Page 64 of Filtration Play
“Fin? It’s me.”
Ollie.
His familiar voice socked them in the gut with relief, enough for them to almost careen forward, even though they’d managed just a wobble.
Their throat tightened, and they weren’t sure what to do. Let him in, and he’d see them like…this. No longer confident and in control.
“Fin, are you okay?” Ollie’s worried tone sentenced them.
They strode to the door, flicked on the light, and opened it.
Ollie stood in the doorway, all big, burly sweetness. His eyes widened the second they landed on Fin, which meant they looked like shit. They’d braced themself for a barrage of questions. But he didn’t ask what had happened.
No, Ollie simply stepped in, closed the door behind him, and wrapped his arms around them in a fierce hug.
Tears welled up in their eyes for the first time in a long damn while, and the sob that had been stuck in their throat for a near decade escaped. The dam broke, and Fin collapsed in Ollie’s arms.
Safe.
They were safe.
Chapter Twenty-One
When Ollie hadn’t heard back from Fin, he decided to check in on them.
Ballsy move, since they preferred their privacy, but this gut feeling had stuck with him all day at work, even while he’d been deep in the guts of a Subaru, working on the transmission. Once he finished his shift, he headed to Fin’s apartment. They hadn’t responded to any of his messages, and he knew they were meeting their mom today, which would guaranteed stir up some shit.
What he hadn’t expected was to step into their apartment andfind them like this.
A deepening purple bruise along their cheekbone, the rest of the skin puffy and red on that side of their face. Their hair was bedraggled and messy, and a haunted look resided in their hazel eyes.
He clutched them tight, trying to dispel the rage that built by the second. Something had gone wrong, but he only had shots in the dark to guess what. However, he understood Fin’s skittishness because it was so similar to his own. He’d wait for the information to be volunteered. Right now, he needed to remind himself they were here in his arms.
“Fuck,” he muttered, the words muffled by their hair.
Fin pulled back and attempted a half smile that fell off their face. Tears streaked down their cheeks, which floored him. Fin wasn’t the type to cry.
He shook his head, his heart ripped out of his chest. “You don’t have to pretend for me. Fuck, baby. Never me.” He was in so deep with them he never wanted to surface, and he was well aware of what letting him in had cost them.
Fin didn’t let people in, not like that.
Yet they made exception after exception for him.
“Did you ice that?” He pointed to their cheek.
“Nah.” They shook their head, then winced at the movement.
Ollie set off toward the freezer. He opened it and rummaged around, the brisk cool not helping to calm the hot rage bubbling inside him in the slightest. He found a bag of peas, which would have to work. “Do you have a towel? I’ve had to ice too many injuries over the years.”
“What from?” they asked, snagging a dish towel. He passed over the bag of peas, and they applied it to their face.
“Being on the football team. I’d like to pretend it was just sports-related, but I got in a lot of fights my senior year.” He swallowed hard.The slurs the guys had thrown around had gotten under his skin effortlessly. And for a while, he’d convinced himself he was sticking up for Jules, but deep down, those attacks had slammed in on a personal level. He’d just been burying parts of himself in an attempt to fit in.
Something he’d done for years and years.
“Fuckers,” Fin spat out as they clutched the wrapped bag of peas to their face. The tears had slowed, the sobs had stopped, but a strange fragility hummed in the air, like they were one step away from shattering completely.
Ollie swallowed. He understood far too well. He’d been riding that line for the past few months, the urge to cut pulsing beneath the surface, ebbing and flowing but growing to a dangerous point. Sometimes he went long stints without it arising, where it remained a latent part of him and he could pretend he was healed, that he’d gotten over the urges.
