[ bob began that night having told himself embry was the problem, the asshole, despite the unease in his heart — but he leaves it knowing that isn’t the case. there’s only one person at the scene of every crime, hurting ash and greer and embry and ani.
his resolve still falters, predictably, when he hears embry’s heartbeat in the final thirty of breakfast. around a corner in one of the smaller libraries, dark hair burnished by the sun. now, with his name flashing up on bob’s phone.
he makes it a couple hours before responding. ]
ani isn’t talking to me she already wasn’t last week, when you brought her up while my hand was on your dick can you stop being obsessed with her for five seconds
[ thumb pressed into the corner of his eye to relieve the already-building tension. ]
What am I, your fucking dad? I didn't put you in time out. That's not what I said. Or it's not what I meant. I just didn't want you to give up something good for me. Her friendship is worth something. A lot more than I am.
You haven't been an asshole to me. Or at least not any more than I've been to you. I just learned a whole lot of stuff about you all at once. And I'm not just talking about your void thing. Even just you, apart from it. If that makes any sense.
[ a dozen ungenerous responses spring to the tips of his fingers, ultimately punctuated by the same thought. i tried to tell you this wouldn't fucking work. he considers giving up, leaving bob on read to drive the message home. to forget about this whole months-long fucking mistake before it can blow up in their faces a second time. ]
You're not stupid. The only stupid thing you're doing is talking to me.
I'm sorry. I know how I sound, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I keep fucking things up for you.
Yeah, about you. In addition to being good and smart and so fucking sweet, you can also tear someone apart when you want to. [ not as the sentry. just as bob, which is a far more potent strike. ] And I don't like you any less for it, and I don't know what that says about me. In regards to you. That's what I've been thinking about. You. Just you.
you’re not fucking anything up i don’t want you to feel like you are just because i’m i’m just like this
[ sensitive, difficult, looking for hurts where there are none because they’ve always been everywhere before. ]
pretty sure that says you’re a masochist or like you took on so much water it gave you brain damage you should’ve drowned me for that seriously i should’ve let you drown me for it a couple times even though it wouldn’t stick i’m really sorry
[ the guy you fucked over, now distorted in that soulless version of bob's voice, after he's played it again and again in his head for the last four nights. you want me to want you, the humiliating truth made even more painfully evident in how he can't handle it when he's the one being ignored rather than doing the ignoring. ]
In the kinky way, yeah. I don't know, it's kind of cute when you get mad.
[ as if he hadn't nearly burst into tears. ]
Did I ever tell you that I grew up with my own lake? Water loves me.
[ out of nowhere, abilene's colorless corpse, the relief and disgust and panic he'd felt then hitting him now. what are you going to tell galahad when he's old enough to google his mother's name? he rubs his face with a sigh. ]
Swear to me you won't ever drown. You're too good-looking for it, and I refuse to identify your body.
[ not like anything makes his heart stutter. just you, a full somersault into his throat. why does embry have to go and say things like that? ]
i can swear pretty sure dying's not on the menu anymore, so drowning's out with it
[ molecular regeneration has the edge on a super soldier's accelerated healing. recover from anything, everything, in perpetuity.
the water settles in his memory. embry going under at the pool. the waves receding at rockaway. abilene, a name stolen from the placard in the remembrance hall. the curl of her red hair in the memory, now captured in a portrait. ]
you told ash we were seeing each other, but not about what i did to you. [ because ash would not be nice to him, if embry told him what happened after the pound or with the void. very much not cute. ] i don't know that we should be seeing each other after everything i've done to you, embry. [ you can tear someone apart, and i don't like you any less for it. ] you shouldn't like me, anyway, after all that.
