Page 11 of Fear
TOBIAS WAS CAUTIOUSLY willing to believe that this night was going well. He couldn’t wrap his head around a lot of what Jake had said—I’m gonna come right down there with you, Toby—and didn’t dare try, afraid he’d lose it the instant he understood, but what he was able to grasp could be boiled down into one major fact and three minor:
He was with Jake.
He was warm. He was fed. Jake hadn’t so much as slapped him; Jake was still with him, and Tobias had hope that it was going to stay that way. Maybe for a while. Maybe longer.
When Jake took his last bite of pizza and Tobias quickly swallowed his own, they both just sat for a second, staring at the empty plates and digesting—food still so damn good that Tobias couldn’t believe that Jake had given it to him, so many pieces of pizza that his stomach was full, full for two days straight—absorbing the silence of the apartment and the distant sounds of the neighborhood (cars, motorcycles, voices, music) slowly filtering through the walls.
Finally, Jake shook off his reverie and picked up their plates. Tobias nervously grabbed the glasses and the cardboard tray that had been under the pizza and followed Jake to the kitchen.
He wasn’t sure that Jake would want him to help or touch or follow, but Tobias felt safer in some presumption, now. No, he wouldn’t dare initiate contact with Jake without express permission—he was so fucking lucky that Jake wasn’t the Director, or even a guard, or he doubted he’d still have hands right now—but Jake hadn’t beaten the shit out of him when Tobias caught him in the kitchen, hadn’t said anything when Tobias brought a spare oven mitt to the table to set the pizza on top of (so it wouldn’t hurt Jake’s table). Tobias was cautiously testing what would make Jake angry, what would earn him a whipping, a blow, a sharp word, anything.
So far, disturbingly, nothing had. But Tobias had faith that Jake wasn’t just saving up all his transgressions for a new kind of Wednesday session. Jake really would tell him when he was being too much of a freak.
The smile Tobias got when he came into the kitchen with the cardboard made him feel almost dizzy with relief.
“Glasses go in the sink, and you can fold up the cardboard, shove it in the trash,” Jake said, nodding at the bin where he had put the plastic wrap.
Tobias carefully folded the cardboard and tucked it into the garbage while Jake dumped their plates in the sink with the glasses. He felt a twinge throwing away something that still had crumbs and cheese residue—three days ago he would have begged for permission to eat those scraps, maybe the cardboard too—but it was minor compared to the complete satisfaction of being full and with Jake and happy. Not the same kind of happy he’d felt yesterday before everything had gone to hell, but happy nonetheless.
Even thinking about yesterday stripped away a lot of the good feelings from the pizza and Jake’s smile. But before that memory could sink in, Tobias turned and Jake was there, smiling at him. His expression was not quite happy, not quite satisfied, but still familiar, because it was the same way Jake had always smiled at him.
Jake raised one hand to Tobias’s face, hesitated, and then rested his fingers lightly on Tobias’s cheek. Tobias closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. The part of him terrified of making the same mistake of last night—and he still didn’t know exactly what it had been—was temporarily overwhelmed by the part of him saying JakeJakeJake like it was a chant to keep all the bad things away for just a few minutes longer. A few days, please.
Jake’s hand caressed his cheek, and it was better than anything he had ever dared hope for. Tobias took a shaky breath—it felt so good—and then forced his eyes open, his face up to Jake’s, because Jake liked him to look him in the eye and Tobias would. He would.
Jake’s expression was tender, and sad, but there was a bit of happy in it too. Tobias was glad that Jake didn’t look miserable, that even when Tobias fucked up, it couldn’t make Jake sad for long.
“Hey, Tobias.” Jake spoke like he had trouble forming the words right, like some of the worries plaguing Tobias were eating their way into him too. “I’m . . . I think we’ve had a really long day. I bet we could both use some shut-eye before we figure out what else we need around here.”
Tobias tensed. That sounded like last night. Last night when he had fucked everything up.
