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With an air of tense reluctance, Ewan slunk into the room. He closed the door behind him and leaned on it, grimacing at Jack miserably.
“I don’t want to be here,” he said. Then he shivered, folding his arms tight across his chest and scowling. “You’re busy. I should…fuck this, I’m gonna just—”
Jack stood up. Ewan was…disheveled, certainly, but at work he always resembled a diminutive Columbo with his ill-fitting, rumpled suits and equally rumpled hair. Today, however, he looked almost ill, too pale and tight-lipped for everything to be all right.
What could have gone wrong to make him brave the elevator to the top floor and present himself to Jack like this? Why would Channon have suggested it?
“What happened?” Jack asked, lowering his tone to something he might have used on Channon at a time like this.
Ewan shook his head violently, like he was trying to shake off a persistent fly. “Nothing. Just. Nothing.”
The thought of trying to drag it out of him made the back of Jack’s neck itch. “It can’t be nothing or you wouldn’t be here. I imagine you’d rather eat glass than come to me for anything.”
As he said it, Jack realized there was more truth in the joke than he’d intended. This had to be serious.
In any case, it made Ewan laugh, a sour, bitter sound. “Oh, aye,” he agreed, rubbing his upper arms like he was cold. Jack examined him and tried to look past his prickly exterior. (”He’s like a cactus,” Nate had said once. “You can’t grab hold of him, but behind the spikes he’s all soft, gooey center.”)
Jack beckoned him over with one hand. “Sit down,” he said, pitching it like a firm suggestion rather than an order. As much as he wanted to gain control of the situation, he suspected Ewan would respond poorly to orders from him.
After a long pause, Ewan pushed off the door, slouching across the carpet to throw himself messily into the chair facing Jack’s desk. He hunched his shoulders and ran his hands through his hair. “This is fucking daft,” he muttered. But then he looked up, and Jack could see he was upset and trying to hide it. “I got an email from my ex,” he said, almost sarcastically. Jack nodded, expecting him to go on, but he didn’t.
“Not a good ex, I take it,” Jack said, and the sound Ewan made was dismissive, but the way he looked…Jack realized he was more than rattled. Ewan seemed almost frightened. Or lost, perhaps, untethered from his usual self.
“The ex you remind me of,” he said. It sounded like it was supposed to be an insult, so Jack read it as such.
“A very bad ex, then.”
Ewan nodded. “The worst.” Then he seemed to reconsider. “I mean, he could have been worse. He wasn’t…you know. Abusive.”
Jack thought about some of the things Channon had hinted at with regard to Ewan’s past. The math was pretty easy to do. “Are you sure about that? Abuse can look like other things when you’re too close to it.”
Ewan made a frustrated noise, scrubbing his hand through his hair and curling his fingers into a fist to tug against his scalp. “Christ, you sound like Nate.”
So Nate, at least, thought Ewan’s ex was abusive. And I remind Ewan of him. It was an unflattering thought.
It also put some things into perspective.
“What did the email say?” Jack asked, low and quiet.
“Oh, fuck, it just…he asked how I was doing, if I was seeing anyone. If I wanted to catch up next time he’s in town.” Ewan dragged a hand over his face and pressed his knuckles against his teeth to chew on them. “It’s nothing. It’s fucking nothing, but…”
Jack waited, watching Ewan’s agitation and feeling strangely displeased.
Eventually Ewan said, “It’s just that he said, ‘next time I’m in Santa Rita’. And he sent it to my work email. So he knows where I am. He knows I’m here, and that I work here, and…I don’t know how he knows that.” Ewan looked up again, and Jack could see his chest rising and falling too fast, his breath too shallow. Distressed. He was distressed, and the part of Jack that knew the difference between a sub under stress and a sub in trouble kicked in automatically.
“It’s okay,” he said, crouching down so he was eye level with Ewan. He held out a hand but didn’t touch him. “Take a deep breath. Then let it go, slowly.”
Surprisingly, Ewan did it, inhaling deeply and holding the breath for a count of five before letting it go. Then he did it again, unprompted, and fixed his eyes on Jack.
For a moment, neither of them said anything. Then Ewan made a grumpy noise. “I’m not having a panic attack.”
“No, you’re not,” Jack agreed. “But you’re obviously upset. Your ex isn’t supposed to know where you are, then?”
Ewan shook his head. “No fucking way. I thought…I never thought I’d hear from him again. Not after the way he ditched me.”
He sounded hurt. Usually, Jack would have enjoyed seeing Ewan hurt, but this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Ewan tied to a Saint Andrew’s cross and bawling his eyes out because Nate had flogged him to breaking point was a different creature than Ewan looking like his world had been upended.
Jack itched to do something about it. It’s what Channon would want. Nate told me to take care of him.
