Page 1 of Fortress (A Monster By Any Other Name #4)

T he phone was ringing when Roger came in at two a.m., sore and tired from a hunt with a lot more running and hitting the floor than his old bones expected. He thought about just letting the damn thing ring—he hurt too damn much to be any good on another hunt, and if it turned out to be some idiot drunk-dialing him, he was going to have to shoot someone. But after eight rings, he sighed and picked it up.

“What?” This was no hour for pleasantries.

“It’s for Jake.” The voice at the end of the line was tense with barely controlled panic, high, male. “I swear it’s for Jake, please don’t hang up.”

It took a moment for Roger to make the connection. “Is this... Tobias?”

“Yes, yes, please don’t hang up, M-Mr. Harper, it’s for Jake.”

Roger wasn’t sure if his hand had gone numb or maybe his brain. Tobias had never called. Tobias had barely spoken when they were in the same room. “Kid, slow down, what’s wrong?”

“The fr-freak got him in the leg, and I g-got him wrapped up, but the w-wound is turning purple and spreading, and he’s feverish, doesn’t know me, and I think the claws had some kind of p-poison. His eyes are—they were turning blue around the edges, and now he won’t open them, and I can’t—”

“Hey, calm down.” Roger leaned against the wall. “Do you know what it was?”

“We th-thought it was a wyvern, there had been some classic sightings, but when we got there, it looked more like some kind of naga or j-just a big bat and... I don’t know, we didn’t know, but an iron round took it down. I have the corpse in the back, I didn’t know if you’d need it for a cure, if you’d k-know what it was. Couldn’t leave it for the re—c-civilians to find and didn’t have time to burn it.”

Even panicked out of his mind, Tobias had saved the evidence, cleaned the trail. Roger was impressed.

“That’s good,” he said. “Where are you?”

“F-forty minutes away,” Tobias gasped. “Less if I can be sure there aren’t any cops. Maybe twenty min-minutes. Please be there. You ha-have to help him.”

Roger swallowed, tightening his grip on the phone. “I’ll be here. Just get him here safely.”

Now that Roger was listening, he could hear the roar of the Eldorado in the background and a low groaning that had to be Jake. Tobias’s voice was tight, controlled and desperate. “Always.”

After he hung up, a fresh surge of adrenaline pounding through him, Roger considered the likelihood this injury was something Tobias had caused, set up, or allowed to happen. But the trick there was why Tobias would bring Jake here if that were the case. Even with his long years of paranoia, Roger couldn’t make sense of that. He would have to trust the kid, then, but watch his—and Jake’s—back at the same time.

Tobias made it in twenty-six minutes. Roger had expected the Eldorado to fly into his yard (his porch still had a dent from one time Leon had skidded to a stop with Jake unconscious in the backseat), but Tobias pulled through the junkyard gates slowly, gliding to an easy halt rather than slamming on the brakes. Then Tobias bolted out of the driver’s side and skidded around the edge of the car, knocking his knee on the Eldorado’s bumper on the turn. His movements held all the self-careless panic and speed that Roger had expected in how he would drive in.

Roger hurried down the steps, careful not to get in Tobias’s way as he worked to get Jake out of the seat—he’d even put a seatbelt on him.

“I got the couch set up for him,” Roger said. “Figured the trip upstairs would be a nightmare, and he should be close to the kitchen if it’s bad. Where’d you put the corpse?”

Tobias glanced toward him, then refocused on getting Jake out of the Eldorado. “Backseat,” he said. Jake moaned as Tobias maneuvered him out the door and jostled his own arm that he’d wrapped against his chest. Tobias flinched like he had been stuck with a pin. “Shhh. We’re here, Jake. You’re gonna be okay. It’s all going to be okay.”

Roger put an arm over the Eldorado’s roof to shade the window from the glare of the house’s lights and peered at the creature. He sighed in relief. It was a Rocky Mountain variation on a black quetzalcoatl. Not very common, and its venom could be lethal if left untreated, but mostly it was no worse to deal with than a slow-acting allergic reaction. Hunters died because by the time they started feeling the worst effects (widespread numbness and hallucinations), they weren’t in any kind of shape to get themselves to help.

After Tobias and Roger got Jake up the porch stairs and laid out on Roger’s battered couch—the kid was stronger than he looked, barely panting from bearing half of Jake’s weight—Tobias skittered away from Jake’s side while Roger leaned over the wound. It was an ugly slash in his outer thigh right above the knee—curling purple around the edges and spilling out a fresh flow of blood when Roger tentatively pulled away the makeshift bandage—but not particularly deep. Roger figured he’d shoot Jake with a basic yet reliable antitoxin and antihistamine and then place a poultice to slow the bleeding and draw out the rest of the toxin. He’d stitch the kid back together once he was sure he wouldn’t be locking something nasty inside his body.

The whole situation wasn’t great, but Jake would be fine.

“Is he—” Tobias’s quiet, cut-off comment had Roger’s head snapping up from the wound and one hand reaching for the knife at his belt. He wasn’t sure if momentarily forgetting the kid’s presence was a sign that his instincts felt he could trust the kid or if the fact that he still reached for a weapon when startled by him meant that Roger would be foolish to drop his guard quite yet. “Is it b-bad?” Tobias finished, hands twisted together.

Roger blinked into Tobias’s white, desperate face and realized that he hadn’t said a word out loud of his positive diagnosis, hadn’t offered a single word of reassurance. He didn’t know why. Sure, more than one person had called him a tight-lipped bastard—or maybe that had just been Leon screaming at him on several occasions—but usually if another hunter walked through the door, they either needed to hear what pumpkin-headed idiots they had been or had to know that they had done their best. Either way, he gave them that. It was part of being a general resource for the hunter community and still alive at his age. But he hadn’t said more than a few terse words of questions to Tobias since they’d arrived.

