Neil

[makes_a_law]

Eventually, the ache subsides and Tom believes that he's getting better. For a while, it had seemed like an impossibility, with the pain, with the limp, no prospects but a dirty bed in Tenazi and more fines to the company store. Now, he's healing, and the wound was closing to a healthy, pink scar

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[blackhole_heart]

Maybe I should've expected it, but coming home to an empty shuttle is more painful than it should be. I stand in the middle of my bedroom, the unmade bed and the pair of Mike's shorts peaking out from an open drawer, and I feel sick. "Jesus," I gasp out, covering my face in my hands, letting myself break down for a moment or two, my shoulders shaking with silent sobs and my palms coming away wet.

I fall face first into the mattress, but it smells like him. Like both of them. Jesus Christ, I can't fucking stay here.

I'm out on the docks again, trying not to look at the empty place where Florence used to be. Trying not to think at all. I just... walk. I don't stop walking. And it's nearly dawn when it takes on any purpose.

I look in the usual haunts first. Bars, taverns, warehouses and tenements. It's been hours and I'm a fucking zombie. I have no idea why I'm even trying to find him, but it turns into a mission.

Probably because I don't know what else to do.

This is the last stop, I tell myself, feet dragging as I walk through the battered doorway of the crappy, crumbling building not far from Wendy's place. After this, I'll go home... Yeah, wherever the fuck that is.

[makes_a_law]

It was so much easier than he thought it would have been. He spent a night walking through the crazed ports, sober, way too fucking sober for this time of night. He hadn't had a clear thought for hours, since the gentle walk home with Neil, embarrassment mixed with hope mixed with the kind of loneliness that had him pressing Neil McCormick, bad idea for a dozen reasons, back against the bulkhead with his hand up the back of his shirt.

Day came. Tenements were rampant in this part of the city, and half of them always had rooms for rent. Miss Hathaway was small and shrunken, but when she saw Tom, for all his sorrow, all his tired eyes, she made him breakfast with coffee and pinched his cheek and told him that she reminded him of her young man, who'd been dead ten years come Christmas.

He got a room at the top of the buildiing, fifth floor, no elevator, and it came with three separate locks and an expectation that rent would be payed by the end of the month, so long as Tom helped her get the squeak out of the stairs and paint the front hall.

And now, it was night again. Tom laid back on his narrow cot with its scratchy blankets and stared at the water marked ceiling. He had his hands crossed on his stomach. He wasn't thinking, not about Mike. Not about his leg. Not about anything except maybe the way his fingers had felt against the dimples above Neil's ass.

"Well," he said to himself, into the New Tokyo night. "Shit."

[blackhole_heart]

The old lady shuffles up to me, already fussing over how tired I look, how I look like I could really use a warm meal, and how I remind her of her grandson. At first, I'm too tired to ward off the attention, but eventually, when she's wobbling off to get me some tea, I say, "I'm not lookin' for a room. I'm, uh... I'm looking for a guy. Tom Hobbes... He's... He's a friend. I've been lookin' all over the damn city for him."

She stops, wariness flickering over her face, looking at me with beady, mistrustful eyes, and she says, "Well, I don't know..."

"I really need to see him. I'm worried. I'm worried about 'em. If you know where he is--"

"Oh, all right. He's upstairs," she says, waving me off, "503. Be careful of the stairs. Some of them are tricky."

With a thanks thrown over my shoulder, I'm already tearing up the steps, nearly falling down and breaking my neck on a loose floorboard on the third floor.

"Jesus," I mutter, still rubbing my sore ankle when I walk up to room 503 and knock.

[makes_a_law]

Tom doesn't have a gun. He doesn't even have a knife, mace, anything. Just some pain pills and a lingering sense of regret. So when he hears the knock, the first thing he feels is terror, blind and piercing, down through skin and muscle, to the bone and the marrow. He swung his legs out of the bed, listening for a few, long moments before getting out of bed.

He crossed the room with effort and, expecting not much more than Mrs. Hathaway on the other side, he had to suck in a gasp at the familiar shoulders, dark eyes, impatient guarded movements. He stood there, watching. It didn't matter how Neil had found him. He had. That should have been enough.

But no. No. This was fucked up enough already. Tom felt too off balance for this, for now, no matter how much he wanted to open that door. He glanced through the peep hole and carefully backed up. Play dead. Keep the lights off. Admit nothing.

He backed away from the door carefully. He probably could have gotten away with it, almost, but the building was one huge squeaky plank. He pulled away and the floor boards let out a telling squeal.

"Shit," he muttered quietly, face collapsing instantly. He hadn't always been so sloppy.

[blackhole_heart]

"For Christsakes, Tom. I know you're in there. Open the fuckin' door," I shout at him through the thin, imitation-wood door.

