shadowed [nine]

[phallogical]

Shadowed
Status: completed
Warnings: LOTS of them; see tags
Rating: R
Word Count: 102k


An owl hoots outside of his window. A car with thumping bass squeals down the street. Seconds turn into minutes and minutes into hours and sunrise comes and goes and Matt still hasn't slept. His father bumbles around downstairs soon after and Daemon barks, loud and excited, and yelps once out of the blue as if his father had kicked him out of the way.

For once, his father doesn't wake him up when he goes to work. Matt doesn't sleep at all, and eventually he gets up in the late morning. Today, he has nothing to do. Today, none of his father's clients have him for any amount of time. Rick has to work - with Jon, coincidentally, which is how his father met him in the first place - Harlan's in the hospital with a bad case of pneumonia, and Bill's away in Hawaii for his vacation.

Which, while Matt's grateful for the reprieve, doesn't exactly mean much beyond that fact that his father isn't making any money off of Matt today and when he gets home, he could easily take his frustration from work out on. Beyond that, his father doesn't allow him to touch anything outside of the bathroom and his own room, so Matt has nothing to do.

It's like waiting to die, he thinks, sitting on his bed staring at the same four walls for eight hours a day. He doesn't even have a book to read, and if it weren't for the spider making a web in the corner of his room, he probably would go crazy.

Jon slams into the house at five p.m. that evening, singing at the top of his lungs. When Matt meets him downstairs - like he's supposed to do when there aren't any clients to meet with during the day - and points to Matt as he does so. "Guess what?" Jon asks, still dancing as he breaks for the chorus and pops the cork from a wine bottle.

"What?"

"Today, Rick gave me a fourth of the money he owes on you," he says before taking a long drink. "I got a huge shipment of furniture comin'; all of the best money can buy. At this rate, I might have to give you up before fall is out."

"That's… great…" Matt says, uncertain of how he should react.

With a laugh, Jon shakes his head. "I'm in such a good mood, I'm gonna order a movie for us tonight."

Matt's mind comes to a crashing halt while he tries to remember a time that his father wanted him to sit down with him and watch a movie with him. "Uh-us?"

"What the-fuck no, not us! I got a girl comin' over in a while, you kiddin' me?" He snorts as he takes another drink of wine. "Yeah, let's go get your mother out of the room she's been locked in for months, too, make it a real family night. Ha!" He shakes his head. "Get the fuckin' pizza I got out of the bag on the table and get up to your bedroom." He gestures towards the kitchen table and laughs. "Us! Haha!"

As Matt takes the pizza out of the bag, he tries to determine when he'd started to think that his father was actually a nice man deep down. Maybe the solitary confinement of the morning and early afternoon screwed him up; he had too much time to reflect on the past, which is never a good thing. "Right. Anything else?"

"Stay in your damn room when the girl's here. I don't want her to know that you're here. You're kind of an embarrassment, you know, and I can't be scaring the girl off, can I?"

It disturbs Matt that his father's sleeping with other women when his mother is still alive and still in his house, but voicing this would only result in another punishment for Matt, and the fact that his father came home in a good mood is enough to set Matt on his toes, regardless of the reason. He doesn't ever voice his concerns, no matter what might happen because of it.

He's only just taken a bite of the pizza - cold and half-frozen, but he appreciates the sentiment expressed by the deli from the gas station down the street - when Jon barges into his room.

"How's the pizza?" he asks. The hairs on the back of Matt's neck stand up, but he figures any answer is better than none.

"Good…"

"One of your little friends came over just now," he says, clasping his hands together in front of his body. Matt sets the pizza down. "Said that his mother baked you a batch of cookies to get over your break up with Dallas."

His blood runs cold. Liam didn't keep his mouth shut. Why did I let him get to me? "Dallas who?" he asks.

Jon laughs, but it's not the same laugh as before. "You know, that's funny. That's exactly what I asked. So he looked at me sort of weird, then said, 'Dallas Heath, Mr. Riley. Haven't you heard of him?' And you know what, Matthew? I have heard of him. He's the little faggot that's been hoggin' all of your time at a measly four thousand dollars a night, and you know what? I realized something, and if you were enjoying what Dallas did to you, that means that he owes me a lot more than what he's paid me, because consensual fucking is worth a whole lot more in this business."

Matt swallows and wipes his palms on his jeans. "I can-"

"So you know what you're gonna do?" Jon interrupts, raising his eyebrows and nodding like he's finally decided on a decision. "You're gonna go over to Heath's house right now and beg for the money like a rotten little whore. All right?"