[ that's what he's been thinking about, even more than how ani will feel. than jake's disappointment. if he's the damage, then those closest to him are at the greatest risk. ]
[ he’d meant to, right after leaving the pool. meant to go straight to ash and tell him everything while he was still hot from bob’s hand on his dick and stinging from the cut of his words — that he likes bob far too much, but he’s dangerous and volatile and fucking cruel when he wants to be, that he’s far too much like embry, that whatever lives in his head dug up his pain and tried to bury him in it. could he have died? hadn’t he asked for it both times? in the end he couldn’t voice the full truth of it anyway, too much of a loyal dog to poison the already tenuous well of how the place perceives bob. more than that, he hadn’t wanted ash to worry about any more of his pathetically bad decisions.
and after all that, bob still says it. i don't know that we should be seeing each other. it cuts like an unexpected knife, sinking into his stupid, wanting heart. abruptly, he understands bob’s visceral reaction to his letter. you asked me not to leave you. you dragged me back into this. now you don’t know if we should see each other? ]
We shouldn't. If you want the answer. We shouldn't see each other. But it's too late for that now, because after what you did to me, I need you.
[ apparently, the invitation to get off the ride whenever he wanted expired five minutes after it was issued. ]
At least tell me how to fix this before you abandon me. I feel like shit because of you. And I don't necessarily believe in karma, but I do recognize that this is it.
[ the first message flashes on his screen in divine, abject isolation. we shouldn’t. yes, he thought so. it was only that embry had the reasons wrong. so why does it hurt so bad to see it written out as fact? brutal in its simplicity. his eyes blur before he realises what’s happening, a pain separate from the void. no shadow required to flay him like a jacket.
the middle gets lost in the water.
after what you did to me, i need you, cuts through. overbright. ]
my last handjob cannot have been that good not even while waterlogged and headfucked
[ — suddenly understanding why embry so often deflects the same way. ]
i don’t want you to feel like shit because of me i don’t want to abandon you but i don’t know how to make sure i don’t do the first thing without doing the second thing
[ it's a slow realization that leaves him staring numbly at the screen. he doesn't need you. not like you need him. there is nothing uniquely remarkable that he offers to bob that he can't get with anyone else. so long ago, when ash popped the question to jenny, embry had left their engagement party early with the same awareness — that he was just extraneous, damaged goods who could only love in the most fucked up ways possible. that ash could be happy without him, and embry would never be happy at all. ]
You're an idiot. Everything you do is good.
[ better, because he'd been pushed to the very edges of his mind, nearly escaping himself for those precious few moments. ]
I was just being dramatic.
[ but he thinks of yelena and bucky, who he knows also experienced the void. who must've also felt the harrowing effects of it. who bob hasn't abandoned and doesn't seem to have any inclination to. he thinks of ash and bucky, and ash loving him together and apart. ]
You didn't do anything to me that wasn't already there. So don't worry about it. Okay?
[ the funny thing about your needs is that you actually can go without them. sure, air, food, water — all essential, life-giving — but so much else is deemed a need that isn’t so. family, friends, company. home, health, safety. bob has gone without those for most of his life. had whittled his body and its needs down to one thing in the months prior to the trial, blotting out the rest.
those other needs were really wants. those wants were for quitters. bob has never been a quitter, not of that kind.
so although embry says he needs him, he doesn’t. he relents immediately, after all. want, not need. something he was ready give up days ago. why not here? why not now? and although bob feels suddenly like he needs embry, like he can’t breathe without him — that isn’t true. it can’t be. ]
you’re dramatic about a lot of stuff, but not this, okay?
i know how it feels, when it pulls those memories up. like they happened yesterday or they’re happening right now. like they’ll keep happening forever. it does it to me, too.
that’s the first part. the second
[ the second goes something like this. instead of drawing the hurt out, it takes you inside. to the room that was and wasn’t embry’s. the house in the suburb’s. the wilderness in russia. the lab where they made you what you are. ]
you should talk to ash and greer about what happened. or bucky. he knows better than anybody what it’s like.
[ all the people who can make embry’s life better and not so much fucking worse. ]
[ he doesn't answer for a long time, long enough that maybe bob thinks he's not going to. he's good at pushing his memories down, at co-existing with his own pain. knows when he needs to straighten up and put on a stage-ready smile, knows he can drink himself to sleep and do it all over again the next day with a coffee and newspaper in hand as he winks at the paparazzi. what he's not good at is talking about it. anytime he's ever wanted to confess anything, he's twisted it into a lie, or it's been met with scorn because his timing and delivery couldn't be worse if he tried.
it does it to me, too. his heart hurts, like he's somehow failed at something. so self-centered about his own shitty life, which has historically been entirely his own fault.
more hesitating. he deletes the lie he's typed: sure, i'll talk to them. ]
Why can't I talk to you about it?
