many whispers

“Okay. Okay, okay, okay.”

Milo’s eyes are bulging with panic as he hooks his hands beneath Will’s armpits and hoists him up. The fingers on his left are stained with drying blood; the rag he’d been pressing to Will’s neck flops in a wet heap to the floor, but he doesn’t clock the clotting on the wound. A wound that closes, unbeknownst to Milo. He’s too busy swallowing the needle-sharpness of anxious pessimism and feeling it rip the inside of his throat.

“I’m sorry,” Milo hiccups. Despair roughens his touch as he manoeuvres Will up and around, helping him twist to face the toilet so that he can fold over the seat and angle his head into the awaiting pool below. It’s only when he’s sure he isn’t going to be mopping up blood and vomit from the bathroom tiles that Milo forces his hand to touch gently. He sweeps his fingers through Will’s hair, untangling knots as he goes, and wraps the strands around trembling digits to keep them from toppling forward and into the line of fire. 

“I’ve got you,” Milo pants, “I’ve got you. You’re okay. It’s– it’s going to be okay. It is.”

Will’s unsure if that reassurance is meant for him or for Milo. All he knows is that nothing quite feels okay, not when it feels like razor blades are tearing across the inside of his throat and his stomach sloshes with the force of a roaring tide. 

He manages to half breaths turned hiccups before his middle is squeezing tight. Bile spills up his throat and falls into the water below. His knees dig a little further into the tile, buckling where he leans, but it doesn’t give him any sense of where his center of balance lies. He almost feels drunk, everything spinning too fast and out of his control. Except, unlike in an intoxicated haze, vomiting is offering no relief. As another retch and gag works up more acid from his stomach, he feels a shiver grip at his spine, his shoulders starting to shake as his body temperature plummets. 

“Fuck,” he manages to sigh before he’s spitting sickness off of his lips and tongue. He manages to get his hand on the lever to flush the toilet, and even the rush of the water just below him sounds far away. 

What little warmth he felt on his skin is gone. He works up enough energy to lift his hand, settling it on his neck and pulling his fingers away to assess the damage. “Not bleeding anymore,” he manages to mumble before resting his forehead down on the toilet seat.

(  ☄. *. ⋆ bloodscent ,  for @ofstowontarn· )

“Come on, come– shit, fuck!”

The back gate leading from the alley separating their street from the next swings on its hinges and knocks to the beat of a relentless wind against the latch. It squeaks, then knocks, squeaks, then knocks, the only interval in the steady swishing of the back garden’s whipping grass. Were it not for that gate, the scene would be peaceful, the wind a passerby in a sleeping town with little to report aside from the odd toss and turn of a restless dreamer.

Up the back garden path, past the back door left ajar, its handle smeared with blood, the crooked, cracking house of one sleep-deprived lifeguard tells a different story. 

“Come on!”

When he’d set foot on the street after closing up the pool, Milo had expected the comforting routine of kissing his beloved hello, then sliding into the car’s passenger seat to let Will drive them both home. What he’d found had shot his heart straight into his throat, perhaps even past it, so that it sat heavy on his tongue as he grappled with the grizzly sight.

Will was leaning against the vehicle, but there’d been something else there with him. Membrane and teeth as lethal as a piano string, with bottomless eyes swallowed up by a darkness like the night such creatures belonged to. And that tongue. A long, gluttonous thing that was smearing over two identical little puncture wounds spurting blood from Will’s neck. Milo had seen red, and then he’d seen red. 

He doesn’t remember how he’d gotten that thing off, only recalls dragging Will round the car and speeding them home. He’d tried talking to Will to keep him conscious, but then the spasms had grabbed at Will’s arms, legs, hands, fingers, even his fucking soul, and he’d screamed. Milo can still hear the bloody gargle in the depths of that sound.

