He was cruel, and he was scrupulous, and above all, he was illogical.
And none of those things, Spock had quickly found when he had started to serve on the Enterprise, prevented him from wanting James T. Kirk.
He had not believed it would ever turn out to be more than a mistake on his part, however – there were certain things that were looked down upon by the Terran Empire, and being with – no, it would not do. And Captain Kirk, as he quickly became after his assassination of Captain Pike, always had a woman in his quarters. There had never been a man. And since humans, whether they happened to rule an empire or not, still adhered to some of their old-fashioned norms, it was unlikely that he would suddenly –
Unlikely, he realized, but not impossible.
Because one evening, Captain Kirk called him into his quarters. It was not the first time it had happened – sometimes there were emergencies, mostly the threat of mutiny, that had to be dealt with quickly – and so he made his way there as quickly as possible –
But he did not find what he expected to find.
Instead, the captain was sitting in his room in the dark, having a drink.
“Ah, Spock” he said simply. “Get undressed and come to bed.”
He could have refused, and even if he had insisted, he could easily have taken him in hand-to-hand combat. They both knew it.
He did as he was told anyway.
And from that moment on, it happened again and again. But, thankfully, since the crew was used to the captain speaking to him privately at all times of the day, no one seemed to have realized –
Really, nothing changed. Even if he found it necessary to turn a blind eye, as the humans said, to the women who still visited the captain’s quarters occasionally. It shouldn’t have been… but it was.
Now and then, he wondered why – there was no logical explanation that he could see – everyone knew that such an arrangement as theirs did not prevent betrayal or mutiny, and certainly, Captain Kirk would not believe that it was any different with him because he was a Vulcan, quite the contrary.
The only explanation was that the captain had wanted and continued to want him.
It might not have sounded very logical, but then, his own desires were not, either.
And so it might have gone on until things reached their inevitable conclusion. For all that he liked to consider every possibility, it was more than likely that Captain Kirk would have grown tired of him, or found someone more interesting, or just decided that he was bored one day – humans were rather unpredictable in certain regards – and he, of course, was not prone to sentimentality. If things – then that would be that, and he would continue to serve –
Only that one day, he learned that there were other universes out there – it had not been that impossible that there were, but he had never done much research when it came to the topic, an oversight –
And he met a captain that was very different from –
He looked at this James T. Kirk – the James T. Kirk of another universe, one who wished to make the world a better place, one who cared – that was it, that was the biggest difference between them, this strange James T. Kirk cared for others – and for just a moment, a moment of utter weakness that he would never admit to, he wondered what it would be like to serve under him – to be Commander Spock on an Enterprise that was completing a mission of peaceful exploration – and if, maybe, under these circumstances –
This was weakness, of course, nothing but weakness, and he quickly shook off the thought.
But not only did he happen to be a good man, maybe the only one Spock had ever met in his lifetime, but he was also right in what he said – right and logical – and as he walked back to his quarters after all was said and done, he dwelled on the possibility – it would take some time to come up with a plan. Captain Kirk was far from deficient – really quite as intelligent as his counterpart, just more brutal – but he would most definitely notice if he were to –
Yes, this would have to continue yet, he thought when he got the message that the captain expected him in his quarters. And – if he had been human, he would have called himself relieved that it was so.
Because he was cruel, and he was scrupulous, and above all, he was illogical.
And none of those things, Spock had quickly found when he had started to serve on the Enterprise, prevented him from wanting James T. Kirk.
this is technically not what you asked for, but it's what you get 😭 my head was empty with the prompt you gave so i changed it up a little, sorry! also i wanna do more of these so please send in asks everyone :3
“Can I have a kiss?”
“How much did you drink?” Lando asks, his face all scrunched up in disgust like Carlos just told him he threw up in the bushes.
“You don’t wanna kiss me?” Carlos mumbles and pouts for good measure. He knows Lando finds it hard to resist his pout. He juts his bottom lip out, makes it as big as he can manage.
“Carlos, what are you—not here!” Lando hisses. “Don’t give me that look.”
“Landinho…”
“I’m cutting you off. No more drinks.” Lando’s voice is final.
“But—”
“We’re in the club, Carlos. I’m not kissing you here, alright?”
“Then let’s leave. I’m tired.” Carlos leans closer, his body is hanging on to Lando’s. All his weight makes Lando brace to keep his balance.
“Alright, man. Let me just say goodnight to Martin.”
