Discover Top Posts Tagged with #sygyzy

Oct 14, 2017

Sygyzy: Chapter One

So, I’ve been working on this with @ohnomypeas for a few weeks. Have at it

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12355665/chapters/28105125

“Steven Suptic is a hooker, and has been for almost a year. He doesn't think anyone or anything can phase him by now--at least, not until a man in a headband takes him home to watch the Hannah Montana movie. Then, suddenly, he's running an ever-growing startup crew, living with the kind of people he never thought he'd even meet, and realizing that, just maybe, it's okay to want more than he's had.”

Chapter One: Fernweh

Steven first meets Cib in a seedy bar in the middle of Los Santos.

He’s really done up that night, more than usual, had scraped together enough money for a black shirt that’s only had one other owner and slicked his hair back with borrowed gel. Made himself all coy grins and dumb conversation that suggested he was waiting for someone smarter than he was to come along, to sweep him away to some shitty motel room.

No one ever does and probably no one ever will. No one smarter than he is--no one even half as smart as he is--takes out some hooker batting their eyes across the bar at every rich-looking stranger doing shots.

When he first sees a dishevelled looking man with a headband on, he ignores him. He’s not the type who’d pay for anything more than a Corona or shot of tequila, and one of the men he’s working on, some Russian blonde, is having a very interesting conversation about a deal with Fakehaus that he assumes Steven doesn’t understand.

(He’s used to that. To these people he’s an object--something you use and are done with, something that can be in your lap and still go completely unnoticed. It’s not weird anymore, that the group he used to be part of is now foreign to him, and he’s used to how pathetic it feels to have accepted that as his reality.)

He changes his mind very quickly when he sees $400 and a wink in his direction.

It isn’t hard to excuse himself. Some other hooker will take his place and he doubts anyone but himself and the new one will notice. It’s easy to weave his way through the crowd, sliding up to the man and whispering a sultry ‘your place?’ in his ear. The leave together, and in the sudden quiet of the street the stranger begins to speak.

“My name’s Cib,” he says, and Steven purrs his approval on autopilot. He doesn’t recoil at the fact that his voice sounds like it isn’t really his the way he used to. He’s played this game before, knows to deflect the question about his own name and let Cib lead him down the road and then upstairs to--

A nice apartment.

A very nice apartment, and really it’s pathetic that his standards are this low but they are. Not a penthouse, but the kind Steven would live in if he could afford more than a furnace room in the basement of some complex meant for people much wealthier than he was. The kind he used to live in. The floor is stained wood and the ceiling isn’t leaking and the window shuts all the way.

It’s the kind of thing he’d be jealous of if he let himself feel that way anymore. He shakes himself back to the present, back to the reality of what he’s here to do. Somehow, it never really gets better. It’s easier, but only because he’s learning how to push it further and further away.

“So, what did you have in mind?” He’s not sure where the bedroom is, but given that Cib is heading towards the couch that doesn’t look like it’ll be a problem. “Did you want something small, or a night, or….” He trails off when he sees Cib pulling a movie off of a small shelf next to the TV. “Is that…?”

“The Hannah Montana movie. A tragedy.” And something about the way he says this, like it’s a fact and not at all weird for a grown man in Los Santos to invite a hooker over and then watch the Hannah Montana movie, makes something in Steven shift. Something cynical, just a little. Just enough to notice that when he goes back to the street he’ll have to shift it back.

(It’s not charm, the fact that someone wants to watch a movie with him first, because to be charmed by that would quite be pathetic.)

God, this is probably just some kink, he thinks, and reality sets back in with the familiar drowning of an additional piece of hope he didn’t even know he still had.

“I charge by the hour. Just so you know.” His voice sounds flat, even to himself, and he winces internally and braces himself for the consequences.

They don’t come. Cib says ‘okay’, offers him the couch, offers him a blanket and then starts popping popcorn in the kitchenette.