Roger looked at the kid. He was pale, tense, all his attention focused on Jake’s ashen face and Roger’s hands cutting away Jake’s shredded jeans. But Roger didn’t see just a young, inexperienced hunter, confronted maybe for the first time with the real possibility of death coming to someone that he loved. He saw a kid tied down in a blank white room of Freak Camp, waiting for the pain.

Maybe some part of him still saw the kid as a threat, something that could turn around and tear out Jake’s throat because he wasn’t going to be watching his back as sharp as he ought to with someone he was clearly head over heels for. But most of Roger just had a hard time looking the kid in the eye when every time he saw his too-thin face, it reminded him of the kind of monster he had been, watching a kid tortured in front of him and just walking away.

That ended now. That ended right now, or his name wasn’t Harper.

“He’ll be fine, Tobias,” Roger said. “I’ve got all the stuff I need. We’ll hit him with the basic antibiotics and something to cut the swelling, a wrap to draw out the poison, and hopefully by dawn we’ll be stitching him up. You stay with him. Let me get the poultice started. By tonight he’ll be fine, or at least as fine as a slash that big would let him normally be.”

Tobias looked down, his body sagging with relief. Roger hadn’t realized how tightly wound he had been until then. Probably Tobias had never really been relaxed around him.

Something to think about, but not before they’d gotten something on the moron’s wound to make sure he didn’t bleed to death or go into anaphylactic shock.

Roger headed to the kitchen, where he kept the herbs he cooked with and the herbs he worked supernatural cures with (more overlap than you’d think; it was amazing the things a man could do with garlic and a little caraway). Halfway through putting together an antitoxin, he double-checked the ingredients ratio in one of the more versatile grimoires (if you substituted “chicken” for “sucklyng dragyn,” it made a damn fine fried wings recipe). Then he fried it into a stinking, soggy mess, drained the liquid off, and packed it into a poultice.

When he came out, he caught only the tail end of Tobias’s abrupt movement away from the couch. He had probably been sitting wedged in there some way that wouldn’t cause Jake pain, but by the time Roger had cleared the doorway, Tobias was standing about a foot away from the couch, watching Roger without ever meeting his eyes.

Roger dragged one of his lighter chairs one-handed to Jake’s side and pressed the compress onto the wound, hard. It must have hurt like a bitch, but Jake did nothing more than groan and toss a little. That more than anything brought home how close a save it had been. Jake wasn’t in much danger of dying now, but without the kid, he’d have been pretty much screwed.

Roger lifted the compress every few minutes, checking to make sure that the poison was drawing out and leaving a luminous purple smear soaking into the compress. When Jake’s fever finally dropped, Roger set aside the compress, now stained with more blood than toxin. He rubbed the edges of the slash with a local anesthetic, popped open a sterile, pre-threaded needle, and then slid the needle into Jake’s skin.

Even though the pain had to be mostly dull, Jake moaned and twitched while Roger laid a neat line of stitches between the two ragged edges of skin. Once or twice, Roger thought he heard Jake muttering, “Toby, where’s Toby?” When Jake’s movements got jerky enough to upset the stitching, Roger replied, “He’s safe, now hold still, moron, while I sew you up.”

He looked up when he was done, but Tobias wasn’t hovering worriedly next to the couch. Blinking from fatigue and the change of focus, Roger had to make two visual sweeps of the room before he was completely sure the kid wasn’t in sight.

“Tobias?” He glanced toward the kitchen, then noticed a light shining from the bathroom. Roger pulled himself unsteadily to his feet—it had been a damn long day—and moved cautiously toward the ajar door. “Kid?” When Roger didn’t hear a response, he pushed the door open.

Tobias’s bloodstained overshirt was folded neatly on top of the closed toilet seat while the kid leaned against the bathroom counter, holding his left arm over the sink. The jagged slash across his forearm was too big for the neat line of butterfly bandages barely holding it together. The amount of blood covering the kid’s shirt (why hadn’t Roger noticed it before? Had he just assumed it was all Jake’s, that Tobias cowered behind him and got away without a scratch?) was enough to give Roger one of those angry and unpleasant fear-based adrenaline shots.

“The hell?”

Tobias started, almost dropping the needle. Not that it would have mattered much with one end of the suture already sewn through his skin. Roger took a step inside, and Tobias flinched and dropped his eyes, his left fist clenching and straining the bandages.

“Sorry,” he said, eyes darting to his shirt on the toilet, the blood streaking down into the sink. “I’ll c-clean it up when I know I’m not g-going to make more of a mess.”

“I don’t care about the decor, kid. Why didn’t you say something?” Roger motioned toward the bloody arm and the awkward angle. “You could have held down the compress while I stitched that up.”

Tobias’s eyes flickered nervously in Roger’s direction and then back down to his wound. “It’s not that b-bad. I staunched it so I wouldn’t get dizzy on the drive. It’s almost stopped bleeding anyway.” He looked down at the needle in his hand with a sudden flare of worry. “I’m sorry I took your supplies. I’ll replace them from our kit once you’re done with Jake. It’s just—” Tobias swallowed and continued carefully, as though reciting a chant in an unfamiliar language. “It’s important to Jake that I take care of my injuries right away because blood loss and infection are a serious long-term risk reducing both our chances of survival.”

Roger put a hand against the door frame, wondering wearily how Jake did it. Roger didn’t think he could deal with that kind of painstaking precision every day, not when he felt stuck in that doorway. He might have no right to move closer, but he still felt an essential resistance to the idea of running away and leaving the kid to his pain. Not this time. Not even when Tobias would only let one person help sew up his skin. “Need a hand with anything?

Tobias shook his head, already leaning back over the sink. “It’s fine. Please just make sure Jake’s okay.”

