neither had time for a silent drunk that looked forward to the morning and the rain and the pain of an empty love.

Keith wandered out of the bar sometime around one, and dark clouds were rolling in over the stars. He collapsed by the road a little later, just as that first hint of rain hit him, that first whiff of something clean and pure washed over him. Then came the rain itself and the strange smell of hot, wet pavement and grass and mud and the water itself that carried just the barest hint of the sea.