Carlos moans, “I wanna go now. We can do that… Dutch goodbye.”
“What?”
“Italian? No, Irish. Irish goodbye.”
“I don’t wanna leave without Martin knowing,” Lando says.
“I’ll do that thing you like,” Carlos continues, “when we get home.”
Lando tenses, stares at Carlos for a second. “I’ll text him.”
Carlos’ face breaks out in a soft smile, while his body gets heavier as he leans impossibly closer to Lando.
“Fucking—Carlos, carry yourself, oh my god—” Lando groans while leading them out of the crowded club, bumping into people too drunk to notice.
The air outside is cold and welcome – Lando feels like he can breathe again. His ears are buzzing with the quiet.
“Can I have a kiss now?” Carlos asks.
“No.” Lando looks around the street – it’s not crowded but there are still people around. He orders a taxi from his phone and shoots off a message to Martin as well.
“What about now?” Carlos asks again when they’re seated in the back of the car. Lando looks up at the rear view mirror and meets the driver’s eye.
“Be patient, Carlos. You’ll get what you want in a minute.” Lando rests his hand on Carlos’ thigh and squeezes. Carlos stays quiet for the rest of the car ride.
Mycroft extricated the bundle from Molly's hands with the dexterity of a surgeon, ignoring the squirming ~~protests~~ emanating from the now wet towel.
'I can manage,' she resisted half heartedly, the rock sure fingers that had cut open thousands of dead bodies trembling from fatigue.
'You are incapable of managing your own body functions, let alone of a new born,' the Iceman's cold logic rattled the pathologist.
'That was one time! You'll never let me forget it, will you?'
'If I had not arrived on time you would have collapsed.'
were just gonna count the ones that have been opened in the last week otherwise we cld be here all day.
so we have my yj danny phaantom crossovre, my spiderman fic, i am a bird now, elena dirt creature aka necrosol, legacies au, beejhawk tell me a fantasy fic, man built of broken bones, eyes i recognize, secret sequel fic, i saw your reflection in the mud, disco inferno and h20 x tvd.
that is some of my most recently edited documents. there are others that are in progress i just havent opened them recently.
rating: m (warning: homophobic and transphobic slurs, non-con elements, phyisical assault)
summary:
"Follow him, Sugar had asked him. Take note of everything. And if he seems to make a move, call me. Immediately. Val promised. He promised, even if, at the end of the day, there was not much to tell.
For when he wasn’t actively destroying the moral column of the city, Vega led a pretty boring life."
Nights when there was nothing to do were the worst, but since Val had a proper Job now (oh yeah, baby, with a capital J!), it was fine. Really. Dog days were over; long days of grudges and grovelling, without a home or with nothing waiting at home but promises and an empty fridge, were finally over and done for. All cause of his big mouth and Sugar’s big heart.
“Hallelujah,” Val murmured in the silence of the car. To rise to the occasion, he got himself a shitty Toyota Corolla on sale that smelled suspiciously of cabbage, but hey, who was he to judge? Technically speaking, he was breaking the law under the sweet neon lights of the city. “Finally.”
Viejo — this is how he decided to call the cop in his head — has decided to stop at Walmart on the way home. Ridiculous. But given that Val had not had any sort of food or drink since eight in the morning, it was also a blessing. His saliva was starting to turn into actual styrofoam.
Careful not to bring any attention to himself, he waited until the man parked, got out of the car, and walked inside. He walked to the entrance in a straight line, with a straight spine, but quite breezily, as if he had no cares in the world.
As if he wasn’t corrupt to the fucking core.
A dirty cop is one thing, Sugar had warned Val. A soldier is another. The detective had shown him the Lieutenant’s file. What’s more, he made Val memorize his file, for god’s sake. And Val did. And Val did it without making a face, and Val did it without a sigh, cause he was a new person now, and this person took his job seriously, and his boss even more seriously. Pinky promise.
Born in 1975 in Watts to immigrant parents, Vega managed to carve his way out of the southern slums of Los Angeles with nothing but his wits. Got himself a juicy scholarship through the military at age twenty-two and became a policeman after active duty. He was a Marine for eight years. Got married in the meantime, had a kid in between visits, came home, got divorced. Ugh. Cliché shit. Something any man would do around here. Life down the drain, looking for control.
“He is not ordinary, though.” Sugar corrected him. “Vega. You shouldn’t underestimate him.”
They were in his fancy-shmancy hotel room, and Val scoffed this time, unable to stomach the thought of a cop being special.