He doesn’t relax once through the movie. Cib seems genuinely interested in it, but at one point he moves his arm across the back of the couch and Steven knows, he knows that this is when it begins, and so close he can smell cigarette tar and sweat and Old Spice and the combination is sickening--

Cib’s arm stays on the couch. It doesn’t leave until the movie is over and he gets up to take the disc out. And then, in a sort of non-sequitur way that Steven barely understands, he thinks Cib offers him the guest room.

And then he goes to bed.

Steven takes the offer of the guest bed, after trying to figure out what happened for half an hour in the kitchen. It’s late, and cold, and his own bed is neither warm nor close. He doesn’t sleep--just lies on the bed, awake and confused, the entire night.

***

Cib seems delighted that he stayed. Steven had waited until he heard someone moving in the apartment before getting up in the same clothes he put on for last night and following a trail of objects slightly misplaced to the kitchen. It very quickly becomes obvious that, whoever and whatever else he is, Cib is not a morning person, and Steven takes the offered cup of coffee before sitting on the edge of a dining chair and waiting for him to say something.

“So,” Cib says, “How good are you with your mouth?”

Steven is simultaneously shocked and unsurprised. It always gets to this point--it just usually doesn’t take so long, isn’t predated by gentle treatment. Whatever he is, this is territory he’s familiar with, more so than watching a movie on the couch. If he let himself care, he might have thought that was a little bit pitiful.

“Depends on what you want it to do,” he says, setting the coffee aside and shaking off the confusion at this whole setup.

“Sweet talk.” Cib tilts his head, the same expression on his face as the night before, curious but certain. The request is unusual, but no more so than the rest of the encounter. Some men just want that. He’s been paid for far less than a chat.

“Well,” Steven says, putting his cheek in his hand and softening his features, “that depends on who you ask. Want to see for yourself?” He scoots his chair a little closer to Cib’s, not enough that they’re touching but close enough that the distance between their faces is charged with something.

“I do,” he smiles, clicking his tongue once before standing abruptly, and it’s startling. “One of my guys, see, he keeps fucking shit up. Not selling anything. Something about how vapes aren’t drugs, which is fucking dumb ‘cause nicotine!”

In what seems to be a common theme in his interactions with Cib, Steven is confused.

“I--do you want me to...seduce him into cooperating with you?” He’s done that, too, and he’d worked for a crime boss of some degree multiple times, but…. “Usually people are more…up front about that.”

“You do whatever works best,” Cib shrugs. “I mean, he’s the straightest dude I know. Has like five wifes or something. Thirty kids, ten dogs and a parakeet.”

“Alright, A, it’s ‘wives’,” Steven says, before he can catch himself. He cringes, waits for the reaction that again doesn’t come, before continuing cautiously. “And B, if he’s straight, and you need sweet talk...why find a male hooker? What am I doing here?”

Cib looks somewhat shocked. “You’re a hooker? I thought you were one of those dudes who, like, talked a bunch. Like in the movies!”

He doesn’t bother asking which movies. If last night was any indication, he isn’t sure he’d want to know.

As soon as he’s done with this, he’s going to find a very rich man who will buy him a very stiff drink.

“Yes, I’m a hooker, Jesus, why else would I ask to go to your place after you flashed a couple twenties?”

“I don’t know, idiot, why did you?” Cib asks. Steven fights back a sigh, feeling the headache coming already.

“Because I’m--screw it, jesus. I’ll take the job. It’ll be better than hanging out in some club.” And quite honestly, he’s terrifying himself, because he hasn’t been this brazen with a client since his first few weeks, but something about Cib makes him feel like he can. Like he won’t care, or even...like Cib wants him to be. He leans back in the chair, pushes down that thought and scrubs his hands across his face, weaving himself back into the mask of indifference. “When?”

Cib glances at his wrist. Watchless. “Uh…” Another sigh.

“What am I getting paid?”

“I dunno, half of what I’m supposed to be getting from this guy’s next sale? If he does it.”

God, this is a mess.

A mess that’s getting you a guest room in an apartment with heat, a voice somewhere in the back of his mind says, and he hates that he has to agree.

“I’ll do it,” Steven says. “I’ll be back when I have.” And then he leaves, pulling his coat on and bracing himself for the harsh January cold.