For now, the twitching’s stopped. He has Will in his lap, in the bathroom upstairs, towels pressing hard into the wound on Will’s neck. He’s still breathing, Milo can see his chest rising and falling, albeit shakily. There’s still a pulse, albeit slow. Slowing. “Will?” he dares to whisper, “love?”

The sound of Milo’s voice barely registers. Between the high-pitched static swarming in his ears, in his head, and the searing pain digging deep into his veins, anything else sounds so distant to Will that he could easily confuse it for a hallucination, a sweet dream serving as a salve for this agony. Even if it was, it hardly provides much comfort. All Will can manage to do is squeeze his eyes shut, let out a whimper of anguish before his spine locks and his body jolts. It’s short-lived, at least, not quite the seemingly endless jerks and quivers his body had done throughout the ride home. Now, at least, his muscles feel a little less mangled.

Though now, he can’t seem to swallow, his gums aching with a pulse of their own. It feels as if his teeth are rotting one by one, the sensation burrowing deep. The tight, bundled pain about his canines is especially excruciating. A steady stream of drool is working down from the corner of his mouth, pooling onto Milo’s pants and mixing with the sweat dripping from Will’s forehead. 

Similar as it is, this doesn’t feel like any ordinary fever. In fact, despite his sweat-slicked skin, he can feel his temperature dropping, bones fighting against a shiver. His hands— useless as they seem with his knuckles locked tight, turning them into haggard claws— reach, one settling over Milo’s thigh and gripping the best he can. Even that much movement is difficult.

His throat starts to ache, another stream of saliva working its way down and smearing over Will’s skin. It makes the lurch in his stomach all the more violent, bile starting to spill up the back of his throat. He can only fight it for a moment, paperthin breaths working in and out of him, fighting and struggling against the weight of each ache and throb.

Somehow, he manages to get the words out, “I’m gonna be sick...”

✻ ✻ ✻

He understands that Will’s only looking to reassure, that all he wants is to fend off the slithering suspicions that threaten to follow Milo into his dreams, as they have been for the needlessly long duration of Will’s absence. But try as logic might, it crumbles under his anger’s stony glare.

“Okay?” Milo echoes, and for a moment he sounds baffled. Will isn’t okay. He doesn’t look okay, he doesn’t sound okay; he doesn’t need to be okay, not around Milo. But he says that he is. For some reason, that makes Milo want to scream. 

“You’re okay,” he repeats again, still as stone, “not okay enough to call, though. I—” Movement, finally: A subtle twitch in his fingers as they itch to return to his hair, to tug it into further disarray, “—What am I supposed to think exactly, Will?”

::

Of course he didn’t call. It took far more convincing than would usually be necessary for Will to convince himself he was real, wasting about in that rotting motel room, let alone to pick up the phone for any number other than that of the private investigator, a number left unsaved though memorized. Milo’s still fixed on this despite how desperately Will wants to bury himself in Milo’s chest, cling to him and find a safe haven along Milo’s skin. Will’s left cold and aching before something sparks up his chest.

There’s supposed to be an answer to that question. Will knows there is, but he can’t seem to find one beyond the buzzing in his head, the erratic, agonous hammering of his heart inside his chest.

He’s thankful; he swallows hard enough that his eyes remain dry, though the sand doesn’t clear from his throat completely. He’s left sounding hoarse as he sidesteps Milo and spits, “Think whatever you want.”

✻ ✻ ✻

It’s a little awkward at first: AJ’s bulkier than her, stronger than her; Frankie’s shocked into a wide-eyed stare as his attempts at warming her up send her into a bouncing jostle, seconds before she composes herself enough to lean into the motions and subsequently settle once again. Whether or not he realises is anyone’s guess, but AJ’s soon pulling her in and Frankie’s glad for the chill. At least this way she can blame the colouring in her cheeks on that rather than the side-hug her buddy— buddy, damnit —has pulled her into.

“Tha-thanks,” Frankie chatters out. She plugs her device in and scrolls through her copious playlists, thumb rolling, rolling, rolling until it shifts to click on one. 

