THE  SCRAPING  CHAIR  IS  WHAT  MAKES  JAMESON  FLINCH,      nerves afire with sudden terror  —-  all on embarrassing display when his heart monitor hastens its tempo.  he can’t even control it, just like he can’t control most of his body right now, he can’t swallow the fear down, can’t put on a charming, sharp smile and pretend to be fine.  all he can do is lie there, and avoid watching siggy, because his shaking hands make jameson feel so much more afraid.

jameson is supremely unaccustomed to being given too much information, but this feels like venom, like siggy’s world has bitten him, and he’s slowly rotting from the inside as it spreads in his blood.  there’s no antidote, no not knowing anymore.  even if he’d not asked for an explanation, he’d still have the experience  :  his world pulled from under him, because some guys wanted to get to siggy, and saw jameson as an easy way in.  even if he’d died in that place, he’d have died knowing that siggy had kept all that from him, and even so, even with all the secrets, he’d almost died from it anyways.  he feels like a fucking idiot, and he doesn’t even know which direction to be mad in.

jameson limply wraps his hand around the plastic cup  (  and his hands fucking hurt just like everything else, and he can’t even remember why, because they’d hurt him so many times and his memory is still sluggish with pain killers  )  and takes a sip.  it tastes like hospital.  he hates this.

he spits out the straw without any particular energy.  “  so now i know …  all that.  ”  a pause …  he hasn’t really processed it, truth be told, but that’s probably as much about the drugs as it is about the weight of this truth.  “  what  —-  how am i supposed to …  live, i guess?  siggy, what do i do with this?  ”

THE FLARE OF FEAR and quick-rabbit heart beating of the monitor snatch siggy’s attention. his heart rams against his chest almost as quickly as jameson’s. for a wild moment, he thinks of pulling whatever strings he has to just to give jameson the medication that’ll tuck him back under a thick veil of drug-induced sleep. he is thinking more than he should be able to, and with his fragile body putting himself in a panicked state could very well exacerbate the damage.

he listens intently to jameson’s hoarse, terror-pricked words, and siggy does not understand.

“ what are you asking me? ” he murmurs, seriously. “ are you asking how I am going to keep you safe? or— oh. ”

no, that isn’t it.

“ no, jameson. you don’t have to live with this. ”

what a grotesque creature. its teeth are sharp and it never sleeps and it swallows down blood like sweet wine. its voice is that of a human being, alluring and delicate, and it speaks horrible, horrible commands. it disposed of no less than eight human eyes without losing sleep. it is deadly calm and icy in its fury and this whole city knows to be afraid of it, and it will never, ever let them forget. who wouldn’t flinch?

the grotesque creature takes back the plastic cup, slips off his glasses, and sinks down next to jameson. he speaks gently, as if to a scared kid.

SOME OF JAMESON WISHES IT WERE REAL. his captors, coming back to put him in the grave, and consequently, out of his misery. then he wouldn’t have to lie here, stuck in bed, quivering every time the house makes a funny noise.

he’s half convinced that it is real. there’s someone on the stairs, creaking up to the bedroom. someone will open the door, and clamp a hand over his mouth, and drag him back to that dim room, tape him back to the cold metal chair, and leave him there to rot or suffer or both. it would’ve been a mercy for him to die quickly there. jameson is fucking sick of slow deaths.

he wants gummy to check every closet and attack every shadow, and he knows that if gummy does, and says it’s all clear, jameson isn’t going to fully believe it. his logic - brain will know, does know, that he’s safe. that doesn’t matter, not even a bit, to the little piece of him that’s crafted wholly from fear.

“ it’s uniformly terrible, ” jameson answers. he sounds ragged, unlike himself, as though the paranoia is in his flesh, not his mind. “ gummy can check. he’s armed, right? just in case? ”

“ OF COURSE. ” lanky fingers begin fishing through his front pocket and withdraw his favorite silver lighter. the smooths his thumb over the engraved pinup then flicks the top open, ignites the tall spear of flame, then flips it shut. he repeats this as he talks. “ there’s also a gun in the closet in case of emergencies. ”

it isn’t loaded. gummy didn’t trust siggy, tangled in his bouts of madness, to wield a loaded gun to attack imaginary threats. he also did not tell siggy this, and siggy did not find out until he fumbled with the weapon enough to figure out how to check the chamber. he couldn’t find it in himself to be angry.

he finally breaks down and tugs open the drawer to the bedside table, inside which houses two orange prescription bottles, lube, and a box of camel turkish royals.