“Have what?” Cib asks. He doesn’t stop to answer, leaving the apartment only to lean for a moment on the closed door, shaking his head for a moment before realizing he’s fighting a smile. However annoying he is, something about Cib is….interesting. Something about Cib makes him feel a little more open than before.

Steven wouldn’t mind, he discovers, seeing him again.

***

It’s been a month, and Steven is living with Cib.

The first job had turned into another, and another, and Cib kept telling him to stay in the guest room “so we can talk, dude, about life”, and when after two weeks Steven had tentatively asked to move in, Cib had just cocked his head and said “you haven’t?”

So he’d told his landlord he was leaving, gathered what little he had, his phone and charger and a bag of outfits he didn’t ever want to wear again, and moved it into Cib’s guest room. Which he guessed was now his room.

Living with Cib felt a lot like living with a small child. Most of the time, the things he said didn’t make sense. He seemed to have trouble doing really much of anything with the degree of competency required to live by yourself. Most of activities he enjoyed were juvenile on some level. He was the kind of person that, in better circumstances, Steven would never have even known existed.

Still.

Something about him was charming, in a way. He’d consider him nice if he didn’t know better. Cib’s annoying, but gentle, and always is trying to help, even if it isn’t readily apparent. It was disgusting, how low Steven’s standards were, how easy it was to make him feel safe, to give him some ghost of feeling wanted for more than just cheap sex, but really anything was safer than before. Anything was better than before, because--

It’s been a month, and Steven hasn’t done any sex work.

Cib’s jobs, if nonsensical, are limitless, and they pay well enough that when Steven’s payed his portion of rent and groceries, he has something left over. It’s not much, but it’s the first time he’s had that in a long time, and that’s enough to make him consider this as a long-term thing, something he can live off of. Something that can get him out of the gutter he’s been stuck in.

With Cib, for some reason he can’t explain, he feels safe. He feels clean in a way that he hasn’t since he before he met with his first client, since he left him filthy and used and abandoned.

It’s too good to last, and he knows it. One day Cib’s going to stop giving him jobs, to tell him he’s done, and then Steven will move out and back into wherever he’d been but with a few more dollars in savings. He can pretend, until then. He needs to.

***

The job seems routine. He’s going to shake down a potential buyer, someone with means of distribution but not acquisition. Steven’s done it before. But when he arrives he recognizes the buyer and from the hungry look in his eyes Steven knows that he’s been recognized, too--

It’s not the first time Steven’s come back with a black eye, but it is since living with Cib, and usually there isn’t an accompanying hickey, and usually it’s from a fist and not a pistol and it hurts.

He opens the door, debates going to his bedroom to avoid Cib finding out, and when did he start calling it his and since when was he afraid of what Cib found out?

The decision is made for him anyway, because Cib was waiting in the kitchen and can see him from here, and Steven can see the surprise cross his face, unguarded.

“Dude, you’re hurt, the fuck?”

Steven doesn’t reply, only goes to collapse on the couch and tilt his head back and press his sleeve to the cut that’s dripping blood down his cheek. He hears Cib moving around in the kitchen before his footsteps come closer and there’s something cold on his face.

“Come on, I’m gonna kiss it better--” And Cib’s leaning in towards his eye, for some reason, and he says ew, gross and pushes him away--

--and then he doesn’t, because Cib has stopped, something dark flashing in his eyes.

Steven drops his hands. He can feel himself stiffening, he shouldn’t have pushed him away, he was trying to help and it’s not his place--

“You’re bleeding,” is all Cib says, and Steven realizes that he’d moved his hand from the cut.

“Yeah,” he says, and Cib doesn’t reply, just leaves for a moment and comes back with a first aid kit from the bathroom.

He doesn’t ask, which is good because Steven doesn’t want to tell him, and his hands are surprisingly gentle even if Steven had to convince him not to wash the cut with spit.

When he’s done, Steven goes to lie down with the ice pack Cib had brought him. It’s cold, but he almost doesn’t feel it, because Cib’s hands were warm and their memory still brushes across his skin. He thinks about that for a long time, that night. Thinks about Cib. Thinks about why he’s thinking about Cib.

