The Man - 1. Story

Adam arrived at his apartment fifteen minutes later and lightly damp; it turned out that the clouds did have a little rain in them. It was light enough to give him only slight discomfort. He opened the door to his good-sized flat, and heard the sound of pots and pans off in the kitchen.
“Hey,” he heard Neil call. “You’re home early.”
Adam said nothing, and debated on going to the couch and taking a nap for the rest of the day before deciding on heading for the kitchen.
“Yeah, well, I saw Erick at the park, and that kind of ruined it,” Adam said as he walked into the bright kitchen.
Neil grimaced slightly; if anything ruins Adam’s daily time in the park, it ruins his whole day, and Neil liked his boyfriend happy.
“Oh, shit, hun.” He stopped bustling around and turned to look at Adam, leaning against the counter. “I’m sorry, but lunch will be a little while; not only are you early but I’m still feeling the effects a little from...yesterday.”
Adam sighed and did his best to put on a smile. It was easier than he thought.
“That’s fine,” he said. “I’m still feeling it too.”
Neil smiled back wholeheartedly, and began preparing lunch again. Adam sat at the kitchen table, looking at his lover preparing lunch and felt the love for Neil outweigh the bad feelings after seeing Erick.
“That’s what Erick mentioned, by the way,” Adam told Neil.
Neil had gotten down on his hands and knees to search for something in one of the cupboards. He pulled his head back and looked over his shoulder at Adam. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” Adam said, wringing his hands. “He seemed pretty pissed about yesterday, but I tried to tell him it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
Neil’s face, which had been no less than happy the whole time Adam was home, finally fell. The expression almost matched Erick’s earlier, and the reason Erick was so angry become even clearer: except for small variations, the twins looked exactly the same. The usual way to tell them apart was their general demeanor: Neil was a happy-go-lucky lover of life, while Erick was an introverted man that always seemed to be angry no matter what the occasion.
“It sort of is,” Neil said. “I mean, getting absolutely pissed, going to the parade, and then making out in any building we could get into? We got kicked out of businesses so many times, and the cops were almost called on us, hun. I mean, it wouldn’t have been as big of a deal if we would’ve just stayed with the parade, but after a while we went wherever we felt like.” Neil sighed softly. “I hope you didn’t forget a whole lot of yesterday. Because good things did happen. But maybe...next time we should tone it down a bit?”
Adam huffed, but had to concede. “Yeah, I guess so.” He walked over and wrapped his arms around Neil. “You know yesterday happened because I love you, and I want to show that love, right? But yeah—” he huffed again, “—we do need to be more careful next time. You don’t even like drinking.”
“No, I don’t,” Neil admitted.
Neil had finally found everything he was looking for, and had pans on the stove cooking various food items. It smelled good to Adam, but he could feel a headache coming on, so he had to retire to the main room where he laid down on the couch. This helped somewhat, and so he decided to turn on the news.
When he turned it on, they were doing a piece on the parade. Mostly good things were said, and none of it interested Adam in the least, until the end. They had been unaware at the time, but there had been video coverage of the parade, and guess what actually got some attention from the cameramen?
His and Neil’s antics, that’s what. It seemed that some not-so-enthusiastic parade-goers, intending on catching a whiff of anything corrupt or immoral that the parade would bring, were more than happy to focus their cameras on the drinking, making-out, out-of-season carol singing, and general other merriment of Adam and Neil Hartman. Rather than be angry, Adam actually found himself amused, if not pleased, by all the attention he received. He even tittered when he found that some of the cameramen had gotten close enough to actually get very clear images of the two. The fact that almost anyone watching the news right now could probably now recognize him on the street didn’t even faze him. He did nothing but watch the rest of the news, waiting for lunch to be ready.

In the following days, nothing much of notice happened. Both Adam and Neil got curious looks, some odd looks, and even some pretty hostile looks, but no one actually accosted them. But other than that, it was as if the parade had never happened. Adam’s daily walk was never again tainted by the appearance of an angry Erick, and for that, Adam was glad.
In fact, Adam was glad until later that same week, when Adam received a grave phone call. Neil was lying on the couch, watching curiously as his lover’s grip tightened on the receiver until his knuckles were white. A thousand reasons for a phone call raced through Neil’s mind, but none of them made any sense whatsoever.
As soon as Adam set the receiver down on the cradle, his face ashen, Neil sprang forward, taking Adam’s hand, the one that had held the phone, into both of his own.
“What’s the matter? Who called?”
Adam sighed, eyes closed. Neil could feel sweat on Adam’s hand, and could see a bit of perspiration on his forehead. Adam sighed again and looked over at Neil, a stricken look on his face.
Neil grew agitated. “Damn it, Adam, what is it? Tell me!”
Adam tugged on Neil’s hand, leading him towards the door. “Come on, we need to take a drive. Grab your keys.”
“What—”
“Neil, I don’t feel like talking about it. I don’t want to...” He shook his head and looked at the floor, not wanting to look at Neil. “I just want to go. We need to go; it’s urgent, and I don’t want to waste any time.”
Neil protested once again, and Adam finally relented. “We have to identify the body, okay!”
This didn’t satisfy Neil, and he didn’t move an inch to get his keys. “What body? Just what in the hell are you talking about?”
Adam just stared at him, raising an eyebrow, as if to say, Who else? Neil looked confused for a second, not understanding, until realization finally dawned on him. He backed up a few steps, gasping and raising a hand to his mouth.
“Oh God...no, it can’t...”
Adam nodded, short and quick, and then gestured to Neil’s keys. “We’ve got to get going. Let’s not drag this out, okay?”
Neil swallowed thickly, and frantically nodded a few times. Then he ran towards his keys that were sitting in a bowl on the coffee table, threw them at Adam, and followed him out the door.

