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Felinus rolled his eyes and was sure his brother did the same. “Sounds like you are having fun. I’ll leave you to it. Will you be ready in an hour?”
“If you stop talking to me, yeah, I can make him chum in an hour,” Bat agreed.
“You are lucky we’ve known each other so long, Bat,” Felinus said lightly. “I’d have to kill you if you had been a soldier talking to me like that.”
“If I was a soldier,” Bat said just as lightly, “I’d be too awed by your legend to ever dream of telling you to stop talking to me.” Another thud of something being tossed into a bucket. “We’ll see you soon.”
Checklist
Thomas stared blankly at the tiled wall for longer than he thought he would. Trying to ground himself was both harder and easier than it had been back at the pub. The mantras he usually used after the nightmares hadn’t done much. It felt like he was floating just above himself, staring down at the shell and trying to will it to do something. Disconnected, numb—
When Seong had poked in, he had felt a spark, his mind finally snapping back into focus as the door opened. It had been so cute, watching Seong cover his eyes so he couldn’t peek at Thomas through the glass, how he seemed to linger for longer than was necessary as he set clothes down, including a spare jacket Thomas had packed.
Thomas had wondered what would happen if Seong did peek. Would he see how thin the thread tethering Thomas to reality was? Would he offer somehow to be his anchor? Would he stay with him because Thomas needed to see him to feel real?
But he didn’t peek. Of course he wouldn’t. That would be disrespectful. Instead, he reassured Thomas that there was no rush to get out of the shower and left him alone.
The second the door clicked, Thomas floated away again.
“Okay,” he murmured, rubbing his face with both hands then running his fingers through his hair. “Checklist.”
Peacock.
“If he isn’t dead by now, he certainly is wishing he was,” Thomas muttered to himself, remembering the sounds and Bat’s voice in the room. That had been a knife cutting through meat and the gurgling was how men sounded when their throats filled with blood.
Paradox.
“Also, most likely dead,” he muttered, shuddering at the combined memory of Mateo’s gun and Thomas’s gun. “Or at the very least injured and being informed of his new job description.”
Lux and Zone?
“Hmmm,” he mused. “Probably not dead. There’s too much money to lose. Alive unless they stop making money for Mateo or seem like they’ll double-cross him.”
Gregorio.
Thomas paused for a while on that one, frowning as he remembered the other young man’s callous comments about not having a choice and people Thomas cared about suffering. “Alive,” he decided, remembering Mateo’s orders being followed with only the tiniest of protests. “But still stuck. Fuck.” He felt himself returning to himself as pity for the other boy filled him. He didn’t know Gregorio’s story, but he had the impression it was similar to those Clovers at the pub: men who would follow the authority figure in front of them because to go against him was a death sentence.
Danny.
The disconnect was immediate, like someone had shoved him out of his body and only fraying threads kept him connected.
Danny?
He tried to think of Danny, of their first date, first kiss. He tried to remember his smile that would make Thomas smile whenever he saw it. He wanted to remember the pressure of him pressed against Thomas when they snuck under the bleachers after games, or into the locker room after the team left for the day, or even his arm around his waist the other morning when they had woken up. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t remember any of it. All of his good memories of Danny were being overrode with the image of Danny rejecting Thomas’s silent pleas to be held, his refusal to look at him, the rage when he finally did, and leaving him alone, locked out of their room without a word.
Thomas curled in on himself as he cried, feeling as if someone cracked his chest open and ripped out his heart. He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream into the void and the uncaring universe, to demand how someone who was suppose to love him could turn so completely on him over things that Thomas hadn’t done. He hadn’t done anything to deserve that rejection, that rage. He’d put his life and his freedom at risk for Danny, and for what? To not even be able to feel anything except pain at the sight of him.
Eventually, the tears stopped as he heaved and shook on the floor of the shower, cold despite the hot water still pounding down on him.
Slowly, he got up, wiping at his face, blowing his nose and washing it away. He almost stayed in the shower. Maybe he could drown in it, and then he would be free of having to deal with whoever was waiting in the room for him.
Instead of that, he got out to dry himself on the fluffy hotel towel, and pulled on his clothes.
Seong was sitting on the bed when Thomas came out, mindlessly twisting one of Thomas’s snake-shaped fidget toys in his fingers, the one Seong had given him all those months ago. He looked as tired as Thomas felt, his narrow eyes bloodshot, his expression vacant as he stared at the wall. Then he blinked and turned his head, a small smile, a low sigh, a tilt of his head as he looked at Thomas. “Hey,” he breathed, holding up the snake. “I borrowed this. I hope that was okay.”
Thomas breathed in slowly, once again able to feel gravity working as he stared at Seong. “It’s fine,” he said, his voice hoarse as he crossed the room, glancing towards the closed door.
“There’s no rush,” Seong said. “They’ll wait.”