You know, I lied to Ash almost all the years that I've known him. Lied about how much I wanted him. Made him think he wasn't good enough to marry. I always wanted to tell him the truth, but I couldn't, for a lot of reasons. So I sold the lie, and I sold it so fucking well. I think you're a horrible liar, so however you answer this, I'll take it as the truth. Do you still want me at all or am I just really, really fucked?
[ time stretches and thins, reedy as the border between worlds. bob lies on his back, on his bed, feet to the floor. phone flipped up on his chest, in case the screen begins to glow. it won’t, because he did the right thing for once. the thing he should have done the second they got back here, and all that power flooded his veins anew.
with both hands on his face, he almost misses the light shift. the blue not quite bright enough, behind his fingers. but the overhead light whirs, flickers, and he peaks through the cracks.
i sold the lie, a reminder of where they differ, despite being the same in so many ways. you’re a horrible liar. yeah. yeah, he knows that. ]
i want you so much it makes me crazy crazier how can you not know that
[ a message which probably makes no sense, and yet seems clearer than: i want you so much i keep putting you in danger. i burned out every bulb on your floor. i saved you even when you hurt me. i said the meanest things i could think of so you’d hate me. i have to leave you if i want to protect you, and i can’t even do that. ]
you can talk to me about it please talk to me about it
[ even after this disaster of a failed-ripcord, torn-parachute escape attempt. maybe he can talk to embry and never touch him. or at least only do it on the good days, when the shadows seem small. maybe he can bargain with the dark. this one’s off limits, another locked door. maybe he can let armand fucking lobotomise him. see if that sticks. ]
[ his jaw clicks with his own pent-up aggression, washed over by how the fuck he's let his stupidly pathetic heart be led here. that bob would refuse to comply when he tried to do the right thing (instead asking him to stay, his dripping wet body pressed into his, curling toward him like a heliotrope so that embry could kiss his warm mouth), only to turn around and puncture the promises between them once he already had embry on a string.
the worst part? he can't even commit to accusing bob of being a manipulative little shit, because he doesn't think bob has ever thought a plan all the way through in his life. not the way embry carefully constructs his castle of lies and then commits to them. bob isn't like you. not deceitful. not one to decide that the pain a season of deception and betrayal causes is worth the outcome if it means he can protect the people he loves in the end. ]
I don't know.
[ no other response to that, when those words curl hot and aching inside of him. unsure where to put them, so they just burn and burn and burn. he takes a breath, dots appearing and disappearing as he types and deletes and types again. finally, he calls, covering his face with one hand as if that'll somehow spare him the humiliation of this conversation. ]
I don't know what you saw. [ the torment apparent in his voice, like bob knowing anything at all causes him pain. was it all the people he killed? was it abilene pulling his clothes off in his bed? was it danny knifing him in the church or was it what he did to danny before? was it ani? any number of his transgressions in his black hole of a life. ] Do you see things every time you touch me?
I don't know what I saw. I mean, I didn't. I, um, figured some of it out after.
[ a little pleading, phone pressed to his cheek like that will bring them any closer to understanding each other. ]
No, it only happens sometimes. [ quickly, ] I've never seen anything of yours before. I've seen — [ hawk turning to a young man at the bar, confidence thrumming then the same as now, with bob looking at him like the commune hasn't changed anything. someone beloved, silhouetted in sunlight, transferring with the press of adam's thumb to his pulse. two girls in the snow, wondering if they can trust each other, with his fingertips brushing yelena's, debris all around them. ] I think it happens when the feeling is too... too big. Good or bad. For me, or for whoever I'm touching. For whoever's touching me.
[ he swallows audibly. ]
It hadn't happened with you before, so I thought. I dunno. I thought you might be safe from it.
