Page 33 of Fire
“How many...”How many people hurt you. How manytimes.
“A few. I got around, Toby, before you. There was this guy that I started with in Oklahoma, made it pretty easy, and a few one-night stands since. And if we’re not just talking...” Jake took a big breath and pushed it out again, throwing him an uneasy glance, “dicks, then there’s been a couple girls too. With strap-ons.” Jake shrugged. Every word and gesture was wary, like he expected Toby to explode at any second.
Toby carefully did not say what he wanted to say:Give me their names so I can kill them all.“And—it didn’t hurt?”
“Nah.” Then Jake reconsidered, shrugged. “Okay, so a couple times it started out awkward, and I’d rather not do it again unless it’s with someone I trusted a hell of a lot.” He met Toby’s eyes. “I trust you, Toby. Do you trust me?”
Toby swallowed hard. “Jake, you know I?—”
“No, Toby, do you trust me not to hurt you?Ever?”
“Jake, you don’t?—”
“No, Toby, I think Idounderstand. What I understand is that you’re in completely the wrong headspace for this to be our next move this week.” Jake grabbed his hand, and Toby almost jumped, startled by the contact. “Toby, if you really want us to start going in that direction, okay, fine, but let’s start withme. I’ll show you how to prep me, step by step. I will be splayed out for you and begging, like I would be forno oneelse, because I trust you absolutely. But there’s no way in hell I’m sticking my dick up your ass when you think I’m going to rip it apart!”
Toby couldn’t hold back a shudder at the image Jake’s words brought, even for the second it flashed across his mind. He was angry, probably just as angry and determined as Jake, and not at all afraid of the man across the table from him. But he couldn’t stop his body’s reaction to the shouting and anger and the memories (both what he had had to watch, and what he had been sent in to clean up afterward) seared into his brain. In this moment, with this conversation, Toby could not stop that reaction.Damn them for that too.
Even though it was the wrong thing to say, even though Toby knew he was winning Jake’s argument for him—he wasn’tstupid—he couldn’t stop the words. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” he rasped.
Jake would have been justified in letting go of his hand, but he didn’t. He just squeezed harder. “Toby, this is exactly what I’m talking about. Why would I ever do something to you that I wouldn’t be willing to take myself? Why should things be good for me and fucking awful for you? We’re goddamn equals. You believe that? You have to, Toby.”
Toby had to back up. He felt shaken and uncertain, and he hated that feeling because he knew it wasn’t what Jake wanted. It wasn’t what he wanted either, but it was exactly what he was reduced to when he wasn’t watching himself, when something triggered him—reminded him what kind of stupid freak he was—into the same old destructive thoughts.
What he couldn’t shake when he tried to let this go, when he tried to be satisfied with the joy that Jake gave him every day, was the fear that it could be taken from them. Two weeks ago—sick and petrified with fear while huddled in Roger’s closet, listening to hunters so close that a single badly timed cough would give him away—Toby had been thrown right back to camp. He recalled that constant terror that the guards and the hunters would take the last clean thing he had to offer, knowing that if they did, Jake would have no reason to come back for him.
He didn’t believe that now. He knew Jake would always come back for him, no matter what they did. But if the ASC ever captured them, or if they just found Toby, there might not be time for saving, no time for rescue. And Toby would never be able to give that to Jake. Jake would never get the chance to prove to him that being fucked—when done by someone who loved you—didn’t have to rip you apart. Toby would have lost Jake’s promise forever, and Toby really, really did not want to let those bastards win. Not anymore.
When a monster was too big, too vicious, or too immortal to stake and burn, you had to face it down and pull its teeth until it wasn’t a threat. So that was what he was doing: facing it down until he didn’t have to be afraid anymore. He just had to put that into words that Jake could understand. But he couldn’t do that if he was shaking with that damn old fear.
“Ridiculous,” he rasped. “My poker face is much better than yours.”
And just like that Jake grinned, relief all over his face. “You kick my ass at lots of things.” He leaned over the table and kissed him, deep and slow, their hands locked together. “Definitely cuter.”
“Yeah right,” Toby snorted. He wanted this. He wanted Jake in every way, both because he wanted to give Jake that, and for himself, for reasons that were personal and private and sensitive as his own skin where the old scars met unmarked flesh. A huge piece of Toby just wanted to let go and try another time, maybe push some night in bed when Jake was already distracted and maybe thinking about it already (though Toby had tried that and it hadn’t worked well), but he didn’t want to give in either.Theyhad taught him to give up, and anything they had taught, he didn’t want to believe any more.
When Jake leaned back in his chair, smiling fondly, Toby ducked his head, closed his eyes, and tried one more time, tried to say it in a way that would convince Jake of what Toby knew in his bones was true, of what he desperately needed.
“I still want it,” he said softly.It has to be you.
“Toby, I’d have one hell of a good time, too, but right now?—”
“Please, Jake.” Toby pressed his hand. “You say it doesn’t hurt, you say you’ve t-tried it, and I believe you, youknowI believe you.” He also wanted to kill everyone who had done that to Jake, but figured that at this point that was equal parts jealousy and ingrained fear. “But I—I don’t think—I can’t—this isn’t something that I can wrap my head around just because you explain it. Or I can wrap my head around it, but that’s not what matters right now. It’s not myhead,it’s my—my gut that needs to get it, and I don’t think that’s going to happen unless you help me. Unless you just do it and it’s what you say. P-please, Jake. I w-w-want this. Or at least not having it makes me... I don’t want to be scared of this anymore.”
“Toby, you know?—”
“Hear me out,” Toby snapped, for one second in control and confident. That receded, and he had to drop his eyes. “This is a big thing, a thing I can share with you, something I can give you, something you can give me, and I want it to beyou, Jake.” Or the nightmares would continue, the fear that some hunter, smiling like Crusher over a fresh body, would be his first while Jake was bleeding and tied up in another room or dead. Those nights, Toby woke up choking on a scream because it wasstill possible.
And Jake knew him, knew him so well that it was scary sometimes and other times it was the greatest gift that Toby ever received. Jake knew what he was thinking of, and his expression darkened. “Toby, you know you’re never going back. I willneverlet you go back.”
“You can’t control everything, Jake.” Toby tried to keep his voice even, tried to keep eye contact. “I’m sick of being terrified of this.”
They stopped then, the silence stretching between them over the remains of their breakfast.
Jake broke first, lifting one hand to brush it through his hair. “Okay, Toby.”
Toby’s eyes narrowed. “Okay what?”
“You’ve convinced me. Kind of.” Jake abruptly looked a little panicked. “We arenotfucking this Thursday, it’s not going to happen, but... the next time we have the time to take it slow, and do it right, andnothingis going on, yeah, we’ll start. Andthenif that goes okay, maybe we’ll start thinking about going all the way, okay? But not Thursday, and that’s my best offer.”