Roger left, though it wasn’t to watch Jake rest. Unless that moron rolled off the couch, there wasn’t a lot more Roger could help with. He returned to the bathroom a moment later with a glass of water and a prescription bottle of pills.

Tobias stared at them, until Roger said gently, “They’re just painkillers, kid.”

Tobias shook his head. “No, thank you. It doesn’t hurt that m-much. If you c-could step out, p-please, I’ll only b-be a—” Tobias paused to take a careful, almost pained breath, eyes focused on the corner of the bathroom next to Roger. “I’ll only be a minute.”

“Oh, sure thing.” Roger ducked out hastily, pills still in hand. He left the water glass behind, though.

Tobias eventually came out, carrying his overshirt and the med kit supplies in his good arm while keeping the other crooked close to his chest. Roger did his best not to look at him, figuring any kind of attention wasn’t what the kid wanted. Tobias settled himself on the floor next to the couch and rested one hand lightly on Jake’s wrist, curling his fingers over his pulse as though Jake’s skin was as thin as cigarette paper.

Even drugged out and recovering from Roger’s patch-up job, Jake twitched, twisted his hand around until his fingers could grab at Tobias’s, and murmured his name. Roger knew he hadn’t been meant to see the smile that flickered over Tobias’s face.

“You want to crash in the spare bedroom, Tobias?” Roger finally asked. “It’s all set. I get folks coming in here wounded all the time. You can catch a couple hours’ sleep, check on him when you need to.”

Tobias glanced up at him, and then back down. “Can I...” he started, stopped, took a breath. “Would it be t-too m-much trouble for me to st-stay here? I w-won’t block your way if you n-need to take care of the wound again o-or anything.”

Roger was pretty sure that if he needed to change the poultice or the stitches, Tobias would bolt away as fast as he could. “No, that’s fine, kid, you won’t be in my way. I’ll bring some blankets down. Don’t want you creaking around like me with my back. “

Roger went upstairs and raided the faintly mothball-scented linen closet. Dammit, if Tobias was going to sleep on the floor, injured—to be close to Jake—then the least Roger could do was get him enough padding to be comfortable.

He brought down a sheet, a couple quilts and pillows, and a sleeping bag. Tobias’s eyes widened, and then when Roger told him to move himself, he jumped up and stood behind the couch, one hand touching Jake’s shoulder, until Roger crouched painfully and started laying out the bedding over the floor. Then Tobias came around and helped, always careful to keep a few inches of space between them. In no time they had the sleeping bag, pillows, and quilts laid out in a nice nest right next to Jake, whom Tobias had covered with one of the blankets.

“You need anything else, Tobias?” Roger asked. He’d realized somewhere in the last few hours that he hadn’t used Tobias’s name much. He tended to think of him as “the kid” or “poor sonuvabitch” because that was what he would be in Roger’s head as long as he remembered that day he’d walked away from that wretched boy in the interrogation room.

But the kid had a name, and that was pretty damn important.

Tobias shook his head. “No, I’m fine. Thank you, M-Mr. Harper.”

“Okay. Call me if you need anything, or if Jake does.” Tobias was turning back to Jake like a magnet inexorably to north when Roger reached out slowly and touched him on the arm. Tobias froze, seeming not even to breathe. “I mean it, Tobias. If you need anything, you let me know, got it? And call me Roger, like everyone else does. I just feel old when you call me Mr. Harper.”

Tobias nodded. “Yes, s—Roger. Got it. I will.”

Roger walked heavily up the stairs, his bones aching, dawn long gone and morning far enough along that the birds had given up singing in the daily business of worm hunting.

Tobias was okay. It had taken Roger a hell of a long time to believe first that the boy meant no harm toward either Jake or himself, and second that he wasn’t about to unintentionally combust the kitchen appliances. But he figured he’d sleep just fine now without worrying about what might happen in the living room.

That afternoon, after catching a few hours of shut-eye, Roger came downstairs quietly. The boys were asleep, Jake curled half on his stomach on the sofa, Tobias huddled on his sleeping bag, one hand propped up against the couch. Jake had stretched down his hand to clasp Tobias’s. The sight sent an odd ache through Roger’s chest.

He didn’t want to disturb them, but there was no way to the kitchen without passing through the living room, not unless he wanted to slip through the lower-level window and circle around the house. Roger kept his footsteps even and unhurried (he could be as quiet as the rest of them, but the real trick to not startling sleeping hunters and ending up with a face full of buckshot was walking unconcerned), but his eyes stayed on their linked hands. Such a simple thing, and not something that he would have imagined those boys comfortable doing in his house last time they were here.

He was just about to turn away to start making himself some breakfast when something caught his eye. An irregularity, some kind of pattern or design on Tobias’s inner forearm. On any other kid, Roger would’ve figured it for a basic tattoo, but in his line of work, you didn’t screw around with ritualistic body markings. There was too much power in symbols and runes for people in the business to mark themselves up in ways that could call evil to themselves instead of driving it away. And for Tobias to have been allowed some kind of marking like that in camp...

Come to think of it, he’d never seen Tobias in short sleeves. And even though it had been hot last time they’d visited, the kid had not once taken off his shirt or rolled up his sleeves.

Though Roger knew as damn well as anybody what happened to the curious who investigated bumps in the night, he bent over to examine the mark.

Nothing particularly significant about it. Just a smiley face, a little larger than a silver dollar, made by an irregular series of dotted scar tissue against his pale skin. Burn scars.

Roger jerked back, bile rising in his throat. He swallowed convulsively. There was no reason he should be surprised—he’d been in the fucking room, seen firsthand what they were doing to him in that camp.

But recalling an indistinct, half-repressed memory and seeing the evidence before him were two completely different socks in the gut.

