Page 6 of Fire
Toby’s shoulders twitched, like he’d taken a hit and didn’t want to show it. His throat worked for a moment, but nothing came out.
Jake rubbed his hand across his mouth, pressing hard. He didn’t want to do this. He really didn’t want to do this, but fuck, hehad to ask. It was cowardice otherwise.
* * *
“Can you tell me?”Jake’s voice was low and soft, but Tobias could not meet his eyes. He could not look up and see the slow disgust growing there, the accusations Tobias couldn’t turn aside because they were true. “Can you tell me what he was talking about?”
Some days—the best days—Tobias had managed to forget that this moment would come. He had dreamed of it countless times, both sleeping and waking, and each time it had been the end. There was no other outcome possible, no way he would ride shotgun next to Jake in the Eldorado again after this. But even so, Jake deserved the truth. He had always deserved the truth, but Tobias had been too cowardly to offer it.
He had always known, though, that when the moment came that Jake asked him for the truth, Tobias would not keep it from him.
“I’m sorry.” He stared at a point just beyond Jake’s arm, right hand locked on his left elbow like that would hold him together while everything else crumbled. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have, I should have held out, I should have waited foryou—but it wasn’t for the h-hell of it, I swear it wasn’t. Only... only when it was important. When Kayla was crying, shecouldn’tstop crying and that would just bring the guards and the smell?—”
Tobias could feel it again: lying in the cold on the threadbare bunks, the disgusting slough of shifter skin, and the certain, sick knowledge that when the guards arrived, they wouldn’t have mercy on the girl-seeming creature weeping in terror near him.
“Toby, Toby.” Jake was crouched beside him, hand outstretched but not touching. Tobias wished, with every particle of his filthy and worthless being, that he could meet and grip those fingers one last time. Ending it with that final touch would be a shocking kindness. “Slow down.” Tobias could feel his gaze like a burning heat, though he would not meet it. “What was important?”
Tobias swallowed hard. “Blankets. Th-there was only o-one, and it w-wasn’t enough in the worst of w-w-winter. Food, s-sometimes, when it was r-really bad.”
Jake stayed very still. On the edge of his vision, Tobias saw the revelation move over Jake’s face, into his body. He was still the way he was when a case slotted into place in his head, when they knew where the killer freak would strike next. If anything, that threatened to choke Tobias off even more.
“Toby,” he whispered. “You’re saying that?—”
“Yes, Jake, I sucked them off to getstuff.” Tobias let go of himself and locked his hands on the bedspread on either side of himself, turning his head with his eyes closed. He was braced for a blow, for the words he had dreaded for so long to hear from Jake.Fucking whore, this is not what I paid for, some easy piece of ass.
Nothing came. Not a blow, not a word. Instead of relief, Tobias’s nerves tightened, his fears doubling. Worse than physical abuse, worse than any damning words, would be Jake walking out without a word.
If these were the last moments with the man who was his whole world, Tobias couldn’t let Jake walk away without one last glimpse. He cracked his eyes open.
Jake hunched forward, palms pressed to his forehead. He couldn’t look at him.
Tobias swallowed, tried to find enough saliva to speak again. No use apologizing—he already had, and Jake wouldn’t want to hear it now(that was one of the rules Jake had gifted him: only one Sorry a day. But rules wouldn’t save him now).
Hoarsely, he whispered, “I never let them fuck me.” One last bone. Maybe Jake would keep him around long enough for that. One last memory to cherish before whatever happened to him after. Even now, when Jake couldn’t stand him, Tobias still wanted it. Better Jake than anyone else, always. It wasn’t as though Jake would, or could, treat him any worse than Tobias deserved.
But the longer Jakedidn’ttouch him, didn’t take him, the less Tobias could hang onto even that fragile hope. He was dirty, used, worthless. Maybe Jake would give him a bullet instead of taking him back to camp. Jake was so good, so kind. Tobias prayed for the feel of the barrel tucking up behind his ear, a hand on his shoulder—his last touch—holding Tobias down while Jake pulled the trigger. That would be better, so much better, than going back.
When Jake finally looked up, Tobias cringed away from the anger in his face. Contained, suppressed, but so much anger that Tobias couldn’t see it without shaking. Jake’s eyes were red, as though he had been crying, or close to it, and his face was marked white where his fingers had pushed indentations into the skin.
When Jake reached for him, Tobias flinched instinctively, and then called himself a fucking idiot. He knew that Jake didn’t get off on pain, and if Tobias wanted this to happen he would have to make it as good as possible for him or Jake might stop. He closed his eyes, tight enough he saw white afterimages, praying that Jake would touch him, wouldn’t be so disgusted that he went to the bathroom for whatever relief he would’ve gotten from using Tobias.
When hesitant fingers touched his shoulder, Tobias almost cried in relief. He relaxed into the touch, pressing himself into Jake’s hand, eyes still closed.
He felt the mattress shift as Jake moved to the bed beside him, felt the heat of Jake’s shoulder pushing against his, but he still didn’t look. Any flinch, any sound now, might drive Jake away. If he looked up and saw hatred and disgust in Jake’s eyes, Tobias wouldn’t be able to stop himself from reacting—even though everything depended on it.
“Toby,” Jake breathed. He sounded frightened, unsteady, un-Jakelike. “Toby, look at me.”
He couldn’t. He couldn’t watch it coming. Couldn’t make himself.
Then he felt Jake’s lips against his cheek, and Tobias’s eyes snapped open.
Kisses. He hadn’t thought there would be any more kisses. He hadn’t thought Jake would think him worth that gentle caress of mouth against skin, knowing now what he had done. Tobias didn’t even think about the possibility of Jake’s mouth against his again—disgusting, to think that Jake had been so gentle where Tobias had whored himself to so many others—but just the soft pressure of lips made Tobias relax, made him ready for whatever came next.
Jake whispered in his ear, “I knew.”
Tobias’s whole body recoiled from Jake’s. Finally he stared at him full in the face, astonishment making him bold (shockingly disrespectful, the Director would have made him pay). But it couldn’t be true. It simply couldn’t, though he didn’t think Jake ever lied to him before.
Jake gazed back at him, his gray eyes sad, almost bleak. It was a terrible look for him, and absolutely Tobias’s fault. He would rather think about his own guilt and Jake’s sad eyes than what those words meant.