"He's not a-"

"I don't give a fuck if he's not a client anymore! You're gonna fucking do it because I fucking told you so!" He slams his fist on the door; it ricochets off the wall and almost hits him. "Is that clear?"

Matt swallows. "Crystal."

Dallas isn't home. Because of that, Matt's not sure how he's going to actually get a hold of Dallas. Sure, Matt knows the number he can reach him at, but, unless he can get into his house, that's not going to help him in any way.

Still, he goes to Dallas' house and rings his doorbell a few times. He's on his way out when someone stops him on the street and asks, "Are you Matthew?"

He's afraid to answer affirmatively, but figures that in front of Dallas' house, it can only be a good thing. "Yeah. Why?"

The elderly woman hands him a small envelope, marked Matt in black permanent marker on the flap. "Dallas wanted to give you this, but he said that your father wouldn't approve if he knew about it. So he left it to me in case you ever came over here."

He wonders if she knows, but when Matt looks her in the eye, she doesn't seem to. "Thank you."

"You're a bit young for Dallas, but I suppose love comes in many ways. Just know that if you ever break his heart, boy, I'm going to be the one coming after you." The idea of being beaten to death by an old lady is strange, Matt knows, but he'd rather die at the hands of this old lady than Jon or any of his clients.

So, to deter her, he says, "I love Dallas very much," and finds it strange when he realizes that he's not lying. He loves Dallas like a brother, and saying it out loud only makes Matt miss him more. "I'm not going to break his heart."

"Oh, dear," she says, patting his hand with a sad smile on his face. "Alex said that, too, and Dallas still isn't over him."

Christ. Alex was Dallas' lover.

"I promise," Matt tells her, amazed he can still speak. "I'm not going to break his heart."

She pats his hand. "All right. Now, he said that your father would know if you kept the key, so leave it under the flowerpot on the windowsill of the shed in the backyard. That way, you can get it whenever you need to."

"Thank you," Matt tells her again, and almost runs to Dallas' front door.

Once inside, he races to the kitchen, where Dallas has his cell phone number written on the refrigerator. "Just in case," he told Matt after they'd been spending nights together for a few weeks. He grabs the cordless phone and starts dialing the number.

Ring… Ring… Ring…

"Hi."

"Ah, Christ, Dallas, you have no idea how glad I am to catch you-"

"I can't get to the phone right now, so leave me a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

Matt sighs, smacks his head against the fridge. Of course. He should have known Dallas wouldn't answer. The voicemail beeps a heavy tone, and Matt swallows back the lump in his throat before he says, "Hey, Dallas, it's Matt. Jon wanted me to tell you that-oh, Christ, I can't-

"Evidently he doesn't know you're still gone, or he forgot or he's setting me up, so I gotta make this quick, but… You're gonna be caught. I-I have to get out of there, and if you're not here in the next month or so, I'm afraid that I'm not going to be around to-" He takes a deep breath. "I can't do this without you, Dallas."

He can't. He hates that he can't, but he can't. And he thinks Dallas knows that, too, even without Matt telling him flat out. "Anyway. Just, uh… I don't know how much you can help with all the way out in Los Angeles, but… Please. Anything you can do, please."

Without saying goodbye, Matt hangs up. The key feels heavy in his pocket, the phone heavy in his hands, and he desperately wants to stay there, make it so Jon can never find him again, but while the old lady next door seems nice, Matt can't trust her to keep her mouth shut about him still being at Dallas' house.

Instead, he raids Dallas' cupboards and forces his nauseous stomach to eat - after all, he's not sure when he'll be able to eat again. He imagines that Dallas won't care if he eats his food right now, so long as there's not a mess of mice to come home to when he gets back home - if he does, he means.

Dallas doesn't call back, despite Matt's desperate prayers that he would, and Matt leaves the house to put the key where the lady said to put it.

Then, he trudges back home.

Jon isn't waiting for him when he gets home, but Matt hears a girl's laughter from the other room and assumes that that must be why he isn't. He heads to his bedroom, and stays there.

Jon doesn't mention the thing with Liam again, and Matt almost wonders if he'd forgotten. He actually allows him downstairs to eat breakfast with him. Matt's wary at first, but then discovers it's just Jon going over the month's schedule with him in a very different way.

"Bill and Rick are the one's that created it this time. Bill's got money dripping from his eyeballs, but Rick's sessions are free and he doesn't have a family to get rid of like Bill does." He clears his throat and slides a piece of lined paper towards him. "Bill's gone in Hawaii for the rest of the week, so Rick's got you every other day starting today. Harlan's pneumonia still isn't cleared up, and-" The doorbell rings, interrupting him. Jon grumbles and gets up to answer it. "Stay right here and don't get any funny ideas."

