32,384
This is what I was going to do originally - update the fic as I wrote it. So better to start late than never, right? Anyway, here's the next part, I figured I'd post it before I go to work. If you haven't read the other thing I posted this morning, make sure you do that now, else this won't make sense. Okay. This also includes the very first flashback, gasp. Enjoy it.
32,384 / 50,000
(64.8%)
Seattle, Washington - March 12th, 2002.
He watches his feet as they drag over the wet sidewalk underneath him, slick with April rain and splashed puddles. The insides of his knuckles are red and sore from the plastic grocery bag twisted around them, the grocery bag that contains the only things in the world that he considers his possessions.
Sorry.
That word is on the tip of his tongue, and he tries to say it, but he can’t. It makes it out of his stomach and up his throat, but dies when it passes where his tonsils used to be. Dies where the tiny scar that no one’s ever seen is imprinted in the top of his throat.
Mama, Dad. I’m sorry.
The bag swings as he walks, bumping against the side of his legs, and he squints down to the end of the road where his parents’ home is, the last place he saw them, probably about a year ago now. Before he ran away.
I didn’t mean it, but he hit me, and I was mad…
Nodding at the words inside his head, he drops his bag when he’s six houses away from his own and stops, pausing to straighten his clothes - his best t-shirt, the one that only has a tiny hole on the bottom seam - and brush a hand through his hair, earlier cleaned in a local McDonald’s bathroom. He slicks his tongue over his teeth and bends down to pick the bag back up, shaking the hand that carried it this far to get the red creases out.
“Mama…” He whispers, frowning, watching his shoes again. “Dad…”
He can’t help it, when he gets to the edge of the yard he breaks into a jog and a smile, despite every other way that he knows he should be acting. He bets his mother is inside, probably asleep, maybe passed out, but he knows she’s there.
“I’m sorry.” He finishes, voice quiet and dead in the afternoon. Nodding once more, he reaches across for the door bell, wonders if his dad has come back to fix it yet. Presses it.
Listens as the bells chime inside, echoing through the narrow hallway that falls on the other side of the door as him. He smiles and peers in the window, trying to peek over dirty lace curtains and long cracks.
He rings the bell again, glances back to see if there’s a car around. There isn’t.
“Mama?” He calls, banging his hand against the door. “Mama, you home? It’s Justin!”
She never answers, and the car never comes back.
…
Berlin, Germany - November 10, 2005.
He doesn’t sleep at all that night. He doesn’t even bother trying.
And it isn’t for any of those ridiculous teen queen soap drama reasons, like, ‘oh god dear diary, I can still feel him on my lips!’ -- in fact, if that were to ever happen, he’d gladly rather split the skin of both his wrists than think about it anymore. And that’s that.
But.
He remembers all of it.
Remembers sitting in the car, nervous as all hell, ready to crawl out of his own skin and into someone else’s. He remembers blinking furiously, listening to Brian laugh, on his own side of the Jeep. He remembers his veins throbbing, like someone had tightened their fingers around his arteries and made it so that the blood was trapped in suspense, unable to move any further.
And then he remembers kissing him. Kissing Brian.
It wasn’t a real kiss. Well. He frowns and stares at the ceiling. Technically it was, lips on lips and noses touching and all that. But Brian hadn’t moved, had been too shocked to do much.
Justin had felt a lot like that too, warning alarms going off inside of his head, screaming at him, loud alerts that repeatedly told him: don’t do it, don’t do it.
But he did anyways.
He presses his hands tight against his face and sighs, eyes wide in the dark air of the undoubtedly small but still private bedroom he was moved into the night before. There are so many thoughts wrapping around his skull that he can’t differentiate one from the other, can’t even start to think because it makes the backs of his eyeballs ache.
Closing his eyes, he tries to shut up the voices that still wind around inside of his head. They’re still saying what they were in that car -- don't do it, don’t do it, don’t do it -- and to Justin, it sounds like they’re skipping, stuck on repeat.
…
Closing the fridge door with his foot, he sets the cold takeout on the counter with one hand, and runs the other through his hair.
So far tonight, he’s smoked six cigarettes. His skin already smells like thick yellow smoke, and if he were to look in the mirror, his teeth would be dulled. Faded.
He shakes his head and opens a drawer, searches around for a pair of chop sticks that haven’t already turned splintered from the cheap wood. He’s been thinking about things. He doesn’t know how to phrase that better, ‘things.’
Because that’s all they are -- things -- things that he hasn’t figured out yet.