[ which is so fucking stupid, yes, but true. always true. maybe that's why it came all at once, held back until the flood. ]
[ he can hear it in bob's voice, that he's been crying or he's close to starting. his hand moves away so he can stare vacantly at the ceiling instead, his guilt a weary throb in his chest. it does it to me, too. is it always? is it now? ]
I'm not that special. [ his voice softer. to be safe from it. to be safe from you. ] I did slay a monster underneath the bed once. For Galahad, when he decided he was scared of the dark.
[ a night where they'd camped on the bedroom floor, surrounded by pillows and galahad's light-up sword. abilene had eventually come to the doorway after their extended ruckus, watching them with the light haloing the tousle of her loose red hair, and the knot of fear within him tightened that much more with the knowledge that he might not be able to protect galahad from the monsters living in their own home.
a slow inhale, surprised to find his eyes wet. his anger has bled away with the sound of bob's voice, now left with his own thorny hurt. maybe if bob keeps talking, that'll go away, too. he already knows he's not going to utter the truth. never going to say those words. you hurt me. they feel small, stupid in comparison to the kind of pain that bob has lived through. and — it's just life. his own life, and it would be beyond absurd to blame bob for making him feel the pain of it. life hurts, and he's never known it to happen any other way. it hurt every time he lied and ash couldn't see what it was costing him. when greer walked down the aisle and it wasn't to him. when abilene did her worst, and he had no one to lean on after. ]
Can I come see you? [ on the quiet edge of begging, his fingertips rubbing away the wetness at his eyes. ] Not to mess around, just to... [ his words seem to slip away, suddenly aware of his own heartbeat, an uncomfortable heat rising to his face. he swallows. ] Because I'm fucking miserable, and I'd rather be miserable with you. If you say something stupid like I shouldn't touch you anymore after what happened, just - don't. Because I'm going to. I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. And I don't want to, and you don't want me to, either.
Says he isn’t special but that he slays monsters. Unreal.
[ he likes thinking of embry that way. happy, doing all the things a dad is supposed to, making sure his kid has nothing to fear. (he likes what he knows of embry’s wife less. the fear, at her shock of red hair. the draw of the water. that she’s pretty, and embry probably thinks so, no matter what else.) ]
Yeah. [ breathed more than said, a hopeful catch in his voice. ] I’m — in my room. [ a place embry hasn’t been, that he seemingly makes a point to avoid, so he probably won’t come. ] It’s messy.
[ yesterday’s suit half-folded over his desk chair and half crumpled on the floor, the desk itself piled with an assortment of crap. books, rubik’s cube, a radio his powers fried the night he left embry’s room (that he can’t figure out how to fix). christmas wrapping he hasn’t thrown out on the floor, the presents either still in the boxes or on the window-seat, which has become the best place to store his valuables in the room’s present state. ]
Adrian organises it every week, but the house made him freaky horny, so he’s been busy with, uh. That. [ anyway. ] Just so you know how miserable it’s gonna be. If you still want to. [ heart in his throat. embry must be able to it hear it. ] I want you to.
[ he hasn't been to bob's room, and almost doesn't come now despite being the one to ask. rather — he stands outside bob's door for several long minutes, wondering what exactly he means to do. why he's even here. drawing closer to the danger feels like the complete fucking opposite of what he should be doing, and yet here he is. world's most pathetic moth, flying directly into robert reynolds' flame. if he's lucky, bob will kill him this time. if he's lucky —
bob will be on the bed, waiting for him. understanding without words the pain churning through him. the dark thing that ash hates, the thing that makes him the first one to run toward death, because if it's him, it's not anyone else. if it's him, he can stop hating himself for at least a moment.
he's lucky, because bob is there, and something spreads through embry at the sight of him. something sharp and bright, like the points of a star. he's thankful there's only the golden glow of a lamp to light the room, so maybe the heat in his cheeks and glimmer in his eyes are less visible. either way, he shuts the door behind him, trying not to think about how trapped he feels. how he walked into this trap willingly, with open eyes, each step deliberate. ]
Hi.