He doesn’t hear the buyer’s name again.

***

“All I’m saying is, we need the real deal, a warrior, someone who can blow those fatty c--”

“I agreed until that last part.” Steven sighs, pushing his chair away from the table and scrubbing his face with hands. “Who did you have in mind?”

Cib blows a stream of artificially cinnamon-scented smoke at him, smiling. “Glad you asked.”

It’s been a week since the incident with his old client, and Steven’s black eye is healing at what he assumes is the average rate to heal from being pistol whipped. He wasn’t worried about it, had always known he couldn’t handle violence, but Cib…..

Cib had decided they needed someone who could, for whatever reason. Steven couldn’t say he was wrong, with this and all the jobs he’d been unwilling or unable to do--and that was one of the things he liked, that when he couldn’t, he didn’t have to, but his reluctance and Cib’s total and obvious inability to defend himself left anything even remotely involving intimidation out of the picture.

“He wants to meet us in a bar,” Cib is saying, “in Waterside.” Two red flags already. No one goes to Waterside, not if they could help it, it’s home to too many desperate new gangs and the shady kind of narcotics dealers. Something about meeting in a bar, too, surrounded by people just like them, just like Steven, has him on edge. He thinks for a moment. He doesn’t like this, but Cib is right. They need this guy, whoever he is.

“When?” he says, because he has no sense and knows that Cib will take this as agreeing. Sure enough, his smile stretches even wider, and he takes another drag on the vape before answering.

“Uh, ten minutes ago?”

“Ten--what the hell have we been doing, jesus, let’s go,” Steven stands, not waiting for Cib before leaving. He’s down the stairs at the front of the building by the time Cib catches up and he tells him the name of the bar and all through the train ride there Steven can’t shake the feeling that something’s going to go wrong.

When they arrive at the bar, it’s exactly the kind of dark, seedy place that he knew they’d find in Waterside, with a glowing neon sign and no windows to the outside world. He’s worked here, and he knows there’s a back alley with a door from the kitchen, and this street will take him to a subway station three blocks down--

He’s already planning escape routes, Steven realizes, and shakes himself before following Cib inside.

It’s dimly lit and crowded, but Cib seems to know where he’s going, so he follows him and tries to ignore the smell of alcohol and vomit and the fact that there’s Casey in the corner and Max working the bar like he used to and this doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t feel right.

Cib sits, and he follows before looking up at whoever it is they’re meeting, and--

Oh.

He’s strong looking. Intimidating. The smallest bit familiar. The thin glasses resting on his face do nothing to obscure the look in his eyes, and suddenly Steven can’t miss that he’s sitting in a bar he used to work with the type of man who’d pick him up and he really, really doesn’t want to be here. He may recognize him from somewhere, but if he does it’s from long before, and to get to long before he has to go through immediately before and that’s not the kind of thing he wants to do. Not here.

Cib and the stanger are saying something, something he can’t focus on, he thinks that he’s listing qualifications and something about a water warrior. He spaces out, not entirely on purpose, until Cib turns to him, smiling. They wait for a second, until Cib begins to speak again, and, oh, they’d asked him something, Cib had asked if that was enough for him. They must have been talking for a while, then.

“I--yeah. That, uh, yeah! Fine! It, uh, seems fine.” He keeps the waver out of his voice, not wanting to say yes but not wanting to say no and keenly aware of the person sitting across the table waiting for an answer.

Cib is saying something again and shaking the stranger’s hand--he thought he heard James, at some point--but all he can think about are the split scars on James’ knuckles, the marks of a fistfighter and the muscles to match. For the first time, he’s grateful that Cib’s business screenings and interviews are so informal--the sooner he gets out of there, the better.

Cib is standing, and James is standing, so Steven stands, and the moment it looks like they’re done he grabs Cib’s forearm and pulls him to the door.

The air outside isn’t fresh but it seems to pull him out of the daze he’d been in, everything sharpening so intensely that it seems surreal. Neither of them say anything until they’re halfway back to the apartment, and then it’s Cib who speaks first.