It’s gradual, but the relief comes steadily when Frankie begins to feel less of a need to keep her jaw clenched. The chattering eventually ceases, and she finds herself combating only the occasional shudder as she relaxes further into AJ’s hold, one that leaves Frankie counting the minutes until they need to peel properly away, so that he can actually shift gears safely. 

“So has that, like, tortoise-lookin’ old guy come back to the bakery lately?”

::

AJ keeps his arm around her, feeling each aftershock of shivers slip along his side. She’s still cold despite the air around them warming up, and that’s why AJ’s holding onto her. No other reason... He’s being a good friend. And a better blanket.

And then Frankie’s asking him a question, so he’s distracted anyway and in no position to think about pulling his arm away. “Bentley! Yeah, man. He’s so cute. He comes in like every morning just for a blueberry muffin and a coffee so he can read his newspaper. Like, my day would feel incomplete if he didn’t show up before, like, ten in the morning. I feel like I should do something special for him. Like, make some special kind of blueberry muffin for him, y’know? Something new enough to break the mold a lil’ but not so new that it, like, freaks him out.”

✻ ✻ ✻

Will can’t even look at him; when he does he looks more broken than Milo’s ever seen him. He wants to go to him, hug him, tighten his hold until Will feels put back together again. Yet that cold, slow anger keeps him frozen in place, steeling his gaze from giving any of that tenderness away. Forgiveness fights to loosen his ire’s hold on it, but it’s fruitless.

A thousand things cross Milo’s mind. Maybe Will was unfaithful. Maybe he’s caved in to that siren song of substances that constantly follows him around, the one Milo does his best in helping Will ignore. Maybe-

He stops. Breathes. Calm as he may seem, Milo’s heart is smacking savagely into his chest. He feels bruised inside, battered.

“Why didn’t you?” Even when he finds his voice again, it’s pathetically small. Shaky, too, a mixture of that cold, cruel rage and his very own neediness. “Call.”

::

They can’t get into this conversation without getting into several others, and Will isn’t sure he can take that right now. Definitely not now. Not with the weight of everything still pressing so heavy against his chest he can’t even breathe evenly. 

He needs to stop chasing this. All it leaves him with is an agonizing pain, vacancy, and a heartbroken, angry lover.

His mouth tries to move, opening though no words manage to find their way out. 

Bradley’s screams have followed him home it seems, sounding off in the back of his mind as he loses sensation in his fingertips.

“Please! Please, I don’t wanna go! I don’t wanna— Will, don’t let them— Please, Will—”

He cuts his gaze back up to Milo, stomach churning as bile stings the back of his throat. He swallows it down, shaking his head as he’s forced back into the present.

“I, um...” He swallows again, working his numb fingers over either side of his jeans, shaky breath following. “I lost track of time.” It’s the truth, at least. “I... I lost track of everything... I just...

✻ ✻ ✻

Ivan’s always so ready. It comes as no surprise at this point: They’ve been together long enough for Victor to have witnessed plenty of anxious moments in which Ivan had felt far from prepared. Of course he’s going to do everything to tip the scales the other way, even if it is a tad excessive. 

Victor’s lips twitch. It could come across as amusement at Ivan’s expense. Really, he just appreciates every little thing Ivan does for them. For him. “You know it’s only an hour to London, right?” he can’t help teasing a little. 

“Not in America, babes.”

::

It would be a lie to say that Ivan doesn’t often feel like the foolish one in their couple. While Ivan certainly has enough book smarts, maybe even street smarts, he also holds more than his fair share of the shame. Victor’s far too flippant, careless— or Ivan might point out free— to spare too much thought for the useless emotion.

“Well,” Ivan starts with a shrug of his shoulders. Victor had told him that before: that the duration of the train ride is only an hour. Somewhere in the midst of his impending anxiety, Ivan must have forgotten. A rarity, but not an impossibility. “You know I like to be prepared,” he defends, hoping he can blame the pinkness in his cheeks on the chill from the bit of wind that scurries over them.