[ quiet. his eyes quickly scan the room, drinking in all the little details that make this place bob's — different from his own, which even after a year has little in the way of personal effects. boarding school year after year, summers at home, off to yale next, then off to a war. even his condo back home had been put together by morgan's interior designer, and playing house with abilene had been like living in a horror show.
he steps closer. closer still, until he's at the bed, his eyes shadowed, dark hair in a messy sweep along his forehead. he looks at bob and thinks about the void, a cold shudder creeping along his spine. ]
I don't want anything. [ his throat bobs, then the bed dips slightly as he lowers himself down. head on the pillow, he lifts his hands to press the heels of his palms into his eyes. ] I just want you.
[ dressed in an oversized hoodie and boxers (both varying shades of blue), bob waits on the bed cross-legged, picking at the pulled-back sheets. he can hear embry before he enters, the soft shuffle of his footsteps, the steady but quickening beat of his heart. something desolate in his expression. he’s not coming in, when he knows bob is the danger. he is, because he knows that and hopes for the end. no-win scenario.
except —
the door opens, and bob perks, features opening and lifting, blue eyes brighter for embry’s fleeting attention. he watches as embry peers around the space — as he considers the clutter that makes this room bob’s, bereft of any intentional decor — and holds his breath. waits for the mockery. the rejection. in for one, two, three, four. out for four, three, two, one. none comes.
embry settles, like he means to stay, and, for a moment, all bob can do is marvel at the fact of him, real and breathing beside him. not doing anything to push him away. looking much the way bob feels inside, on the verge of disintegration. bob reaches out, palm pressed into the mattress, near enough to touch. a gentle precursor, a test, before bob scoots into him, slotting into the opening beneath embry’s raised arm, head bumping his princely jaw. too late to turn him away, although he doesn’t dare ask for more, fiddling with the string and toggle of his hoodie instead of touching embry. clumsy, in his attempts at comfort, when so few have offered it to him. ]
You got me. [ here, like this. not the shadow or the light that casts it, just a boy. ] I’m glad you’re here.
[ in his room, in the house, in bob’s life despite both their efforts to break apart. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
his resolve still falters, predictably, when he hears embry’s heartbeat in the final thirty of breakfast. around a corner in one of the smaller libraries, dark hair burnished by the sun. now, with his name flashing up on bob’s phone.
he makes it a couple hours before responding. ]
ani isn’t talking to me
she already wasn’t last week, when you brought her up while my hand was on your dick
can you stop being obsessed with her for five seconds
[ thumb pressed into the corner of his eye to relieve the already-building tension. ]
no subject
Do you want me to be obsessed with you instead?
no subject
no subject
Did you forget how to use your phone or is your social calendar really just that full?
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i just figured
i don’t know
you told me to think about how i’ve been acting like an asshole
not just to ani but to you and like
everybody
so i’ve been thinking about it
no subject
That's not what I said. Or it's not what I meant.
I just didn't want you to give up something good for me. Her friendship is worth something. A lot more than I am.
You haven't been an asshole to me. Or at least not any more than I've been to you.
I just learned a whole lot of stuff about you all at once. And I'm not just talking about your void thing. Even just you, apart from it. If that makes any sense.
no subject
well i thought about it, anyway, whether you wanted me to or not
and i thought about it before that, so you can stop talking to me like i’m stupid
also i think you’re worth plenty even if you don’t, so you can stop saying that shit too
it’s not helping
[ … ]
about me
right
[ what the hell does that mean. ]
no subject
You're not stupid. The only stupid thing you're doing is talking to me.
I'm sorry. I know how I sound, and I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I keep fucking things up for you.
Yeah, about you. In addition to being good and smart and so fucking sweet, you can also tear someone apart when you want to. [ not as the sentry. just as bob, which is a far more potent strike. ] And I don't like you any less for it, and I don't know what that says about me. In regards to you.
That's what I've been thinking about. You.
Just you.
no subject
you’re not fucking anything up
i don’t want you to feel like you are just because i’m
i’m just like this
[ sensitive, difficult, looking for hurts where there are none because they’ve always been everywhere before. ]
pretty sure that says you’re a masochist
or like
you took on so much water it gave you brain damage
you should’ve drowned me for that seriously
i should’ve let you drown me for it a couple times even though it wouldn’t stick
i’m really sorry
cw suicide mention kind of
[ the guy you fucked over, now distorted in that soulless version of bob's voice, after he's played it again and again in his head for the last four nights. you want me to want you, the humiliating truth made even more painfully evident in how he can't handle it when he's the one being ignored rather than doing the ignoring. ]
In the kinky way, yeah.