“If you want me . . .” he started, hating the way his breath faltered, afraid it would make Jake think that he wasn’t willing and ready. It was just that he was terrified that he would do the wrong thing again and break this beautiful, brittle chance Jake had offered. “I don’t have to. We could . . . anything, Jake. If you want . . .”
“No,” Jake said quickly, but he didn’t take his hand away. He brushed his fingers through Tobias’s hair, then rested both his hands on Tobias’s shoulders. Gently, so gently, no pressure at all to make Tobias think he ought to go to his knees. “Let’s just get some sleep, all right?”
He guided Tobias out of the kitchen and nudged him in the direction of “his” bedroom.
Tobias went, even though the last thing he wanted was to be parted from Jake. But Jake had told him he should go to the bedroom and sleep, so he went, even though it hurt when he couldn’t see Jake anymore. He left the door open, so that if Jake reconsidered, he wouldn’t think even for a second that Tobias wasn’t willing.
The bed was softer than any bunk he’d ever slept on, any chair he’d ever touched, or even the breaking room couch. It definitely wasn’t meant for a freak, and yet Jake had pointed him toward it. It would be ungrateful of him to sleep on the floor, but Tobias didn’t think he could sleep in that bed. For the first time in his life, he was in a room without cameras (at least, he couldn’t see any, and Jake never wanted their meetings recorded, so why would he put them in his own home?) or without a guard just outside the door. He couldn’t quite believe that there weren’t any other monsters nearby to jump him in the dark, nor could he process the unfamiliar shapes, scents, noises, and the all-pervasive fear that Jake wasn’t going to fuck him, wasn’t going to keep him, that this was all just a wonderful illusion that would crumble the second he closed his eyes for too long.
Tobias didn’t think he would sleep. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the instant he lay down, there would be a guard to beat him awake because he was hallucinating during a sleep deprivation test, or maybe Jake would decide after all to claim what was his, and Tobias had to be ready.
But the second Tobias pulled his legs up on the mattress, letting himself curl into a protective ball, the world went dark, his breathing evened out, and he slept. His stomach was full, Jake was moving quietly in the other room, and Freak Camp was miles and miles away.
Chapter Three
The next morning, Jake was up well before Tobias and had no idea what he should be doing. Sure, he could sleep twelve hours or so as well as the next guy, but they’d gone to bed pretty damn early the night before, and . . .
Jake had to admit that part of what had gotten him out of bed was that he couldn’t hear anything. What if Tobias was gone, hurt, or—shit, had somehow never been there at all? More than once in the months when Jake had been getting the apartment ready (buying all the shit that normal people apparently needed took more time and effort than he had ever expected), he’d sprawled over his big bed and thought about Tobias, hoping that tomorrow would be the day. He lay there hating the Dixons, struggling with how surreal it felt that busting Tobias out of Freak Camp was finally happening but not happening at the same time; Tobias’s life with Jake—and Jake’s promise—was in the hands of Washington paper-pushers, for fuck’s sake.
Now, Tobias was with him, and Jake felt just as useless against the forces fucking with Tobias’s head.
He got up at the crack of dawn because he couldn’t sleep anymore and stood at Tobias’s door like a complete creeper for about ten minutes before he could assure himself that Tobias was breathing behind the wood—finding Tobias’s toiletries bag in his duffel last night had made it real too—then set about finding something to occupy his time.
Tobias finally appeared around ten, after Jake had washed last night’s dishes, cleaned his guns, dusted—if this kept up, he was going to become a goddamn housewife—and finally settled in front of the TV with a big mug of instant coffee. Jake craned his neck around when he heard the door squeak open—he kept meaning to oil it or pound on it or something, though his instincts still insisted that doors should squeak and give him advance warning when baddies started coming through.
Tobias blinked, and his knuckles were white where they clenched the edge of the door. “D-did I sleep t-too long?”
