Page 18 of Fortress
“They just... kept it for you? We’ve been gone nearly six months. That’s... how does that work?”
Jake grinned. It was a damn good change for Toby to be asking questions, not even with a stutter. “It’s part of the lease I signed. The apartment’s ours for a year. The rent’s paid automatically.”
Toby bit his lip. “Does the A-ASC help with p-payments?”
Jake knew what Toby was getting at. “They don’t know where we are. The lease’s under a different name, Johnson, and if any of the ASC lapdogs show up, they’ll learn to leave the Hawthornes the hell alone.”
Toby’s eyes went distant. “Sometimes the simplest lessons are hardest to... instill.” Before Jake could figure out what putthattone in his voice, Toby gasped, jerking upright in his seat. “Jake!”
Jake almost ran the fucking Eldorado off the road before he saw what Toby was staring at.
Though the sky was just edging into a pink sunset, one of the houses had already switched on their Christmas lights, and they were clearly going for the gold in one of those cheesy neighborhood decorating contests.
Even though the more temperate Boulder weather ensured that any snow that had fallen yet hadn’t stuck around, some white, woolly stuff was spread over the lawn to make up for it. Life-sized plastic reindeer romped through the drifts, either pulling Santa’s sleigh or waiting attentively by the manger in a nativity scene, depending on the side of the yard that caught the eye. Every inch of plant life in the yard had been attacked by some sort of electric light storm: glowing white in the tree branches and green around the trunks, the bushes flashing red, white, and green in some irregular pattern known only to the Christmas gremlins. The house itself was another thing, practically dripping with icicle lights from every eave (and a few things that the homeowners had only thought, or possibly hoped, were eaves). More multicolored lights flashed around every window and door, miniature Christmas tree lamps lined the sidewalk leading to the front door, and across the roof stood giant red-and-green HO HO HO letters maybe five feet tall.
Jake was about to make a crack about overcompensation when Tobias turned to him, his mouth open and eyes shining in wonder, and the words died on Jake’s lips.
“Jake,” Tobias breathed, looking between him and the house as they slowed down, like he thought one of them might disappear if he kept his eyes off them for too long. “Whatisthat?”
“Well,” Jake said, “I guess that’s Christmas.”
After that first house, Tobias saw others with strings of lights lining the roofs, or brightly colored lawn ornaments based on legends and myths he had only read about. Though none of them could match the riot of color, movement, and some indefinablejoy that had been in that first house, he couldn’t tear his eyes away.
What did it mean, really? He’d heard of Christmas, of course he had (mostly from Jake on those brief December visits when Tobias had been allowed to huddle with him in one of the buildings, feeling warmth in his fingers sometimes for the first time in weeks), but he couldn’t really have said what it was.
How were the decorations chosen? Sometimes there seemed to be themes and patterns, but he didn’t know if they were designed to drive off evil, attract luck, show off wealth for neighbors, or just because they were pretty. Staring into the gathering night, searching for other homes lit as bright as the Freak Camp walls at night (but kinder, welcoming instead of a constant threat), he was wholly distracted by questions of timing, cost, and how anyone with bones as fragile as a real human’s would ever be able to build snowmen on their roofs. Then Jake swung the Eldorado ontotheirstreet, and recognition struck him like a bucket of cold water on one of those December days.
“Oh,” Tobias said.
Jake glanced at him, his expression uncharacteristically unreadable, but he clapped his hand on Tobias’s shoulder before getting out of the car.
Habit helped, pushing him into motion. He heaved his bag from the trunk and followed Jake up the stairs as though it were just another generic motel.
The memories hit when Jake unlocked the door, when Tobias stepped inside and saw the well-worn brown couch where he’d slept under Jake the night of the spilled peas, the table where they had shared their first pizza and he had tried not to think of eating the cardboard.
Tobias shuddered and dropped his bag in the doorway. Jake stopped, looking back at him. He raised his eyebrows in a goodattempt at his usual quizzical humor, but the tight line of his mouth showed strain. “You okay, Toby?”
Tobias realized his hands were twisting together. He made himself let go, clenching them at his sides. “I just—I remember what I thought the last time I was here.” More specifically, the first time he had walked through that door, expecting so many things that he knew now Jake had never had any intention of doing.
Turning, Tobias slapped hard at the light switch, flooding the living room with light. He moved quickly through the rest of the apartment, flipping on every light before returning to where Jake stood, looking torn between worried and amused.
“Double-checking the breakers?”
Tobias looked him in the eye. “Is that a problem?”Though he meant to snap the words, they still sounded timid, anxious to his ears.
“Nah, it’s cool with me.” Jake forced a grin, and Tobias made himself smile in response before picking up his bag. Jake tilted his head back. “C’mon, let’s shake out these bags.”
Letting out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, Tobias followed him down the hall.
As glad as he was to be in the bedroom with Jake, preparing to share the single bed like they had in dozens of hotel rooms before, he knew they were both struggling in this place where they had started out. The memory of that first month lingered in the hitches of their evening routine, Tobias fidgeting and fumbling at the closet, trying to decide where to put his bag, Jake walking in and out of the bathroom as he remembered and forgot items, both of them running into each other, bumping elbows at the dresser, touching often as though they were not sure, all over again, that the other would really be there in a few minutes.
Finally getting into bed was a relief. This was a safe place, with Jake’s warmth beside him, but still Tobias could rememberbefore, feeling petrified and ecstatic in this bed, the mix making him queasy even from the soft distance of memory. Shivering, he pulled close to Jake, seeking him out in the dark. “Jake, Jake—”
“Toby.” His voice was hoarse, and his hands found Tobias too, grip just a shade too tight to be casual on his hip, other arm wrapping over his shoulders to draw him in.
They held each other in the dark, Tobias still shivering with things he didn’t want to remember. He’d known nothing in those early days, had neither assurances nor confidence nor faith that Jake could (or would want to) keep him out of camp. It had been almost as bad as camp, he thought now—being in Jake’s arms without understanding anything of trust, being in Jake’s bed without understanding kindness or the kindness of reals, knowing nothing about how to trust Jake or how Jake might trust him to have his back, nothing about strawberries or the ocean.
Tobias didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to lose himself in all those old thoughts: how he’d seen himself, Jake, the world. He wantedJake, the realness of him now.