Matt watches for his father to return quietly without moving, and when he finally does ten minutes later, he has someone in tow. He looks to be a thirty some year old with a heavy beard. He looks vaguely familiar, but Matt can't pinpoint any reason why. "Guess what?" Jon asks him, clapping the man on the shoulder. He appears to be a little uncomfortable; Matt doesn't blame him. "We got you a new roommate."

"Joshua Lowe," the man says, "but please, call me Josh,"

"Don't show him any hospitality. It gets him addicted."

"Sorry."

Jon picks up the lined paper from in front of Matt and says, "Well, this is void now, isn't it? Get this man's stuff from the entryway and bring it to your room. You still got that twin size bed in your room, right?"

"Yes, sir,"

With a nod, Jon throws the paper in the garbage. "Good. Now go, I have some calls to make."

Josh doesn't speak as Matt brings his bags to his room, but upon closing and locking the door to Matt's room behind him, Josh can't seem to shut up. "I'm a friend of Dallas'. He's too busy in LA to come back here without drawing all sorts of attention to himself, so he sent me. Sorry about the bag carrying thing, but I have strict orders from Dallas to not step on anyone's toes."

"You're a friend of Dallas'?"

He nods. "Oh, definitely, yeah, we're friends. In fact, we've been friends since we were little. You wouldn't believe how many embarrassing stories I have about him…" He clears his throat when Matt just stares at him blankly. "He sent me to make sure that you were all right. That's why I'm here."

The brand on his chest stings as if trying to remind him of its presence. "I'm still alive."

"I'm sure Dallas will be glad to hear it," Josh offers brightly. Matt likens him to a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. "He's really worried, even if he wouldn't admit it. He doesn't want you to think that he's trying to make you do anything that you don't want to."

Matt feels compelled to ask. "Are you… Do you ever get to talk to him?"

Josh nods, sitting down on Matt's bed. "Actually, I'm supposed to check in with him every day."

"Why?"

He shrugs. "Dallas said something about every second being important and then went into something I don't really remember. He was a little… Erratic. It's been a while since I've seen him like this."

He's supposed to check in. He's supposed to check in. That probably means that, even without Matt leaving him a message about how he was, Dallas knew about it. That also probably means that Matt's risky move was in vain. "Could you maybe give him a message for me?"

Josh opens his mouth to respond when Matt hears a loud buzz. Josh pulls his cell phone from the pocket on his chest. He takes a moment to look at the screen, and then hands it over to Matt, saying, "Better yet, why don't you tell him yourself?"

Matt takes it warily, staring at the phone. Dallas H. calling, the screen reads. "Really?"

"Hurry, before it goes to voicemail."

He presses the green button on the keypad. "Hello?"

"Hey, did you manage to get in?"

"It's not Josh," Matt says, unable to contain his smile. It's Dallas. Just knowing that he's somewhere, doesn't matter where, and evidently still trying to help Matt, regardless of his distance… God, it feels good.

A pause, then, "Who the fuck-Matt. Oh, Christ, it's good to hear from you. I mean, I got your message, but… How are you?"

"I'm still alive," Matt says, despite how melodramatic it sounds. He's happy to hear from Dallas. Really happy, actually. "So this Josh guy…."

"He's one of my friends, Matt; you can trust him. If I'd had more time before I left, I would have introduced the two of you." Matt wonders why he would have, but then-

"Was this your plan all along?" Then silence. "Was it?"

Dallas sighs over the receiver. "Matt, I didn't… I wanted to keep it as a precaution. There were a lot of possibly bad circumstances surrounding you when I left, and I couldn't just leave you like that. I had to know if something was going to happen so that I could go to the police if I needed to." Matt doesn't say anything. "Are you still there?"

"He branded me," Matt finally tells him. The mark on his chest throbs with the attention again.

Dallas takes a deep breath. "Branded you. Christ. Who did?"

"Rick. He's buying me."

"What?"

"He's buying me. One point five million and he's already paid a fourth to Jon."

"When are you…? When are you going to him?"

Josh sort of clears his throat and points at the door. Jon, he mouths. Matt nods. "He gets me this coming fall."

Dallas sighs and curses under his breath. Matt barely hears him over the static. "Well, we should… We should have you out of there by then."

"Josh can't keep me away from him. Part of Rick's new deal is that he gets me whenever he wants me."

"Don't worry about Rick. What about the others?"

"Harlan's in the hospital. Bill's in Hawaii on vacation."

"How long is Bill in Hawaii?"

"I think through the rest of the week."

