Cold Hands, Warm Heart: steampunk gay romance Read online

  Story copyright 2015 by Hollis Shiloh. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without written permission from the author. All characters and events are fictitious, and any similarity to real people or events is coincidental. Cover design by Victoria Davies. Cover image content is being used for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted in the content is a model. Copy-editing and proofreading by Martin O'Hearn.

  About the story:

  Jason is self-conscious about his metal arm and uncomfortable with his sexuality. A big, quiet guy who intimidates a lot of people without even trying to, he works as a cook — and has a hopeless crush on his friend, Dr. Kingsley. Will Jason ever have a shot with his friend? Or does life have a different curveball to throw him?

  Approx. 22,000 words — A steampunk-themed gay romance.

  Takes place in the same world as "Like A One-Eyed Cat," "Gear Heart," "Wes and Kit," etc, but can be read alone.

  Cold Hands, Warm Heart

  Jason Donnelly stalked through the foggy night. He tried to keep a low profile, as he almost always did: an impossibility for a man his size, and for one with such an obviously metal arm. It drew every stare. He hated going out of the house.

  Jason lived with and worked for Mr. Graeham, whom most people just called the boss. Jason was a cook, though he had been a soldier before, where he had lost his arm — and his life — before being revived and fixed up with mechanical and magical additions to himself.

  He was taking bread to the men down by the docks — the ones who hadn't come in out of the cold at Graeham's, for whatever reason. Not every mechanicalized soldier could trust even that much. It did take some effort, on some days.

  These men begged, stole, borrowed, or fought for everything they had, which was very little. Usually someone else took the bread, but they were all busy, and Jason couldn't make the men wait. He'd shouldered the bag himself, muttered a grumpy "see you later" and headed out into the night.

  They would be hungry. They would be waiting. And still he very much didn't want to go. It made his skin crawl to see how they lived, or died, the other soldiers who hadn't found anyone to take them in, to protect them from a society that no longer wanted them, that was frightened of them.

  Jason's arm and foot ached. They might be metal now, but somehow they could still hurt on a cold, foggy night, and often chose to do so. The phantom pain was annoying.

  "Wait for me!" called Dr. Harrold Kingsley, pushing up his glasses and running down the alleyway from the house to catch up with Jason.

  Jason glanced back, hugging the sack tighter. In spite of himself — Harrold had never noticed him, and likely never would — he felt his heart give a little pitter-patter of fluttering happiness.

  Jason was very fond of the doctor. Even though Harrold had been largely responsible for keeping Jason alive.

  "I'm sorry, but I'd like to see if anyone needs medical attention while I'm here," said Harrold, walking crisply in his clean, polished boots, holding his black doctor's bag competently by his side.

  "Want me to hold that for you?" mumbled Jason.

  Harrold cast him an affectionate look, and Jason felt the tips of his ears heating. The doctor was so perfect — fine-boned, youthful-faced, clear-skinned, and clever-eyed. He was compassionate and decisive, and always dressed impeccably. And he barely knew Jason was alive, aside from being a doctor to him, and caring for him with his special conditions. And as a friend.

  "I'm not feeble yet, Donnelly," said Harrold, hefting his bag a little higher. He stifled a yawn, however. "It's been a long day, I must admit."

  That was Dr. Kingsley — always on the move, helping on the crusade to improve the lot of men like Jason who were kept alive by magical machinery in a world where most people would rather they simply disappeared and died quietly, like the gentlemen they weren't.

  These ex-soldiers were a sore reminder to many of a war they would much rather forget entirely. Jason felt their fear and disgust. But he wanted to forget just as much.

  The doctor hummed softly as he walked. When the air was still and heavy around them, Jason almost thought he could smell the other man by taking a slow, deep breath and holding it. Was that just the faintest scent of the doctor's harsh soap and rosewater? He was really rather vain, thought Jason affectionately. He longed to muss up the perfect man's hair, to make him smile in surprise, to make his body sing.