Roger forced himself to breathe, forced himself to stay quiet and back away to the kitchen. Waking up the boys wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t wipe those scars off of Tobias’s forearm or take away the nightmares that no doubt plagued him most nights.

So like the old coward he was, he went to the kitchen, broke a couple of eggs harder than he had to, and sliced enough potatoes for all of them (because Jake would wake up hungry, and he could understand now Jake’s urge to feed the kid all the time; those bones under his skin were far too prominent even after months of eating what Roger could only assume had been hamburgers and fries).

As he was frying the potatoes, Tobias lifted his head from the nest of pillows and blankets, his curly hair poking out in all directions. “Mister—Roger? C-can I help with anything?”

“You can help me eat some of this,” Roger said.

Tobias glanced at Jake and then back up. “I’m not—”

“You can bring the plate down by Jake if you want.” Roger shrugged, feeling like he was working with a startled dog (dammit, no, this was a kid , even one who’d been beaten like a dog), trying to keep all his movements easy and nonthreatening. “I don’t mind you sitting by the couch. But you should keep up your strength.”

Tobias nodded as though he’d heard that before, came in to pick up his plate and fork with a quiet thank-you, and took his seat again in the living room. Roger ate in the kitchen, put away what he’d made for Jake, and then went to his desk to do a little paperwork. Not that he kept many records , but he still had to do his taxes like anyone else, and it was better to keep up with the paperwork than get knifed by it in April.

Jake woke groggily a couple hours later, half thrashing on the couch before he groaned.

Tobias was up on his knees right away, touching Jake’s shoulder, reaching for his hand. “Jake, you’re okay, you’re safe. I got you to R-Roger’s.”

Jake groped out, clasped the hand Tobias offered him. “Toby? You okay?”

The smile on Tobias’s face was small and sweet, and vulnerable enough that Roger had to turn back toward the kitchen. “I’m fine, Jake.”

“You sure?I coulda sworn that sonuvabitch got you.”

“Not bad,” Tobias said softly. “I took care of it.”

“Took care of it, Toby, you gotta—”

“Jake, it’s fine.” Tobias reached over and pushed his sleeve up. Roger wasn’t close enough to see, but he assumed Tobias was showing off the stitching. “Really, it’s not that bad.”

Jake traced the stitches with one finger and then, closing his eyes, clumsily patted Tobias’s shoulder. “Good boy.”

Jake couldn’t have seen it, sounding seconds away from falling back asleep, but Roger saw Tobias’s flinch and the way he had to blink several times before taking in a breath and blowing it out.

Roger swallowed before turning to the kitchen to throw some sandwiches together for himself and Tobias. These boys were in one hell of a better place from the last time he saw them, and Jake was still more out of it than in, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t up to a chat about his word choice when he could keep his eyes open for more than a few minutes at a time. Not to mention a talk about how they’d been working a hunt practically in Roger’s backyard, for a monster they couldn’t even ID, and never had the brains to call him for backup.

The rest of the day progressed much the same. Jake moved in and out of consciousness, Roger checked the dressings twice just to make sure that the damn wound wasn’t getting infected again, and Tobias never left Jake’s side longer than it took to go to the bathroom or to the Eldorado to get his backpack.

Roger figured Tobias would go for a shower, or change clothes, or start polishing a rifle the way Hawthornes tended to when they didn’t have much to do beside keep vigil at somebody’s sickbed, but the pack remained closed even when Roger went outside to inventory the latest scrap arrival and to give himself a little breathing room.

When he returned to the living room, Tobias was sitting cross-legged on the floor, the backpack half-open beside him, a large textbook spread over the hardwood floor, and a notebook balanced on his knee.

Roger paused in the doorway, curious but mindful of the carefully maintained space between them. Tobias had tensed ever so slightly at his entrance, though he hadn’t raised his head. It wouldn’t have been noticeable if Roger hadn’t been watching for it.

Balls, what a pussyfooting pair they made. Though that didn’t mean he was intruding further in Tobias’s space without good reason.

He squinted at the textbook pages. “That algebra you got there?”

Tobias spread his hand flat over the glossy page, then rubbed out a spot that didn’t exist. He didn’t look up, speaking intently toward the book. “Jake—Jake got it for me, s-so I can l-learn. High school stuff. So, so I know what... It h-helps, too, for hunts and just, every day, so pe-people don’t n-notice as much that I’m... and for Jake—if I know more—”

“That’s a great idea,” Roger cut in. “Particularly if you like numbers and such. Jake could never sit still for it. Kid’s lucky if he can figure a ten percent tip.”

Tobias’s shoulders relaxed just a fraction, and he peeked up through his bangs, showing barely a glimpse of his eyes. “It’s useful,” he said softly, “but—I do like it.” His gaze dropped again, fingers skimming the page.

Roger had to clear his throat when the silence stretched, not sure if they’d actually stopped talking about something or if the night had moved on without them. “Hey, I’m gonna hit the hay. You staying down here again?”

Tobias nodded down at the book, then looked up. “Do you m-mind if I stay u-up a bit? I’m not...” He gestured slightly toward the book in his lap, though whether that meant in the middle of a chapter or not wearing any pants , Roger would have been hard-pressed to guess cold.

“Nah, that’s no problem. A light on down here won’t bother me upstairs.” He turned to go, but paused. “He’s gonna be okay, you know that, right, Tobias?” Roger hoped the kid didn’t notice the hesitation before his name. “Jake’ll be okay.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Yeah, well, least I could do.” Roger hesitated for another moment and then knocked his knuckles against the door frame, combined courage and anger at himself in the motion. It might have been (but probably wasn’t) his imagination that Tobias jumped. “Goodnight, Tobias.”

Tobias took a deep, careful breath. “Goodnight... Roger.”

That success probably shouldn’t have also felt like a reproach.