“I think he’ll work. Real Demosthenes figure, ya know?”

And to distract himself from the fact that James is now in a crew with him, Steven replies, “Do you even know who that is?”

“Who who is?” And it makes sense that Cib forgets, with nothing in his head terrifying enough that he might need it later, and Steven wishes with a sharp pang that he could be as carefree.

***

James has been doing jobs for the crew for a while now, and Steven’s been limiting his exposure as much as possible. It’s easy sometimes, given how little their jobs intersect, but he’d accepted this one before Cib told him that he’d need a bodyguard--worrying on its own--and then that said bodyguard would be James.

The job itself goes smoothly enough. Steven can admit that it’s better with James standing behind him. The other guy’s guards are too scared to try anything, and he just wishes that he wasn’t feeling the same way.

They finish with the buyer, Steven signs a contract, and they leave. James is coming back to the apartment to update Cib, and to receive payment, and that means he’s walking with Steven the entire way.

“So. Cib,” James says, breaking the silence between them once they’re about a third of the way back.

“Cib,” Steven agrees, though he’s not sure with what.

“Isn’t he a little…” James doesn’t elaborate, just makes a little hand motion and looks at Steven.

“Yeah.” James seems to be waiting for something with more than one syllable, and the thought of irritating James sends a pang of fear through his chest. “I don’t know how he managed before me.” And at this, James seems surprised.

“Wait, he’s the boss? I thought you were behind all,” James gestures between himself and Steven. “this.”

There’s a concept. Steven supposes that technically, he is, if how often he helped Cib just manage the operation counted for anything.

(He ignores how flattering it is, that a man like James had unquestioningly believed that Steven could run something like this. He can, of course, but it’s been a long, long time since anyone’s acknowledged it, and longer since that someone wasn’t another whore. He tells himself it’s because there’s no way Cib would be able to, and moves on.)

“No. He hired me. Worst decision of my life.” Steven’s voice sounds flat, even to himself, and after a moment he decides that’s good. The less James knows about him, the better, and he seems satisfied, so there’s no reason to give him anything else.

“Weird. So how’d you meet him?”

And Steven stops walking for a moment, stiffens.

He hadn’t thought it would be so hard to answer that question. It may not have been, to anyone else. Back when he was working it was easy to call himself a hooker, a manwhore, a paid slut. A sex worker to more dignified company. Cib knew, and was okay with it. But something about telling James made him feel...scared. Shameful. Dirty. Like there was some hole he was supposed to fit into that he wasn’t the right shape for.

“He kidnapped me and made me watch the Hannah Montana movie,” he says instead, continuing to walk as if he had never stopped, and James waits for a moment to take this in before following.

“That movie is literally the worst,” he says, unquestioning, and Steven is grateful that he’s managed to surround himself with people who don’t need anything to make sense.

“Yes. Yes, it is,” he says, and then they’ve reached the apartment, and Steven unlocks the door, ready to retreat to his room and be somewhere that James isn’t for a little while.

Cib, of course, intercepts him before he has the chance.

“Steve, dude, you can’t leave, it’s movie night!”

And he sighs, because there’s literally no way to say no to Cib. He takes any answer as a yes, and won’t stop pestering until you keep your word.

“We aren’t watching the Hannah Montana movie again.”

And Cib pouts but accepts, pulling a different Blu-Ray off the shelf.

“‘Course not. It’s romance night, idiot! Schindler’s List,” he says, and Steven believes himself to be largely past the point of questioning Cib but this requires some explanation.

And then.

“Schindler’s List, I love that movie!” James pipes up, and Cib smiles that pleading way of his that’s really just smug and drags Steven to the couch. James follows, thankfully sitting on the other side of Cib, and as the movie starts Cib leans on Steven and for the first time in weeks all Steven wants is for him to get off.

About fifteen minutes into the movie, it begins.

“And here we see the dignified Osk-Oyster Spindle, drafting his grocery list…” With the soft yet somehow loud voice reminiscent of an Animal Planet narrator, Cib begins his commentary. Steven’s used to it--Cib does this for every movie--but James is either weirdly invested in Schindler’s List or really hates people talking during movies, because he speaks up quickly.