“What, cause he was in the army?”
Sugar shook his head.
“Look at me, Val,” he said then, mouth a grave line. “Vega is dangerous, because he believes in nothing.”
And then, cause he was a dramatic sonofabitch, he repeated: nothing.
But here, in the present, neon-night of this shabby shop, nothing was more pathetic than watching a middle-aged man buying groceries, at like eleven pm, alone. By the rows of dog food, Vega stood, then crouched to read the labels on the ones on sale.
Val watched him from a distance. Though he took pictures of the cop during the day, with both his phone and a camera from Sugar, the night was different. Or rather, the shop was different. There were other people around: bleary-eyed mothers after a long shift at work or home, their legs diligently wrapped in compression stockings to fight varicose veins, and a couple of snickering teenagers, two of which were trying to shoplift a can of beers as stealthily as they could and the two remaining standing guard, blissfully unaware that the man eyeing the expiration date on one of the cans was an actual, full-fledged cop.
At first, it seemed like Vega didn’t pay attention to the boys. Yet after much contemplation and the selection of exactly five identical cans, he turned and walked up to them, his expression the very image of civility. Stopped, leaned down to the guards (taller than all of the boys, by two inches, at least), and said something in a low voice Val couldn’t discern.
But the boys, they stopped laughing. Not just the two. All of them, all looking up at the man who didn’t even have to flash his badge.
Ass, Val thought, watching the boys bolt as he got himself a wrap and a Coke. He needn’t hurry. Viejo was back to being slow, walking back to his black SUV in his black leather jacket, with his black-ink gaze looking straight ahead. He was already in his car by the time Val finished his last bite, and that was just fine. Val knew where he lived by now. He could have driven there blindly, if needed.
Follow him, Sugar had asked him. Take note of everything. And if he seems to make a move, call me. Immediately. Val promised. He promised even if, at the end of the day, there was not much to tell.
For when he wasn’t actively destroying the moral column of the city, Vega led a pretty boring life. Woke up at five-thirty (sharp!) every day. Took his dog (Jessie) for a walk around his pretty little neighbourhood, usually for half an hour. Then got ready. (Well, this was a shot in the dark. What Vega did for a whole hour after walking Jessie remained a mystery. Perhaps doing some shady-ass shit or soaking himself in a tub or simply jacking off to corny country music. Endless possibilities. It would have been nice to actually know, but Sugar had forbidden Val to go inside Ray Vega’s house, and in all honesty, Val wasn’t sure if he would have gone in, even if asked).
Vega also did surprisingly mundane things, too. Like having a regular coffee shop he stopped at every other day, getting a turkey-and-ham sandwich with an extra-strong coffee on the side. No milk, no sugar. Black. He ate methodically and slowly and never took phone calls when eating, or, strangely, never did anything else except eat, except on the rare occasion when he was bantering with the personnel, usually with young women. This, Val found infuriating. He didn’t quite know why.
Oftentimes, the lieutenant travelled from the North to the East side of the city. He looked more comfortable in the latter; his strides here became looser, his shoulders less squared. Val could always spot Vega easily, even in the more crowded areas like malls or shopping streets – not because he was tall, but because he was built like a fucking sculpture. Sturdy hips, heavy arms, strong profile. Mouth, mercurial. Crooked cop with a crooked mouth. A silent glint in the eyes when he looked at people. No, perhaps not at. Looked in. Or looked through. There was no middle ground.
There were days he walked around alone. Sometimes with colleagues, with whom, if he walked with, he always walked ahead. Didn’t even need to say it. He led the pack.
Late at night, as he left the precinct, stepping down the stairs, Vega sometimes stretched like a cat. And now and then the hem of his dark shirt rode up, flashing smooth, softish skin, and there was a coil in Val’s gut inside his shitty little Toyota, resembling sickness. When such a thing happened, he turned his eyes away. Or at least, he tried to.
Twice a week, Vega played golf with the mayor and lost, mostly. That said, Val had the funny feeling that Vega lost on purpose, perhaps to flatter the politician.
But that was just a feeling.
And feelings, Val learned early, were fickle little fuckers.
*
Driving home to his sad little apartment, Vega always took Route 101, which led from Boyle to the rickety-raw parts of the Heights to the more reserved district of Montebello. When he was small, Val’s mother took him to these parts often, as the Montebello Zoo had seal shows every third Saturday — something both Val and his brother, Marco, loved.