Tobias knew that injuries took time to heal. He had enough experience with them to understand that, even though most injuries he got hunting with Jake weren’t that bad, and even thinking about recovering after damage had been an impossible luxury in Freak Camp. But it was different when it was Jake laid out over that couch, some discolored fluid seeping out of his leg and Tobias incapable of helping him any more than he had already.

Probably he would have been more terrified of Hunter Harp—of Roger that first day if he hadn’t been more terrified each time Jake took a slightly more labored breath or groaned from the pain of his wound. But as it was, he simply hadn’t had the time to worry about himself when Jake had been unconscious and unprotected.

Of course there had been difficult moments. When Hunter—when Roger had found him in the bathroom, Tobias thought he might shake enough to pull out the stitches he’d already put in place. Before he’d found the courage to bring out his books (the precious texts Jake had bought him, which every day gave him more confidence interacting with reals), he’d had to count every reason Jake had given him for why it was okay for him to be studying.

Though Roger had never asked him why he was putting his freak hands all over the pages that were for reals’ education, Tobias found it easier to breathe and focus knowing he had those lines prepared in case he had to recite it, clear and concise as the Director—as Jake would want him to.

It had been okay while Jake was unconscious. But it was better now that Jake had managed to make his way to the upstairs guest room to sleep through a night next to him, now that he was awake most of the time and laughing, trying to get Tobias to hand over the Eldorado’s keys.

“C’mon, Toby. I don’t even feel it.” Jake leaned over to bump their shoulders together. A flash of pain radiated through Tobias’s injured arm, but the contact wasn’t nearly enough to pop the stitches, so he ignored it. He was finally sitting on the couch after Jake had practically dragged him onto it with Roger’s tacit approval, and he was just enjoying the closeness and reassurance that Jake was going to be all right.

“That’s because of the pills, Jake.”

“How do you know? Could be that I’m all better. How’re we gonna know unless—”

“Roger said no , Jake.”

Jake beamed at him, and Tobias felt a flash of pride under the tension he always had when he argued, even with Jake. He hadn’t even stuttered on Roger’s name that time. “Roger said no,” he repeated, “and he’s got a lot more e-experience than us, and he’s helping take care of us, so I think we o-ought to listen to him.” Tobias pushed Jake’s shoulder—not hard, barely any force to it, but Jake rocked back laughing and clumsily grabbed for Tobias’s fingers. “And you should li-listen to me, because you’re on pain m-m-medication and I’m not.”

Okay, he was stuttering more than he had on their recent hunts. But on the whole, he felt none of the clawing fear that had infused every second of their last visit here. They had already been at Roger’s for longer than before, and Tobias hadn’t had even one panic attack. Although he had bumped Jake’s injured leg while recoiling from a nightmare last night and then ended up crying over Jake’s white-lipped attempt to soothe him through the pain that he had caused, but that could have happened anywhere. Not only in this house with a hunter under the same roof, someone who could hurt Tobias without a single recrimination—but wouldn’t , Tobias had to remember that, and it got easier every time Roger carefully kept his distance when he came into the room. The important thing was that they were still at Roger’s on their third day, and here he was sitting on Roger’s couch and arguing with Jake, knowing that the hunter could hear every word from his desk in the study and somehow not terrified he was about to be beaten for the form of disrespect Jake expected, encouraged, and smiled for.

Maybe someday the possibility wouldn’t even linger in the back of his mind.

“Yeah, what’s up with that,” Jake muttered. “I dunno where you learned that whole stoic Hawthorne, too-hardass-for-Vicodin act, or maybe you picked up a flask on the sly—”

“I did not ,” Tobias protested, though he knew Jake was teasing him.

“—but it’s bullshit. You got six stitches in you, you’re telling me they don’t twinge?” Jake brightened. “Hey, that’s right, you’re not on the good stuff—you can drive us! See, I knew I was a genius for teaching you to drive.”

“I am not driving you into town for an ice cream and beer run,” Tobias said flatly. “Roger bought groceries yesterday, so we have everything we need, including beer, which you are not allowed to drink yet. You don’t need to end up ripping your stitches and damaging your ribs more than they already are. We’ll get ice cream when we’re ready to celebrate.”

Roger’s voice rumbled from the study. “At least one of you knuckleheads got some sense.”

Tobias flushed and dropped his eyes, though Jake looked amused and at ease. Fuck this. Fuck this fear.

Jake reached over to squeeze Tobias’s foot. “Yeah,” he said, maybe a little louder than necessary, and Tobias felt grateful again, as he so often did beneath the anger at himself. “That’s a real nice idea, ’cept there won’t be much to celebrate if I end up croaking from boredom.” Jake twirled the pill bottle from the end table, grinning up at Tobias. “C’mon, Toby, I’m gonna fuse into the couch cushions here. If you’re so set on cooping us up like a couple of fuzzy chickens, you ain’t got a reason not to take your meds, right? And don’t tell me that your arm doesn’t hurt like a bitch.”

“I didn’t say anything because it’s healing,” Tobias said with dignity. “And it doesn’t hurt because I don’t overwork it. Maybe if you tried that, your knees wouldn’t be in such bad shape.”

“Well, looks like I’m gonna have to now, what with Nurse Tobito on my case.” The words might have been chiding, but Jake still sounded delighted. Tobias knew that the more he “sassed,” the less Jake would think about the pain in his side and leg.

So Tobias sighed theatrically and snapped closed the biology textbook in his lap. “Okay. Since I’m mean enough to deprive you of ten miles of rough road, the least I can do is find something else for you to do. I could read to you? Or we can watch a movie.”

Jake grinned, easing back down into the couch. “Nah, we’ve about burned out Roger’s DVD player. Let’s have some book time.”