“Shut up, dude, I’m trying to watch,” he says, and Steven can tell from the look Cib gives him that James is only fueling the fire. He’s reminded of a sibling pair he saw coming back to his old apartment one morning, neither of them making sense but neither of them trying, only wanting to win some imagined victory over the other. Cib continues, louder this time.

“What is it, dude? You don’t like Slinkey’s list?”

“Swear to God, man,” and this is the point where Steven would intervene except that James is looking increasingly annoyed and he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he doesn’t want to be in the middle when Cib pushes too far.

Cib ignores James, looking back at the movie.

“The young Oscar has realized that he must fire all the jorts from his factory--”

He’s cut off by James tackling him to the floor, one hand around his neck, straddling his waist. Steven backs up instinctually, wanting to run but scared to get off the couch because James and Cib are right there and suddenly he’s reminded of the very beginning--

--“Take that, you little twink,” says the man twice his size, one hand around Max’s neck and pushing, squeezing tight and he’s gasping--

Cib wrestles with James for a moment, and the rational part of his brain can tell there’s no pressure, Cib can breathe and he’s even laughing, asking something about water warriors and choking technique and why is choking technique even a thing people have--

--and he should be helping, he should be saving him but he can’t, he’s scared, he’s so scared of losing Max, losing the money, being hurt if he intervenes and he’s frozen to the spot--

“--even!” Cib is saying his name and he notices that he and James have stopped, that they’re looking up at him with concern instead of wrestling on the floor.

James has pulled away, with an expression Steven can’t quite recognize, and he’s got his hands up with his palms facing Steven. Cib’s propped himself up on one elbow, the same expression, and suddenly it’s very clear that they’ve seen too much, that Steven’s shown them too much, and he hits himself internally.

Cib opens his mouth to speak. He’s not smiling anymore.

“I’m going to bed,” Steven interrupts, voice barely a whisper. He clears his throat, tries again. “It was--um. A long day.” He steps over them both before trying to walk as casually as he can to the bedroom, giving up the moment he’s out of sight.

He locks his door, doesn’t respond when someone knocks. It could be James or Cib and he doesn’t want to talk to either of them.

***

He doesn’t want to talk to them for the next two days, actually, so he avoids them. If they see each other they’ll talk and if they talk they’ll inevitably ask questions and he doesn’t want to answer them so the best way to avoid that is to avoid them.

It works, until Cib remembers that Steven lives in his apartment, and that he’s got a spare key to the room.

There’s a knock at the door.

“Don’t come in,” Steven says, knowing it works less and less every time he has to say so.

“It’s James,” James says from outside, and that startles him into silence for a moment.

“Double don’t come in.”

He hears a sigh, and suddenly the door’s unlocked and swinging open and James is in the only safe place he’s had in months.

He feels guilty. Exposed. Dirty. Scared. It’s like some hellish cocktail of everything he’s been trying to put off. He pushes all that away, flattens his voice and his expression.

“God, you’re annoying. What do you want?” he huffs, ignoring James’ frustrated sigh and the fact that his own hands are shaking, and turns back to the computer.

“Are you mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you, jeez,” he says before he can stop himself. He doesn’t know if it’s the truth or not, but he knows he doesn’t want James to be mad at him. James steps closer.

“Then why are you avoiding us? Are you mad at Cib?”

“I’m not mad at Cib and I’m not avoidin--”

“Bullshit!” James cuts him off with a yell and Steven can’t stop himself from flinching away, covering his face and turning his head, because James is mad and this is what he didn’t want, he’s upset him, and there are consequences for that--

Nothing happens.

There’s silence as he remembers how to breathe, finds the courage to look back up. When he does, James’ face has softened considerably, and he want to cry of both relief and humiliation. He doesn’t.

“You’re scared of me,” James says, something indescribable in his voice, on his face, and there’s nothing Steven can do but look at the floor and nod. He hears the door shut, and when he looks back up, James is gone, the key to Steven’s room on the floor where he had been.