I don't know, it's kind of cute when you get mad.
[ as if he hadn't nearly burst into tears. ]
Did I ever tell you that I grew up with my own lake? Water loves me.
[ out of nowhere, abilene's colorless corpse, the relief and disgust and panic he'd felt then hitting him now. what are you going to tell galahad when he's old enough to google his mother's name? he rubs his face with a sigh. ]
Swear to me you won't ever drown. You're too good-looking for it, and I refuse to identify your body.
no subject
i can swear
pretty sure dying's not on the menu anymore, so drowning's out with it
[ molecular regeneration has the edge on a super soldier's accelerated healing. recover from anything, everything, in perpetuity.
the water settles in his memory. embry going under at the pool. the waves receding at rockaway. abilene, a name stolen from the placard in the remembrance hall. the curl of her red hair in the memory, now captured in a portrait. ]
you told ash we were seeing each other, but not about what i did to you. [ because ash would not be nice to him, if embry told him what happened after the pound or with the void. very much not cute. ] i don't know that we should be seeing each other after everything i've done to you, embry. [ you can tear someone apart, and i don't like you any less for it. ] you shouldn't like me, anyway, after all that.
[ that's what he's been thinking about, even more than how ani will feel. than jake's disappointment. if he's the damage, then those closest to him are at the greatest risk. ]
no subject
and after all that, bob still says it. i don't know that we should be seeing each other. it cuts like an unexpected knife, sinking into his stupid, wanting heart. abruptly, he understands bob’s visceral reaction to his letter. you asked me not to leave you. you dragged me back into this. now you don’t know if we should see each other? ]
We shouldn't. If you want the answer.
We shouldn't see each other.
But it's too late for that now, because after what you did to me, I need you.
[ apparently, the invitation to get off the ride whenever he wanted expired five minutes after it was issued. ]
At least tell me how to fix this before you abandon me.
I feel like shit because of you. And I don't necessarily believe in karma, but I do recognize that this is it.
[ for everything i've done to you. ]
no subject
the middle gets lost in the water.
after what you did to me, i need you, cuts through. overbright. ]
my last handjob cannot have been that good
not even while waterlogged and headfucked
[ — suddenly understanding why embry so often deflects the same way. ]
i don’t want you to feel like shit because of me
i don’t want to abandon you
but i don’t know how to make sure i don’t do the first thing without doing the second thing
no subject
You're an idiot. Everything you do is good.
[ better, because he'd been pushed to the very edges of his mind, nearly escaping himself for those precious few moments. ]
I was just being dramatic.
[ but he thinks of yelena and bucky, who he knows also experienced the void. who must've also felt the harrowing effects of it. who bob hasn't abandoned and doesn't seem to have any inclination to. he thinks of ash and bucky, and ash loving him together and apart. ]
You didn't do anything to me that wasn't already there.
So don't worry about it. Okay?
no subject
those other needs were really wants. those wants were for quitters. bob has never been a quitter, not of that kind.
so although embry says he needs him, he doesn’t. he relents immediately, after all. want, not need. something he was ready give up days ago. why not here? why not now? and although bob feels suddenly like he needs embry, like he can’t breathe without him — that isn’t true. it can’t be. ]
you’re dramatic about a lot of stuff, but not this, okay?
i know how it feels, when it pulls those memories up. like they happened yesterday or they’re happening right now. like they’ll keep happening forever.
it does it to me, too.
that’s the first part. the second
[ the second goes something like this. instead of drawing the hurt out, it takes you inside. to the room that was and wasn’t embry’s. the house in the suburb’s. the wilderness in russia. the lab where they made you what you are. ]
you should talk to ash and greer about what happened.
or bucky. he knows better than anybody what it’s like.
[ all the people who can make embry’s life better and not so much fucking worse. ]
no subject
it does it to me, too. his heart hurts, like he's somehow failed at something. so self-centered about his own shitty life, which has historically been entirely his own fault.
more hesitating. he deletes the lie he's typed: sure, i'll talk to them. ]
Why can't I talk to you about it?