"Shit." Dallas sighs again. Josh looks slightly impatient; apprehensive, maybe. "All right, I got it. You'll be out by next week. Okay? I'll make sure you're out by the end of the week."

Next week? God. Next week. Matt thinks maybe Dallas is working on fixing this when he hasn't thought about it enough, that maybe he's doing too much too soon, not caring about possible consequences, but what can he say?

"Okay."

"I love you, all right?"

I love you. Dallas hasn't ever said that - ever. Matt had thought that it wasn't a part of their relationship, and that's why, when he'd left, he hadn't said anything more than be careful. "I, uh… I love you, too."

"Put me back on with Josh, I have to update him a little, make sure that some of our plans won't be ruined by Rick and Bill's absence right now. I'll see you soon, all right? There's still some things I have to get done down here but I'll be there before we'll get you out. Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Be careful," Matt hears him say as he pulls the phone away from his ear and hands it back to Josh.

I love you. Matt lets out a shaky breath he hadn't realized he was still holding. As if Dallas hadn't done enough for him already, he actually cares about him; at the very least, he's doing a good job faking it.

The two of them talk for a few moments in whispered tones before Josh snaps his phone shut. "All right," he says, looking as though he's giving a mental pep talk to himself. "Dallas told me about what some of those other guys did to you, but…" He eyes Matt's chest; Matt crosses his arm, self-conscious. "I'm getting into a lot deeper shit than he let me in on."

"Yeah," Matt responds softly. "What exactly is the plan?"

"Well," Josh says, rubbing the palms of his hands on his jeans. "I… I can't tell you."

Matt swears his blood runs cold. "What? How am I supposed to be-" He clears his throat, Josh reminding him of his father, who could easily be listening in on their conversation, and says, in a voice barely above a whisper, "How am I supposed to get out of here alive if I don't even know what's going on?"

But Josh doesn't seem deterred. "Don't worry about it. Dallas has it all figured out. All right? You trust him, right?"

"Yeah," Matt says with a nod, then gestures to Josh. "But I don't trust you."

He frowns, but doesn't seem surprised. "I expected as much. But, hey, if I did anything to fuck you over, Dallas would turn me in himself, so… Really, you don't have anything to worry about."

Matt makes a comprehensive sound in the back of his throat. A knock sounds at the door and Jon says, "I'm going out. Got a meeting with a new client-" he laughs. "A work client, I mean, I have a meeting with a work client." He pauses. "You wanna open the door?"

"Uh, we're… Kinda in the middle of something, here," Josh says, voice strained - as though he's done this before or has experience faking it. Matt's surprised at just how much he believes the emotion there.

"Oh! I guess I hadn't expected you to start in on him so soon. Anyway, you think you'll be all right with him?"

Josh nods, and then says, "Absolutely, we will." He kicks back against the mattress. It squeaks and slams against the wall. Jon clears his throat from beyond the door.

"Alrighty then. I'll leave you boys to it. Remember, kid, the rent's due first Monday of every month."

His feet clunk as he leaves down the hallway; Matt wonders if his father is over exaggerating in order to fake his way back to eavesdrop, so he motions Josh to sit next to him and speaks quietly. "What if this plan doesn't work?"

Josh sighs. "Then we go to plan B."

"And I suppose I don't get to know what plan B is, either. Am I right?"

Josh clicks his tongue and points his finger at Matt. "That you are." It's awkward for a few minutes, and then Josh says, "It's soon, though. All right?"

"And how am I even supposed to do that? Believe you about all this?"

Josh shrugs. "Well, for one, you don't really have a choice, and for another, because I'm sort of the key to all of this."

Groaning in frustration, Matt says, "Can't you just give me a hint about what's going to happen? I feel like I did when I was six and my parents were thinking about separating. Emily was going to leave and when I was sleeping, Jon left for a few days."

For a moment, Josh almost looks a little apologetic. "Uh…"

"But, fine, whatever. I'm sure you guys got this." He lays back on his bed and flips over the covers. Honestly. If Josh is going to be the one here, and he's evidently safe, then why shouldn't Matt get some sleep?

Probably because Josh is an annoying guy - a bit like Liam, actually - and won't let him get a minute of rest. "Dallas really cares about you, man. The first week you were staying at his house, he called me every day when you were at school, asking how I could possibly help him help you without turning Jon in. And, yeah, I kind of can see why he'd want to do that. He's got a lot of baggage, whether he admits that or not. If he were my patient, it'd be doctor-patient confidentiality, but since he's my best friend, I can breach that trust and tell the guy it's about, right?

