Mechanical Gods (lgbtq+)

Chapter Thirteen: A Deal by the Poison

     Tyler didn't come out of his room for the next couple of hours, opting to talk to Aiden instead, not about his lingering feelings for Ethan, but about random things like Napoleon Bonaparte's egocentric goals for Europe and William Shakespeare's inspirations for his plays where Aiden had the audacity to accuse Tyler's favorite playwright of fraud. That went into a heated discussion that lasted like a debate match, ending both of them in a draw. Aiden's opinion of the matter was unwavering, and so was Tyler's. Tyler was grateful for it since it distracted him of Ethan.

     As the hours waned, Ethan crept back into Tyler's mind when his conversations with Aiden tapered out. He and Ethan had been dating since freshman year of college, with Tyler expecting something was going to come out of it, but ended up broken and battered emotionally when Ethan, out of the blue, broke up with him the day before graduation day.

     It was one of the hardest days of Tyler's life, one burned through his memory forever, and the sting still lingered. He cried that day, though, Hannah and his mother (who were the only ones present to support him that day) mistook it for happy tears for such a joyous occasion. Tyler could never look at a cap and gown the same way ever again. He had cried on it so many times that every time he saw one, he could see himself wearing it, and remembered himself crying in an empty stall inside one of the science building again.

     Shaking Ethan's memories out of his head, he drew enough courage, along with Aiden's urging, to step out of his room and sauntered down toward one of the three living rooms that were around his father's mansion. He opted for the quieter one on the western side, and luckily enough, he was right. Back when he was young, the space used to be his haven since hardly his father, or any of his siblings except for Hannah, came into that area of the house. It was sort of a library with one wall encompassed by hundreds of books, real books with paper, shelved alphabetically on the bookshelf, along with rows of couches in front of a large fireplace, a grand piano, a small solarium, and a pool table.

     Tyler picked up one of Jules Verne's book and tiptoed his way to a windowsill at the far corner. When he turned the book to the cover side, he realized he picked up The Mysterious Island.

     Tyler read a couple more hours with the book, reading close to a hundred and fifty pages in. He was a fast reader, a gift he was proud of out of his siblings who weren't bookworms like him. Tyler still hadn't come out and talked to the other guests before his father's big annual dinner, but Tyler wasn't in the mood to talk to real people at the moment. He'd rather spend time with Jules Verne and Aiden.

     "I find that book quite challenging," said Aiden all of a sudden. He was standing across from him beside the piano, staring at Tyler.

     "You shouldn't stand in the shadows like that. You look like a serial killer," said Tyler, laughing.

     "Oh. Sorry," frowned Aiden.

     Eyes widening, Tyler realized his slip. The thief's dead body materialized in his mind with Aiden's bloody hand standing over him, and he scrambled to push that image away. "Wait, why'd you find this book challenging? It's a castaway story," said Tyler quickly, changing the subject.

     "The backbone, it is. Though, not the human part."

     "The logical part, you mean."

     Aiden cocked his head. "You understand what I was saying?"

     "Of course. I've caught it before. This book isn't my first rodeo with Jules Verne's work. He made humanity too idealistic and moralistic within the story. Humanity is all knowing, able to solve any crisis unimaginable. Though, throughout history, castaways fared worse than what Captain Nemo and the other characters experienced in the book. Morally, these characters were unwavering, highly unreasonable from their dignified self. But we humans don't exactly adhere to that kind of expectations for, well, a human. Humans are brutes in reality."