Smoke & Silver

"Georgia. Wake up." Isaac's voice was soft and insistent, "We're here."

I opened my blurry eyes and looked out at the flickering sign. It was the only light in the sky. The blinking lights said 'House of Snooze' over a vacancy sign that had seen better days.

I heard John rummaging around in the trunk. He sounded like a bear pawing through a campsite for food. As I sat up straighter, Isaac started pulling bags from the backseat.

"I'll get mine." I murmured. He nodded and handed me the strap.

John unlocked a door with a smoking sign on it. I breathed a sigh of relief as I followed him in. Two queen beds sat in the middle of the left wall, across from an old television that I hadn't seen the likes of in over twenty years.

"It's not much, but it's home for now." He said, slinging the beaten duffel bag on the bed closest to the door. Isaac's bag rolled on whispery wheels behind him as he entered behind me.

I put my bag on the bed that hadn't been claimed and sat down. There was no way I was curling up with John. Not in the mood we were both in. I reached for the ashtray on the night stand.

As Isaac parked his luggage and walked to the adjoining bathroom, I noticed John glaring at me.

"What?"

"I still can't believe that you ended up in debt to a mobster." He shook his head in disgust.

"And you're living out of your car and looking out at life from the bottom of a bottle."

His glare sharpened.

"Stones and glass houses, John." I lay back on the bed and set the ashtray on my stomach. I wanted to be as mad as I was trying to appear, but I couldn't. He was right, as much as it pissed me off to admit. And maybe I'd been a little harsh.

He stayed silent, turning on the television and flipping channels until he found an old superhero movie that we'd once watched together in college. I felt the nostalgia creeping in.

I'd loved him once. Loved him still, if I was going to be completely honest with myself. But something had happened. We'd had a chance at something once, something special, but when summer ended that year, so did our chance.

The bathroom door opened, startling me out of my brief reverie. John was still glaring at me as Isaac crossed the room to sit beside me. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, revealing a Latin phrase beneath the crook of each elbow in a crude hand. Little phrases that served as blessings or totems from each of us to our closest friends. There were times since then that the sight of my own would make me cry. That hadn't happened for a long time, though.

The one on the inside of Isaac's left forearm read, "Numquam timebunt umbrae". My drunken hand had etched it into his skin that night. "Never fear the shadows." It was a bit pretentious, but we were new to magic, and having that power made us all a bit dramatic.

He'd had a penchant for things like that prior to that night, however. He and John had gotten tattoos together one weekend. Inspired by a Holy Sonnet penned by John Donne, Isaac had gotten 'Death, be not proud', and John had chosen 'Death, thou shalt die'.

I had rolled my eyes, but those tattoos led to our impromptu ink session a few weeks later.

"I haven't seen this movie in years." Isaac remarked. He moved further up on the bed to lean against the headboard. As he lit his cigarette, I started to move the ashtray. He held up a hand, stopping me. After a bit, he flicked the ash into the small plastic bowl on my stomach with a smile.

We watched in silence for a while. The tension slowly bled out of the room. Isaac took the ashtray from me at some point, setting it back on the nightstand. As he relaxed back into the bed beside me, I heard John grunt. Isaac and I looked over in confusion and worry.

John's sharp features were twisted, his smoky blue eyes shut tight. I watched his left hand twitch as he whimpered. Isaac quickly climbed over me, surprising me with the grace of his movement. He knelt at John's side.

"He's having a nightmare."

I sat up, swinging my bare feet onto the thin carpet. John let out a low whine.

"We shouldn't wake him." Isaac looked up at me, ready to try to stop my approach. I stepped just out of his reach and sat at the foot of John's bed. When I put my hand on his calf, I could feel the tension in his body through the thin material of his suit.

"John, John honey. Wake up." I lightly patted his leg, eyes locked on his face. I remembered the first time I saw one of his nightmares.

This one was a pleasant dream comparatively.

We'd been back in college. Everything worth experiencing happened back then. We had been watching a movie on that awful old couch I ended up inheriting. He had fallen asleep with his head on my stomach, and after I'd finished watching the credits and counting the bricks in his fireplace, he started to stir.

That's actually putting it mildly. He twitched and thrashed like he was fighting. A garbled scream tore its way from his throat. I had tried to scramble away, but the arm of the couch dug into my back, just above my hips, pinning me. I grabbed for his shoulders, crossing my arms across his thin chest and wrapped my legs around his hips from behind. I hoped it wasn't some kind of seizure. I called his name until he came out of it with a barked gasp. He was just as confused as I was. Said he couldn't remember what the dream was about and he woke up when I started putting wrestling moves on him. We'd laughed and argued about it for a while and ended up in his bed for a bit before I walked back to my apartment across the campus.

"John, baby, wake up."

He jolted awake, gasping for breath like a drowning man. His eyes were wild, and Isaac even raised his arm across his face when that glare raked across him. I was sure he'd seen John in hellion mode, but he'd never had that look aimed at him.

Not like I had.

"You had another bad one." I stood from the bed and went back to the one Isaac and I had gotten out of, going to the farther side from where John lay. There was a papery crinkling sound as he fussed with his pack of cigarettes.

"Here." Isaac held up a lighter for him, the flame illuminating the haggard expression on his own face.

John grunted a thanks as I crawled under the blankets. A moment later, Isaac joined me. He stayed chivalrously on his side of the bed. I rolled over to face him, placing a hand on his chest and looking into that familiar face. The way he smiled in the dim light from the sign outside made my heart twitch in my chest. He put one hand over mine. We scooted closer to each other and fell asleep, curled up like we used to.