He recovers quickly, though, pointing out, “Plus, I’m pretty sure you could eat an entire village out of house and home in an hour, so. Consider yourself lucky I brought snacks.”

✻ ✻ ✻

“Me? Oh.” Frankie scrunches her face up, bottom lip protruding and brows buckling as she waves a dismissive hand between them, “borin’, ‘m so borin’. So I work at the supermarket on Fridays and Sundays, and then at the music store down on Morris Boulevard the rest’f the week.”

It’s difficult to say which one’s more exhausting: The supermarket involves tight-lipped housewives in their mid forties and fifties, all sharing the same sloping haircut that screams they’d like to speak with the manager. They often scream that out of their mouths, too. On the other hand, the music store seems to perpetually house music bros, who competitively mansplain to one another which guitar, or drumkit, or bass, or whatever is the best and why. They’ll even try to explain it to Frankie, too.

“I doodle, though. Here and there.”

Frankie lifts her bony shoulders into a quick shrug, “kinda always wanted to make my own comics, y’know? Starvin’ artist, baby.”

Soon enough, her chin finds her hand, and she grins in Amani’s (gorgeous, sparkling) direction. “D’you have any pics of other looks you’ve done?

::

Amani flashes Frankie an unconvinced look before Frankie can make too many excuses for herself. Based on what Amani’s seen in the past three times of talking to her, Amani’s fairly sure she could come up with at least five adjectives before the word “boring,” even crossed her mind. Boring people don’t have entire rating systems for strangers’ facial hair, after all.

Amani can’t say she’s had the chance to make it down to the music store just yet. Granted, she hasn’t been in town all that long. She supposes now she has the perfect excuse.

Her eyes light up at the prospect of comics. She hadn’t gotten her hands on too many growing up, but she remembers nights spent under a blanket with her foster brother, pages lit up with the bulb of a flashlight as he shared the stories of his favorite heroes with more enthusiasm than Amani had seen even from their sugar-crazed younger foster sister.

But Frankie doesn’t give Amani the chance to ask too much about it, quick to shine the spotlight elsewhere. Amani will get back to it, she’s absolutely certain. 

“Oh, yeah, I...” She slips her phone out, an iPhone model now dwarfed by those that had superseded it. Her finger taps on the Instagram icon, and she passes off the feed of makeup she’s done on herself and others over to Frankie. “It’s mostly been natural kind of stuff. Y’know, weddings and parties... But every now and then I get to have some real fun with some colors and cute little embellishments— all that jazz.”

✻ ✻ ✻

Hot-boxing sounds perfect. And though weed might tend to be a number one priority, warming up has been bumped up the list. Frankie holds her hands up against one of the air vents, even as it blows cool air. It’ll heat up soon enough; in that time, her hands will turn back from their bright, angry red tinge to a more natural hue. And she’ll stop shaking.

“Ca-can I p-puh-plug in m-m-my m-mu-m-music?” Frankie wrestles out through her chattering jaw, lips dancing along and hindering any proper speech. She wiggles her shabby iPod Classic from her fanny pack and holds it up for AJ to see. “I’ve got the p-p-perfect b-burger munchin’ tunes, man. You know m-muh-m-me.”

::

Astrid’s done it enough times for AJ to know exactly how to remedy the situation, something he remembers their mother doing on chilly nights whenever too harsh a wind blew their way. Each of his hands settles on either of Frankie’s shoulders, palms resting over the fabric of her sleeves where they wrinkle and bunch around his fingers. He works his hands up and down quickly, rubbing and creating the friction that will offer a little temporary relief from the chill attempting to overtake Frankie like vegetation growing over an abandoned building.