The car ride was mostly silent on the way to the hospital except for the soft music coming from the car’s speakers. Neil only looked out the window at the passing scenery, biting his fingernails. One of his legs was shaking incessantly and more than once Adam had to keep himself from telling Neil to stop. Not until the hospital came did either of them say anything.
“Were you told what happened?” Neil asked, not sounding overly enthusiastic about knowing.
Adam shook his head. “No.”
Neil whimpered a little bit, squeezing his eyes shut in an attempt to keep from crying as they pulled into the hospital’s parking lot. Adam reached over, took one of Neil’s hands into his own, and squeezed in an attempt to comfort him. Neil squeezed back feebly, and then Adam began to rub Neil’s still-shaking leg.
Adam parked as close as he could to the entrance to the hospital, but neither of them made any move to get out of the car. Neil kept his eyes shut, and Adam was still rubbing Neil’s leg, which had calmed just a bit. Just as Adam was getting ready to open his door, Neil opened his door quickly and got out, running into the hospital. Adam threw open his own door and ran in pursuit.
Neil took only a few running steps into the hospital before he had to stop, sobs wracking his body. He looked around, seeing the sterile whiteness of the walls, the slightly-yellow glare of the lights, and the stoic people seated in not-too-comfortable chairs. He almost screamed when a hand came down on his shoulder. It was Adam.
Adam said nothing, merely leading Neil over to a desk where a secretary sat, speaking on the phone and looking more than a little annoyed. When she saw Adam and Neil, she immediately hung up without so much as a “Goodbye,” or a “Someone’s here,” and Adam immediately began to like her and her obvious sense of duty.
After explaining their situation, the secretary immediately called someone over to direct them over to the small morgue the hospital had. The walk was short, and Neil would very much have preferred a longer one to delay the inevitable. The person that led them there showed them inside, informed them that the medical examiner would be with them shortly, and left.
The morgue was cold and dimly lit. In the middle was a table, looking like nothing more than a huge metal slab that sat upon a thick but short metal pillar. Along the far wall were shelves containing various jars of this and that, mainly liquids of various colors, some containing what seemed to be human body parts. Set into the other walls, not including the one holding the door they had walked through, were cold storage lockers that went from wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling.
After looking around a bit, Neil spoke up. “Why isn’t he already here? Isn’t this his job?”
Adam shrugged. “Maybe he has other duties. I don’t know how the hell this stuff works.”
Just as he said that, the medical examiner, a frail man in his late seventies and bald except for a tuft of white hair perched in the middle of his shiny head, walked in. The man had to use a cane, and the sound of its dark wood tapping against the clinical white linoleum floors echoed hollowly in the room. The sound seemed to scare Neil a little, and he shivered and pressed himself up against Adam.
The man, whose nametag simply stated “Medical Examiner,” didn’t even bother introducing himself. “You’re here to identify the body,” he started off with, raising an eyebrow and overall looking bored—or maybe just somewhat fatigued.
“Y-yes, we are,” Neil stuttered. “And you are...”
The old man only gave him a blank stare before walking to one of the cold storage lockers on the wall to Neil’s right. He didn’t say anything as he pulled on one of the handles reveal a body that was covered in a sterile white sheet. The man stood there, tapping his foot, as Neil edged closer and closer, Adam following close behind.
Just as Neil finally made his way over, the examiner, in a show of dexterity that belied his age, jerked back the edge of the sheet closest to the door of the locker, revealing the face of the dead man that lay beneath. “Beaten to death,” he informed them.
Neil knew what he was going to find under that sheet. He knew and thought that that knowledge would keep him from reacting badly. He thought the worst was over—thought that the initial shock, while not the only one, would be the hardest.
But as he gazed upon the pale face of Erick, the dead face of his twin, he realized that he was dead wrong.
Erick had been cleaned up, but the many various cuts were still visible—the worst being an ugly gash running from eyebrow to temple—and sloppy work could be seen in the presence of dried blood surrounding his nostrils that had been overlooked. The sheet came up to his collar bone, but Neil could still see the ugly bruising that could possibly cover his whole body.
The old man almost gave him a chance to look, grabbing the sheet and acting as if he was going to pull it down, but Adam quickly stopped him by putting his hand on one of the old man’s.
The shock was already doing its work, and what the old man had been about to do pushed Neil over the edge.
As he fainted and fell back into Adam’s arm, the examiner only shrugged, the sheet still in his wrinkled hands.
“Yep,” he said dryly. “I’d say it’s him.”