“So generous,” Tobias drawled, even though he was. Jake always was. He pulled The Outsiders from his backpack and rested his back againstthe opposite end of the couch with his legs carefully stretched alongside Jake’s but away from the injury. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to start with the intro...”

That night, while Jake was in the bathroom, Tobias spent a few minutes arranging the extra pillows he had gotten from the cupboard Roger had shown him earlier. When Jake emerged, limping less obviously now, he snorted in amusement when he saw the careful line of pillows down the center of the bed.

“You got an urge to make a pillow fort?”

Tobias paused, searching his memory for the phrase, then looked questioningly at Jake.

“It’s just a game kids play. Building, uh, houses and stuff out of pillows.”Jake approached slowly, studying the barricade of pillows. Tobias knew he was also putting off the moment he’d have to lower himself to the bed. “I’ll give it a shot if you want, Toby, but you’re the one always telling me to take care of my banged-up ribs.”

“No,” Tobias said, and gave the final pillow a pat. “This isn’t a children’s game, it’s just—a little extra protection. In case I have another nightmare.”

“Oh.” Jake scratched his jaw. “Dude, it’s a nice thought, but I don’t think that’s gonna work.”

Tobias drooped, looking at his construction. Maybe the pillows hadn’t been a great idea, but it was the best solution he could think of—other than him sleeping elsewhere. He squashed the worry that he was selfish for not suggesting that. He knew Jake wouldn’t like that idea any more than he did; it wasn’t just his greedy freak nature.

As always, Jake read him as easily as Tobias read his books. “See, you may be okay with the cloud cover, but there’s no way I’ll get much rest with you on the other side of a mountain of feathers and cotton.”Jake sat gingerly on the bed, his face tightening into a grimace, and Tobias bit his lip in sympathy.

“We could—just try one?”Tobias removed most of the pillows, stacking them on the chair by his side of the bed and leaving one long pillow down the middle.

“If it’ll make you feel better.” Jake leaned against the headboard. “Just don’t be surprised if I toss it to the floor in the middle of the night. C’mere, Toby.”

Tobias moved closer, nudging against the pillow median, legs curled up under him. Jake touched his hairline, moving over the curve of his cheek, to stroke a thumb under Tobias’s chin. Tobias leaned into the touch, eyes half closing.

“I’m gonna risk your elbows cause it’s worth it to me. I’d put up with a hell of a lot more pain than that to have you near me. You know that, right?” Jake’s voice was low, with a barely discernible huskiness. A shiver ran down Tobias’s spine, and he inched closer and rested his fingers on Jake’s shoulder.

Even feeling that much of Jake’s muscle and skin beneath his hand, through his shirt—that was enough to make Tobias shiver again, his heart pump harder.

They didn’t usually do this. Jake was always insistent about the PG rule when they went to bed. They could touch hands, arms, chests, but they never kissed like they did the day on the beach.

But tonight, something about Jake’s warmth, his half-tense slouch—just the fact of his presence and health when Tobias had been so afraid a couple days ago—let him sway closer to bring his lips to Jake’s.

It wasn’t supposed to last more than a couple seconds. But kissing Jake (or perhaps any kind of kissing, though Tobias didn’t want to try it with anyone else) was a new kind of alchemy that he wasn’t prepared for. So quickly it melted every thought in his head, every intention, and lit up all these nerves and sources of pleasure in his body he’d never known existed. Faster than lightning the synapses sparked, each one like a torch flaring up to illuminate a whole new unknown realm.

It was so easy to slide into it, to lean into Jake and let the kiss guide them, their hands slipping behind each other’s back, tightening around shoulders, stroking the sensitive skin on their neck and jawline—

Jake made a new noise, a low moan that ignited dozens more torches in Tobias. He had never, ever imagined that anything could feel this good, and he wanted more more more forever, more of the sizzling pleasure between their bodies, as long as it felt just as good for Jake—

Without meaning to, he’d twisted in the bed to face Jake, one knee against Jake’s hip, the lone pillow he’d meant as a guard now between them. If it hadn’t been there, he might have climbed right on Jake’s lap, desperate for more of the white-hot beautiful skin contact that set off those tsunami waves of pleasure —

In the next instant, the pillow’s presence jolted him back into himself. Uncomfortable, unfamiliar pressure, an ache that confused him, and then horror smashed all the good feelings away.

No. Tobias threw himself backward, scrambling away from Jake. He reached the end of the mattress and fell onto his back on the floor, then curled up tight, knees to his chest and arms wrapped around them with his head buried between them. Bile crawled up his throat.

“Toby?” Jake sounded bewildered.

Tobias shuddered, swallowing convulsively. He wanted to scratch his skin off. He might actually be sick, but he couldn’t do that in front of Jake or in Roger’s guest room—

“Bathroom,” he managed, and forced himself to his feet, lunging for the door.

Inside, he shut the door and slid again to his knees, pressing his forehead to the wooden panel. He might still be sick. Cold flashes ran over his skin, leaving chilled sweat. Had he felt good before? Now every nerve felt wrong, disgusting, in a terribly familiar way.

He wasn’t supposed to forget this. This was how freaks were meant to feel.

“Toby?” Jake was closer, his tone worried. He’d probably gotten out of bed even though it’d hurt him.

“I’m okay,” Tobias called without opening his eyes. “Just give me a minute.”

He waited to hear Jake’s footsteps slowly lead back toward the bed. He stayed where he was, forehead pressed to the wood, knees against the tile, focusing on his hard grip around his own ankle.

He wouldn’t hurt himself. Jake had told him not to. That had been the very first Rule. He didn’t know what he should do instead, but at least he wouldn’t do that.

Finally, his heart rate slowed enough that he could unlock his hand around his ankle and gingerly try to push himself up. His muscles had cramped, and he stumbled a little. As much as he wanted to spend the rest of the night in the bathroom, he didn’t think that would be allowed.