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” he says absently, the constant krish-shuh, krish-shuh, krish-shuh sound of shifting fabric like a drumbeat behind their voices. He bundles one of Frankie’s shoulders against his side, left hand continuing to work along Frankie’s shoulder while his right reaches for the USB that also acts as an aux cord. “Aaaallright. Plug ‘er in.”

✻✻✻

Ingrid listens to Will and feels her expression drop. It lands in an unimpressed, flat look, eyes hooded and lips curled down into an exasperated pout. “You’re such a dick,” she sighs, “and don’t say ‘you are what you eat’, even though you’re an ass, too.”

When she checks her messages, however, she immediately regrets the insult. A double whammy, too, which means that she’ll have to grovel extra sweetly for Will to even think about helping her. Maybe she ought to try and figure out what Adrian means by herself. But that message stings like rejection, and Ingrid was kind of getting her hopes up with this one. With a groan and a huff, she lets her arms stretch across the table. Her upper body follows suit, sprawling itself along the surface until she melts into a puddle of defeat. “Hnnghhhghhhugh…”

::

Will’s only response is a lackadaisical roll of his eyes. It’s like Ingrid hasn’t been listening to him at all; he doesn’t know if he should waste any more time on Milo, because he’s not so sure Milo should waste any more time on Will. Will isn’t exactly one for taking things slow, and he’d rather not drag another person into the deep end with him if they aren’t ready to tread the water a little harder to keep up.

He takes a little too much satisfaction in watching Ingrid crumple in front of him, like an ice sculpture finally left to melt now that the party’s over. He gives a little self-satisfied quirk of his lips, not that Ingrid can see much of it with her face buried away in shame. Something tells Will Ingrid’s swapped his very direct message for something softer, more likely to be misinterpreted. Rather than point that out, he smugly asks instead, “So, I’m a dick and a what? What was that you said?”

✻ ✻ ✻

He’s staring at the empty doorway when Will’s shape, silhouetted against the hallway’s warm light, fills it. For a moment, Milo thinks he’s gone mad. He blinks, brought back by the slow and tentative shift of Will’s body, a sight Milo doesn’t think he’s ever seen. Or perhaps he has, but memory fails him now more than ever. It’s been too long since he’s properly slept, and everything’s as fuzzy as old film.

When he finally manages to peel his lips apart, he finds that he’s mute. There’s little either of them can say. Will had his reasons, Milo’s sure, but–

“You didn’t call.” There’s his voice, thick and croaky, as though it had only just now wriggled its way out from under a mountain of scorching desert sand. With it comes the anger.

Milo’s gaze sharpens, alert and ablaze. Everything around and within him tightens, and it isn’t until he sits forwards and clasps his hands together, fingers threaded, that he realises he’s shaking. Though it’s supposed to be caring and concerned, his voice strips his question of any warmth when he asks,·“were you safe?”

This home they’ve built together has always been a safe place to come back to, a sanctuary providing shelter from whatever storm winds whip and twist beyond it. There’s always the comfort of Milo, the comfort of peace and love and the endless tranquility they bring. Now, though, Will feels cold, struck to the core with frost and ice that make his next breaths shallow and stiff. It sinks down into the soles of his shoes, anchoring him to where he stands in the foyer.

Will can’t bring himself to look up for more than a half a second at a time, his shoulders squared as something thick and slow fills his stomach. It sloshes to a sickening degree when he gets a better read on Milo’s expression. Will’s being scolded. Maybe not directly, but Milo’s tone drags Will back to the many times he has been, and Will feels small beneath it.

“Yes,” he says simply, eyes bobbing back up to Milo’s. They’re open, honest, almost beady, pleading.·

Fucking—William, look me in the eye when I’m talking to you. Do you hear me!?

“I’m sorry, I... I don’t have an excuse, I— I should have called... Milo, I know, I’m... so fucking sorry...”

✻ ✻ ✻

Even without glancing at Ivan’s face, he knows all too well the expression that’s clouding it, much like the dull, dismal grey of the clouds above.