“ whether what you hear is real or not, the result will be the same. it’ll be taken care of. ” he withdraws a thin cigarette and rolls it absently between his fingers. he wishes jameson could simply turn his brain off and allow siggy to do all the thinking for him. he wishes that painkiller would dope jameson’s poor miserable ass up so thoroughly he would lose the ability to fear anything. he wishes it were a comfort that siggy is the scariest thing in this whole fucking city, and that he knew nobody would ever be able to touch him again.

HE’S  NOT  PATHETIC  ENOUGH  TO  ASK  SIGGY  TO  BE  QUICK.       at least jameson has that going for him  —-  even if his stomach does twist at the idea of the other being away all night.  how is he supposed to breathe if there’s a strange noise, or a shadow moving unnaturally across the wall, or a pain that he doesn’t need gummy to know about?  he’ll have to figure it out.  sink or swim, as it were.  he doesn’t feel up to it, but that’s how he feels most of the time now.

“  i’ll manage, i’m sure.  going a night with dirty hair never killed anyone to my knowledge,  ”  jameson says as a great, amazing show of his bravery and resilience.  he’s got to learn how to be alone again, an exposure therapy that will be very much undercut by the presence of some of siggy’s bodyguards.  “  i’ll be able to text you, right?  you’ll have your phone on?  ”

LISTENING TO JAMESON ATTEMPT to be blasé while his anxiety is so obviously poking through is painful. it’s not as if there is anything tangible siggy can do that gummy cannot, but right now, siggy exists as jameson’s only object of comfort or perceived safety while navigating his trauma. siggy would never take that away from him willingly.

“ I can’t promise how quickly I’ll be able to respond, but yes. it will be the same as any other time I’ve been working. ”

he will breach unprofessionalism as much as he can manage just to respond to his texts, but he cannot assure jameson of anything.

“ I’m going to leave your medicine with you, ” he says, tugging open the drawer on his side of the bed, takes up the medicine bottles, and transfers them to jameson’s side. he twists open the caps for good measure. It isn’t as if he doesn’t trust gummy to keep track, but he is giving jameson some desperately needed independence if for nothing else than to save him the embarrassment of asking.

“ IT IS. ” siggy says, matter-of-factly. “ you’re hallucinating noises. however, it costs nothing to have gummy check the entire house. it’s what I pay him for, and he has done it for me for years. so when you hear a noise, I will always ask gummy to check. sitting with your own paranoia is pointless. ”

siggy speaks this vulnerability, that he has chased his own paranoid hallucinations for years, as if it is nothing more than a meaningless fact. it sits like a rock in his stomach that jameson is rotting with terror, as he had. he wishes for him his ignorance back. he wishes for him his safety. he wishes that they had sawed apart their grotesque connection long ago before they became so intimately rooted to each other that siggy would spread his disease to his loved one.

his craving for nicotine and a full night of rest is carving through his aching bones. instead of indulging either of them, he watches the rosy orange sunset slowly extinguished by a starless sky.

HE’S  BEEN  SPARED  THE  HOSPITAL,  BUT  NOT  THE  INDIGNITY        of being helpless in his own body.  the offer siggy makes to help him up puts a bitter taste in his mouth  —-  when he wants to be able to do it himself, to bear the pain so he can at least keep whatever pride his kidnappers had left him with.  it’s not much, truth be told, which means it has become even more precious to him.

“  i think i can manage,  ”  jameson murmurs, getting his hands under him just enough to push himself up.  when it upsets a good many bruises and bandages, he groans, getting his back leaned against the headboard just before the strength floods out of him again.  he’s upright enough to eat.  hopefully.  if not?  he’ll just have to choke.  honestly, that doesn’t seem all that bad any more.  that would at least save him months of uncomfortable healing.

“  you got any medication with that soup, or is panera the strongest pain killer we’re working with tonight?  ”  he asks, face still scrunched as he tries to shift himself into something of a bearable position.  

TENSION FLICKERS VISIBLY OVER SIGGY’S DEMEANOR, shoulders taut and fingers curling, as if he winces with everything except his expression when jameson decides to make do. it’s troubling, albeit nothing unexpected that he sinks his teeth into the dregs of his pride. it would be easier to let that go now than continue to wrestle with it.