“Good fucking riddance,” Steven mutters to himself, ignoring how it shakes, but he isn’t sure if he means it.

***

Steven expects things to have changed. When he leaves his room, absolutely more out of a boredom with avoidance than a dread for what happens if James comes to find him again, he finds James and Cib waiting in the kitchen and expects something. Anything.

It doesn’t come.

“Steven!” Cib smiles, smoke pouring out of his mouth already. “You missed the vape-a-thon!”

“I thought James didn’t vape,” Steven says, already taking the vape pen when it’s offered, and if his voice wavers when he says ‘James’, then neither of their faces betray it. James’ face doesn’t show much of anything, actually--no anger, pity, no indication that their encounter in his bedroom had ever happened. It’s a little eerie, but Steven’s thankful. At least it looks like he hasn’t told Cib. At least they’re on the same page.

“Who said anything about James, dude?” Cib shoves the vape pen at him, and against his better judgment Steven takes a drag and immediately starts coughing.

Cib laughs, and James doesn’t, just keeps looking at him with that blank face until he speaks.

“We’re ordering a pizza. What do you want on it?” James’ voice is as even as his face. It’s starting to be a little creepy, until Steven realizes that this is what he must sound like, when he’s not having panic attacks over playfighting.

“Pineapple,” he says after a pause, coughing again and looking away. “And tomatoes?” It comes out as more of a question, and that doesn’t happen when he’s only talking to Cib but he can’t control it now. James, to his credit, only nods, dialing the number and moving to the corner of the kitchen where it’s quieter.

And then Cib’s arm is around his shoulder, and under the guise of helping him straighten up he pulls him just a little closer than normal, and he still doesn’t ask and maybe never will. It’s not pity, or sympathy, or confusion. Steven can’t figure out what it is, and the only options he can think of scare him more than pity would, and so he says ‘gross’ and shoves him off, and when Cib turns to look at him, he doesn't hold eye contact a little longer than necessary.

He didn’t lean into it, when Cib had pulled him close, because, if he had, that means that whatever wall he’s been building so carefully has started to crumble, and he knows what happens when he lets those down.

Then James comes back over, and whatever unspoken conversation they were having ends in favor of moving to the couch to finish Schindler’s List or, in Cib and James’s case, to watch it again. There’s no narration this time, or at least a lot less, and when it happens James only shoves Cib lightly, and Steven doesn’t know what this is about but he can tell it’s for him. Something rises in him, something shamed and angry and humiliated, but a larger part pushes it down because there’s something warm there, too. Something that’s touched James would change for him. Something that says maybe he doesn’t have as much to fear as he thought. Something dumb, some annoying shred of hope that’s come back since Cib hired him, says that maybe they could be closer. Not now, not when he can barely look at James without remembering their conversation and immediately looking away. But maybe.

The end of the movie comes and it was good, but not as good as the fact that the lead weight in his chest seems to have been replaced with helium, and Cib’s fallen asleep on his shoulder again. When he shifts, so does Cib, grabbing his arm and gripping it tightly, and he sighs but can’t fight the small smile spreading on his face.

Maybe it’s James. Maybe it’s the fact that Cib gave him the key to his room, and seems to be concerned even if he won’t ask. But that same thing that drew him to Cib on their first job seems to have intensified, expanded to James, and he doesn’t get it. Steven doesn’t understand what he wants, or what they want, or any of it.

That scares him, more than James ever could.

He leans back a little, looking behind Cib at James. He’s asleep, too, against the back of the couch. Something else mixes with the helium, something that’s…not quite fear, anymore. There’s caution, still, hesitation, but James seems to be making an effort for him, and something about even just that thought makes him a little less afraid. Makes him feel something warm.

He shoves it away. It isn’t important right now and, if Steven has any say, it never will be.

He leaves, then, as quickly as he can, pulling his arm out of Cib’s grasp with a quick jerk, but can’t stop himself from pulling out the blanket so that it covers them both.

He goes to his room and for the first time, the empty bed feels cold instead of safe.

#sygyzy #minty writes

thisloveforyourmom