"Anyway, every day, he'd call me, talking about something new he'd learned about you, something new that was scaring him into wanting to break his promise to you and turn Jon and all those other creepy assholes into the police. And Matt… Honestly, he was so broken up over that for so long. Sometimes, it was all I could do to talk him out of it so that there would still be somebody left to save."

Matt swallows. "What changed? I mean, why is he all of the sudden deciding that it's better for me to get out?"

"I don't think it was Dallas that changed. I think your change was the thing that pushed the guy over the edge. I mean, when I say he was a mess after he met you, I mean it. But, you know, it's the most… alive I've seen him in a long time. And we've been friends forever."

"It's the most alive you've seen him?" Matt asks, "Why? When was the last time he was alive and why is it me that's bringing this back up? Why not somebody else, a girlfriend or something?" Matt realizes his mistake as soon as he says it, but doesn't make an attempt to correct it.

"A girlfriend…" Josh smiles and takes a second to respond before saying, in a soft voice, "Alex. The last time I saw him this alive was when he was with Alex. God… I loved Alex. It was hard not to love him. He was just that sort of guy, you know; that lovable sort of guy, the one you hope is in your life forever."

Even despite feeling as though he's intruding on territory he shouldn't be - after all, if this was something that Dallas wanted him to know, wouldn't he have already told him? - Matt has to ask, "What happened to him?"

"He died," Josh says softly, picking at his fingernails absently. Matt wants to curl in on himself. "He'd been fighting leukemia for a long time, and he'd relapsed and was in the hospital for a few weeks. But, y'know, that was when Dallas was having some problems of his own and he missed a lot of Alex's time in the hospital, but when he finally made it, Dallas just…" He sighs. "He got over it. Like being reunited with Alex was what he'd needed the entire time."

"…So, he died of leukemia?" If that was why he died, it's no wonder that Dallas didn't want to tell him; Matt can only imagine how traumatizing that would be - especially when it's your lover.

But Josh shakes his head. "No, no… It was actually kind of… Ironic, almost, you know? He was fine. He came out of the hospital like the same guy he was before he went in. He was happy to be out, they were moving in together… The two of them were both very happy with everything. And one day, they were going, I don't know, shopping or something, and Alex had to stop at the bank, so Dallas held the cab…"

Matt feels terrible. "And he never came back out."

Josh shakes his head solemnly. "No, he didn't. There was a shooting at the bank; somebody was trying to rob it. Dallas hasn't really ever gotten over it. And to top it all off, he accidentally paid a few hundred dollars in fare holding the cab."

That'd be funny if it weren't so depressing. "That's…" He doesn't really know what to say. He's never had experience with that sort of thing, and nothing he could say could possibly mean anything - especially since it's Josh and it's years after the fact.

"Anyway. Look, I don't know what I can really do here, so I'm… I'm going to get some work done, all right? There's this case I have to work on for the county, it's… Anyway. Do you do anything…?"

Matt shrugs, shoving his arms under his pillow. "I normally don't get to do anything except watch the people on the street. In case you didn't notice, it's not exactly like I have a lot of recreational activities in this room, and Jon doesn't let me out during the day."

After a moment of silence, Josh laughs. "Christ, no wonder Dallas hates that guy so much. I mean, besides the…" He shakes his head. "There's a book in my duffle bag. I brought it along in case the plan wouldn't work and I'd be stuck here for a while. You want?" He's already digging out a laptop with an HP logo on the to, a ReinhartCountysticker just underneath. J. Lowe is written in white on the bottom right.

"I'm not normally into reading," Matt says, still inspecting Josh's laptop.

Josh shrugs. "Suit yourself." Except Matt's very interested now that he's already said no. What book would Josh bring along that he could possibly thing was good enough to read multiple times? It's as though… Well, hell. He's not even sure what to think about it.

Before ten minutes is up, Matt asks him about it. Josh tells him the title absentmindedly, still typing away at his computer. "It's one of my favorites."

"What's it about?"

"Rehab," Josh says. "Read it; it's good."

So Matt takes it out of the front zipper, per Josh's instructions, of his duffle bag. It's a beaten up hardcover with an ugly, red eye on the cover. Memento Vivere reads across the front. Henry J. Smith is just underneath the title. "And it's really good?" he asks skeptically. Josh nods.

"Absolutely; it's great. I must have read it like a hundred times." He clacks a few more keys and then says, "It's a bit hard to get into the first time you read it, but I started liking it all after a while."

Matt taps on it with his fingernails. "All right. But if I do this, you can't let Jon know. He's kind of… Anal about this sort of thing."

"Duly noted. Now let me get this work done so you can get to reading."