SOME  PIECE  OF  JAMESON’S  MIND  KNOWS        that he cannot, should not, be told more.  there’s an ethical line he does not want to cross  —-  a case for plausible deniability that he is closer and closer to not being able to make.  there were no rules in the law against dating some sort of gang kingpin, but it was absolutely frowned upon.  it’s silly that getting booted from his firm is near the top of his list of concerns  (  given, you know, the threat to his life  )  but it plays like conventional wisdom across his mind.  oddly, it doesn’t make him feel much.  maybe that’s the drugs, or the perspective that being kidnapped had unfortunately forced upon him.  should he be relieved?

it would be nice to be comforted by the idea that siggy is taking precautions  —-  that he’s discouraging repeat offenses.  but of course, jameson is smart enough to realize that this probably entails some sort of violence, which is not at all assuring.

“  you can’t tell me more,  ”  he says, suddenly, before siggy can provide him any more information.  why’s he so worried about something as stupid and far away as perjury?  maybe this had exposed a little gap in whatever defenses siggy had up before  :  a twinge of doubt about the security his boyfriend could offer.  suppose things went worse than they had?  suppose the police got involved somehow?  it’s a stupid fear, an unlikely one, but it’s all jameson knows what to do with the worry eating into him.  his alternative is imagining what happens if he’s kidnapped again, and he doesn’t want to think about that.  jaw clenched, he watches the ceiling  (  or rather, tries not to look at siggy, too unsure about how he’ll react to him sitting there, spilling secrets he’d kept from jameson.  )  “  you shouldn’t tell me more.  i don’t wanna know details.  ”

his heart needs to slow down  —-  it’s going to alert someone, and the last thing that need is hospital staff.  “  is there …  water, or anything?  i feel like absolute fucking shit.  ”

THERE IS A WAVERING BREATH let go from his tight chest at jameson’s insistence. siggy did not want to share more. he did not want to share this much. in the name of siggy’s own survival, he chose to become monstrous. even if it were safe to share any of it, jameson would flinch.

Shh, shh, shh— listen to me. Look only at me. I don’t have time for your begging. If the next words out of your mouth do not answer my question, then I will take both of your eyes.

“ w-water? yes, yes, I’m sorry— ” he is on his feet quickly, knocking back the plastic chair so it grates a little across the vinyl floor. he seizes a cup of water from the bedside table with an edge of desperation.

his hands are shaking. he grits his teeth, forces out a breath, and demands steadiness from himself. it is not safe to flinch yet. it is not acceptable that he should waver beneath the weight of responsibilities that are his alone. these mistakes are his, and so he does not get to be weak.

JAMESON  TRIES  NOT  TO  JERK  AWAY  FROM  SIGGY’S  TOUCH.      it’s instinct, now  :  a few short days had rewired his hunger, turned it to ash, and when a hand comes at him without warning, even from siggy, jameson can’t help how he shrinks to avoid it.  this is the pathetic creature he’d mad at becoming  —-  someone frightened of his own sustenance, too scared to reach out and grasp on to the vices that had held him through hard times before.  it is a buzzkill, whether siggy says so or not.

but the moment it happens, he’s looking away from his boyfriend apologetically, shamefully, like he’d bitten siggy’s hand, not tried to avoid it.  he wonders if he ought to shower just to prove it’s nothing  —-  let himself be touched, loved, promised there’s no pain outside the physical, and that he is not alone.  let himself show that he’s fine.  everything is fine and normal.  unfortunately, that seems as unbearable as loneliness  :  being perceived in this state, unclothed and revealed as bruised and hurting and not at all as normal and sexy as he wants to be.

“  i think i can do without,  ”  jameson answers, casting down his gaze, searching for anything but siggy to look at.  he feels gross all the time now, gross and desperate to drown himself in something stronger than coffee.  “  how long are you gonna be gone?  ”

HIS HAND WITHDRAWS THE SECOND JAMESON FLINCHES, an unintentional flicker of sympathy casting over siggy’s expression. he is certain jameson loves that. siggy’s own intimate experience with the minefield of physical touch after something traumatic has rendered him receptive to jameson’s aversion. it tugs on his heart in a way he’s sure would make jameson gag.

his face returns to businesslike, and he bites down on the apology about to fall from his tongue. jameson doesn’t want it.