He washed his hands without looking at himself in the mirror, then reentered the bedroom. He’d hoped without real expectation that Jake might be asleep already, but he was still sitting up with the lamp on next to him.

Tobias didn’t look at him as he got into bed, turning to face the wall away from Jake and pressing his hands between his knees.

“Hey. Toby, man.” Jake still sounded worried and maybe like they ought to talk, but Tobias couldn’t.

“Goodnight, Jake,” he said into the corner of his pillow.

After a moment, Jake sighed, shifting to lie down as well. “Night.”

The creak of a door, accompanied by soft footsteps, woke Jake; not instantly, but with the sort of slow-engine turnover that made it a real challenge to crack his eyes more than halfway open. It was good, waking up like that, because it meant he was somewhere instinct said he didn’t need to worry about who might come in, didn’t have to keep one hand on his knife and his other arm around Toby.

Where was Toby?

The urgency of that question opened his eyes the rest of the way, but it was answered immediately by the boy standing right in front of him like the sweetest of fantasies (the G-rated ones, anyway), with a mug of coffee and a plate of something that smelled delicious.

Toby smiled at him, then set the mug and plate—toast and jam with two pills on the side—on the bedside table. He looked good, happy and healthy, and Jake couldn’t forget the nagging worry about why Toby was up and getting breakfast already and why the place beside Jake was empty except for a forlorn not-Toby pillow pushed down by his knees. Most mornings when they didn’t have to get going, Toby was all arms and sleepy nuzzles, only rolling out of bed when Jake did.

But before he could say a word, Toby leaned over and kissed him quickly on the forehead, then turned and vanished out the door.

For half a minute, Jake didn’t move at all. That was not how this particular G-rated fantasy usually played out. The kiss was sweet, of course, like always—though Jake couldn’t remember Toby kissing him on the forehead before, and would have generally preferred the cheek if Toby really wasn’t okay going for his lips. But this whole thing with him not saying so much as good morning, not asking about Jake’s ribs, and not sitting down on the bed beside him as Jake ate and gulped his coffee and pills—no, that was really not okay. It felt out-of-joint, off , like a shoulder on the edge of the socket, or a nightmare where he couldn’t put his baby’s engine back together, no matter how hard he fiddled around with the pieces.

What the hell had happened last—

Oh.

The pillow gave it away, a silent accuser. Toby wasn’t cuddling up to him because Toby hadn’t stayed in his arms last night because Jake had gotten so fucked up under the happy pills that he forgot some really fucking important rules.

Everything considered, he was damn lucky to see Toby at all this morning, let alone have him bringing Jake breakfast in bed.

By the time he’d dragged himself and his busted ribs into a sitting position, the coffee was lukewarm, so he drained it in a few swallows while he chowed down on the toast. He wasn’t hungry, not really, not with his gut roiling in the combination of pain meds and guilt, but Toby had made it for him (well, Roger might have, but Toby had delivered it, and Jake really, really hoped Toby didn’t feel obligated to bring him fucking meals) and fuck him if he was going to be ungrateful. As he ate, he weighed his options.

Any apology he made wouldn’t do it justice. He’d fucked up, he’d been high, he’d pushed and he hated himself for it again (fuck, this felt like a few months ago, just another day of Toby jerking away from him in fear, and he’d thought they were fucking done with that). Nothing he said could repair all the trust and comfort they’d built in the last few weeks. And any apology that would be remotely decent would have to happen while Roger wasn’t in earshot, because Jake might love that man like an uncle, but this was between him and Toby.

But even with Roger’s presence and the lack of words, Jake still had to try to get out some admission of wrong and promises to do better. Toby deserved that much. He deserved way more than Jake could ever give him.

When he finally limped downstairs, he found Toby folded up on one end of the couch, absorbed in his textbooks like he did almost every day since he’d first cracked them open. Or maybe he was purposefully burying himself now in books so he wouldn’t have to interact with Jake.

Jake was about to sidle around toward Roger’s study—to give him some space, and also buy himself some time—when Toby looked up and offered him a small smile. Suddenly (and not just because his knees had gone weak in relief that Toby was looking at him), Jake couldn’t go anywhere but toward the couch seat beside him. “Hey, Toby.”

Toby closed the book but kept a couple fingers in the pages to mark his spot. “How are you feeling?”

“Oh, awesome, y’know.” Jake sat gingerly on the couch, leaving a few inches of buffer between them. “How’s your arm?”

Toby shrugged. “Hardly feel it.”

“Well, that’s good.” Jake rubbed his knees and glanced toward the study, where Roger could be heard muttering into the phone about alternate entrances into a museum. He was probably talking to another hunter, but who knew what hobbies Roger might’ve picked up?

Jake made himself focus. “Look, Toby... I’m not gonna deny that I want to talk about this about as much as I want my molars pulled, but I have to—I’m sorry. I’m damn sorry about what happened last night, and... it got out of hand. I let it get out of hand and that’s my fault, it was stupid even to start when I was high as the Hindenburg, and I’m just... yeah. I’ll... watch out for that, next time. And you can always zip my ass into a sleeping bag if I start weirding you out again.”

Toby was staring at him in a way that forcibly reminded Jake of the painful early days, when Toby had looked at him most of the time like he was speaking gibberish. Unnerved, Jake ran a hand through his hair and resisted the urge to ask if he had jam on his nose.

“Jake...” Toby’s gaze dropped, fixing on some vague spot midway between their knees. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Uh.” Jake wondered if Toby had had the same night he had or if this whole fucked-up mess was something he had hallucinated from too much oxy. Because Jake remembered their kiss leaving the PG rule in the dust, and he had no idea how that would have triggered Toby and not been Jake’s fault. It wasn’t like Toby could have triggered himself . “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was.”

