“Pr-”, a breath, incredulous, choked-back, “what’s my problem?” It’s loud enough to pass for laughter, the broken sound of it. He gasps on air as if it’s a liver shot, Loomis, you fucking idiot. The shock connects, a stitch in the side, disbelief pouring. He opens his mouth to say something, key turning in the ignition, car rumbling, but then Eli flings out Sasha’s name. Just… fucking says it. And Dominic, oh, Dominic slams the brakes dead on. It’s so abrupt, the momentum actually pushes them forward. Forces the back of his head against the seat.
On the wheel, his hands tighten like current just zapped through. The compulsion to do something unspeakable, Christ, to do anything with this anger, spears them to bone. Then they go limp. I’m going to yell, Dominic observes, cold and distant. I’m going to yell at someone who’s more roadside dirt than person, at this point; grape-stained fucking philosopher. He watches this from a morbid passanger’s seat, a perverse double-sight. Like he’s witnessing himself from afar, witnessing who he never was. Who he never could’ve been.
It’s either that, he reasons, or my hand around his throat.
It crashes into him in increments, fuse lighting inch by inch. Loomis never expected this to go any different. For the, oh, same class-act reason nobody in this fucking town did. Loomis, like Alicia, like Petrow, hopping all over the squares as usual. They had a right blast on this lonely, harmful, bullshit fucking chessboard; to hell with the rules, to hell with the boundaries, latching arms and promises and weakness around whatever pawns remained. Whatever idiots have not been knocked down yet, reeled in. Elias, you basically ditched us, for all practical purposes. You think people are going to take it? This is just the fallout of it. It’s in his mouth, under the tongue; bumping out like ghosts under the floorboards. It’s there, but then, then—
But then, hah. Dominic is taking it right now, isn’t he? So what exactly did the world teach Loomis about cause & effect? How did Dominic, or anyone for that fucking matter, ever prove to twats like Eli and Sasha that things have repercussions? That they’ve got a recoil, a kick-back, some ramification further down the road? That you couldn’t just, God, couldn’t just do whatever you wanted. Couldn’t just skip whatever you feared. ( And if you could, why did no one tell him? And if you could, why is he supposed to do it all anyway, when it’s so unbearable? )
He forces his eyes on the road. Fires the engine again, this time measured, this time packed with intent. Checks the rear-view three times before reversing. “Yeah”, he starts, a grim coil on his voice, “it’d do you some good to look up Sasha. You’ve both got a bloody lot in common. You wanna know, Eli, what the problem is?” Dominic offers, not even turning. He pulls a U-turn, another hairpin around the bend, then they’re onto the causeway. Lanes empty and rain-soaked in the small hours; world a wasteland, Finch as Finch does best, and thank God he can talk without losing it, without running someone over.
“Not sure it’s gonna get through, y’know, that ten car pile-up mind you’ve got, but hey, here’s to trying. The problem, Loomis, is that you legged it. You cut me off like it was scripted. Like it was your bloody right. And all that guilt trip? Chris, those fucking doe-eyed traps, the rants, the declamations. Honest to God, all throughout college. The way you asked for assurances, for comfort? Made me feel like shit for not trying to make it last. For not promising I’ll stay, buy out Finch, run in the Barrens forever, who the fuck knows what you were after? Childish garbage. But it got to me, it really did. Like I’m some cold monster, right? Your usual silver-spoon cynic, just for thinking Finch is temporary. Thinking you all are. Just, yeah, a nice footnote scrawled in the margins. Like childhoods get. Like magic gets. I said it first, remember? I fucking called it first, and you blamed me for it. Then you just… just went and acted on it.”
…
& there is something rotten. skin deep. wounded. he is an animal on the sidewalk, a deer in the headlights. you fucking cunt. he lurches, digging fingernails into paled thighs, thick, - shaking. his breath catches as a hitch, and he forgets that sometimes death is a kindness. laid bare and naked, he had placed them on an altar that he cannot reach, - prise open their flesh and wear for his own. i miss you. heavy lashes flutter shut. make a wish, eli belly. his head hits the back of the seat, please don’t go, loomis, and his spinning again. unravelling finger and thumb, grooves busted open. he wants to be sick. empty the contents from his stomach, and retake this drive another day. somewhere nice. somewhere peached stained, with honey pooled desires & strawberry stained kisses. those lucid dreams too dangerous to seep into now.
a silent violence awakens ; hot tears burn. stinging hues. scolding a facade he had sewn early that morning. tugged frostbitten grief. feasting on a diet of unshed tears. he sits still, quiet. he could devour planets with rage, yet remains childlike in his seat. eyes bored to the floor, he does not reach dominic’s gaze until he can stomach what carcass is left between them. he wants to go home for the first time in years. pack up the fragments laid at their feet, and arrange them in the safety of his room. “ i don’t owe you me staying. you are such a fucking idiot. so fucking scared, and for what? if you wanted to stay, then you should’ve stayed. if you didn’t want to go to canada and ass lick your dad, - then you didn’t need too. don’t use me as an excuse because you were too much of a coward to say anything. ”
he snaps nails into the seatbelt, unclicking. “ i didn’t trick you into anything. ” i was honest… brave. he wants to remind himself, hands curled into fists. o dominic. a name once recited as a prayer now a eulogy. he cannot remember when like turned into love, but he holds it in. wanting to laugh like this father had done, - hereditary and painful. “ everything i had said to you was true. ” & he’s tired, wavering. severing memories of cheeks burning under paled moonlight, tucking tresses into collarbones, holding hands that once felt velvety and sticky. you’re really a pathetic lovesick fool, loomis. “ i did what was good for me, if you can’t see that. then.. well, i don’t know. ”
the world is turned on its axis, and he swallows. do you understand what this means, son? only he doesn’t. he understands the empty place at the dinner table, a locked room, and laughter trapped in walls. the impossible to grasp was what was left. that remains that would sit in his chest, the muddied pool in the bottom of the garden. hey, it’s me, dominic, just wondering if you’re okay, you haven’t called me back. “ maybe i should go home, or stay round someone elses. sorry for making you crash your shit. ” he hangs their bodies in the rear view mirror, those ghosts that sit in the air like fog.
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