“Ivan…” Victor sighs. More so whines out the other’s name, its tail-end fading into a sigh as he straightens enough to reach up, fingers to Ivan’s jaw, guide his head down. “I’m grouchy,” he admits, “because I don’t want to see my parents. I don’t want them being nasty to you– I know this is your choice, but, well, like… Yah. Whatever. Just– yah, yah.”

The next town over is only a little busier than Stow. The taxi slows to a half at the train station drop off, and Victor shuffles forwards along the backseat to offer the driver his card. “Can you pop a tip on that, mate?” he asks, having learned by now (thank you, Ivan) that it is not only a nice thing to do, but a necessary one: Something about unreasonably low wages and the like.

They have forty minutes before their train to London leaves, which gives them enough time to pick up their tickets and hover by the entrance. “D’you want to wait on the platform or have a wander?” Victor asks Ivan– a bit of a silly question, really: They’d be dragging around Victor’s two suitcases were they to opt for the latter.

::

Ivan only keeps his eyes on his knees, bobbing his head. The last thing either of them need is to start a fruitless argument that will accomplish nothing but worsening Victor’s already sour mood. Ivan manages to glance up at his boyfriend, Victor’s touch putting him at enough ease to let his shoulders deflate to either of his sides.

He sits back as Victor offers up his card, only a mild feeling of guilt pulling inside Ivan’s chest. It’s easy enough to ignore as they both make it to their feet, ambling into the station and acclimating to the hustle and bustle of people zipping across the space with handbags, briefcases, and luggage. Ivan even catches a glimpse of a tiny dog concealed in an oversized purse.

His eyes flicker to Victor as Vic poses the question. Ivan’s lips press together, eyes flashing down to Vic’s suitcases with what Ivan hopes isn’t too pointed a gaze. It isn’t an accusation, after all, just an observation. “We can just wait on the platform,” Ivan offers. “We can listen to some music! I made us a little playlist for the trip. And I brought some playing cards, snacks... I downloaded a couple of movies... And if we get too bored, I know some road trip games we can play.”

✻ ✻ ✻

Her smile tightens, but only at the corners, quick to relax no thanks to the shot’s loosening effects. Best to tone it down on the quirky thoughts, Frankie thinks to herself. She lights up once more when Amani mentions her makeup skills. “Is that what you do?” she asks, “like, apart from the waitressing, are y’doin’ makeup stuff? ‘Cause your liner looks sleek, man. Professional, seriously. Some shit outta Euphoria or whatever.”

“Thanks,” Frankie says to the bartender. He offers her a quick nod, which makes her grin: He seems eager to get back to flirting. For a second, she wonders how that’ll fare, given the impatient-looking man with the too-aggressive salt and pepper moustache that looks like it’s been plucked straight out of the Civil War. Frankie decides against sharing her thoughts on this dude’s facial hair, and grasps her drink, just to give her hands something to do.

“Yeah?” she grins, “I gotta admit, I would not be complainin’ if I ever got to see ya in one of them poofy shirts.”

::

Amani’s face flushes with heat, a chirpy, “Thank you!” leaving her a little too quickly before she can tone down her enthusiasm. She sounds like freaking Tweety Bird. Too much, her mind warns her, though she manages to straighten up and meet Frankie’s eye again. “Kinda sorta... It’s kind of a pipe dream, honestly, but I love doing it. I used to be into theatre in high school? Not on the stage or nothin’ like that but doing the makeup stuff for the actors.”

Frankie seems to have no shortage of compliments. Amani’s sure that if she has any more tequila her face will sure burn off. She takes a tentative sip of her cocktail as if trying to decipher whether she’ll catch aflame with any more than a gulp.

One more sheepish laugh, and Amani’s turning the attention on her date once again. “What about you? What do you do? Got any pipe dreams of your own?”

✻ ✻ ✻

All but her hand encased in the warmth of AJ’s turns cold the moment they step out of the booming house.

