Page 9 of Fear
Having Jake close to him again felt good. He didn’t seem angry that Tobias hadn’t moved yet, but it was so wrong that Jake was lower when Tobias knew that he should be kneeling by the table, not Jake. He slid to the edge of his chair, instinct driving him that far before Jake’s hands fell on Tobias’s knees, the contact a sudden shock that stilled him. If he moved forward any farther, he would be throwing himself into Jake’s arms, which he wouldn’t—shouldn’t—do.
Tobias swallowed. “I don’t know.” I don’t know what you want or what I should do. I don’t know how long you’ll keep me or what will send me back. And you won’t tell me. “Please just tell me, and I’ll . . .”
Jake touched his face, thumb brushing his cheek, fingertips grazing his hair. Tobias fell quiet at the familiar touch—only two days he’d felt it, and it was already familiar and as necessary as air. Tobias could go without that touch like he could go without food, but it hurt to be without it. Jake touched him like it was a miracle that Tobias was there. Like Tobias was something special, something real. “Tell you what?”
What I should do so you’ll touch me forever, fuck me, keep me. “What I should do. I’m sorry, Jake, so sorry.”
Jake smiled, but it was tight, not quite genuine, and Tobias felt his nerves spike, tightening his spine, clenching his stomach. It was last night all over again, and he was going to fuck it up, and Jake was going to—
“You’re fine, Tobias.” Only Jake crouching there in front of him, his fingers against the too-hot skin of Tobias’s face, kept Tobias in his chair, kept a lid on the panic. “I don’t really need that much help with pizza. I mean, I haven’t tried making it here, you know, though I bought one a couple months ago when I signed the lease for the apartment. I used to cook them all the time whenever we had an apartment and Dad was . . . yeah, well, I’m going to try to do better, you know? Cooking and stuff. Tobias. Talk to me. Anything you want, anything, just say it, and I’ll do my best. I mean, I know that’s not always that great, but . . .” Jake snapped his mouth shut and took a deep, slow breath. “Just tell me, okay? What do you need?”
Tobias couldn’t process the question, couldn’t think of anything to say in response. He stared down while Jake’s hand slid from his cheek to the back of his neck, and the ohsogood sensation of Jake’s hand on his bare skin warred with the inherent wrong that Jake (his master? a real? a hunter? perfect and so much better than he deserved) was reaching up to him, a monster, a freak and a worthless—
“You’re on the floor,” Tobias choked out, when the dissonance and his own emotions threatened to break him down faster than even the Director’s soft voice. He wanted to blame the fact that he was stupid, that he hadn’t slept hardly at all, but the truth was that this mattered so much that he could barely think about what he had right now without being terrified of losing it. Life always got worse for monsters. It had to. But right now, he was with Jake, gently touched by Jake, and there was only one way that his life could get worse, and that was if this contact, this connection, stopped. And it would the second Jake realized he was kneeling beneath a freak. He couldn’t ask Jake to stand, he couldn’t beg to be lower—I didn’t give you permission to beg yet, freak—but Jake had told him to say what he needed, and maybe, just maybe Jake would be merciful enough to understand.
Jake laughed. It looked like it hurt. “Yeah,” he said. “You wanna come down or should I get up?”
Thank you God, Tobias thought, as he slid off his chair and to the floor where he belonged, where Jake was.
WHEN TOBIAS JUST dropped from his chair—like he was desperate to get off of it, like he’d been shot—Jake couldn’t help but flinch back. He expected . . . fuck, he didn’t know what he’d expected. Maybe for Tobias to laugh at him and tell him to sit in a chair, to stop swooning like a tragic lover, or maybe to drop down next to him like he had when they were kids, nervous, but not like this.
When Tobias hit the floor, he didn’t try to move closer to Jake. He just knelt, shoulders hunched until his head was well below Jake’s, even when Jake sat back on his heels. Monsters had begged Jake for their lives, and he’d watched broken civilians weep over their loved ones’ bodies, but he had never in his twenty years seen someone assume such an abject, groveling, demeaning position.
Tobias assumed it like it was the most natural thing possible, like it was a relief to be kneeling on the floor with his spine bent.