  If that were even possible anymore.

  "Jason," began the doctor, about to say something that sounded vaguely didactic.

  Just then three large men stepped into their path — and one more stepped up behind them. They were intimidating in the gloom, lit only as hulking shapes in the darkness.

  Someone cracked his knuckles. "You Dr. Kingsley?" asked one of the men gruffly. His tone was at odds with the intimidating approach. He sounded scared and gruff.

  Jason's panic receded a touch, though he didn't move from his place in front of the doctor. He had stepped there automatically, putting one arm back to shield him and hold him close.

  Dr. Kingsley allowed it. He was always very trusting of Jason's choices and ability to keep him safe. It was humbling and infuriating, at times, that he could trust Jason so very much, but seemed to have no earthly clue of Jason's fonder feelings for him. Or perhaps just did not want to be aware of them, and so found it more convenient not to be.

  "Yes, that's correct," said Harrold crisply. "What do you want?"

  He stayed near Jason. Jason supposed he could have taken on all four men at once, if not for his concern over Harrold. Keeping him safe was the main priority, and the doctor was not a fighter. He was a man who healed people, with his prodigious skill as a physician, his sympathetic magic, and his training as a machinologist. All these things worked well together to make him of much use to the community of mechanicalized men, such as it was.

  The speaking thug cleared his throat awkwardly and floundered on. "Well, we, ah, that is, we'd be very appreciative if you'd just take a gander at our…our friend."

  "Here?" asked Kingsley sharply. He was all business, snapping open his bag, moving quickly around Jason's protective bulk. "Not in an alleyway, surely, sir?"

  "N-no, that is…"

  From the street, there was a cough. "He's underground, sir," said a small, piping voice — an urchin boy had now crept up near the men. "He's my father, sir. He can't hardly move these days. What with the fights—"

  One of the men coughed, and the boy cut himself off abruptly, giving a little start as if he realized he'd said too much. The boy edged nearer and tugged at Dr. Kingsley's sleeve. "If you can't help him, he'll die, sir. They don't take men like my father at the hospitals."

  Of course they didn't; Jason was all too painfully aware of that, as was Dr. Kingsley.

  "Of course I'll check on your father," said Harrold kindly, addressing the boy and allowing himself to be led.

  "There better not be any funny business," growled Jason. "Or somebody's gonna be sorry."

  "Oh, gonna take us all on, tough guy?" sneered one of the shadow men. His voice wasn't quite right, but rather sounded almost like a machine speaking. As they stepped through a patch of light to follow the boy and Kingsley, Jason caught a gleam of metal at the man's neck.

  "I could," said Jason simply. "And I will if you make me."

  They said nothing to that, although one of them snorted and another rumbled a low, deep laugh.

  The journey was tense and hurried. The group went into a building that appeared abandoned, and from there travelled to a lower part of the building. Here there was very little light, just a few candles guttering softly and a single gas light.

  Kingsley
made a sound in his throat and rushed forward. On a ragged bed in a room that smelled of illness, a dying man lay. He wore very little, having been stripped of nearly all his clothing, and was clearly in a fevered state.

  "Oh my," said Kingsley, and knelt by the bed, unworried about his clean trousers, his dignity, or anything but the man in front of him.

  The man gave a weak, wheezy cough. He reached up and grasped at the doctor's arm. "Help."

  "I intend to, sir. Let me have my hand free." He waited until he was released. "Thank you." He knew better than to fight the strength of a mechanicalized man, even an injured one. They were very strong.

  He should know. He'd helped make many of them during the war.

  There were red marks near the man's chest, where he had a bit of metal covering what was no doubt lifesaving equipment inside. It was as though he'd been trying to scratch it off, frantic with the irritation or pain or delirium. But under Kingsley's cool hands and murmured, gentle words, he seemed to calm.

  The competence and assurance of Harrold did as much for the man, Jason thought, as the antibiotic and magical treatment, the ointment and the quick adjustment of his metal parts that Harrold performed, all in the matter of a few minutes, while working in a noxious room and by low light.