A full body shudder ripples out toward her limbs. Out on the street, little works to retain whatever heat managed to seep through the thick wall of clouds barricading the town against the sun. The pavement and road both glisten with cool dew, making their footsteps slap wetly as they hurry towards AJ’s car. Goosebumps rise on Frankie’s legs, and her head throbs in warning. She needs to get her hands on a hairdryer, stat.

“Awes-s-suh-some.”

While already red from the cold, Frankie’s cheeks brighten all the more when her chattering teeth give away her poorly concealed state (attempts are still being made, nevertheless, to somehow fool AJ into thinking she’s totally, like, cool). 

::

Frankie’s shivering doesn’t go unnoticed. In fact, a little smirk pulls onto AJ’s lips as he considers standing outside his car a while longer. He wonders how long it would take before Frankie finally broke and admitted she’s freezing her ass off. But AJ isn’t that cruel. He snorts, white mist expanding from his nostrils as he does.

“Come on,” he encourages, opening the driver’s side door to clamber in, welcoming Frankie to do the same on the passenger’s side. 

He turns the key in the ignition, car engine purring to life. One hand settles on the wheel while the other immediately reaches for the knobs to control the heating system. He cranks it as high as it will go knowing some time will need to pass before the Jeep’s cozy as a countryside cabin with a blazing hearth at its center.

✻

“Thank you,” Ingrid breathes, both for his acquiescence and his suggested response. One that she ought not to have been surprised by: Will’s somebody who isn’t beneath challenging another; if they prove to be unexpected in any given way– in this case, perhaps, if Adrian were to not rise to the occasion –he’s able to dismiss them with (his own interpretation of) probable cause. Ingrid, however, isn’t sure if she’s keen to invite Adrian to prove himself. As subtly as she can, she deletes the message, though she keeps the tongue-tied theme in play when she writes: maybe a coffee would loosen the knot? :)

Message sent. Ingrid sets her phone down and rises out of her chair. While not entirely for the pleasure of it, she’s decided to join Will. The nerves first fluttering in her belly now flap like a flurry of terrified pigeons, seeking shelter in the sky from the perils below. She grabs a glass, sits back down, and fills it halfway.

“Oh! Yeah!” Ingrid beams at his flatmate, “that’s such a good idea! Does this mean that you like him?”

::

If Adrian’s gifted with anything it’s social graces, but he still manages to misinterpret Ingrid’s message. With his brows tied together, he responds: It’s a little late for coffee, don’t you think?

Will narrows his eyes at Ingrid’s smile as if she were the sun reflecting too harshly into his eyes. “Like” seems such a useless, trivial word. And even then, he’s not willing to waste its implications by throwing it around on a guy he’s been on a few dates with. “He’s fine,” Will sighs as if he’s reviewing a remarkably mediocre film he’s just wasted too much money on to watch it in the theater. “He’s nice, he’s sweet, he’s cute. I’m just... I don’t know, maybe I should give that Seth guy another shot... He has a really nice ass.”

Everything seems to shatter for what Will thinks has to be the final time this week. There’s no way anything inside of him could break or splinter any more than it has now.

He’d expected the lights to be off when he walked through the door, hoped to sneak into a quiet home. To make his way across the floor and maybe, just maybe, find his way to his bed without disturbing Milo. 

Now that he’s standing in the doorframe, he’s made aware of how utterly impossible such a thing would be. Even if he could make it all the way to bed, there isn’t a reality in which they don’t have to have this conversation. Somehow, Will had deluded himself into thinking he could fast forward through the interrogation, as if he’d only been out for the afternoon. But he’s just too numb, too raw now to think of anything other than tucking himself into their sheets and sleeping away the week’s worth of hopelessness, guilt, despair, agony. He just needs to sleep.

“I...” But there isn’t anywhere to go from there. 