The memory was spilled milk. Not worth crying over. Not worth thinking about.
He couldn’t help it, though. Unbidden, the past came trickling while he tailed Vega’s Lincoln Navigator. The cop didn’t drive his usual way, but instead decided to take the scenic route by Rodriguez Park where, if day was afoot, the sun beat down mercilessly, and where the trees, dead, gave no shelter.
The change was alarming, though Val wanted to keep cool and see what this was about before alerting Sugar. Would have been pathetic to cry wolf without an actual wolf being present, no?
Instead of right, which led toward the South of Montebello, where he lived, Vega took a sharp left turn at Fifth Avenue. Val fidgeted in his seat, increasingly aware of the destination. They seemed to be heading towards Monrovia Park, namely, towards Santa Anita Lake, a lonesome lake the color of raw liver, and towards Arcadia Bridge, a bridge dilapidated yet still functioning.
It was also the place where Val lived after his father tried to kill him at age sixteen with an old kitchen knife. Where he ran to, stayed, and survived for two miserable months: watching the surface of the lake swell and ripple in the wind, the mist over the water soft like a sin —
Stop.
Vega turned into a narrower route now called Alemany, less crowded, less lit, shielded from the nightlife rush of lewd Los Angeles. The buildings became sparser, too. The terrain turned taut with trees, the gnarled kind, the harder kind. Twisted branches, familiar. Yes, Val has been here before, walking in circles, trying to make sense of the senseless.
Focus, he chided himself, cause the Lincoln rushed ahead in his musings. The car was now a tiny dot in the far distance.
Then, out of nowhere, the Lincoln’s blaring taillights bled red through the trees, then vanished behind a bend as if swallowed. Val slowed, tires crunching on loose dirt, scanning for any glint of the cop’s windows or the surgical backlights.
Squeezing his eyes to see.
Nothing.
(He believes in nothing —)
Slowly, he followed the exact route he believed Vega took. And sure enough, the road forked. Finally, Val could see a deeper shadow on his left, right toward a faint wash of distant streetlight. Could hear the rumble of the Lincoln resembling a lion’s.
Val stopped, not wanting the cop to see the Toyota's headlights, as they were completely alone now on this stretch of land. But, in that split second of hesitation, the Lincoln’s hum faded into the night. He was alone again, with the forest pressing in, and Vega gone.
“Fuckola,” said Val out loud. He pressed his foot on the gas.
Very, very few lights here. A road not of cement but earth.
Still, he proceeded, not wanting to give up so easily. Finally, something was happening! Imagine if he returned to Sugar with nothing to say, even though the opportunity presented itself on a silver platter.
Call him, a voice in his head said as the road turned even narrower and darker, the trees closing in from both sides. The voice was chiding-chiming. His mother’s voice, long gone. Dead.
Val pushed her voice away as he was pushed out of his home, never to return.
“You are seeing things,” he said, out loud again, though the scratch of his own voice did nothing to soothe him. “This could be big.”
Yeah, big trouble, his mother whispered, and then the trees suddenly vanished, and Val found himself by the foot of a bridge — Arcadia! — which was broken in two; yes, it had nothing in its middle but a grand space in its middle and the rushing Santa Anita waiting below.
A dead end.
Heart in his throat, Val got out of his car. He had a pocketknife hidden in his boot; he pulled it out before stepping out of the car. Outside, no sound, except for the fall of the water, hitting the rocks and the trees and the junk by the riverside.
Water like glass, glittering in the moonlight, pale light, thin light. Faintly, Val could make out the juniper tree under which he got high, stuck between haze and zest, body weightless, secondary.
The Lincoln was parked just at the edge of the bridge. Lonesome.
“Where are you, asshole?” Val whispered, crouching down. Didn’t want to risk being seen. Didn’t want to risk being caught in a trap, though the signs showed that this was indeed the case.
Going up to the black car, hardly daring to peek inside, yet not knowing where Vega was was worse than meeting him at this point. He felt his pulse drumming in his ears.
Just get over with it, he thought, and opened the passenger door in the back as fast as he could.
There was no one inside. Only the smell of leather and Lysol. Vega left his jacket in the driver’s seat.
“Shit,” Val whispered into the gaping mouth of the car and took a step back, realizing he might be in big trouble. "Shit and shit."
Time to call Sugar. Pronto.
With his free hand, the clumsier one, he scrambled for his phone in his jeans. Palm slick, fingers slipping on the screen as he dialed his boss.