  Jason stood watch, keeping an eye on everything, feeling useless. Once in a while he fetched a tool for the doctor when asked. He couldn't quite predict which or when, although he tried. He always tried.

  Finally, the injured man slept peacefully, his chest rising and falling shallowly.

  Harrold rose and closed his bag slowly. "There. He should recover now. He really should be in a clean environment and have plenty of good food and rest, though. Here's the card of a man you can trust. Jason lives with him as well, and there is always room for a few more!"

  Jason felt himself redden, though he hoped no one saw it in the low lighting. He hated thinking of himself as one of Graeham's charity cases. He knew he did important work for the man, but wasn't sure anyone else quite believed that. And, of course, he was not the only one who could find his way around a kitchen or deliver bread. He was not irreplaceable.

  "We'll show you back out," said the men gruffly, after Dr. Kingsley had left some further medicine doses and instructions with the boy.

  "Of course," Harrold said, and sighed. "Please do consider getting him to that clean, safe place."

  Jason hung back as the doctor spoke with the men.

  The boy had stayed by his father. It was unusual to see an altered soldier who had children, although Jason didn't know why it should be, on second thought: most of them still functioned reproductively, and probably most of them liked women.

  Another check mark against Jason. He couldn't have had children if he was the most handsome and whole man in the world. He only found men attractive.

  "I'll take care of him now, mister," said the boy, sounding older than his years, and yet somehow very young at the same time. "Thank you."

  Jason cleared his throat. "Is your mother around?"

  "Oh yes," said the boy brightly. "But she's out working. She'll be back later."

  It sounded like the lie he told everyone.

  Jason knelt, his knees creaking a little. The gruff men had forgotten him for the moment, surrounding the doctor like they were his latest fans. Jason still held the bread bag, and he freed one loaf now and held it out to the boy. The boy's gaze fastened on it, and he took it shyly, forgetting to say his thanks this time.

  "What are the fights?" said Jason. "Is it in this part of town?"

  "Uh-huh." The boy sounded very young now, as he stuffed bread into his mouth and chewed with one cheek full. "Next street."

  "Mechanicalized men, or anybody?"

  "'S a secret," mumbled the boy, chewing and looking up at him from under his lashes.

  "I won't tell," said Jason solemnly. "I just wondered if I could be in them." He pushed up his sleeve, revealing the gleam of metal that was his newer arm.

  The boy's gaze lit with relief and pleasure. "It's the old factory on Third Street, the empty one. Saturday night," he whispered, putting his arms around Jason's neck and hugging him as he whispered the words. "And thank you for the bread."

  He drew back, feeling awkward and uncomfortable with gaining the little boy's trust. It felt unsafe. He would never hurt a child, but it seemed wrong for the boy to trust someone so easily. Unless he was a remarkably good judge of character, he shouldn't be trusting strangers with anything, and Jason wished he hadn't asked.

  Still, as he followed Harrold and the others back out of the building, he was glad he knew it now. He wanted to come back. He wanted to fight.

  There was nowhere in his life he could get out his aggressions, and it would be good to know what was going on in the underground fighting scene. At some point, it might even be of use to the boss, inside information like that, and that wasn't something most of the boss's rescues and strays could do. Only Jason had the cred to fight like this — not to mention the desire.

  #

  Harrold went out of his way to check on the man and his son, because they had not taken up the offers of help. He reported the man was faring much better, and should recover completely.

  On Saturday, Jason slipped out to join the fights, if he could.

  It was a pleasantly foggy night, filled with damp air that felt heavy and hard to breathe. He was glad to slip through the abandoned factory's door. Men loitered around, keeping a sharp eye out, but nobody turned him away.

  He expected there would be a fee to pay at some point to enter, as a spectator, and sure enough, someone stepped from the shadows and jerked a hand out, naming an amount.