Will Moody, so practiced in conversation, never without a witty retort, well-rehearsed and suave and clever finds himself without a card to play.

•

“I’m not grouchy” —He is— “I just don’t want to see my bloody parents.”

Victor manages to lower his voice by the time he finishes explaining (repeating, really) why he’s in such a state. He also manages to refrain from going over the specificities of why his parents are so heinous and hateful– his mother in particular.

Beatrice Marlowe inherited a hefty fortune from her late father, Dominic Marlowe, when he passed away a few months before Victor was born. With that fortune, she dived headfirst into property development, gentrifying a handful of areas around London until she was steered by her (younger, Victor always reminds everyone) Greek boyfriend, Galen, into the modelling industry. She set up a booming, ever-growing agency by the time Victor was fifteen; he’s been modelling ever since. Now, Galen’s out of the picture, thank fuck: Victor doesn’t think he could bear having Ivan meet a guy only three years older than them as a potential step-father. Not that that could happen, anyway. Bee isn’t the marrying type.

Rather, she wasn’t. 

After Galen, Victor’s father, Dougie, snuck back into the picture. No doubt to try and mooch more money off his mother, but that, Victor is constantly reminding himself, is not his problem. It’ll only ever become his problem should Dougie mooch more than he deserves– which, really, is any amount, if it were up to Victor. But Bee likes controlling people. Toying with them, like a nasty cat that spends its days napping and throwing precious things off high surfaces, daring the people foolish enough to claim ownership over it to stop it. For now, Victor only need assure himself that Dougie hasn’t yet dipped into his savings, and is only being granted some petty cash by Bee, and Bee alone.

With another helpless groan, Victor slumps further into Ivan. He turns his head, tucking his face away in his boyfriend’s chest.

“Not long now,” comes the driver’s gruff country accent, shuffling towards them from the front seat. 

Victor only groans again.

::

He stings all over. Shame pours into him in an instant, like a swarm of fire ants have crawled along his insides, all of them biting down at once, leaking their burning venom into him. His throat seems to jump inside of his neck somehow, eyes darting to his shoes.

“Sorry,” he mutters before he rolls his lips against each other, swallows and works through his shallow breathing until the prickling sensation subsides. His hands slip between his thighs, and they pinch together, pressing his palms up against each other, the arm closest to Victor pressing into him as Ivan’s shoulders end up squaring.

“Thank you,” he adds meekly to the driver. 

•

Amani’s laugh is contagious. So much so that Frankie feels her own laughter tumbling right out of her, as easy and inevitable as a roly-poly down a steep hill.

“What?” she teases, knuckles knocking out a distracted little rhythm on the bar. “It’s, like, cool, but it’s also sort’f stuck in between stuff, y’know?” Frankie nods her chin over at the guy. “Okay, so… The shape of it’s super cool, but it’s got these weird lines around the neck– see? It’s like somewhere between natural scruff and too much definition. S’like, dude doesn’t know who he is, man!” This last part she says with an exaggerated Bostonian accent. For no good reason. Fuck, she’s kind of nervous.

“Dude,” she sighs, bites her lip to reel in her grin. “That would look awesome. Not to mention that I could totally pair up with you at a costume party, dress up as the pirate queen herself.”

::

Amani doesn’t think she’s ever spent so much time evaluating a person’s facial hair before. Maybe that’s why she only widens her eyes and nods, taking Frankie’s expertise as gospel when her mind scrambles to provide an opinion of its own. She comes up short, though, and it’s probably time to face the facts: she simply isn’t invested in the look of a man’s chin.

The thought of Frankie decked out in traditional robes with her hair done up and pinned by elegant pieces definitely has Amani’s attention, though, as is obvious by the gasp that stretches a wide grin over her face. “Wait, stop, that’d be so hot. I can for sure get behind this idea. You’d have to let me do your makeup, though. This has gotta be a muh-fuckin’ art project, okay? No way I’m lettin’ nobody half ass it.”