You know, I lied to Ash almost all the years that I've known him. Lied about how much I wanted him. Made him think he wasn't good enough to marry.
I always wanted to tell him the truth, but I couldn't, for a lot of reasons. So I sold the lie, and I sold it so fucking well.
I think you're a horrible liar, so however you answer this, I'll take it as the truth.
Do you still want me at all or am I just really, really fucked?
no subject
with both hands on his face, he almost misses the light shift. the blue not quite bright enough, behind his fingers. but the overhead light whirs, flickers, and he peaks through the cracks.
i sold the lie, a reminder of where they differ, despite being the same in so many ways. you’re a horrible liar. yeah. yeah, he knows that. ]
i want you so much it makes me crazy
crazier
how can you not know that
[ a message which probably makes no sense, and yet seems clearer than: i want you so much i keep putting you in danger. i burned out every bulb on your floor. i saved you even when you hurt me. i said the meanest things i could think of so you’d hate me. i have to leave you if i want to protect you, and i can’t even do that. ]
you can talk to me about it
please talk to me about it
[ even after this disaster of a failed-ripcord, torn-parachute escape attempt. maybe he can talk to embry and never touch him. or at least only do it on the good days, when the shadows seem small. maybe he can bargain with the dark. this one’s off limits, another locked door. maybe he can let armand fucking lobotomise him. see if that sticks. ]
no subject
the worst part? he can't even commit to accusing bob of being a manipulative little shit, because he doesn't think bob has ever thought a plan all the way through in his life. not the way embry carefully constructs his castle of lies and then commits to them. bob isn't like you. not deceitful. not one to decide that the pain a season of deception and betrayal causes is worth the outcome if it means he can protect the people he loves in the end. ]
I don't know.
[ no other response to that, when those words curl hot and aching inside of him. unsure where to put them, so they just burn and burn and burn. he takes a breath, dots appearing and disappearing as he types and deletes and types again. finally, he calls, covering his face with one hand as if that'll somehow spare him the humiliation of this conversation. ]
I don't know what you saw. [ the torment apparent in his voice, like bob knowing anything at all causes him pain. was it all the people he killed? was it abilene pulling his clothes off in his bed? was it danny knifing him in the church or was it what he did to danny before? was it ani? any number of his transgressions in his black hole of a life. ] Do you see things every time you touch me?
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[ a little pleading, phone pressed to his cheek like that will bring them any closer to understanding each other. ]
No, it only happens sometimes. [ quickly, ] I've never seen anything of yours before. I've seen — [ hawk turning to a young man at the bar, confidence thrumming then the same as now, with bob looking at him like the commune hasn't changed anything. someone beloved, silhouetted in sunlight, transferring with the press of adam's thumb to his pulse. two girls in the snow, wondering if they can trust each other, with his fingertips brushing yelena's, debris all around them. ] I think it happens when the feeling is too... too big. Good or bad. For me, or for whoever I'm touching. For whoever's touching me.
[ he swallows audibly. ]
It hadn't happened with you before, so I thought. I dunno. I thought you might be safe from it.
[ which is so fucking stupid, yes, but true. always true. maybe that's why it came all at once, held back until the flood. ]
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I'm not that special. [ his voice softer. to be safe from it. to be safe from you. ] I did slay a monster underneath the bed once. For Galahad, when he decided he was scared of the dark.
[ a night where they'd camped on the bedroom floor, surrounded by pillows and galahad's light-up sword. abilene had eventually come to the doorway after their extended ruckus, watching them with the light haloing the tousle of her loose red hair, and the knot of fear within him tightened that much more with the knowledge that he might not be able to protect galahad from the monsters living in their own home.
