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"Of course. Drive safe. I-" He stops, and Carter stops too despite being halfway down the staircase. Was he going to say I love you? Is Carter ready to say that back? "Thank you, Carter."
"Yeah." Carter clears his throat. "No problem. Text you soon."
Ace is awake, as he’s overlooking the mission from the safehouse. He answers Carter’s quick phone call and promises to let him past security like Travis or Maison usually would, and sure enough he’s there waiting in the dark beside the security booth that’s camouflaged as a small tree.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks as they walk together down the winding path to the house, someone else handling parking Carter’s SUV in the underground garage where all vehicles are hidden away so as to not arouse suspicion from any aerial imaging.
“Travis wanted me to come, I guess.” Carter stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets, finding a piece of lint with his fingers and fiddling with it. “Something about Quinton fucking with his head and me needing to be safe."
Ace sighs. "Yeah. He's doing his best to stay stoic, but Quinton still seems to have picked up on you being a sore subject, and he's not afraid to use it against him."
"Are you watching? Or listening?"
"Both."
“Is this your first time overlooking things?” Carter asks. “Maison usually does it, right?”
“We usually trade time. He’s a huge fucking worry wart, though, so he’d usually linger even when it was my shift.”
“That’s Maison,” Carter mumbles. “My worry wart. My mom was one, too.”
“He talks about her, you know.”
Carter looks over at the man, squinting in the dark. “Really?”
“Yes. And he makes her famous apple pie every holiday - even the ones like fucking Halloween and shit. And he has a garden, in the summertime. With-”
“With her roses,” Carter finishes, his throat suddenly tight.
“Yes.” Ace smiles. “And it drives him nuts that we can’t do fireworks here, but every fourth, he gives himself the night off and drives to the nearest town for their display. He said your mom loved fireworks.”
Carter blinks, and a tear falls down his cheek. He rolls the piece of flint between his fingers hard enough to make it grow hot beneath his touch.
The house is quiet as they enter. The only one awake seems to be Nolan as he sits curled up in the corner of the couch with a notebook and pen. His head whips up when he spots Carter. “You’re here.”
“Couldn’t relax,” Carter mumbles, shrugging a shoulder. It's not the truth, but it's not a lie either, and it's easier than trying to explain things. Ace quietly excuses himself and pushes past them both, probably heading back to his office to oversee things.
Would he let Carter come with? Would Carter even want to? Would he have to see or hear the things the man he loves is doing to Quinton? Would Carter be able to handle it if Quinton admits that Elliot is dead? Would Carter survive watching firsthand if things went wrong and Travis somehow got hurt or killed?
Yeah, no.
Carter will avoid the office tonight for sure.
“Is everyone else sleeping?”
“I think so, yeah.” Nolan frowns. “I’ll keep you company, though.”
“No, no. That’s - that’s fine. I’ll try to sleep, actually.”
Nolan nods slowly. “If you’re sure.”
He thinks he is, at first. But only a few minutes into lying awake on his old bed, he realizes there's no way he'll be able to sleep. Not when he's so worried about Travis. If he got Quinton - which he must have for Quinton to be saying things about Carter - then the danger has passed, right? But what now? How will Travis get the man to talk? Is he… torturing him?
Carter doesn't know how he feels about that possibility. On one hand, Quinton was the man who had Carter kidnapped and sold. Casey and Elliot too. He's who employed the guards. He's who dictated that they should only get small pieces of stale bread and be hosed off like animals and be dragged off to the playroom for the guards to have their fun with them.
But… Travis isn't supposed to torture. He isn't supposed to participate in that kind of darkness anymore. That was a world for Nathan Roarke.
Is this the first time Travis has had to return to that part of himself? Did he do it when he killed Mica? He had been covered in blood and fucked in the head after that…