Thing One: The Case. This… thing, it’s been wracking his brain since he first heard about it, hushed whispers from Adeline about rumors that the local hospital has been thinking about hiring him for this case that will undoubtedly turn high profile -- will undoubtedly get media coverage. Will make Kinnetik one of the biggest agencies in Germany, never mind Berlin, just from the sheer mass of it all.
So yeah, he’s been thinking a lot about that. Nights wracked with pale scars and pale arms and pale skin and pale eyes. Mornings spent jogging down sidewalks, lips twisted and head turned to this fucking case, this thing.
And here’s Thing Two. Justin Taylor.
If he were thinking more clearly, he might label it ‘Thing One, Part B’, after the initial case. But goddamnit, the smoke is making his head more fogged up than it was when he first dropped his keys on the kitchen table, and all he can think about is finding a matching pair of chopsticks. So for fucks sake, Justin Taylor can be Thing Two, forget about Part B.
Justin Taylor. He could replace both of those names -- both first and sur -- with these images in his head, these images that he’s been trying to punch into the knuckles of his fists, kick against boxing bags and drain from his head with loud techno music underneath coffee and tea. They’re images that have wracked his head for what seems like forever, two weeks too long, his fingers on pale skin, tracing pink scars and studying bruised photographs.
These images, if he could get rid of them, he would.
He frowns and throws a pair of chopsticks into the noodle box, shuffling through the rest of his kitchen, through to his bedroom with a lit cigarette hanging between his dry lips.
The next thing he titles Part C.
The Kiss.
That’s when he realizes he doesn’t have many things to think about it. He barely remembers it, it happened so fast. So unexpectedly. All he can really visualize in his head is the back of Justin’s body as he hurried away, slipping inside the centre and closing the front hall door behind him.
Though the one thing he does remember quite fucking clearly is sitting on the sidewalk in his car, eyes still open and lips almost mid-speech. He was going to say something, just before Justin kissed him.
Fucking kissed him.
Because the words were right on the tip of his tongue - right fuckin there.
Justin. He says it inside his head now, and the words are without quotations, but it doesn’t bother him. I mean it. Don’t worry about it, just… don’t do it.
The words seem small and ridiculous now, but maybe that’s okay.
He doesn’t turn his bedroom light on, because all that he needs is already coming from the television screen, blue and tuned into a channel that he knows he doesn’t get. And he doesn’t bother thinking about the fact that -- hey, fuck, what might happen if somebody had actually seen that, what might happen to the case.
Because it’s just… this thing.
And right now, that’s okay.
32,384 / 50,000
(64.8%)
Seattle, Washington - March 12th, 2002.
He watches his feet as they drag over the wet sidewalk underneath him, slick with April rain and splashed puddles. The insides of his knuckles are red and sore from the plastic grocery bag twisted around them, the grocery bag that contains the only things in the world that he considers his possessions.
Sorry.
That word is on the tip of his tongue, and he tries to say it, but he can’t. It makes it out of his stomach and up his throat, but dies when it passes where his tonsils used to be. Dies where the tiny scar that no one’s ever seen is imprinted in the top of his throat.
Mama, Dad. I’m sorry.
The bag swings as he walks, bumping against the side of his legs, and he squints down to the end of the road where his parents’ home is, the last place he saw them, probably about a year ago now. Before he ran away.
I didn’t mean it, but he hit me, and I was mad…
Nodding at the words inside his head, he drops his bag when he’s six houses away from his own and stops, pausing to straighten his clothes - his best t-shirt, the one that only has a tiny hole on the bottom seam - and brush a hand through his hair, earlier cleaned in a local McDonald’s bathroom. He slicks his tongue over his teeth and bends down to pick the bag back up, shaking the hand that carried it this far to get the red creases out.
“Mama…” He whispers, frowning, watching his shoes again. “Dad…”
He can’t help it, when he gets to the edge of the yard he breaks into a jog and a smile, despite every other way that he knows he should be acting. He bets his mother is inside, probably asleep, maybe passed out, but he knows she’s there.
“I’m sorry.” He finishes, voice quiet and dead in the afternoon. Nodding once more, he reaches across for the door bell, wonders if his dad has come back to fix it yet. Presses it.
Listens as the bells chime inside, echoing through the narrow hallway that falls on the other side of the door as him. He smiles and peers in the window, trying to peek over dirty lace curtains and long cracks.
He rings the bell again, glances back to see if there’s a car around. There isn’t.
“Mama?” He calls, banging his hand against the door. “Mama, you home? It’s Justin!”
She never answers, and the car never comes back.
…
Berlin, Germany - November 10, 2005.
He doesn’t sleep at all that night. He doesn’t even bother trying.