a slow inhale, surprised to find his eyes wet. his anger has bled away with the sound of bob's voice, now left with his own thorny hurt. maybe if bob keeps talking, that'll go away, too. he already knows he's not going to utter the truth. never going to say those words. you hurt me. they feel small, stupid in comparison to the kind of pain that bob has lived through. and — it's just life. his own life, and it would be beyond absurd to blame bob for making him feel the pain of it. life hurts, and he's never known it to happen any other way. it hurt every time he lied and ash couldn't see what it was costing him. when greer walked down the aisle and it wasn't to him. when abilene did her worst, and he had no one to lean on after. ]
Can I come see you? [ on the quiet edge of begging, his fingertips rubbing away the wetness at his eyes. ] Not to mess around, just to... [ his words seem to slip away, suddenly aware of his own heartbeat, an uncomfortable heat rising to his face. he swallows. ] Because I'm fucking miserable, and I'd rather be miserable with you. If you say something stupid like I shouldn't touch you anymore after what happened, just - don't. Because I'm going to. I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. And I don't want to, and you don't want me to, either.
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[ he likes thinking of embry that way. happy, doing all the things a dad is supposed to, making sure his kid has nothing to fear. (he likes what he knows of embry’s wife less. the fear, at her shock of red hair. the draw of the water. that she’s pretty, and embry probably thinks so, no matter what else.) ]
Yeah. [ breathed more than said, a hopeful catch in his voice. ] I’m — in my room. [ a place embry hasn’t been, that he seemingly makes a point to avoid, so he probably won’t come. ] It’s messy.
[ yesterday’s suit half-folded over his desk chair and half crumpled on the floor, the desk itself piled with an assortment of crap. books, rubik’s cube, a radio his powers fried the night he left embry’s room (that he can’t figure out how to fix). christmas wrapping he hasn’t thrown out on the floor, the presents either still in the boxes or on the window-seat, which has become the best place to store his valuables in the room’s present state. ]
Adrian organises it every week, but the house made him freaky horny, so he’s been busy with, uh. That. [ anyway. ] Just so you know how miserable it’s gonna be. If you still want to. [ heart in his throat. embry must be able to it hear it. ] I want you to.
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bob will be on the bed, waiting for him. understanding without words the pain churning through him. the dark thing that ash hates, the thing that makes him the first one to run toward death, because if it's him, it's not anyone else. if it's him, he can stop hating himself for at least a moment.
he's lucky, because bob is there, and something spreads through embry at the sight of him. something sharp and bright, like the points of a star. he's thankful there's only the golden glow of a lamp to light the room, so maybe the heat in his cheeks and glimmer in his eyes are less visible. either way, he shuts the door behind him, trying not to think about how trapped he feels. how he walked into this trap willingly, with open eyes, each step deliberate. ]
Hi.
[ quiet. his eyes quickly scan the room, drinking in all the little details that make this place bob's — different from his own, which even after a year has little in the way of personal effects. boarding school year after year, summers at home, off to yale next, then off to a war. even his condo back home had been put together by morgan's interior designer, and playing house with abilene had been like living in a horror show.
he steps closer. closer still, until he's at the bed, his eyes shadowed, dark hair in a messy sweep along his forehead. he looks at bob and thinks about the void, a cold shudder creeping along his spine. ]
I don't want anything. [ his throat bobs, then the bed dips slightly as he lowers himself down. head on the pillow, he lifts his hands to press the heels of his palms into his eyes. ] I just want you.
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except —
the door opens, and bob perks, features opening and lifting, blue eyes brighter for embry’s fleeting attention. he watches as embry peers around the space — as he considers the clutter that makes this room bob’s, bereft of any intentional decor — and holds his breath. waits for the mockery. the rejection. in for one, two, three, four. out for four, three, two, one. none comes.
embry settles, like he means to stay, and, for a moment, all bob can do is marvel at the fact of him, real and breathing beside him. not doing anything to push him away. looking much the way bob feels inside, on the verge of disintegration. bob reaches out, palm pressed into the mattress, near enough to touch. a gentle precursor, a test, before bob scoots into him, slotting into the opening beneath embry’s raised arm, head bumping his princely jaw. too late to turn him away, although he doesn’t dare ask for more, fiddling with the string and toggle of his hoodie instead of touching embry. clumsy, in his attempts at comfort, when so few have offered it to him. ]
You got me. [ here, like this. not the shadow or the light that casts it, just a boy. ] I’m glad you’re here.
[ in his room, in the house, in bob’s life despite both their efforts to break apart. ]