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]

There's no magic fix. Things don't automatically go back to normal the next day. Or the next. There's an underlying wrongness to everything, a hesitation in everything, even down to when we touch.

Mike's out again, to see some other contact, and I head to that bar off the docks. Just one drink, I tell myself. I can't stay cooped up on the ship, but I'll be back before he is. I'll make myself.

But I get there, and there's that familiar set of shoulders, the line of his back hunched over his beer, but he's not alone. I'm not sure if I've ever seen the guy before, but that doesn't matter. I can pick him out like he had a fuckin' neon sign flickering over his head. It's somethin' about the way he moves.

He moves like me.

[makes_a_law]

The younger man, whose name Tom hasn't caught yet, laughs low in his throat at something Tom has said, not something that was particularly funny, but Tom feels a bright grin stretch across his features, enjoying himself regardless. He can feel where this could go, he knows the other man is looking at him through his lashes, and just because Tom has never done it before doesn't mean he couldn't. He remembers Harkness, the confusion of emotions there. Nothing had ever come of it, but leaning in, feeling the puff of breath and a knowing smile close against his skin for the first time in more than a year, he doesn't think it would be a hard thing to consider.

"I, ah," Tom said, blushing gently, "I don't think I've gotten your name yet?"

[blackhole_heart]

Jesus Christ.

He's blushing. I can see it from here, back in the shadows at the back of the bar, distractedly ordering a beer from a sullen and rough-edged waitress -- Nanashian, from the looks of her. I'm frozen, unsure what to do. I should leave him be. He's a fuckin' adult, but that kid... that kid's gonna eat him alive.

That kid's gonna way overcharge.

[makes_a_law]

When the kid laughs and mutters, "Jesse," against Tom's ear, and pulled back to watch him with that same kind of wonder that Tom was used to. He was looking at his blush and all of Tom's nervous glances, idly playing with the hole in the shoulder of Tom's thin tee-shirt.

"What do you do, Jesse?" Tom asked with an open, interested look and barely notices that the kid has to cough to hold back laughter.

"Oh, you know," he said softly, keeping Tom's eyes. "A little of this and a little of that. Temp work."

"It's something," Tom said with an encouraging grin, sipping at the last of his drink, trying to keep his eyes off the door.

[manusgemini]

When he gets back, it's late and he's dragging his feet. No luck, again, no big job that'll suit both of them, nothing for Hobbes, because he can't quit asking completely. And they're running out of cred, the cred that they haven't tucked away for some great future that seems further and further distant. Soon they'll have to start digging into it, and he's wondering if it even matters.

Nothing seems to be working out. Nothing. Not even the things he usually clings to when the rest of the world goes to shit.

"Neil," he calls wearily when he steps into Florence's gently humming hull. And even with the humming, it seems a little too quiet. "You here?"

[blackhole_heart]

Florence looks a little more alive when I step up to her hatch, and I know already that he's beat me home. "Shit," I mutter under my breath, punching in the code and hoping he hasn't been waiting too long.

I was half hoping he wasn't home at all, the guilt of it raging up so suddenly I'm almost dizzy with it. It's been a long time since I've felt like this big of an asshole. It's been a long time since I've had any reason to feel this way. I'd gotten used to things being good, I'm totally off balance now that they're not.

Stepping up through the hatch, I catch sight of him down the corridor, just a shape in the dim interior lights. "Hey..."

[manusgemini]

"Hey," he says, turning, frowning slightly. He isn't going to make a thing out of wherever Neil was, not after last time. He doesn't even want to think about it. He doesn't want to think about any of this. He wants to pull Neil into bed and sleep into tomorrow afternoon.

He takes a step forward. "Everything okay?"

[blackhole_heart]

"Not really, no," I mutter, pushing a hand through my hair and brushing past him toward the kitchen, needing some water or something to wash away the taste lingering on my tongue.

God, what if I smell like him? I can't, can I? We barely touched, but I feel like there must be marks left behind. Every inch of my skin is burning.

[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

[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

[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