And it isn’t for any of those ridiculous teen queen soap drama reasons, like, ‘oh god dear diary, I can still feel him on my lips!’ -- in fact, if that were to ever happen, he’d gladly rather split the skin of both his wrists than think about it anymore. And that’s that.
But.
He remembers all of it.
Remembers sitting in the car, nervous as all hell, ready to crawl out of his own skin and into someone else’s. He remembers blinking furiously, listening to Brian laugh, on his own side of the Jeep. He remembers his veins throbbing, like someone had tightened their fingers around his arteries and made it so that the blood was trapped in suspense, unable to move any further.
And then he remembers kissing him. Kissing Brian.
It wasn’t a real kiss. Well. He frowns and stares at the ceiling. Technically it was, lips on lips and noses touching and all that. But Brian hadn’t moved, had been too shocked to do much.
Justin had felt a lot like that too, warning alarms going off inside of his head, screaming at him, loud alerts that repeatedly told him: don’t do it, don’t do it.
But he did anyways.
He presses his hands tight against his face and sighs, eyes wide in the dark air of the undoubtedly small but still private bedroom he was moved into the night before. There are so many thoughts wrapping around his skull that he can’t differentiate one from the other, can’t even start to think because it makes the backs of his eyeballs ache.
Closing his eyes, he tries to shut up the voices that still wind around inside of his head. They’re still saying what they were in that car -- don't do it, don’t do it, don’t do it -- and to Justin, it sounds like they’re skipping, stuck on repeat.
…
Closing the fridge door with his foot, he sets the cold takeout on the counter with one hand, and runs the other through his hair.
So far tonight, he’s smoked six cigarettes. His skin already smells like thick yellow smoke, and if he were to look in the mirror, his teeth would be dulled. Faded.
He shakes his head and opens a drawer, searches around for a pair of chop sticks that haven’t already turned splintered from the cheap wood. He’s been thinking about things. He doesn’t know how to phrase that better, ‘things.’
Because that’s all they are -- things -- things that he hasn’t figured out yet.
Thing One: The Case. This… thing, it’s been wracking his brain since he first heard about it, hushed whispers from Adeline about rumors that the local hospital has been thinking about hiring him for this case that will undoubtedly turn high profile -- will undoubtedly get media coverage. Will make Kinnetik one of the biggest agencies in Germany, never mind Berlin, just from the sheer mass of it all.
So yeah, he’s been thinking a lot about that. Nights wracked with pale scars and pale arms and pale skin and pale eyes. Mornings spent jogging down sidewalks, lips twisted and head turned to this fucking case, this thing.
And here’s Thing Two. Justin Taylor.
If he were thinking more clearly, he might label it ‘Thing One, Part B’, after the initial case. But goddamnit, the smoke is making his head more fogged up than it was when he first dropped his keys on the kitchen table, and all he can think about is finding a matching pair of chopsticks. So for fucks sake, Justin Taylor can be Thing Two, forget about Part B.
Justin Taylor. He could replace both of those names -- both first and sur -- with these images in his head, these images that he’s been trying to punch into the knuckles of his fists, kick against boxing bags and drain from his head with loud techno music underneath coffee and tea. They’re images that have wracked his head for what seems like forever, two weeks too long, his fingers on pale skin, tracing pink scars and studying bruised photographs.
These images, if he could get rid of them, he would.
He frowns and throws a pair of chopsticks into the noodle box, shuffling through the rest of his kitchen, through to his bedroom with a lit cigarette hanging between his dry lips.
The next thing he titles Part C.
The Kiss.
That’s when he realizes he doesn’t have many things to think about it. He barely remembers it, it happened so fast. So unexpectedly. All he can really visualize in his head is the back of Justin’s body as he hurried away, slipping inside the centre and closing the front hall door behind him.
Though the one thing he does remember quite fucking clearly is sitting on the sidewalk in his car, eyes still open and lips almost mid-speech. He was going to say something, just before Justin kissed him.
Fucking kissed him.
Because the words were right on the tip of his tongue - right fuckin there.
Justin. He says it inside his head now, and the words are without quotations, but it doesn’t bother him. I mean it. Don’t worry about it, just… don’t do it.
The words seem small and ridiculous now, but maybe that’s okay.
He doesn’t turn his bedroom light on, because all that he needs is already coming from the television screen, blue and tuned into a channel that he knows he doesn’t get. And he doesn’t bother thinking about the fact that -- hey, fuck, what might happen if somebody had actually seen that, what might happen to the case.
Because it’s just… this thing.
And right now, that’s okay.