No signal.
Just dead air in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Val felt a siren go off in his mind.
Time to go, time-to-go, timetogo, his mind chanted, and he didn’t bother with crouching anymore; he simply dashed back to his car, throwing the door open with his knife still in his hand, gripping its handle tighter than a lifeline, getting into the seat, starting the engine, fuck the seatbelt, fuck, fuck, fuck —
Val was about to start the engine when the shadow in the back began to move.
But the hand that came up to squeeze his throat was as real as the pain that followed.
Viejo wore a ring on his pinky. It was real silver. It had to be, otherwise it wouldn’t have felt so hard against Val’s windpipe.
Instinctively, he jerked the knife upward, still clutched tight in his hand, and tried to stab backward, which was honestly useless. The sound of a gasp and a wheeze. The sound of Val fighting for air as Vega’s grip on his throat shoved him forward onto the wheel. He was not slow this time. Not. At. All.
Something crunched. He hoped it wasn’t his nose as the world flipped upside down. Vertigo hit him tenfold as he was pulled back onto the headrest.
“Drop it,” came the command from behind. “Before you cut yourself.”
Something warm trickled down onto his lash and cheek. A dull pain above his eyes. The crunch was probably his eyebrow piercing jutting into the tender skin above his lids, splitting it open.
In the corner of his other eye, suddenly, appeared the strong profile, the mercury-mouth.
“Drop it,” Vega repeated, voice raspy from hours of disuse.
And Val did, grimacing when he felt the man’s thumb and index slip from his throat to his chin, pinching his chin as if he were a child. His hands smelled of smoke, and his breath was hot on Val’s cheek when he spoke.
“You’re so fucking stupid, joto” he told him in Spanish. Of course. He probably knew his whole life story, hence the location. Had a file on Val just like Sugar had one on him. “I didn’t think you’d fall for it.”
There was no way to turn towards him fully. Vega’s grip was a vice. So Val did what he could: he locked eyes with him in the rearview mirror, dark gaze meeting dark. Val’s left side was blood-speckled, the hue cartoonishly red. A deer and its headlight.
And Vega —
His eyes were so dark that his pupils were swallowed by his irises, as if he were rabid. His mouth was curving upwards, as if amused.
“Look familiar?” he asked, jutting his chin towards the wounded bridge. “No place like home.”
Val shot him an ugly look, even though Vega’s hand nearly spanned his entire neck, and even though he must have felt his pulse going berserk under his touch. The picture of the cop laughing together with the young women at the café came into his mind, sudden as a slip. His pulse quickened. And because he could never quite stomach his fears, he did what he learned best.
He lashed out.
“You’d know more than most, old man. How many times can you see your kid again? Twice a week? Once every two weeks?”
Vega seemed unbothered by the jab. Not an ounce of anger on that hardened face.
“Quite a mouth on you,” that’s all he said, and leaned forward, day-old stubble scratching Val’s jaw, his other hand starting to pat down Val’s summerlight clothes. “So. Let’s see what else you’re packing.”
There was that feeling again. That terrible feeling that had first gripped him when he had seen the man’s shirt ride up by accident. The feeling that never relented since that sight. An acrid taste filling his mouth as Vega’s warm-dry hand travelled from his arms to his chest to his stomach, and then, to his horror, slipped under Val’s white-loose shirt, dragging a long finger and a wide palm across the expanse of his bare stomach and his riggedy ribs, goosebumps in its trail, nigh-tender, like a lover’s touch until it reached upwards and bumped into —
Val shut his eyes as if to shut the world.
“Well, look at that,” Vega murmured, tone mockingly sympathetic. He leaned in even closer, wide mouth brushing the shell of Val’s ear. This close, he smelled tangy. Perhaps his cologne mixed with his daily sweat. “I was wondering how you ended up in here.”
Val was about to bite back — with his teeth or tongue, he hadn’t decided yet — when Vega gave the binding a first, firm squeeze, and his will died in his chest. Aghast, he stared into the mirror slightly above them, in which he stared back at him, unblinking, to catch the reaction. Val couldn’t decide whose reflection frightened him more. His own lost eyes, or Vega’s smug one. Someone was panting in the narrow space of this battered card. Panting low and hard. Val.
It was Val who was making these sounds.
Pulse in his ears, thump-thump-thumping away at the reasons in between them. The man’s thumb tracing the line of the binding, nails slipping under the material here and there, scratching at the softest part of the undercurve.