  "No," said Jason, shaking his head. "I'm here to fight." He pulled back his sleeve, baring his arm.

  The man stepped back, looked him up and down speculatively. "Yeah, I guess you would be good in a fight." He chewed his tobacco aggressively and took a moment to spit juice. "All right, I'll take you through."

  He shouldered his way through what was proving to be a large crowd in a large building. It was big enough to echo. The walls were made of brick, but sagged and dripped. There were rat droppings in the corners of the room, and sometimes, something small and gray ran in the shadows, dodging away from feet with a squeak. Bold rats, probably used to scavenging for dropped bits of food during the fights. Unless there was a rat terrier here to drive them away, they would get bolder every week until they became a hazard.

  He shuddered inwardly at the thought, at the horror of it. There had been rats all his life, back on the farm, a constant, never-ending battle against rats. He remembered the poison his father had spread liberally and thickly, the bad way it smelled and made him cough. He remembered the sick scent of gas on the front lines that had reminded him of it, a bit. He'd never gotten a bad dose, not like some men. But still, some days he sat bolt upright in bed, tasting it, gasping for breath, feeling as if he couldn't breathe. There had been rats in the trenches anyway, for all the gas attacks. They were terrible things, crawling over no-man's land, eating unspeakable things, stealing from the soldiers and making havoc in a world gone madly to hell.

  For Jason, there had been nothing in the war but oblivion and hopeless madness. Some men had stayed strong, while others cracked, but they'd all had cracks somewhere, some deeper than others, and some the sort that you could hide on the outside while going quite, quite mad on the inside.

  He hated the sight and sound of rats, and shuddered involuntarily at the reminder.

  "Here we got somebody wants to fight, boss," said the tobacco-chewing man, jerking a thumb at Jason.

  He held up his arm, didn't say anything. Here, it was his credentials instead of his shame, something to proclaim instead of hide. He liked this place already — aside from the rats.

  The man who was clearly in charge — and appeared to be unaltered by magic or machinery — took a cigar out of his mouth and ran his gaze dispassionately over Jason. "Yeah. Yeah, he can go in." He jerked
his hand towards the ring.

  The middle of the room was lit poorly with old-looking, fragile electric lights strung up in a makeshift, unnerving kind of way. The bulbs were big and heavy, and made a buzzing noise. He hoped none of them popped, showering glass on the crowd below.

  It wasn't a huge crowd, but it was big enough. There were a mix of ex-soldiers and others. Some of the ex-soldiers were clearly altered, but many others were not. It must be a pastime to come here, to see the fights. Clearly, though, they didn't have proper medical care for the injured men, or Harrold wouldn't have needed to help that poor man earlier.

  Jason would have to be careful: Harrold wasn't here now.

  He missed Harrold whenever he wasn't nearby, even though that was more of the time than he was. The man travelled a lot, both on his medical missions and for his actual job — he was a well-regarded nerve specialist — but Jason still missed him a lot whenever he was gone. It was like the bright, shining center of his universe had simply flicked off like a light bulb.

  Somebody whistled as he stepped up nearer the ring for a good view. "There's a big 'un," said somebody crassly. "He'll do. Give me the odds."

  So, betting as well. That did seem to bring people together, Jason thought cynically.

  He watched the first two fights with interest, cataloguing the styles and intensity of the fighters. The guys like himself with additions to keep them alive tended to be faster and tougher than most people — but also with killer metabolisms to keep running.

  The four men in the two fights he watched were fit and strong, so they must be fairly well fed. They also fought with a tough precision. But to an expert's eye, they clearly tried hard not to do any real damage to one another. Not the lasting kind. Nothing that could kill, maim, or require the help of an expert to fix.

  Jason had boxed in the military, and before in a few barnyard fights, so he had a pretty good eye for it. Their care in the ring confirmed his feeling that the men weren't receiving proper medical care. It was no surprise; there weren't many doctors with the knowledge to fix mechanicalized men. Even fewer cared to.