“No,” Toby said, even quieter. “It wasn’t.”

Toby arguing with him was still novel enough to be surreal. Jake wasn’t sure yet what to do with it, especially about something like this. He opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again.

But Toby continued low and rapid, eyes still fixed away: “You d-don’t have to watch out. I n-need to. But not for you, it’s... not b-because of you, b-b-bec-c-c—”

“Toby . . . I’m not following, man.”

Toby tightened his grip on his own hands in his lap, never lifting his eyes. Fuck, he had gotten so much better in the last few months about eye contact. “I need to be... in control, Jake.”

If this wasn’t Tobias he was talking to, Jake would suspect he was hearing a roundabout declaration of a dominance fetish. Which he could totally, totally get behind—but this was Toby, right, so yeah, not likely. That left the thorny problem of what the hell Toby meant . He leaned in closer, pitching his voice as low as Toby’s. “What do you want to be in control of? You gotta spell it out for me.”

“Myself.” Toby’s fingers skittered a tight rhythm over his knuckles. “I have to . . . I can’t l-let . . . w-won’t let my own b-body . . .”

“What?” That was not where Jake had expected (or okay, wanted) this conversation to go. A fucking awful, train wreck suspicion was shredding his fantasy like salt through a spirit. “Toby, d’you—”

Roger’s timing was almost magic, the floorboards creaking under his familiar tread before the man himself appeared in the doorway. Jake wasn’t sure if he was pathetically grateful or frustrated enough to shred some bandages just to give himself something to do with his hands. “Hey, Tobias, I think I found a hit on that feathered snake you two scuffled with the other night. Would you take a gander at it, tell me if it’s the one? I’m trying to get an updated territory map.”

“Oh—” Toby looked up at Roger, then shot a questioning glance at Jake.

Jake forced a reassuring smile and jerked his head toward the doorway. “Go for it. Not like I got that great a look at it.”

Toby got up to follow Roger into the study, and Jake leaned slowly into the couch, easing out a breath. They’d talk later. Really talk. Probably sometime after they left Roger’s. There wasn’t much reason to rush (they weren’t chasing a hunt, no one expected them anywhere), and this was one conversation that Jake wanted to have right, because whatever was going on in Toby’s brilliant, twisted-up brain, Jake sure as hell didn’t understand.

Hoped he didn’t, anyway.

Roger and Tobias made chili together that afternoon, each chopping half the ingredients. Tobias’s hands had been shaking at the start—not only because of the knife in his hand, in a hunter’s house, but also because of the conversation— but Roger hadn’t criticized or even mentioned his slow, careful speed, for which he was grateful. If he’d cut himself, no power on earth could have kept Jake safely on the couch in the living room, and Tobias just needed a little time when Jake wasn’t hurting himself, or being hurt, because of Tobias.

Roger talked about what he called his “early bachelor days,” times he’d succeeded and failed at cooking for himself. Tobias grew interested despite all the anxieties nagging at him, and he even managed to ask a few halting questions. Roger listened patiently and answered as though Tobias were a real , which amazed and terrified him.

And when Tobias went to check on Jake and let him know how long until dinner, he found Jake’s face suffused in one of the warmest, happiest smiles Tobias had ever seen on him. He’d seen it last, he thought, the day at the ocean.

Completely shot down from what he’d been planning to say, he was just about to ask Jake exactly how high he was when Jake raised his hands, beckoning Tobias downward.

Tobias sat on the edge of the couch, and Jake slipped one hand through Tobias’s hair, coming to rest on the back of his neck. Tobias dropped his head forward, his breath hitching.

He knew that look on Jake’s face, the look in his heavy-lidded eyes. It meant that Jake wanted to kiss him. Other days, Jake would have pulled Tobias down to him, laughing, his hands loose enough that Tobias could pull away if he wanted, but now, even with that blissed-out smile on his face, Jake was holding back. Because of what had happened last night.

Even though Tobias wanted to kiss him, to show Jake he didn’t have to worry, Tobias was still afraid of it happening again, his freak body rearing up to betray him. But the idea of disappointing Jake now, denying him something that brought that sweet smile to his face, was too much. And Roger was just in the other room—he couldn’t get carried away, surely.

So he leaned down, slowly and carefully, and rested his forehead against Jake’s, until their gaze crisscrossed. Jake’s hand squeezed the back of his neck tight, and Tobias sucked in a shuddering breath before bringing his mouth to Jake’s.

The kiss set off immediate, white-hot explosions through Tobias’s brain, silencing in one brush of lips and tongue all the worries buzzing in his brain just a moment ago, almost to the point where he forgot where he was , Roger and the kitchen and the rest of the world fading away. When Jake finally let him go, Tobias was breathless, bracing now for balance, lightheaded but still in control.

Jake had his hands on Tobias’s face, and he whispered—more like mouthed—”I am so fucking proud of you, baby,” and then Tobias’s breath left him in an unsteady whoosh that was a half laugh.

“You are so high,” Tobias said, leaning his forehead against the pillow above Jake, and Jake grinned a little more like himself.

“Nah, I’m not. Well, okay, maybe a little. But I don’t need any of it, not as long as I got you.”

“Okay, Jake.” Tobias squeezed Jake’s hands. “Dinner’ll be ready in half an hour.”

Dinner was an unhurried meal (Jake eating slowly because of his injuries, Tobias careful of his manners, and Roger matching their pace). Jake raved over the chili, Roger quirked one side of his mouth, and Tobias smiled quietly into his bowl.

Afterward, Jake moved back to the couch in the living room—Tobias nudging him in that direction, Jake acting like he was shoving him along and laughing all the while—and Roger and Tobias washed up the bowls. Tobias told him how he’d helped the ladies at Alex’s church cook and about some of the best food he and Jake had had on the road.