Despite all his determination to remain brave, Val shivered.
“No wonder you’re so good at running away, travelo.” Vega said. His voice tilted into a deeper note. Or was he imagining things? “Hard life for a poor little thing like you.”
That sobered him up pretty fast.
“Shut the fuck up,” Val shot back, chest heaving, and this time, he remembered to fight back.
Even if the feeling inside him had swollen to the point of pain. He felt as if he were going to explode. A want so strong overcame him that he felt nauseous. He wanted out of his body and the man’s body inside his, or perhaps the man’s body in his hands, taken apart, bit by bit, bite by bite, tear by tear.
Stupid, he thought. Stupid, stupid.
Hands coming up to take hold of the old man’s hair, which was thick when he buried his ringed fingers in it, thick and impossibly soft and curling at the nape. Seeing the flash of his grin in the corner of his eyes, white as a skull, hearing his low, low groan when he pulled on his hair, hard.
“Shut your fucking mouth, you fucking pig —”
There came a short struggle that, at the end of the day, was laughably short. Vega was built like a motherfucking brick. And Sugar was right. Val was wrong to underestimate him.
For when Val went for his eyes, Vega had had enough and took Val’s much weaker arms and held them down. He was half-rising from his seat to push his weight onto his shoulders and turn Val by his shoulders so that he could lean down and press his mouth onto his.
“You like this, huh?” Vega rasped, his eyes locking onto Val’s in the dark. Deep-set eyes, glinting like a stone. “Getting handled like this?”
Pushing his heavy tongue between Val’s lips. Like a lump of clay, Val felt under his mouth, but only for a moment.
Desire was a luxury here.
Desire was never a wise advisor.
So Val bit down.
He bit down, sharp teeth right in the middle of the softest center of Ray Vega’s tongue.
“You little shit!”
The cop recoiled instantly. It mustn’t have hurt him that much, but there was shock on his face, plain as a field. He didn’t think Val had the guts, but alas! Seems they were all learning something today. Better sooner than later.
Slowly, Vega wiped his lips with the back of his hand. His hand came back bloody.
And then there was a silence. A whole five seconds of terror in which Val forgot his arms got free at last.
He could have run.
Could have, should have.
I told you, his mother’s gentle voice in his mind, a mere millisecond before Vega slapped him. He’s trouble.
The slap was sharp and measured. The kind a restless father would give his restless child. It snapped Val’s head to the side, breath hitched by the impact.
“There.” Vega’s voice was back to being clipped again. He reached down and fished the phone out of Val’s jeans pocket. He didn’t even look at it that much; he simply pocketed it.
Then, he leaned back in, his face inches from Val’s.
“Now, give the other one.”
Val chose to lie.
“What other one?”
Wrong answer.
Vega went for his jaw this time, and with his nimble hand that somehow still felt like a steel clamp, forced Val’s mouth open like a melody.
“Don't lie to me.” His tone was flat.
With his other hand, he pushed two fingers into his own mouth. Popped it out after a second, red-sleek saliva trailing at the movement, and swift-fast shoved his long fingers into Val’s. He groaned at the metallic taste against his tongue.
“Listen,” Vega said, tone pleasant, even as he smeared the remnant of his blood across Val’s lips and chin. The act humiliating, the act visceral, the act like a sacrilege. “I’ll find out either way, okay? So, this can go two ways: easy or hard. If you wanna have it easy, you tell me now. If you wanna keep being stubborn, I’ll go straight to that nice rehab center at Harvard Boulevard. Does it ring a bell? I’m sure Marco would be happy to hear from you. Well, until we have a proper talk, he and I. Man to man.”
Val’s hands, yes, the very free ones, started to shake. The shaking started, and it didn’t stop, not even after he pointed toward the driver's seat mat on the right passenger side, where he hid Sugar’s camera.
Vega took that as well, of course.
“See?” Vega patted his head afterwards, like he patted Jessie when he found an especially round pebble. “It’s good to be good, no?”
He smiled when Val didn’t answer.
“I’d quit now before it’s too late, muchacho. You’re a survivor, yeah?” Halfway out of the car with Val’s phone, Sugar’s camera, and their joined hopes. “So be smart! Get out of my fucking way, and survive.”
And then, much faster than he had ever seen him walk, he was gone, back into his Lincoln, rolling away like the river drumming below them.
Val didn’t move for a long, long time.
And when he did, he did so only to lean his head onto the wheel and cry.