A little voice in Jake’s head was panicking, hissing, What the fuck? What the fuck! over and over again, like repeating it would give him some kind of answer, would bring back the Tobias he had known when they were kids. Fuck, he’d take the Tobias he had left in Freak Camp six months ago, who had been tense and half-starved but who had smiled so much more easily, who hadn’t flinched at everything Jake did.
The worst thing, really, was that this was still Tobias. Same smile, same face. Same expression in his eyes when he looked at Jake, like Jake was the best thing in his world. But at the same time, he was a broken stranger, someone who expected . . . horrible things. Jake couldn’t even—wouldn’t even try to imagine—
What the fuck did they do to you, Tobias? he thought, angry enough to break something and also sick with the knowledge that this was all his fault, that everything that had happened to Tobias was his fucking fault as much as if he’d been the one beating the joy out of him.
And then Tobias looked up at him from his twisted, groveling position and smiled that same tender, vulnerable, oh-so-breakable smile that cracked Jake’s heart when he was just handing Tobias a bag of chips. Right now, with Tobias basically cowering beneath his (fuck, their) kitchen table, it made the bile rise in Jake’s throat.
Moving slowly, he pulled Tobias up and close to his body, wrapping his arms around him. Not because he necessarily wanted to hug Tobias or just pull him close—though he wanted all that, but he didn’t know if Tobias did, and how the fuck would Jake be able to tell if he wanted it or just wouldn’t say no to anything?—but because if he didn’t touch Tobias right now, if he didn’t stop seeing that smile combined with the way his body said he had absolutely no hope that Jake wouldn’t hit him, then Jake was going to punch something (the floor, the table, the chair, never Tobias) or throw up over the floor.
Tobias didn’t come to his arms like girls or guys usually did. Or even, fuck, Dad, though the last time they’d hugged—
Yeah, Tobias’s body was tense, like he was shocked that Jake was holding him, like he couldn’t understand. And fuck, for all Jake knew, he didn’t have the least clue and just thought that Jake was—
Jake cut off thoughts of anything but the slight weight of Tobias in his arms, the smell of his hair as Jake buried his face by Tobias’s shoulder, feeling the knobs of vertebrae under one hand and the meatier flesh of his thigh under the other. Felt Tobias’s breath against his ear and the even rise and fall of his breathing—even as he registered how each deep breath, coupled with the wire-tight tension in Tobias’s body, indicated more panic than any sound he could make.
“Shhhh, it’s okay,” Jake murmured. “You’re okay.”
Tobias just sat there, stiff in his arms, and it was horrible. Jake rubbed Tobias’s back, feeling every rib—remember these, Jake Hawthorne, all your fucking fault—hoping to ease some of the tension, to find a way out of the hug without pushing Tobias away. That was something he would never, could never, do. “I’m going to do my best, Tobias. I promise. I promise.”
After a couple minutes of being held, Tobias relaxed. It was almost worse, because Jake could tell—he was close enough to hear Tobias’s heartbeat in his throat, feel every muscle in his back—that Tobias wasn’t relaxing, exactly, so much as he had finally forced himself to go limp and accepting in Jake’s arms. Jake could hear the blood beating harder through his veins.
Accepting was not relaxing. It was not the same as willing. And Jake had damn well better remember that.
“Hey, Toby,” he said, trying to keep cheer and ease in his voice for Tobias’s sake. “You hungry?”
Tobias’s head twitched, which Jake decided to interpret as a yes because, fuck it, he didn’t know how to ask and actually get an answer.
“Me too,” he said. “Here’s the plan for tonight, low stress. I’m gonna—we’re going to cook up the frozen pizzas. I’ve got pepperoni and sausage, so you’ll get to figure out which one you like better.” Please tell me what I should do, Tobias had said, and Jake hated that; he wanted Tobias to do what Tobias wanted, but he had no idea how to say that, no idea what to do to prove to Tobias what it even meant. Jake swallowed. “And then we’re both going to sit at the table. I don’t want you to . . . we’re equals, Tobias. I mean, I’m a little older.” Jake grinned a little, but the statement didn’t even qualify as a joke and his expression died right away. “Anything I do, you can do, okay? I mean, you don’t have to, I don’t want to . . . to force you to do stuff you don’t want to do, but we’re together. I’m at a table, you can be at the table. And the same goes for me, too—if you’re on the floor, I’m gonna come right down there with you. You got that, Toby?”
“Y-yes, Jake,” Tobias whispered.
And that fucking hurt too.