He's fuckin' hiding in there, like a goddamn rat, but it's not like I blame him much.

[makes_a_law]

One hand still covering his face, Tom leaned against the door frame, undoing the three turning locks one by one and eased the door open until the chain caught, leaving the door taunt and open by two inches.

"Go home, Neil," Tom said, sounding tired. "I don't know how you found me, but this place is a shit hole and too small for two."

[blackhole_heart]

"I found you 'cause I been lookin' all fuckin' day, man," I say, trying pathetically to shove my way in through the tiny crack.

"Please, just open the fuckin' door." I'm getting loud, and I know that any minute people down the hall are gonna start to complain. Maybe that's the point.

[makes_a_law]

"Jesus - " Tom said, exasperation thick in his voice. His eyes darted down the hall and back again, giving Neil a look somewhere between annoyed and just stressed out. His new neighbors probably liked things quiet, to do whatever they did that had them in tenements, even under Hathaway's somewhat cleaner roofs.

Nudging the door closed long enough to undo the clasp, he let it fall back open, giving Neil just enough room to slide in, shutting the door quickly behind him, doing up the locks immediately.

"Look, if this is about the credits," he started instantly, "I can pay them back, I'm looking into some work..."

[blackhole_heart]

"What? No. No, I..." I hadn't even realized he'd taken any. I hadn't thought to look, and now, I can't find it in me to care.

"I'm sorry... I dunno why I'm here. Mike, he just... He just left. He kicked me off his fuckin' ship and left."

[makes_a_law]

And that made it hard for Tom to properly shut the door, the chain sliding out of his hands twice before it caught. He turned around sharply, hands crossed over his chest.

"What?" he said finally, rubbing a hand over his face and looking at Neil with deep confusion. "I mean - when? What the fuck happened?"

[blackhole_heart]

"I don't know," I say, pushing a hand through my hair, turning helplessly in the center of the room, trying to get my bearings in a world that feels turned completely upside down.

"Last night. After I left. Things just fell apart," I mutter, looking down at the tiny, sad little bed, "I told him. I don't know why... God, everything's fucked." I can feel myself panicking. It's a fucking miracle I'm not on my knees, sobbing my fucking eyes out. I feel like there's barely anything keeping me from that.

[makes_a_law]

"You told him," Tom said slowly, arms still crossed tightly over his chest. He could feel his fingers digging into his elbows. He felt like he was drowning. Mike Pinocchio. Mike Pinocchio knew, which wasn't even half of it, which wasn't even most of it. Most of it was Neil McCormick, close to breaking down in his living room.

"You told him that I..." He jerked his head sharply. "He just - left you? Here?"

Alone?

[blackhole_heart]

"It's more than just that. It was just a fuckin' kiss, not... I don't know, he just fuckin' bailed," I say, hands dropping to my sides, defeated and so fucking tired. I feel like I haven't slept in a week.

"And you just disappeared. There was nobody. I just... I dunno. God, I'm sorry."

[makes_a_law]

"No," Tom said quickly, "No..." he said again and crossed the room, touching one of Neil's shoulders before hurriedly taking his hand away. "I just...I didn't think you'd - I didn't think it would be a good idea to stay."

He looked at Neil. He'd done this to him. Tom had, single handedly, just a few minutes pressed up against a bulkhead and it all came tumbling down.

"Fuck," he breathed, somehow unable to watch him. "Neil. I'm so fucking sorry, I..."

[blackhole_heart]

"I shouldn't have come here," I murmur hollowly, looking down at my own feet on the dusty floorboards, "I just... I was afraid you'd fuckin' vanish and I wouldn't be able to find you again."

Why that matters, I don't fucking know. It shouldn't matter, but something brought me here, my feet moving like they had a mind of their own.

"God," I say with a cough of laughter, a pained grin cracking open my face, "I should've just gone ahead and blown you. It would've turned out the fuckin' same."

[makes_a_law]

Coughing a startled laugh, Tom blushed deeply, pulling away from Neil to the narrow kitchen, which didn't amount to more than a stove top and a sink along one wall. His ears were deeply pink and in response to that he could't manage more than a muttered,

"Yeah, that would have made things a lot better."

Rooting around under the sink, Tom called back over his shoulder, "Whoever the last guy was that lived here was a cheap bastard," he said, rolling back up to his feet, doing his best ignore strains of ...wouldn't be able to find you... bouncing off his skull and what that did and didn't mean. "But he had good taste in whiskey and he must have gotten out of here quick."

Tom stood, a half empty bottle of decent scotch hanging from one hand. "And," he went on, looking at it, I know it doesn't have rat poison in it because last night, it was full up to here," Tom said, indicating a few inches above the current line. At least a quarter of a bottle. He gave Neil a tight smile, attempting to show trying.

"Drink for your sorrows?"